[Closed] And I'm drinking again, thinking of when you loved me

[thecag]

Date & Time: About a week or two ago, the evening after the unpleasant encounter with Max
Location: Group housing to start, Kara's specifically
Characters: Lee Adama and Kara Thrace
Summary: After stumbling across a look-alike that shares the face of his future wife, Lee just cannot deal. He's pretty sure he's married to a Cylon (robots that look human and slaughtered the human race) and that is not going to be swallowed without a lot of liquor as a chaser.
Warnings: Depression and excessive consumption of alcohol



[Lee tries to shake it off. After Max has fled and Kara has all but laid him out for causing her to take not one, but two hits, Lee goes walking. Unsurprisingly the burnt out ruins of Exsilium do nothing to bring about a change in mood. If anything, they make it worse. There's less color than the inside of a Battlestar and if there's a break in the rain it only happens long enough to usher in unpleasant humidity and the occasional unsettling fog.

Eventually he makes it home but lingers only long enough to get his currency and head back out. The walls of his apartment are too sterile and Lee really doesn't want to make explanations to the others he lives with as to why he is a complete wreck. Even in shared quarters on Galactica Lee prizes that near false notion of privacy.

After spending enough time at one of the bars to get cut off, hidden away in the recesses of buildings past the Initiative's hold, Lee does what any devastated, crushed, utterly intoxicated man would do. He goes home and retrieves his own alcohol to get started on phase two. Whatever phase two is. Lee only knows he should probably stop drinking alone if he doesn't want end up dead on a planet he doesn't even know.]

Captain Thrace! [Lee starts with rank because, well he doesn't even know why as he bangs on her door.] CAPTAIN. [A pause.] Kara!! Kaaaaaaraaaaaaa!

[She can probably smell the drink on his breath through the door with the way Lee is pathetically bellowing her name.

If she doesn't answer fast enough, he'll be helping himself to another drink of the Galactica distilled liquor he'd had when arriving in the city. If she doesn't answer at all, he is going to sit his ass right down in the hallway and wait for her to get home.

Here Kara, have one mess of a CAG.]

Comments

[alwaysruns]

[Starbuck's more than happy to oblige Lee's request for more alcohol and she pours another round for both of them. It's her unorthodox way of showing she cares, since normal comforting measures aren't really her forte.]

Never really understood what you saw in her anyway.

[Not that Kara would begrudge anyone a good frak, or even a mediocre frak, but she certainly cannot fathom why anyone would chain himself for life to Dualla of all people.]

[thecag]

[If the night doesn't end with one of them throwing up, it will be a miracle. Lee's vision is swimming and the path the shot glass takes to his mouth is far from straight. After he downs it, Lee determines he has lost the required hand-eye coordination he needs to continue being that far from the glass he drinking out of. So, instead, he helps himself to a nice long drink right from the bottle.]

Well... let's see. [Lee slurs as he speaks so some of it might be a little incoherent. How good is your drunk speak these days Starbuck?] Dee is pretty. Commit. Committed to the uniform.

And! Wait for it. Bonus round!

[When Lee tries to look Kara straight on but it's lopsided and without malice. What he says next is loaded and probably unfair but lowered inhibitions and all that, his heart is doing even more talking for him than it usually does.

She's emotionally available!

[That's punctuated with another swig from the bottle. When he continues, Lee is flopped back on couch again. He's starting to ooze off of it some. There's a bitter, resigned laugh.]

All that and she's a frakkin' toaster.

[alwaysruns]

Well, gee, Lee. She sounds perfect. Why don't you take her home and marry her?

[So Kara's being a snarky bitch to him, but that swipe about being emotionally available stabbed her in the heart more than she wants to admit to even herself. In a more sober and generous moment, she'd remember that he hasn't gone though eighteen months of hell that she has, and frankly it's good because he doesn't know how badly she betrayed him. But Starbuck is nothing if not skilled at hurting everyone she cares about.

She jerks the bottle away from Lee, and downs a lot of it herself. It's become necessary for her to get just as sauced as Lee now. Mostly so she can just make bad choices and not spiteful ones.]

[thecag]

[Lee finishes sliding off the couch and sits on the floor with a dull thud. Kara's abuse may not be kind but it's not entirely undeserved. Dropping his face into his hands, the military man is silent for several minutes.

Eventually, he looks up and out into the empty space that's the rest of the room.]

And you think you're the screw up?

Hah!

I don't know if I'm actually capable of loving the right woman. Ever. Wrong times, wrong places. Wrong species.

[Though he's drunk, that doesn't stop him from being quite obviously heartbroken over it all.]

[alwaysruns]

I am the screw up.

[She is and she knows it. Another long pull at the bottle for her, and then she glares at the wall straight ahead. She's disinclined to laundry list her own failings, for they are many.]

But at least I'm not a frakkin' toaster.

