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[i_got_this]

Who: North ol_northy and South i_got_this Dakotas
What: DRAMADRAMADRAMA
When: The wee hours of the night/morning after North's arrival
Where: Norths' room
Rating: R because South's a pottymouth and drunk. And South. Also H for heartbreaking and Y for YWOULDYOUEVEN

South had told Carolina time and time again that she didn't know what to do if North had ever shown up, and his sudden appearance proved her right. Their initial conversation had been cut short, South weighted down with unhappy knowledge and personal demons that proved to be too great for her to confront at that moment. She'd cut out as soon as she could and sought out Crowley, who had helped to get her shit-faced drunk to try and come to terms with her twin's presence and what to do about the 'things' she knew.

She must have passed out there, and he must have demon'd her back, because she had awoken in her own room, a bottle of something still clutched in her hand and a sudden realization that she felt - in this drunken madness - she should do. She had to tell him. It would continue to eat at her, cloud her every waking moment.

Staggering her way through the castle, she eventually finds his room (which, fortunately or unfortuantely, depending on how one looked at it, was only a floor down and a few rooms over from hers), and leans on the door for support while she bangs on it, loud and desperate.

"North! North wake up! You here or are- are you somewhere else?"

Comments

[ol_northy]

It rouses him from a shallow sleep, something tinged with doubt and worry from Theta and which could hardly be counted as rest at all. But that voice outside his door is the most important vice he could hear, a teammate, a friend, his sister. He swings his legs off the bed.

"I'm coming. Hold on."

He walks over to the door, dressed down, armor set aside, and opens it.

"Whoa. Alright, what've you gotten yourself into this time?"

[i_got_this]

"Jesus --"

South immediately tumbles in, the door having been her sole source of balance. She drops her bottle (which she was only now aware she'd carried with her), and throws her hands out with the sluggish flailing of the absolutely inebriated, expecting to face plant with the floor at any moment. The simplicty of being so mind-numbingly drunk was that she wholly forgot, for the moment, where she was or who she was with.

[ol_northy]

North puts one arm out to catch her, his other hand smoothly catching the bottle just as it leaves her hand and setting it aside.

"Careful."

She's drunk as can be. She reeks of alcohol. He's concerned, but he's seen it before, and he's completely certain he'll see it again. For whatever reason, she's decided to come here, and he won't look down his nose at that. She'd missed him, needed him there, right? This is proof enough. Somehow, though there was no fear of the contrary, a sense of relief washes over him. She's still, in so many ways, the same old South. Trains hard, plays hard, never lets anything stand in her way.

He guides her carefully to a chair, settling her down and immediately looking her over for any signs of damage.

"Well, at least you're in one piece. Did you need something?"

[i_got_this]

He's there.

It's the only coherent thought in her head as she feels his steadying, familiar grip. Listening to his voice, she closes her eyes and for a moment she's far from the castle, back on the Mother of Invention, or earlier, before that, before everything.

She's hesitant to come back to the present as he gets her settled, but eventually she slogs her way there, wavering slightly in her seat and looking at him with a furrowed brow. Need something? She'd come here, why? There was a reason, but what was it?

"I need-" Oh, yes. She'd wanted to tell him what she was supposedly going to do. She dropped her head into her hands - it felt so heavy - and groaned lowly. "I think I'm going to be sick."

[ol_northy]

South getting herself drunk to the point of illness isn't something foreign to him, but it happens infrequently enough that this has him worried. And North knows, from down in his gut, that this has to do with him. Invariably, as much as he doesn't want it to be, it's about him.

He watches her carefully for a few moments, running a hand through his hair, taking the whole scene in and hoping that she'll wait long enough that he can get her someplace acceptable to be sick in. With only a moment's hesitation, he gently raises her from the chair and guides her toward the bathroom.

"You're a mess."

[i_got_this]

"Wanted'ta give you something ... familiar."

She mumbles, shuffling along with him. Ten months. Ten months and he's here and he's helping her and it's like nothing has ever changed. It's a relief and a curse, and the longer his solid presence sinks in, the more conflicted and nauseous she feels, the alcohol doing its part but the roiling emotions certainly helping it along. By the time she's presented with an acceptable place to be sick in, she's barely holding back, and immediately, ungracefully, and without a shred of shame, gets right to it.

[ol_northy]

With a sigh, he brushes some of her hair back, holds the longest strands behind her head as she empties the contents of her stomach. As soon as she settles down a bit, he'll sink to the edge of the bathtub beside her, perched on it watchfully.

