strangetrip | [GP] All we can do is learn to swim

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[GP] All we can do is learn to swim

Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim. - Vicki Harrison

"You're sure?" Regina already knew the answer but demanding that Sam tell her what she already knew satisfied something petty in her. Or maybe just something hurt that hoped he'd have a different answer than her locator spell had already provided.

"Yeah." Sam half-rolled his eyes at her as he leaned across the pink bar counter to grab bottles of beer from the Silver Bar ice bin -- probably the results of Rebekah's last work-effort at the Inn -- for himself and his newly arrived companion.

Briefly, Regina considered burning a hole in the seat of his jeans, but it wouldn't bring Rebekah or any of the absent ones back. Instead, she took refuge in straightening her A-line and walking around the stylish counter Sam lay across like he was surfing the waves of grief. She took down a bottle of pointlessly pricey champagne, and then found the precise cut-crystal glasses Rebekah and Miss Fisher had preferred for their afternoon indulgences. She poured herself a glass and one for the person who dared her openly bitter expression.

"So who all are we missing?" they both said at once, glared at each other and sighed. They both knew the answers, in their own way and for their own reasons. And neither of them wanted to say.

Rebekah Mikaelson. Henry Winchester. Jack Robinson. Phryne Fisher. Dorothy Williams. Angua von Uberwald. Jaime Vegas. Harry Dresden. Lydia Martin. Raleigh Becket. Yasmeen. Joanna Beauchamp. Constance Bonacieux D'Artagnan. Lindsey McDonald.

"Grief is like the ocean," Sam clearly quoted from some fucking where, and Regina tuned him out until he added, "All we can do is learn to swim. Rebekah told me that."

Now Regina rolled her eyes; they weren't friends. "Shut up, Sam."

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Caroline stalked into the bar not too much later. If she'd been a cat, her tail would have been lashing back and forth, her fur sleek and her ears laid back. She'd seen the "check out" list on the front desk and she was in need of a drink.

She didn't bother with a glass, just picked up a bottle of whiskey, the same brand the Salvatore brothers preferred in the boarding house, twisted off the top and drank deeply.

Rebekah was gone. It was fucked up to miss someone you hated.

Lindsey was gone. Caroline didn't even know how to classify the feelings she was having around that.

She grabbed another bottle for good measure and dropped into one of the pink wing-backed chairs.

Edited 2017-10-06 22:19 (UTC)

Ignis had no doubt that Yasmeen and Raleigh, wherever they had gone, were happier there. Yasmeen particularly had felt trapped in the Inn. It was comforting, in a way, despite the fact that she had been one of very few in the Inn he'd actually had regular conversation with. He wasn't missing her because she was dead, merely... gone.

Much easier.

The list of the missing was a long one, though, so Ignis busied himself with ensuring that there was food out for people to eat to soak up the alcohol from the likely inevitable heavy drinking. The kitchen was open as usual, but sandwiches, appetizers, and other such small items required no effort at all to get.

It was absurd. Corbie was an adult, legally. She barely knew Joanna, and she hadn't known Harry at all. But Joanna had been such a kind, warm presence, and Harry hadn't been so bad even though he'd frightened her. She had been about to be brave enough, to scrape up her nerve and ask if he might teach her after all...

She was an adult. And yet somehow she found herself curled up against the wall and behind a chair in the lobby, sobbing like a child. She knew it was fucking stupid.

The barely healed wound of Felix and Mildmay's loss had torn wide all over again. And now she was still here and didn't know how long she would stay or where she would go if she ever left and two of the people who had offered to teach her were gone she would never, never learn to be a wizard.

Edited 2017-10-07 00:09 (UTC)

Snow was not anywhere near the hotel. Rather, she had made a point of getting entirely out of earshot of the place. Not because of the people, well. Not most of the people. But the noise she was letting out would fear the horses too much. And Mama.

Finding Lindsey was gone was... well, the feelings as far as she could tell were rather mixed. She didn't know how she was going to handle the horses all by herself, but damned if she couldn't try. Lindsey was a snake, but as there hadn't been any reason or advantage to hurting her, he had not. And he'd let her be. He was a snake, but he had not been the worst.

Yasmeen, though.

Okay, okay, the girl would tell you for free that she didn't exactly like Yasmeen and she didn't think Yasmeen really much liked her either. But they had an understanding. And the woman had been there for her when Regina was not, when she'd had horrible dreams nightly. And now she was gone.

She had grown up a little, perhaps, to know it was probably for the best.

But the noise kept coming.

