Vox Mentula

[baptisms]

WHO Booker DeWitt (baptisms) and Daisy Fitzroy (invisiblecolor)
WHAT A thread taking place in the tear where Booker is the hero of the Vox
WHEN 1912, duh. JK, sometime soon before Booker, Daisy, and Slate take down the Hall of Heroes and Booker dies.
WHERE most likely whatever safehouse the Vox has?


No one ever said a revolution was easy.

Booker was currently in the process of re-bandaging a wound on his arm, wrapping gauze around it as he stared out the window at the smoke rising from the city. Columbia was looking a little worse for wear these days, nothing at all like the glittering jewel it had seemed like when he first arrived. Now torn by war, by the bloody siege that he had had a hand in starting, it looked more like the battlefields of his youth, and it was a fact that stung his heart.

With a sigh, he wrapped more gauze around the rather insubstantial cut, much more than was probably needed for such a small wound.

Comments

[invisiblecolor]

He's putting way too much gauze around that little baby cut. Thought Daisy Fitzroy, who'd entered the room a few moments ago but hadn't said anything to the man. He looked deep in thought and, though she would never call herself considerate, she hadn't wanted to interrupt it. But now he seemed to be finished and she spoke.

"You really need that much, DeWitt?" Her tone was scolding but slightly teasing. She admired the man, might even go as far as to say she respected him.

[baptisms]

Booker had been so deep in his thoughts that Daisy's voice sounded like the boom of a cannon more than it sounded like a voice, and he jumped, nearly losing his footing and toppling from the window ledge he was perched on like it was a chair.

"Christ, Fitzroy!" he gasped, turning to look at her before following her gaze to his arm, where the small cut was swathed in enough gauze to bandage a small army. "Huh. I guess not. Didn't realize I was using that much, to tell the truth."

There were always consequences to letting one's mind wander.

[invisiblecolor]

She gave him one of those smiles. Those Daisy smiles that you weren't sure were actually smiles at all. The only smile she'd ever given him.

"Didn't mean to sneak up on you." There was no apology though she figured there should've been. Daisy wasn't exactly big on making herself look like a decent person.

"So what's on your mind?"

[baptisms]

"Well, you did."

Those Daisy smiles were ones Booker had gotten used to, if not only for the reason that they had become so commonplace but also because they were the only sort of smiles he could ever really expect from a woman like Daisy Fitzroy. She was a brutal sort of person, though he'd be damned if he didn't sense some sort of softer side underneath from time to time.

In response to her question he shrugged lightly, glancing again out the window at the torn Columbia bathed in the fading light before he turned his gaze back on her. "I don't know. War, I suppose. How it changes things. People." It's a deep concept, and a hard and cold one. One that he rarely likes to even think about. But tonight, he can't help it. "How do you suppose you and I would'a turned out? What sort of people do you think we'd be, if Columbia never existed?"

[invisiblecolor]

She turned her head slightly away from him, thinking hard about that question. It was one she'd never really considered, being the type of person to take reality head-on and never look back.

"Well, DeWitt, I don't really know how to answer that question. You can never really tell how things would be if you hadn't done what you'd done, said what you said, been where you've been." She walked over to the window then, looked out at the same city as he'd been staring at. But where he saw war and destruction, she saw change. Or at least a chance for it.

After a few minutes, she looked back at him. "I guess, for you it'd be a little different. If I wasn't here I'd be back down on that scum of a planet. Locked up in prison just for being the person I am. Behind bars. And the world'd be better for it. But that doesn't mean I'd be okay with it." She gazed at him with cold eyes, zeroed in on him, awaiting his response.

[baptisms]

Little do either of them know that Booker can tell, in some distant world where he treads reality like a tightrope with the girl he came to Columbia to find, what things would be if he hadn't done what he'd done, been where he'd been, been where he'd been. But Booker in this world has no idea. Booker in this world came to find a girl, a girl who had already been evacuated. Booker in this world joined forces with Daisy, and became a hand of that change she so desperately sought.