"So you went and got drunk? You could've just threatened someone to within an inch of their dignity. That's fine, too."

But this is the South he knows, that he grew up with, that he watched turn from a little tomboy into a full-fledged monstrous woman with intense moods and a willfulness that is second to none. He'd been with her only minutes before he arrived here, but for her... ten months. Ten months she'd been without him, and he wonders how she's even still alive. And he wonders, too, how many times she's been drunk rather than constructive.

But it's not--never has been--his place to judge. He'll set her straight if she goes astray, but he won't tell her how to live her life on the whole.

[i_got_this]

Once that's out of the way, she's feeling a little more grounded, and settles back against the cabinets to look at him with watery eyes and a red face, although her expression is a complicated mix of pain and consideration and conflict. A small part of her brain wants to be convinced that this isn't real, that somehow it's just the castle playing with her emotions again, but the real-enough hangover won't let her drop the stark reality of the situation.

She came here to tell him, but so far she hasn't breathed a word, and looking at him now she starts to doubt her decision. He was here, fuck everything she was glad he was here, and maybe she wanted to hold onto that, if just for a little bit.

"Been here too long, threatening isn't fun anymore." It's her idea of a joke, but it falls a little flat in the delivery.

[ol_northy]

And with that look, he's worried. North has seen her sad, has seen her pissed off, but he's never seen her devastated. That's all he can think about her look. She looks broken, unstable. Something's wrong and he doesn't know what.

"Do you want to tell me what the problem is? This is pretty bad. You're acting like a teenager on a revenge binge."

Which she is, and he's happy enough to call her on it. It's not right. It's not normal. He'd much rather see her channeling her anger into hard work or training than this.

[i_got_this]

That cinches it, seeing his worry, and suddenly she doesn't want to add to it with the severity of the news she harbored and had originally come here to divulge. She looks away for a moment, her head still buzzing and her stomach still feeling volatile.

"I thought it was going to be easy, without you. I thought -- I thought it was, what I wanted." She sets her jaw, drunken tears threatening. She wasn't one to admit her weaknesses, but she'd already done so much in her conversations with Carolina, and this was North. She already knew she could talk to him about pretty much anything, sensitive and soul-bearing or not.

She starts to give her head a shake, and it's harder to hold the tears back, not when she's this drunk and he's right here with her, after ten months, and she's suddenly so overwhelmingly relieved he finally showed up that she breaks down completely. "I can't do it -- I can't do it. I can't survive without you."

[ol_northy]

"Hey."

Even if she wanted to be destructive, he'd rather she not do it to her psyche. She can do it. He knows that much. She goes on missions without him and she's been here without him, and that's proof enough for him.

"You can do more than survive. What, you even bailed York's ass out. That's what he said. You've been here for ten months, and whether it was easy or not, you're still in one piece."

Slipping from the edge of the tub, he settles on the floor beside her. And he knows things he won't tell her, how he--no, suddenly he remembers being told how he died but the details escape him. But he know that she knows he died. He knows she went on without him.

"You're stronger than you think. I know we've spent our whole lives together, but we're good enough to function apart. You're capable, you're smart, and sometimes you even listen to people."

[i_got_this]

She pulls up her knnes to her chin amd wraps her arms around them, leaning against him when he settles next to her.

"But I still missed you, I didn't feel whole and I couldn't find something to - to -" She gives up burying her head in her arms. Sure, she'd gone on missions and he like but it was never for months with no ejd in sight. Everyday she had woken up to remember she was alone and immediately wonder if that was a good or bad thing.

[ol_northy]

"I'm here now."

He believes in her, though, and has already heard that she's been a team player, that she's taken care of business to some degree even without him there. And even if she got angry, even if she flew off the handle, she made it back.

But maybe he was wrong. Maybe she's not in one piece. There's no reason for him to apologize because it's been beyond his control. He can't say he missed her because he was with her until just a handful of hours ago. An arrival, and then his sister, broken, angry in a way he never wanted to see and never wants to see again.

[i_got_this]

She goes quiet, focusing on breathing and stilling her stomach. His final comment was encouraging in a way she had nowhere near the words for. After a moment she sighs and pulls her head back, wiping away tears, and cants her head slightly to look up at him.

"Can I have some water?" She knows she could just as easily wish some up, but there was something comforting in the simplicity of being able to ask him for it.

[ol_northy]

"Of course."