Steph wasn't going to let herself too worked up over the departed guests. Presumably, they'd all gotten to go home, which was more than the rest of them could say. It sucked, because she'd liked a lot of the missing people, but it sucked only for those left behind.

So she was considerably more upbeat than the average citizen when she bopped into the kitchen. "Hey, Ignis, need any help with the food?"

Ah, a cheerful voice. Not that Stephanie (part of Ignis's brain, still translating these people with whom he'd lived for nearly a year as 'strangers', wanted to use 'Ms. Brown' instead) was given to brooding, but it was pleasant to hear nonetheless. "If you're offering, I am not inclined to refuse assistance from someone less likely to be stymied by furniture being moved."

She waited until the woman left him alone at the bar before she slipped onto the stool next to him like a silent wraith.

He may not even have realized she was there until she patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. She couldn't tell, the grief and pain in the place was too thick for her to get more specific.

It felt sticky, thick and she didn't like it. It was all over her skin.

He would need to feel better. So would the others but he was slightly more important.

"Give me an apron and call me cookie." Steph saluted but since he couldn't see it, it was a wasted gesture. "What do you need me to do? I should warn you, I'm not like, a good cook or anything. But I can follow directions."

None of those who'd gone were anything more than the most casual of acquaintances to Dorian - Lindsey had pretended to know nothing about magic, and Jaime had been a charming woman, but that was all. It meant that he was largely unaffected by the air of gloom and incipient liver damage that permeated the public areas of the Inn, which was all to the good. Dorian Pavus did not have a history of handling either gloom or incipient liver damage with much dignity. He didn't disrupt the mood, either; apart from possibly Fenris, he had no enemies and wanted to keep it that way.

No, his intentions were more or less pure: collect food and drink and retreat to elsewhere before someone tried to reminisce at him. But then he heard sobbing coming from an empty chair and that was too odd not to investigate.

The solution to the mystery was nothing stranger than a young woman curled up on the floor behind the chair, weeping. He'd felt lost and despairing sobs like that himself, in the past, so rather than pass along, he took a seat in the chair she was hiding behind, offered his lemonade in the direction of the hiding-place, and said, "If misery loves company, I'll offer that as well as lemonade."

"Cookies actually sound like rather a good idea." He'd been focusing, as was his wont, on savory items. Miss Williams had done the lion's share of the baking, but she was among the gone.

Yes. A basic drop cookie, into which could be mixed fruit, chocolate, spices, or bizarre prank items at any not-a-cook's discretion. "Butter, then. Two pounds to start, cut into cubes. Should you genuinely want an apron, I believe there are some in the closet, there." Ignis pointed, in the right direction as ever, but slightly off from target.

Dyson hadn't been avoiding the inn, except that he'd sort of been avoiding the inn. Giving Regina space. Giving himself space. Besides, he was as comfortable outside as he was indoors so it felt right to leave her domain to her.

The noise was distinct even in the den he'd made himself, it made his ears twitch. Something, or someone was... in pain. That was what it sounded like. He shifted back into human form, slipped into a pair of jeans and a pulled on a shirt as he loped toward the sound.

He stopped in his tracks when he saw her.

"Shit," whatever it was that inspired this, he knew it wasn't good.

"That is a look I think I understand." River was in another wing-backed chair not too far away, but she had tea instead of whisky.

She was very British sometimes. She would miss Henry. But of course missing people was somewhat normal for her, so she knew it would pass soon enough and he would be a pleasant memory.

"Scone?" She offered the plate to the blonde.

Sam did notice when River sat next to him. Only because years of training made it impossible not to notice when anything came close to him. But he didn't care until the thing next to him touched him.

He'd have jumped, but the Inn wasn't exactly a dangerous place. So he turned to look, instead, prepared to glare--and then found River.

"Sorry. I know it must be really loud right now."

"It's like glue." She wrinkled her nose, she was going to need a bath. Then she patted him again. That was comforting right?

"Do not worry about me. You are... unsettled."

"It's like the ocean," Sam said. Just because Regina didn't appreciate it didn't mean River wouldn't.

He sighed, though, at her assessment. "Sad, more than unsettled. Henry's gone. And Rebekah." At least she'd already volunteered to be his sister and he wouldn't have to worry about him trying to fill in for Bex.

As if it worked like that and anyone could.

It wasn't so much that Kitty and Ignis were friends as that she worked with him day in and day out and she'd grown sort of fond of him. They rarely talked except in the way that people in the restaurant and bar industry did during shifts, but she knew well enough that he'd been close with the Captain and Alcuin and he both had been very dear to Miss Fisher.

