Outside

[bet_on_the_river]

[OOM: In 1893, a man picks up a baby, thinks about his life, and puts the baby down again. Spoilers for Infinite. Contents include: passing mentions of the existence of violence (including domestic and wartime), death (including women and children), sexual assault and substance abuse; also a bit of the era's obsession with whiteness and American-ness, and some really emotionally-unhealthy characters. Sure, the only happy people in the Bioshock universe are evil, brainwashed, about to die, or Baguette Boy, but even so Booker's in a class by himself.]

Nineteen years later, he's healthier. Not healthy, full-stop--no, that's probably not in the cards. But he manages.

And right now, he leans against the wall out back, sipping an Angostura phosphate as he contemplates the scenery. The end of the universe is a long way from New York, isn't it? Long way from anywhere. But they've got a lake, of all things.

Huh.

Botherable.

Comments

[vyvyan]

Nearby is a youth, with a cricket bat, idly, whacking fallen apples with a cricket bat. One of them whizzes a little close to Booker, at which point Vyvyan pauses.

"Sorry." he grins. "Want one that's not mouldy?

[bet_on_the_river]

"Nah, I'm fine," he says, holding up his glass.

Hey, people keep themselves busy. If they had apples and bats on the Bowery, kids would probably do the same thing, instead of playing stickball. Same kind of thing.

[vyvyan]

"Cider?" Vyv guesses, crushing a mouldy apple in his powerful hand and then eating it.

He has a strong stomach and he's not fussy.

[bet_on_the_river]

"Bitters."

Booker can't judge when it comes to food. He's eaten some questionable things in his time--well, and maybe they're fermented. Out west, he'd seen his share of animals drunk from eating fermented berries.

[vyvyan]

"Better than the piss we get back home." Vyvyan says, with a nod.

"You a newcomer?"

[bet_on_the_river]

"Yeah, they don't water things down like they do at home--if you're not friends with the barkeep, back home, they could be serving you mostly river water and there's nothing you can do about it."

The benefits of being a regular: he gets the drinks he pays for.

"Fairly new. I've been here... a couple weeks, maybe?"

[vyvyan]

"Yeah, Neil does stuff like that. He gave us snow once for tea and tried to pass it off as risotto."

He nods.

"I'm Vyvyan."

[bet_on_the_river]

"Have to watch out for people, sometimes."

He's vaguely familiar with the existence of risotto, and definitely knows what snow is.

"Booker DeWitt. Nice to meet you."

[vyvyan]

Vyvyan lobs a couple of apples around. One breaks a flower pot.

"Yeah, I live with a load of right bastards. Well, Mike's all right, the other two are bastards."

[bet_on_the_river]

"Sometimes people seem fine until you live with them," he says. "Sometimes you know it'll be awful, and they don't disappoint. I don't miss army life at all--barracks full of guys who all have something wrong with them."

Especially when whatever they have wrong with them isn't compatible with the things wrong with Booker. Don't choose roommates for their good points. Choose them for compatible flaws.

[vyvyan]

"We were the last four who didn't have roommates." Vyvyan says, shrugging.

Nobody wanted to live with them.

[bet_on_the_river]

"You can't live on your own?" he asks. "It's got its downsides, but at least less conflict."

Expensive, though. He doesn't know many people who live alone, in his neighborhood. Everybody's got family or boarders or both.

[vyvyan]

"Not in London on a student grant." Vyvyan says, shaking his head.

"I got kicked out of halls of residence." he adds.

[hecu_marine]

Lake, yeah. And a forest, too, there's that. Good place for working off part of your bill, if you're so inclined. They've got rabbits here the likes of which you just don't see anywhere else.

Shephard's not in his uniform for once, just his everyday work clothes: gray shirt, old pants, heavy boots, one black glove up to his right elbow. When you've been setting snares for a good part of the day, there's just no point in wearing better.

At the sight of the fella leaning against the back of the Bar, he raises a hand and waves. You never know who you're going to see hereabouts.

[bet_on_the_river]

Booker's dressed the same as he usually is--nothing fancy, nothing that would get him let into any expensive restaurants or social clubs, not the latest fashion, but it's clean and mended and durable. It does what he needs it to do.

"Evenin'," he says, giving a bit of a wave.

[hecu_marine]

"Fine evening, ain't it?" Shephard says; he's not sure he's seen the man before, but shit, the way time runs in this place not recognizing somebody has absolutely no chance of implying that they're new. "Rains here half the time, but a day like this ain't half bad when you can get it."

[bet_on_the_river]

"It's been a long time since I've been out of the city," he says. "I wouldn't mind some rain. I'm glad it's not, right now, but... well, it's got to rain sometime."

It makes him feel better, knowing that it rains here. That it's not some sort of strangely perfect place.

[hecu_marine]

"Ain't objectin', myself," says Shephard. "Long as I got some warnin' and don't git caught in the open when it storms."

True, ongoing rain makes sitting up in a tree stand waiting for deer to pass his position kind of miserable, but you get used to that after a while.

"Which city? ... you don't mind my askin', I mean."

[bet_on_the_river]

"New York," he says. "We've got parks--they keep tearing down slums and planting trees. But you can always hear the city, you can never forget where you are. Unless you go up to Central Park, maybe."

He doesn't, usually. It's out of his neighborhood and he has no reason to go.

[hecu_marine]

Shephard grunts. "Never been there," he says. "Too big a city for my liking."

If they're going to cram that many people into that small of a space, they'd best have a better excuse than urbanization. Something like 'they're all evacuating on the same ship', maybe.

"No offense meant, or nothin'."

[bet_on_the_river]

"None taken," he says. "It wouldn't have been my first choice, but we all end up somewhere."

It's a good place to blend in, be anonymous. Two million people in Manhattan, and more every day--Booker's just some guy, there.

"I always thought I'd leave again, but you stay somewhere long enough, you get settled... if you don't have a good reason to move somewhere else, you probably won't."

[hecu_marine]

"Don't I know it," says Shephard. "You git a lot of that in my part of West Virginia. Folks don't go more'n a couple dozen miles from home their whole lives, never mind movin'."

Mind, it's hard for people to get up the resources to go anywhere else, or it used to be, anyway. These days there's just not that much 'else' to go to.

"Name's Shephard, by the way."

[bet_on_the_river]

"Most of the people I've ever known outside of cities have been on their way somewhere else," he says. "In the cities a lot of them want to, they just never do."

In fairness, he hasn't had that much experience with small towns not connected to army posts. His sample is probably skewed.

"Booker DeWitt. Nice to meet you--West Virginia, huh?"

[hecu_marine]

"Yep. Town called Rowlesburg. Don't imagine you'd've heard of it- little bitty whistle stop at the ass end of Preston County," says Shephard. "Lot of farmers, lot of folks who used to mine coal or cut lumber. Had a brother go off to school in Morgantown, but he came back before too long."

And now, well... things happened funny.

"What's New York like, anyways?"

[bet_on_the_river]

"The most I've ever seen of West Virginia was a little bit outside Pittsburgh, from the window of a train," he says. "It looked nice, what I saw."

That was a long time ago, though. It might not be the same anymore.

"It's... crowded. Everywhere you go, there's people. There's every kind of food you can imagine, being sold on the street. If you're looking for anything, you can find it--anything but quiet."