oh the weight it must be light wherever you are.

[amethysts]

CHARACTERS: Libby and YOU (OTA)
LOCATION: Room 008 >> 189, floor 8 kitchens and living areas
WARNINGS: Substance abuse, cursing
SUMMARY: Libby is not taking certain losses well
NOTES: Bump into her any day whenever, profit from drunken honesty



Day One

Nikolai and Syg are gone.

Shrike checks on her people every day. She knows almost to the second when they've...just been gone. Like Kurt's Blaine. And she'll live, she tells herself. It'll be fine.

Nikolai was her one hope for opting out. Syg was her one girl friend. She is not going to be fine.

Shrike cuts out the blue in her hair and dumps all her piercings in the trash. That's when she starts drinking in her room. This isn't fair. This isn't--this isn't fair, she's losing everyone, and she doesn't know what to do.

Day Two

She wakes up shaking and sick with Nikolai's remaining cigarettes by her bed. She doesn't remember taking them. On the way to the kitchen to get more alcohol she tries lighting one up--

She pukes into her cupped hands, then the kitchen sink. She could clean up, sure. But she doesn't. Instead she curls up on a couch with a bottle of nearly vodka and teaches herself to smoke. She throws up three times and doesn't care. Somebody else can deal with it.

Day Three

They fucking abandoned her.

This is what she has to tell herself to get angry, lying on a table in the common room and wishing anyone else was gone. They left her and she doesn't give a fuck about them. Whatev, right? Nikolai was an asshole and Syg was stupid and she doesn't care except oh, fuck, she cares so much. She cares all the time and it's fucking horrible.

She needs to cut them out as efficiently as her blue streak, but she's keeping that in a box too. Sentimental. The colour of her hair and the colour of her heart were blue, blue, blue, and she misses them all--

That's what gets her going. She's given people prison tattoos before. She knows what she's doing. So after some more alcohol to ease the pain she traces two things: a reaper over her heart and spikes on her right wrist. Then she starts filling them in with ink she makes in her little lab in Engineering, biting down on a rag. So there she sits, naked from the waist up except for her bra, because she cares too much. Her heart is too big and it's choking her and she hates it, dully.

(She knows she'll lose everything, eventually.)

Comments

[mstitel]

He's relaxing as Libby keeps tracing on his skin, finding himself grinning just a little at the few notes of a tune she's humming as she works. Which is really why it's so easy to just cock his head to the side as she smiles at him, offers. His eyebrows knit for a second, pure confusion on his face. "What do-" he glances at her arm, at the feathers on it, and you can almost see it click in his his mind.

He'd honestly barely noticed. Had noticed absently, of course, to be able to work around it, to feel around it, but this is his first time really taking a good look, consciously reaching out and touching, careful and gentle.

"My brother has wings when he shrinks. Bug wings. He rides in my collar sometimes, and we've had to grab him. After he stings you on the nose a few times, you learn not to crush stuff like this," his fingers are moving over her arm, though, just stroking gently down her arm, over to her shoulder, a few inches down her back, moving carefully to learn the way they bend at first, until he becomes a little more sure. Interested and curious in how they felt, what they were.

"... Yeah, Steve Rogers. Captain America is..." his fingers twitch slightly on Libby's upper arm, nerves evident. "It's just a thing. A symbol. I dunno if dad even chose it, really."

[amethysts]

It's Libby's turned to be lulled. She wasn't expecting it to feel this good when she offered, her feathers relaxed and pliant under exploration. It feels like the heat of sunlight on a warm winter's day, a hot shower that doesn't end, the sleepy contentment of a full stomach. Simple, basic happiness, all physical and easy--and she realizes with a shock that comes as slow as sound underwater that this must be how it's supposed to work. These are endorphins being triggered to flood at being petted, this is--this is something that was put in her DNA before she was even a separate creature and somehow in sixteen years not one person has managed to find it.

Usually she'd be furious, for dozens of reasons. Right now, drunk on touch and starshine, she thinks at least now I know. She sighs softly before she even realizes he said much (his brother has wings like that's nothing, like it's freckles or brown eyes, and it twists her a little), then smiles crooked and dreamy.

