strangetrip | No -you're- brooding (OTA)

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No -you're- brooding (OTA)

Alec sat at the bar with a bottle of Jack Daniels almost empty in front of him, though he was using a glass like a regular person. Still, despite his almost completion of an entire bottle, he looked like a man just starting on his journey of getting drunk - stupid genes.

He was trying not to dwell or let his mind wander, but he was doing a terrible job at that. Stark being here seemed to dredge up a lot of things Alec would most definitely prefer to keep bottled away - at least he hadn't disappeared to the woods?

He reached for a bottle of vodka. Round two: start.

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Corbie considered that, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth as she thought. "You think he's gonna do something to Peter?"

"No." He paused. "Not something. Not knowingly, anyways." Alec got the sense from Stark that, despite not wanting to admit it, Stark wasn't a total asshole. "He's just dangerous. That kid wants his approval so badly." Alec was willing to bet Peter would do some dumb shit to prove it.

"I still want Felix's approval, and I ain't seen him in..." she could put a number on that, but Corbie swallowed that detail down. Just thinking about it made her sad. "I still want my gran's approval, and she's dead."

It was not, of course, directly relevant, but as Alec didn't seem to know himself what the problem was, she tried nudging his ideas to get to the heart of the issue.

There was one time in his life he sought approval and he had done a lot of terrible things for such little reward. Lydecker was good at giving his kids just enough of an acknowledgement while not satiating them at all.

"Yeah, but is there a line you'd draw in the sand? Would you, I don't know, get yourself killed over that?" He would't have as a kid, now Alec would only get himself killed if he thought it was worth it.

"For approval?" Corbie had to think about that. "Prolly not. Hell, I'm already disappointing my grandmother every time I use my magic. If she had her way, I'd lock it up and forget I had it at all." But she hadn't been able to do that. She'd tried, she'd tried until she was seventeen, but it was something inside her that had to come out.

She bit her lip. "But I did go with Felix and Mildmay to Summerdown. I didn't do the dangerous part, but it wasn't exactly safe."

He made a sort of 'hm' sound with a nod. Somehow he felt like Peter would get so wrapped up in whatever it was Stark was doing it wouldn't matter - just like Liz had with the idiot Quill. Alec was also frustrated he cared this much. He didn't used to. Things were easier than.

He sighed and placed his hands on the tabletop. "You know what? This is ridiculous. If Peter wants to get himself killed from some idiot in a tin suit, why do I even care? I don't. People do stupid things all the time and they deserve whatever happens to them because of it."

If he said it enough times, he'd probably believe it.

Corbie only looked at him calmly, like she was waiting for him to realize how dumb his own question was. "Because he's your friend and you love him?"

Alec looked at her and there was a brief moment of surprise from her words. "I don't -" He paused. This was all the Inn's fault for putting him in Peter's room. The less people Alec liked, the less he had to worry about people. It had worked so well for a while back home.

"Okay. So maybe he's sort of like, I don't know, a brother or something." He made a face. "Just don't tell him that or he's going to make it into some sort of... thing." He made a vague hand gesture.

Corbie was being asked a lot lately to keep secrets from Peter (all right, twice, but all the same), which she didn't have any problem keeping since they weren't close, but she found it a little amusing. She smiled. "I promise."

She leaned one elbow on the bar, resting her chin in her hand as she considered him. "And I think you see yourself in him a bit." More than a bit, given how upset he'd been over Peter's seemingly not caring about Liz or whatever exactly that had been, but she'd already pushed hard enough by using 'love,' she'd lose him if she kept up like that.

Edited 2018-08-21 05:32 (UTC)

"Me? See myself in a sixteen year-old kid? Pfft." Alec looked exactly like a stubborn sixteen year-old kid right now.

Again, Corbie just looked at him. "Yes."

Alec pouted a little. "How are we anything alike?"

"Nah, you're right," she teased, her lips twitching in a smile as she tried and failed to keep a straight face. "I think he's more mature than you."

Edited 2018-08-22 04:02 (UTC)

"Hey." He feigned a hurt expression, but he could see where she was going.

He sighed a little. "I don't really do attached." Which was kind of ironic as he was talking to someone else of whom he was most definitely so.

It was... at the same time a very obvious thing and something Corbie hadn't really thought of so concisely. There had been hints and clues to it, just how much Alec had been starved of things like affection and positive attention, but hearing it from his mouth brought it into sharper focus. "I do. I... I mean I'm not gonna die or anything if I don't, but life ain't right if I'm not."

She chewed the inside of her cheek. "You can't make his choices for him."

Edited 2018-08-22 08:55 (UTC)

He maybe, just for a moment, looked like there was a hint of regret when she said she needed to be attached to people, but it was pushed away quickly as he refocused on his drink. He stared into the liquid like maybe it would reveal something.

"This would be a whole lot easier if I could just order him not to be an idiot."

Corbie laughed at that. She had no idea what Peter had done that was supposed to be so stupid, but she didn't think that particularly mattered right now. "Welcome to caring about people. Sooner or later, everybody's an idiot."

He side-glanced to her. "You've never been an idiot."

Corbie shrugged at that. She was pretty sure she'd been kind of an idiot when Jackson had gotten himself killed, but. "Don't put it past me. Don't put it past anybody."

Somehow Alec couldn't picture Corbie being an idiot, but he gave a nod regardless.

There was a pause as he took a long draw of the alcohol

"He's going to want me to try and be friends with Stark."

"He's a good kid," Corbie said with a little smile. That much was plain. Kind of naive given the whole HMS Bourbon thing (which still made her laugh really hard if she thought about it too much), but he was at his core good. "And he likes both of you, of course he'd want that. You don't need to be anybody's friend you don't wanna, though."

Peter was a good kid, that much Alec knew to be true.

"I can probably settle for 'no longer punches in the face'." Was that a relationship status? It should be. "Stark does seem less of an idiot that Quill, at any rate."

Grinning, Corbie reached up to muss Alec's hair with her free hand. "Oh, good for you."

He feigned an upset look, but allowed himself to smile too. "Yeah, yeah." A part of him, though, took the praise from Corbie to his heart. "Anyways, I'm excited for all the other idiots to show up -" Alec did not sound excited. "Apparently one is big and green and smashes things."

"I dunno, given how most of us feel about our rooms, that might be a good thing," Corbie pointed out with a shrug.

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