Logs:Brotherly Heroics
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| RL Date: 21 June, 2015 |
| Who: Dee, Jemizen |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Jemizen does his brotherly duty to help his drunk sister find her bed. |
| Where: A tunnel, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 23, Month 1, Turn 38 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Hattie/Mentions, Kaelige/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: Back-dated! After Drunke Debt. FTR, she gets 'gotten' for being hungover and assigned extra chores for punishment. Sigh~ |
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| It's been turns since Dee Impressed the tiny green who is making a quiet annoyance of herself over Jemizen's cot. Perhaps once he's awake he can take note of the color of her eyes and the mild distress whirling slowly there. Once the familiar boy is in a state to follow, she darts off, doubling back when his feet don't bring him fast enough to follow her every turn. The tunnels within the Weyr are extensive and Crin zigs and zags through them until they must be as near to the lake as one might get. Only then does she stop, landing beside the shivering form of the brunette she looks too. Dee has a markedly dopey smile as Jem comes into sight. "Jeemmmm," she lets the last letter rumble into a hum. This is what Dee looks like drunk: a little like all of her brightness can't be contained by the husk of her skin, though now there's a limpid sadness to her hazel eyes. "I couldn't find my way back to the barracks and I'm cold." Her tone adds that she's sorry, too. Jemizen is concerned to see the familiar little green firelizard in a state of mild distress. But he's also only half-conscious, so his concern isn't exactly overt as he trudges along lethargically through the caverns and tunnels of the weyr, stopping every so often to yawn and pull the sleeping fur he's brought with him more tightly around his shoulders. Once Crin has brought them to their destination he stares dumbly at Dee for several long moments, his tone one of disbelief as he asks, "Are you... drunk?" He leans down, close to her face, and immediately gets his answer (along with a waft of boozebreath). After his nose un-scrunches, he seems to fully wake up and springs into action, throwing that sleeping fur over Dee's shoulders and rubbing her arms vigorously in an effort to dispel the worst of her chill. "What's happened? Why are you down here alone and drunk?" He's not used to being the one taking care of the other sibling, but that unfamiliarity has the positive side-effect of keeping judgment out of his voice. For now. "I had to be, Jem," Dee makes great big 'understand me' eyes at her younger-brother-slash-best-friend. "I've been giving pieces of myself away here at Fort and it's all catching up to me, and I'm having trouble finding the pieces of me that are left." She tells him with more of that great whiskey smell accompanying her nonsensical words. "I wasn't alone when I got drunk," the girl offers as if this should be a boon to him, her eyes belatedly drifting to the rubbing of her arms. "Only it was a nice night for a walk by then, so I walked and got cold. And a little lost." She follows her train of thought, punctuated by a disconnectedly pleased, "That's nice," the warmth, "I miss home," is an abrupt change of topic and includes a clumsy bid to pull him in for a hug, Jem being the closest to home that she can get in this moment. Jemizen's holding her shoulders now, which help his declaration of "You're here, all of you's still here," have a distinctly panicky note to it. After a deep breath he's able to better articulate that he does understand, and he means it both metaphorically and literally when he announces, "Dee, you... You worry so much about feeding other people. But... You need to eat, too." He hugs her, quickly, with holding her out at arm's length by the shoulders yet again, looking very un-Jem-ily serious as he searches her face, asking, "Who were you with?" Jem's teeth aren't quite clenched as he asks, but there's definitely enough force in his tone to make his meaning--'who let this happen to you?'--relatively clear. A sigh, heavy, escapes him before he returns her hug. "I know you do. I'm sorry we're not home yet." Dee's eyes are on him, but it's always debatable how much someone intoxicated really gets of what's being said to them. "Am I?" is dubious of her own wholeness. "And I ate dinner-- well, a roll. I was nauseous after--" Then she interrupts herself to squint at her brother, as if trying inexpertly to determine if he's pulling her leg. Then there's a grin from the girl, and a single finger comes up to wag in his face, "Ah-ah, Jemizen," she warns with amusement, "I haven't told you about any of the other boys. I'm not about to start now." Clearly, she'll keep her secrets to the grave. "We'll be home soon. The eggs will hatch and we'll go home and Fortians can worry about feeding Fortians and I'll only dream about the dying once in a while," she sounds wistful and as if there have been too many nightmares of late. "That's not what I--Wait. Just a roll?" Jemizen is disconcerted both by this news and the fact that he is gradually becoming a nagging mother hen throughout this conversation. To complete this transformation, he shoots Dee an 'I'm not mad, just disappointed' look. "You need to eat more than that." He busies himself with tucking that sleeping fur around her arms in such a way that will hopefully help it stay put during their trek back to the barracks. But then his head shoots back up and-- "Boys?" Brown eyes narrow. "What boys?" Jem's brotherly concern over Dee's romantic prospects quickly becomes a more general brotherly concern. "You've been having bad dreams, Dee?" "I'll only throw it up, Jem. I'm surprised I've kept the whiskey down, but I'm not as worried now, so..." that probably explains it. Dee sighs, and then quietly, so quietly, "I took my turn today Jem. I was supposed to take something yesterday and I couldn't do it. I did today after Kael-- well. Nevermind what Kael did." She looks disgruntled and then is reaching for him to try to lever herself up onto her feet. 