There were worse things, he supposed, that he could have become.

"Guess not. Doesn't keep me from wondering though, does it?" he asked somewhat bitterly, pressing a palm to the cool glass of the window and turned his head to look from the ravaged city to the woman beside him. "In that case, maybe it's better. That Columbia was here. Gave you something to fight for. Gave you chance to make a mark and do things your way. Better than rotting in prison." Swallowing, he gave her a long and searching look.

"I guess it's better for me too, in a way," he said finally. "I came to find the girl. To square away my debt. But where would that've gotten me? In a year, maybe two, maybe ten, I'd just go back to the way I was. There'd be more debt, and who knows if I'd get a chance like this to fix my mistakes. It's a cycle. It's infinite. I'm always making the same mistakes. And then Columbia..." a glance out at the city again, before he gave her somber face his full attention. "I guess Columbia's the same for me as it was for you. Something to fight for. I never had much direction, after Wounded Knee. But at least now, when I'm fightin', feels like I'm fightin' for the right cause." A grim little smile at that, the tiniest of smiles, and it faded quickly. His fierce eyes challenged her cold ones as his gaze met hers. "But it's all got me thinking. Since I can't help feeling like I don't have a lot of time left. Like we're both living on borrowed time these days."

The lifespan of a revolutionary isn't usually a terribly long one.

[invisiblecolor]

She nodded, eyes still locked with his. In the time they've been working together she'd learned all about what happened at Wounded Knee. He'd told her some with his voice, but the vast majority he'd told her with his eyes. Those eyes full of regret, guilt, sorrow, any number of things depending on the subject at hand. What she saw there now was peace. A sort of understanding that this was his life. This was how it was and there was nothing he could do now to put it back to the way it had been before. She also saw that he was content with that reality.

"DeWitt, we're all living on borrowed time." She finally said. "I have been since Mr. Comstock out there decided I would make a good fall guy." Gesturing to the city outside. She's not sure she ever told him that story. "And you have been since the second you agreed to help us out. No matter what your reasons were then."

[baptisms]

If there was one part of Booker that was expressive, it was his eyes. Which was good, because much of the time his mouth said little, at least on the subject of himself. Of course when it came to Daisy he was a bit more open than he was inclined to be with other people, based on their mutual respect for one another, but he'd still only told her the bare minimum.

Nevertheless, he felt she understood his story anyway.

When it came to Daisy, a lot of things didn't need explaining. Daisy was a woman who'd seen things he couldn't even dream of seeing, even with his rather colorful past. Daisy knew things he'd never know, and some of those things were about him.

"I know. But I just have this feeling. Doesn't make a lot of sense, but I feel like I'm not gonna walk away from this war. You are. I don't doubt that for a second. You're gonna live on, and you're gonna see Columbia when it's colorblind. But not me." A shake of his head, and another grim smile. And then, he paused and thought on what she'd said, eyes still on hers. "You didn't kill Lady Comstock," he said finally, feeling stupid for not realizing it sooner. "Why didn't you tell me before?"

[invisiblecolor]

Daisy's stony eyes faltered for only a fraction of a second but she didn't doubt that's enough time for him to notice. The subject of Lady Comstock was one she didn't like to bring up. This person, the only person, who had had a kind word for her during her time in Comstock House. More than just a kind person, she had been to Daisy a small ray of hope. Her firt hope for change. Like a small crack in a prison wall, letting in the smallest of sunrays. Miniscule but still enough to keep her going through the most brutal of days. And not only had that one hope been taken away from her, but the blame had fallen on the ebony shoulders of Daisy Fitzroy herself. And that had been the last straw.

But instead of explaingin all of this to Booker, which she didn't doubt her eyes had already done, she said simply, "Didn't think you needed to know."