And he stands slowly, with ease, moving to get her a glass to fill with water from the tap. As he passes it to her, he crouches, tipping his head down. She's okay, right? Not like he's never seen this before, but still, he wishes she'd find it in herself to be constructive, just this once.

At least she hasn't broken anything yet...?

"How much did you drink?" It's not said accusingly, but he wants to make sure she's not going to need medical attention.

[i_got_this]

South takes the water carefully, taking a few little sips before answering with a weak chuckle.

"Not - not a lot. Went for power over quantity." She glances up at him over the edge of the glass, the closest she will ever get to looking sheepish, and in front of the only person who will ever see it, then adds quietly,

"Welcome to the castle."

[ol_northy]

"I was thinking," he begins, looking at her thoughtfully. "It's better than where we were before, for me."

There are things he needs to say, wants to ask her about, but how does he do that with tact? There are some blows even North can't soften.

"But I'm not going to get complacent or anything. I've heard some stories already. We'll have to watch each other's backs, you know." An echo of another day, something he never wanted to have to reaffirm, a day where they could have destroyed each other and didn't.

[i_got_this]

She takes another sip to avoid responding right away. She hadn't yet reached that particular moment in time, yet, but given what Carolina had told her about the future, the words weren't without their own meaning to her regardless.

She shifts into a loose cross-legged position, the water helping to further sober her up in addition to the conversation. Her reply is soft and serious, weighted with personal experience. "Good. Complacency here is dangerous ... and, I've always got your back."

She looks up at him then with something of a renewed fire. Carolina did seem to think that they could change the course of their futures, and even though she could tell from the wear on his features that he was later then her (it figured, she thought with some ire), with his presence she's really beginning to understand how important it is to at least try.

[ol_northy]

That little spark of life in her makes him smile. He knows that whatever's bugging her is temporary, will always be temporary, and if he knew what she knows, he'd believe in her ability to change things, as well. Because she's lived, and she's learned, and she's been something she never was before.

"I know. Never doubted you for a minute."

He stands up again, moving to get his own glass and his own water before comfortably sitting with his back against the side of the tub. Flexing his feet and sighing, he gives the ceiling a nice, long look. He has that look, that aura that says he has things he wants to say, but knows it's the wrong time or the wrong place, or maybe that he doesn't know where to start.

[i_got_this]

She flashes a brief, small smile of her own at his encouragement. Coming from anyone else, it wouldn't have mattered.

She continues to nurse her water, still feeling a bit buzzy-headed but no more worse for wear. She waits for North to get settled in silence, looking up and quirking her brows slightly at his expression. She's not sure she wants to delve into that unknown quite yet, so she breaks the silence with a distraction instead.

"Did the others tell you about this place?"

Because, well, she was probably far from helpful in his first few minutes here.

[ol_northy]

"Oh, yeah. Things I don't think I even wanted to know, but it's good info. Dead zone, losses, wishes..."

He sips his water, looking over at her once more. If only he'd caught that smile, he'd feel a lot better. Still, there's things to be said. "Heard you bailed York out when something went down. Carolina's... you know, everybody's sticking up for you, like I'd think otherwise or something. What'd you do?"

[i_got_this]

South looks slightly surprised at this, not that she hadn't been working harder to work with the team, but that it was actually having some effect.

"York was acting fucking crazy, it was freaking me out." She's hoping he doesn't ask further about the incident, because that wasn't long before Washington was freaking out on her even worse. "Just ... you know, trying to deal ... when you weren't here."

She shrugs and looks down at her water, fidgeting slightly with the glass. It had taken her a long time to get where she is with the team, and she often doesn't think she's made as much headway as she she really has.

[ol_northy]

"Thanks for keeping your head on straight for that, at least." And he means it, too. He knows she has a hard time without him around, and that she's difficult at best. That the team sticks up for her when they don't need to speaks volumes. His sister, the team player. Amazing.

He reaches out to cover one of her hands.

"You did more than deal, or that's what it sounds like."

[i_got_this]

This is what she missed. Words of encouragement that, really, just wouldn't have held much importance to her coming from absolutely anyone else. She brightens slightly at the contact, just further affirmation that he's here.

"It's tough to tell when there's no board tracking our progress."

[ol_northy]

"Who needs a damn board?"

Not them. Not anymore. Sure, she can't defeat him one-on-one, but she's formidable, capable. When she learns to keep calm and center herself, to follow orders and keep herself informed, she's a threat unlike any other. She's a firecracker.

With a pat to her hand, he settles back again.