'What boys' is conveniently missed. "Yes. Always the Sands, Jem. And the Stores. And--" She shakes her head. "I need more sleep. Without dreams. Or with better ones." She gives him a bemused look, "Maybe you can tell me a bedtime story tonight," she suggests, "or we can find reeds and twine to make a dreamcatcher for under my pillow," as they did long ago when they were both little and a rash of unpleasant dreamings made nights rocky. Jemizen, in a distracted tone of voice, as he tries to tug Dee up to her feet, "I can never keep whiskey down." He huffs out a breath, then, once she's standing, places the back of his hand against her forehead. "Are you sick?" She doesn't feel feverish, but vomiting is definitely cause for concern. "Do you need a healer?" His focus on a possible illness is swept away by her confession, and his dark brows furrow in a thoughtful frown. "Wait. Kaelige is helping?" Jem seems genuinely perplexed by this news, but he hasn't time to contemplate it right now. He attempts to begin pulling Dee along the tunnel, nodding vigorously as he agrees, "You need sleep. Let's get you to bed. I'll make you a hundred dreamcatchers if that's what you need." It would send more reassuring if the rapid increase in his vocal cadence wasn't lending an air of rising panic to his tone. "No, and I'm not pregnant either, I've been taking my tea and I went between after." Dee's defensiveness and drunkenness together make her careless with those words. "I just get nauseous when I'm nervous, and this whole thing makes me nervous. Jem, I could be throwing my life away by stepping onto the Sands. I might've thrown it away when I came. I feel like I'm walking and can't stop my feet from following each other wherever they're-- what?" Dee's standing straighter now and pulling against that helpful pull of her brother's so she can eye him. "No, Kaelige is not helping. He might even be the opposite of not helping, unless that's tattling, which he's not doing." She makes a sour face at the idea and looks at Jem a long moment and then sighs, closing her eyes. "I don't like what this is doing to us, what being here is doing to us. I miss my brother." She lets him lead her again, if that's what he wishes, "But I'd like a hundred dreamcatchers. I really would. We could hang them from the ceiling in the barracks. Take away everyone's nightmares in one fell swoop." She gives him a smile tempered by sadness: even Drunk Dee is thinking of others. "Pregnant!" It never would have occurred to Jem to wonder about that if she hadn't brought it up. But since she did, he remembers his earlier question, "What boys? You're sleeping with somebody?" His face doesn't register disgust so much as incredulity. But there is a little bit of an ick-face in his expression--Jemizen is definitively weyrbred, but this is his sister, after all, not just his very best friend. He stops trying to tug her up the weyr tunnel, trying his best to be comforting as he insists, "You're not throwing your life away, Dee. What if... What if you weren't on the sands, and you should've been? What if what happened when Elaruth's clutch hatched happens again?" Jem huffs out a heavy breath and rests a hand on Dee's shoulder. "What if there's a little green out there for you, and you're not there for her?" It's probably a low blow, but to accept that the Sands are wrong for Dee is to accept that he's to blame for whatever has happened to make her feel this way. Hearing that Kaelige isn't exactly helping out with The Plan helps, a little--at least the world still makes some sense. "I'm here, Dee. You don't have to miss me because we'll be together. Always." Another empty promise made, another deal sealed with a tight hug. Dee gives Jemizen a stubborn look. He can try to make her tell him, but he should know that look: he won't get far. The stubbornness fades as he goes on and the girl's hazel gaze gets filled with a deep sadness. "It would be terrible," she's swayed too easily by this argument. "I'll stay. I will, Jem." She tells him this in the hug, "Barracks," she requests which is all she can get out before the lip wobbling turns into tears: guilty tears. So much for happy drunk Dee. Once Jem pulls away from the hug, he spies her tears, and begins shaking his head, vigorously. "No, no, Dee, don't cry, don't cry. Everything will turn out. It'll be all right!" Attempts are made to fill this statement with plenty of patented carefree Jemizen insouciance, but it rings a bit hollow. To make up for his inability to comfort with words, Jem places a light kiss on Dee's temple before offering a reassuring smile. He nods along with her request to return to the barracks and turns around, crouching down a bit in the understood-by-all-childhood-playmates symbol for offering to carry her piggyback. "Hey, want a ride?" A grin is shot over his shoulder at her. Jem is trying everything he can think of to insert levity into this situation, since that's the thing he knows how to do best. "No, goof," Dee rejects the offer. "I'm practically grown up now. Left home, Standing for a foreign weyr, starting a misguided life of bad decisions. The least I can do is stumble to my own bed. If you'll show me where it is." She tells him, forcing the tears away with the defensive measures that humor allows, her tone edged with forced lightness, particularly when she adds, "Preferably by way of the women's lavatory." Then she's meaning to wrap her arm around his, trustingly, letting him be her guide. She'll probably have nightmares, and probably a horrible hangover, but for now she can pretend things are alright, even as her eyes fight to keep tears from falling as they walk back to the barracks. |
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