milliways_bar | (no subject)

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[OOM: The tradition of a lifetime takes on a whole new meaning.]

Darius is very much subdued when he comes into the bar today, and he breathes a sigh of relief when he ends up here rather than in the Hob. He can't stand walking into another room where every single inhabitant hates him on sight.

He walks up to the bar, not sure immediately what it is that he wants.

Eventually, though, he asks, "Could I get some white liquor?"

He could stand to kill a few brain cells. He's drinking to forget today.

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"Doesn't matter. I still didn't do anything."

He is hurting, but he considers that to be mostly his own fault at the moment.

"Better to hurt because you know it was wrong than to be blind to the wrongness of it. Then you'd be just a Peacekeeper."

That he hurts shows he's still human.

"Better, maybe, but not by much."

"Enough to matter," she replies.

What one can do, one must do. Even if it's not much.

Sometimes it's just a cinnamon roll.

"So I hear you ran into Haymitch here." It was just a few weeks ago, for her, though she doesn't know how long it's been for either of them.

It's been a bit longer for him.

"Yeah, I did," he says, frowning even more at the reminder. It hadn't been a pleasant conversation.

Rae had run into him a little after Darius had.

It hadn't been good.

And this is the point where a little hesitation enters her voice. "Do you ever... see him around, in your time?"

She knows Panem is a pretty hellish place - she wants to know her friend is still alive. Alive and unscathed is simply too much to ask for.

"Haymitch?" Darius asks, just to make sure he didn't lose a part of the conversation to the liquor. "Yeah, of course. He's around the Hob a bit."

Okay is one of those words that can mean anything from pretty good to usually ambulatory and most likely still breathing.

"Is he okay?"

Darius shrugs.

"He's Haymitch."

Sunshine reminds herself that Darius is drunk, and chooses patience.

"Yes, and I'm asking how he's doing."

His face scrunches in thought.

"Isn't that an answer?"

For as long as he's known Haymitch the man has been pretty much exactly the same.

"Not in the slightest," Rae replies, worry tinging her words with impatience.

"I don't know what else to say."

"I'm just asking how he is!" she says, exasperated. "We've already established that he is, now I want to know how he's doing. How he seems. Is he all right? It's not rocket-science."

Edited 2012-09-11 02:43 (UTC)

Darius would argue with that if he were more sober.

Of course, he'd probably be able to answer better then too.

He leans back at her tone, frowning into his drink.

"He's Haymitch. He's how he always is."

"No, that's who he is. How is different, and is subject to change."

She can't believe this is that difficult of a question. It makes no sense.

"Or else there's no difference between how you were, smiling and having pie with ice cream, and how you are now, drinking yourself towards oblivion in guilt and horror. Which is ridiculous. You're still Darius, but obviously how you're doing has changed."

Darius turns his frown on her then. "But he's always the same," he argues.

He's never seen a side of Haymitch that wasn't drunk and relatively surly.

"And how is that? What's he always like?"

"Drunk and grumpy?"

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