"You pull it off," she says, arching and angling a little into his touch with a bitten lip, and then she gets back to work, "The shield. And everything. Just--you should pick any name you want."

[mstitel]

He's oblivious to the things going through Libby's mind. To him, the action is comforting, and that's... about it. It's something she said he could do, and so he's doing it. And he likes her smiling. It's a lot better than the look she's had before. That sad, defeated look that quickly morphs into annoyance, anger. The way she puts herself down and then goes right back to being forcibly chipper. He hates it when she does that. Hates it when anybody does that.

So, he'll keep petting her feathers, even as the pricking starts, the push of a needle and ink into his skin. It'll be worth it, in the end. He knows. Trust Libby to make it look like his sketch, as close to the original as he could remember.

"... I'm not Captain America," it's said quietly, and a little distantly. If Libby looks up at him right now, she'll see the way his brow's furrowed, the firm set to his lips, the tension in his jaw and the look of guilt and disappointment in his eyes. "I never wanted to be, I... I can't live up to that. My dad was Captain America, and I'm not... I'm not as good as he was. I'm not a leader, not really," he makes too many mistakes to be. Loses his siblings, gets them hurt, gets Tony hurt. Kidnapped. Tortured.

"I'm okay without a codename," he finally admits. "For now, I'm just me."

[amethysts]

Libby does look up. She does see. And if he's guilt and disappointment she's instant protective anger, burning through her contentment. Not good enough. Says who? He's good enough to care about her, of all people. Good enough to carry this burden she can't name but knows in his shoulders' set. Good enough to have a sister he loves and misses. Not good enough for what? Not able to live up to someone Libby's never seen do anything?

She doesn't care about the name. Names mean nothing to Libby, she puts them on and takes them off like clothes--Wren, Peregrine, Mockingbird, Shrike, Liberty, they don't matter. Except this name matters to James, and for some reason he thinks he couldn't have it if he wanted it. It's not that she wants him to be Captain America, who means nothing to her. It's that she wants him to think he can be anything, because he can.

Libby tosses down the needles and squares off in front of him, eyes flashing bright and blue as electric current: "And you're fucking perfect."

It's drunken hyperbole, but it's felt, meant. She doesn't have the real vocabulary for what she wants to say, which is that to her he's perfect. He sits there with every future in the world and denies himself one, when Libby wants him to have all of them. Every choice should be one he gets to believe in.

So she kisses him because it's all she really knows how to do, at this point. Tattoo unfinished, with her fingers smeared in ink marring the clean skin of his arms as she takes hold of him and leaves tiny smudged handprints that will stain and last, her mouth sweet and sharp at the same time, eyes screwed shut--she doesn't know what to do with him, because he hurts like her, so maybe this. Maybe she does this, and he gets it, that somebody wants him exactly the way he is. That they all might think he's a screw up, but she doesn't, and she tries to fit it all inside the slanting of her mouth against his and it pours out of the corners anyway in a frustrated little breath.

[mstitel]

His eyes dart to the side as she tosses the needles away, brow pinching in confusion. What was she doing? Did he do something wrong? Did he upset her? He was being honest, serious, letting the warmth in his belly spread out through his body, sending his mind tingling and blanketing over, the haze of his first taste of alcohol finally settling in. So he looks up at her, mouth open to say something, but the look on her face has his teeth clicking as his mouth shuts, has him blinking rapidly at her in confusion instead.

Perfect? He wasn't perfect. Anything but, actually. He was a jerk, a pain in the ass. Hurt and bitter and that bitterness had almost cost him his family. He pretended to be able to lead his friend and family, to be able to know what was best to do in a fight but the bottom line was he didn't. He didn't know what to do, where to go, who to talk to. This entire ship has his head spinning. There are so many people here, and everyone pretends like it's something normal. He's only met and known seven people in his entire life, and then suddenly he's here? With people he knows but doesn't know, his family nowhere in sight.