She maybe couldn't work up the energy to care about everyone (or to act on the fact she did care) but she could at least check-in on Ignis. Which began the way most of their conversations began. "Order up!"

First Lara. Now Henry.

You'd think with the life she'd lived, Kitty would be used to it. Losing people.

Maybe she was. She was used to the anger and hurt and fear and, more than that, she was used to the pure, blind rage at being absolutely powerless against it. She could walk through a wall, short circuit a spaceship by plunging her fingers into its computer console, but she couldn't keep a human from disappearing from a space roughly the size of her high school.

Or maybe the rage was an excuse. For not wanting to care. That had always been Jean and Ororo's job. Even Moonstar's. Not hers.

And when she looked out across the bar at all the grieving like walking wounded, she didn't feel compassion. She felt...tired.

"I'm a terrible person," she mumbled to herself and went back to tending bar. In that capacity, she could be friendly, express concern, lend a listening ear. No one expected her to come across the bar with hugs and handkerchiefs, and certainly not with answers.

"Go ahead." Blessedly, Kitty seemed her usual self. Not, Ignis had to admit, that they were particular friends or even social outside of their 'professional' realms, of course. But the normality was bracing, and he had little doubt that she was aware that bracing was called for. She was, after all, an excellent bartender.

Once upon a time, the sight of all this suffering would've warmed her wicked heart. She'd have chortled victoriously--

And ignored the ugly unending emptiness that no amount of suffering seemed to banish.

It wasn't once upon a time anymore and she wasn't the Evil Queen. She knew these people and cared about their suffering. She wanted to help. Even though she'd lost two of the people she'd counted dearest to her. That was definitely now and not once upon a time, but also now was that she hadn't the slightest idea how to help.

Or who would welcome it.

But as soon as she heard the sobbing, it somehow didn't matter. She turned and sought the source of the sound--

And when she'd located it, it all but broke her heart. To see Corbie, who'd comforted Rowan and so many others through these kinds of losses, broken and curled in the same position she'd coaxed so many out of.

Regina crouched, awkward in body, but for once, reasonably pure of intention, and stretched out a hand to pet the girl's hair.

"Nah. Alcohol is a public service." Butters wasn't in as much of a funk as he thought maybe he should have been. After all, he'd lost Harry before, and, y'know, a checkout notice at the front desk was a lot better than a bloody crime scene and a silent lake. Harry was probably home, and Chicago needed Harry Dresden more than Butters did. So he managed a weak smile as he met Kitty's eyes. "Terrible people would be hoarding it, not handing it out."

Nothing in his training or his temperament prepared Kash for the mass misery over the check-out list. If people had been bleeding and dying, weeping over the wounded and the lost, then he might have been able to do something about it.

But this? What was there to heal? Who was there to sort, assist, find?

Kash knew when he was beaten. A dragon? Two fire giants? No problem. But he took one look in the bar and then turned around and walked away.

Still thinking about his talk with Vex, Kash headed out away from the inn. This time, it wasn't so much a full retreat as gather and regroup. He'd try to help, but he needed to help himself first.

The howl crept across his skin, sank into his soul and stood his hair on end -- and that was when he thought it was the blonde wolf girl. When he realized it was a human sound... he wanted to bolt, to vomit, to call down flame to kill what caused the hurt.

Instead, inexplicably, he moved toward it, as if somehow he'd known... Shitdamnfuck.

"Snow?"

Kitty rattled off the order, the items arranged the way he preferred them, and then waited to make sure he repeated them back correctly. Not that he ever didn't, because he was a good chef and fry cook, but she wouldn't be a good bartender if she didn't make sure.

Once he had, though, and he'd settled in to work on it, it left her with a dearth of things to do besides stand at the bar and try not to sink into her hurt and anger. So instead, she leaned into the wall beside the prep area and said, "Longest list so far," casually, like she was commenting on the weather.

"Oh, hey." Kitty hadn't meant for anyone to hear that. But, well, she guessed if anyone was going to hear it, the doctor/medical examiner was probably a good one. He'd probably seen a lot worse in his day than a girl who couldn't care. "I guess you've got a point. Someone has to stand back here and poison livers."

"Aye, aye, captain." Steph headed over to the place he'd pointed and discovered that, yes, aprons lurked within. They were, somewhat surprisingly, not actually pink, unlike everything else.

"Cold butter?" Steph called over as she tied her apron on and pulled her hair back into a braid. She wasn't a cook but she'd had long hair for most of her life. She knew it's tendency to escape at the slightest provocation.

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[GP] All we can do is learn to swim

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