[baptisms]

Booker had known Daisy long enough to know that the tiniest falter was like a scream or a gasp for most people, and that little crack in her resolve, that tiny second when she let him see what was going on behind her tough front, spoke volumes in ways her words didn't have to. That was the thing about the two of them, they didn't need to speak to get things out in the open.

All at once he felt very, very stupid for not being able to see it before. Daisy wasn't a gentle woman, not by a long shot. But he'd never seen her hurt anyone who didn't deserve it, and she sure as hell had never hurt anyone just because they were married to someone she had reason to despise. It all made sense now, and Booker risked lifting a large hand and placing it on her shoulder, over the rough material of her shirt.

"Fitzroy..." he said, though at first he didn't know what else to say. He almost decided to tell her that if he'd known, he would have done something, but he realized quickly that that was stupid; by the time they met, she'd already started the Vox. She'd already used the crime she didn't commit as a catalyst, as a statement against the things the Vox fought to end. And that was that. What was done was done (what was done will be done). And now, it didn't matter. So he closed his mouth and searched her face, though he doubted even a long-winded speech could tell him more than that falter of her eyes did before.

"She was important to you. And Comstock killed her. And then he laid the blame on you..." a flash of anger at the prophet twisted his stomach. It was just one more thing, one more straw upon the back of the camel of Booker DeWitt's temper at Comstock. If it hadn't already reached a breaking point, it would have now. It seemed small and pointless now, but he couldn't help adding; "I'm sorry."

[invisiblecolor]

The apology lost more points than it gained. But she did appreciate that he wasn't trying to make her feel better. There wasn't a thing in the world that could make Daisy Fitzroy feel better about what had happened at Comstock House. But of course there was an up-side to the situation. It had given her all the motivation she needed to get where she was today. And one day, someday, that man was going down. It didn't matter to her if she was the one to do it, though she would relish the opportunity. No, all that mattered to Daisy was that he was stopped. If he suffered, well, that would of course be a plus, but revenge wasn't on the agenda for the Vox Populi, at least not while she was in charge. The simple reason for all that they were doing was that things needed to change. And soon.

His response surprised her and she turned her eyes but not her head toward his hand on her shoulder, flicking them back to his face almost instantly. "Don't be sorry, DeWitt. Sorry never got anybody anywhere." But she was sure he could tell that the apology, though irritating, had gotten to her.

[baptisms]

Booker watched her eyes go from his hand to back to his face, and as much as he was sure she was doing her best to hide her reaction to his apology, he could see it. Daisy was not an easy woman to read. Not by a long shot. Booker had for the most part given up hope on that. But there was a certain unspoken understanding between them, one that he could appreciate because it gave him leverage in understand what was going on in her head. He supposed it was more than could be said for most people. Daisy's head was like an iron box and his rare peeks inside were valuable

"Suppose you've got a point there," he responded, giving her shoulder a light squeeze and then releasing it, allowing the limb to fall absently down by his side as he gave her a curious look, leaning forward just slightly to get a better look at her face. It was clear to him he'd gotten to her, and it felt strange, like somehow their stances in the situation had changed. Normally, Daisy unfalteringly and without exception had the upper hand, and now that he had glimpsed that moment of weakness he wasn't quite sure what to say.

"Fitzroy," he began, but couldn't think of what else to say. Instead, he simply shook his head. "Probably should expect it from somebody like Comstock but... it's still a hell of a thing to blame someone for."

[invisiblecolor]

Daisy shook her head, closing her eyes briefly before reopening them and looking right into Booker's. "He needed her gone, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nothin' personal." There was an undeniable bitterness about her voice as she spoke, and after a moment she turned away from Booker, aware that he as trying, and most likely succeeding, to read her.

Crossing her arms over her chest, she walked lazily to the window on the opposite side of the room, looking out over the city of Columbia. It was a beautiful city, really. But only from the outside. Once you got close enough to see how they really do things, how things work, Columbia was a more disgusting place than the devil's toilet.