And he can kill them. All of them. Just by being himself, acting how he was raised to act, he'll end up killing them. His parents, the Avengers, it'll be his fault just like Tony getting captured had been. And ever since he'd seen that happen, had remembered clutching tight to the railing as everything shook, as shouts echoed over the coms, as Tony yelled at him to go back with the others. Natasha's soothing voice telling him to be good, even if she was out of breath, pained, dying. Cap had already gone down, but she was telling him she loved him and that would happen again, here, so what if it had been his fault in the first place? Had he touched something? Done something to bring Ultron to the mansion? Had he-

Lips, against his. Hands on his arms. He doesn't know what to do other than freeze, to open his eyes wide and reach his hands up, fingers skimming over Libby's skin gently, nervously, not sure where to touch, what to do. He knows what kissing is, he's not that stupid, and he knows what it means, but he's never gotten why people would do it. Why it would feel nice. And it... does. It's weird, he doesn't know how to react, but the contact feels nice. Reassuring. And he welcomes it.

He knows he should do something, but all he knows is to sit as still as possible and see what happens.

[amethysts]

Libby remembers her first kiss. The first real one, anyway, not years of mockery beforehand that ruined something she knew, according to stories, was supposed to be special. But it hadn't been terrible.

Her name was Nika and she had a laugh like tinted glass, nails all painted different colours. One of Jo's friends, a little younger than her but vastly more worldly, and they'd been working the same corner when Nika looked at her, thoughtfully, and pressed them together as gently as the falling rain. And she'd fluttered like James is fluttering now, and that's how she guesses.

Sharp is wrong, she realizes. Sharp is wrong for him, for a first time, and in the warming flush of their skin wherever they're touching Libby finds stability enough to soften. Her hands lose the desperation of their grip, fingers tracing back lightly: like this, like this. She brushes the tip of her tongue at the seam of his lips but doesn't dive in, her little noise now much quieter and lilting, a note of bird song. This is okay. This is more than okay, chaste and safe, and she realizes she's not just kissing him to prove a point.

That's why she pulls back, wide-eyed, hands stilling on his arms as she assesses--well, she just fucked this up, didn't she?

"James, I--" she hesitates and stutters, more shocked at herself than anything "--I shouldn't have--I should've asked, I'm sorry, oh, fuck, I know you don't like me like--fuck."

Let her just. Disentangle and make an escape, how about that.

[mstitel]

This... is his first. He's never really thought about kissing anyone else, before. He'd grown up only knowing Torunn, Azari, Pym, and Tony. And even recently.. before Tranquility, he'd only been outside of his home for a day. Not anywhere near long enough to form any lasting relationships with anyone, to explore feelings of attraction. And the only girls he'd known had been Torunn, Betty.

So here he is, sitting there as Libby moves against him, traces his lips with her tongue, a movement that makes his skin feel too tight and too loose all at once, has color rising in his cheeks. And yet, he can't help but finally let his hands rest on her arms, fingers smoothing over her feathers, relaxing and even trying, nervously, to tilt his head a little, to move his lips the same way Libby is. Or, well, at least he thinks it's the same.

But then she's gone, pulling back and wide-eyed, probably as wide-eyed as James is. He's flushed, not sure what to do, shock still more than evident, but it's not bad shock. Not by any means. It's simply being taken unawares by a gesture he had no clue about.

"N-No, I-" but his voice is tense, choked out, and he has to take a moment to swallow, to clear his throat and try and speak again. And in that moment- Libby's pulling back, away. Running from the room and James is still too stunned, too numbed to do anything but blink slowly at her retreating form, to stare at the door she'd disappeared through. Finally, he swallows again, clears his throat to an empty room and glances at the needles on the floor, the empty glasses still smelling of alcohol, the shield at his side. "... I do," he finishes, the words still feeling stuck in his mouth, a feeling only made marginally better by telling it to the empty room.

He breathes out a sigh, muttering a quick, quiet damn it before pushing himself up, tugging on his shirt and slipping his shield over his shoulders, trying to sort of... push all their stuff into one big pile with a foot. It makes it look a little less-- ... okay, no, he made it worse.

So, hands shoved moodily into his pockets, he turns and walks back the way he'd come in, still not entirely sure what had just happened.