[Said because she cannot just leave well enough alone and the need to dig that knife in just that little bit deeper is too strong to resist. Doesn't help that what little self-control and behavior moderation she actually possesses is rapidly disappearing into the bottle she's emptying.]

[thecag]

You better not be. The universe can't handle another Kara Thrace.

[That's about as combative as Lee can manage to be in response. With the addition of his own guilty conscience, Kara's words are having their intended effect. He feels downright awful.]

What do you want me to say?

I'm a frakkin' idiot? Fine. I'm a frakkin' idiot. I deserve what I'm getting and probably a lot more where that came from.

[alwaysruns]

[Godsdammit he is so right. One Kara Thrace is bad enough and she knows it.]

You know what I want you to say?

[She slides off the couch too to straddle herself across Lee's legs, just so she can really get in his face. She means to come across intimidating, but by now she's had enough to drink it's actually more ridiculous than anything.

And she's not sure what she wants him to say. So she blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.]

Tell me why you're so afraid of not doing the right thing for once in your life.

[thecag]

[Reflexively, his hands come up to Kara's hips to steady her when she drunkenly tips toward the left. Lee leans forward, his liquor soaked breath falling over her when he finally answers.]

Because once you make a mistake? When it really matters?

You can't take it back but you have to carry it with you. Forever.

[Lee finally meets her eyes on that last word.]

[alwaysruns]

[Forever. Yep that's the word that hits home and for reasons he can't even fathom yet.]

Gods, Lee, don't you think I know that?

[Especially with him being right there and all she can think about is the look on his face when he found out she left him laying where they'd been together for her to run off and marry Sam. Her life is one long series of forever frak ups. Marrying Sam. Passing Zak. Walking out on her dying mother and never going back.

But despite the fact they are both clearly drunk and this whole conversation is likely to end poorly or forgotten altogether, Kara can't stay away from him. Even when she's pissed. And now she's struggling to remember why she was angry with him in the first damned place.]

Don't you ever want to frak up? Just a little? See what it's like?

[Yep, totally rambling out of her head now.]

I do it all the time.

[thecag]

You're the one who asked. [Lee grumbles some at her response.] And. ...I don't know.

No, not really. Every time I have, its been worse than the last. I'm sleeping with a frakkin' Cylon Kara. I don't want to know what tops that, I really don't.

[Falling back against the bottom half of the couch, he clumsily tries to keep her from having to come with.]

Sometimes you don't frak it up. Not when you fly. [Is that drunken adoration? Who knows, he's a hot mess.] And anyways, when you do frak up, look how that turns out.

Terribly.

[alwaysruns]

But it's fun while it lasts.

[But only while it lasts. The consequences really blow, but she's not thinking that far in advance.

Kara's unstable enough that his slump sends her careening forward, despite the attempt to stop her. It causes her to break out into giggles though gods only know what's so funny. Eventually she stops laughing and pats Lee lightly on the chest with her hands.]

If I found out Sam was a Cylon, I'd put a bullet in his head. I'll help you shove her out an airlock when we get home and that'll be the end of it.

[Because yes, she absolutely believes she could just turn off any feelings and execute her spouse no problems at all. So Lee should be able to too.]

[thecag]

Fun never lasts.

[That's probably more negative than he really needs to be. As Kara bumps his chest, Lee tries to smile back. The result is a lopsided sort of look that isn't quite a smirk.]

Yeah well, hope you've got a whole lot more booze than this. Because it's gonna kill the old man. [Lee sighs. The only reason he's able to consider it is because the future of the human race is more important than a frak.] I escaped the end of everything to end up at the end of everything. Now I want to go back to the end of everything, just to end everything I have left.

Fan-frakkin'-tastic.

[Lee's head tips back and he stares at the ceiling, trying to keep the fan in focus.]

[alwaysruns]

Lee, that made no sense.

[It might if they hadn't been drinking but too many 'ends' and frak it this is too damned serious. Kara takes a chug then shoves the bottle into Lee's hand.]

Stop talking.

'Sides, you still got me.

[You better not be planning to get rid of her too or man is there gonna be pain in your life.]

[thecag]

It made perfect sense, you're just drunk.

[As if to make his point, Lee takes the bottle just as she's shoving it and helps himself to another swallow. It will be amazing if his puking is limited to that one session in the alley before he'd gotten to the building.]

And yeah. I know. Problem there is that half the time I want to throw you out of an airlock and you're not a Cylon. [Cheeky grin.] Though I'm pretty sure that particular feeling is mutual.

[What? He knows he can be just as big a pain in the ass, even if he thinks he's just 'doing his job' or whatever the excuse usually is when he's being a dick.]

[alwaysruns]

About half the time.

[What? Not like she's going to deny it. She can't decide if she loves or hates him, same with Sam. It's a mess enough when she's sober.]

And there's nothing wrong with being drunk. You're sexy when I've been drinking.

[Something she'll be frustrated with admitting tomorrow, if she even remembers but right now everything's coming out.]