[CLOSED] i was once like you are now, and I know that it's not easy

[beatupgrass]

Who: Rocket and George
Where: George (and Shaun)'s room
When: post-event
Rating: Let's say R, due to a lot of the subject matter being really hinky. (Incest, violence, death, etc.)
Summary: Rocket's coming off his first death, and George is still dealing with Shaun being gone. It's a recipe for sadness.
The Story:

It's so much easier to shoot your mouth off about something when it hasn't happened to you. Not that it will stop Rocket from doing just that (and saying it makes his argument even more valid because god, you big babies, it wasn't that bad. Like taking a long nap for a day.

A long nap that when you wake up from it, you still feel like everything's flarked.

He avoids the rest of the event from the comfort of his room, distracting himself with everything he can get his hands on, avoiding the elephant in the room, entirely. By the time, it's over, he's had enough. He's behaving like a coward, and he won't stand for that.

There's a number of people he could turn to in this situation- he has more people who understand his particular issues than he would have guessed years ago, but only one person can really grok all those lovely pieces. She's died. She's been experimented on. She knows what it's like to wake up and be terrified you won't be whole again.

Hell, if it didn't come with the apprehension of wondering if everything he says to her is being filed away in that brain of hers for use later (whether it is or not), she'd be a damned near perfect sounding board. Or some kind of board- he doesn't necessarily want to talk so much as he wants to not be alone.

Which is weird for him.

Either way, Georgia and Shaun tend to be good at yanking him out of his sour moods- Georgia for her understanding and her misanthropic ways and Shaun for his love of danger and explosives. All in all, a pretty good way to spend an evening that isn't unscrewing the panels off yet another piece of garbage earth tech.

Little does he know what he's walking into when he knocks on the door. "Hey, you idiots. Open up. It's me."

Comments

[choosetruth]

"It's all right." She sips her beer, grimacing slightly at the taste. There's a reason she usually goes for wine coolers. The same reason she likes Coke more than coffee. Bitter stuff? Tastes gross. She really doesn't see any reason to pretend otherwise.

But hey, it's alcohol.

"I'd rather think about your problems than mine, for a change."

[beatupgrass]

"There ain't much to say." He finishes the first bottle and returns the dead soldier to the pack to gather a second. You wouldn't believe such a tiny little body can hold that much liquor. "I just didn't wanna be alone with my thoughts anymore. I used to be great at ignoring my problems. What the hell happened?"

He went two years without Groot in this stupid place, that's what happened. He and Groot never had to talk to get each other. And Groot made silences bearable instead of the overture to the other shoe dropping. And then everyone he could bear silences with in Wonderland up and left him. It's not even a matter of ignoring his problems. It's a matter of enduring them without having to be alone with them.

Stupid. For someone who is extraordinarily good at shoving people away when he gets too comfortable, he needs people around him, and if that ain't the dumbest catch-22 ever, he doesn't know what is.

At least he knows if he tries to push George or Shaun away for whatever reason, they'll push him back.

[choosetruth]

"The difficulty is, problems never ignore you back." She gives him a half smile. She sure has some she's ignoring too, she knows. There's a lot of things she can face head on. Feelings aren't always one of them.

"Well, you're not alone now. If you want to talk, I'll listen."

[beatupgrass]

"Hah," Rocket scoffs loudly, almost involuntarily. It kind of anticlimactic that anything he might have to say isn't that impressive or noteworthy in the grand scheme of things. He died. It sucked. He should be over it, but he's not, and even the reasons he's not over it don't really seem worth talking about.

It shouldn't have happened. It did.

He could have bled out alone. He didn't.

He could have prevented it if he'd been selfish enough to put his own needs before another person's. He didn't.

(And boy that one kinda lingers a little close to the bone- when did he get that unselfish? Caroline would have helped him, even if he put her on the spot in front of Rip.)

It's all logical, folded up neatly where most of his neuroses are scattered around to be tripped over. He takes another long swig of his beer, expecting clarity and getting nothing but more fuzziness around the edges.

When he finally speaks, his words are starting to slur, "I should've jus' let 'em finish me off, y'know?" He fought and fought until they were all dead, but he couldn't have survived the licks they gave him. Not without Caroline. He thought winning was better. Well, clearly that only applies to when you aren't so torn up, you'll walk it off. "'Cause then it would've been fast. You don't gotta think about it. You don't even know it's comin'. It's jus' there."

He finishes off the beer, replaces it, and goes for his third.

[choosetruth]

"You couldn't have."

She says it flatly, like it's one of her undeniable facts. She hasn't known Rocket that long, all things considered, but she still knows him pretty well. Better than most people know him, she's sure. Considering how much he's told her.

"You're a fighter. You don't know how to just lay down and die." Another one of the ways they're alike. No matter how much crap the universe throws at them, they keep on going. They may be broken, they may be hurting in ways most people can't imagine, but they keep going. Quitting isn't an option.

[beatupgrass]

Rocket flattens his ears to his skull, makes a disgruntled face that borders on a snarl, and takes another long swig.

"Nobody likes a smartass who's gotta be right all the time, Georgie." The slurring is not getting any better, and it probably won't. Everybody enjoys drunk raccoons.

[choosetruth]

She gives him a slim smile. She's only had about half her beer, but she's already feeling it a harder than she should. Maybe because it's the first alcohol this body's ever had, and on top of that she weighs a whole lot less than she should. Makes sense. Her first Coke was a lot to handle too. But still, it's a little scary to think about. Just another known limit gone.

"You're not wrong about that." No one likes a truth teller. Not that it stopped them from pulling her out of the grave to try and use her. "Good thing likability's never been one of my goals."

[beatupgrass]

"That tends to work out for you when you've got somebody who won't leave no matter what. 'Least if everyone else walks out, there's still somebody there." That isn't something he knows from experience. Of course not. And even if it was, there's no sure way to say he still has it right now. Groot is new. Groot could be different. He might not even want to be Groot.

There's a thought.

He leans against Georgia's side to keep from flopping backwards onto the bed. "You ever think about not being Georgia Mason. I mean you're her in every way that counts, but you're not. You could be somebody else if you really wanted. I bet Shaun'd be fine with it or he'd learn to accept it 'cause he cares." He snorts, which doesn't help his drunken rambling be less stream of conscious. "I'm Rocket 'cause that's who I wanted to be."

[choosetruth]

Oh, great, she has a raccoon leaning on her. She takes another sip of her beer. Maybe it's not a bad time to be feeling it this quickly. Being sober suddenly feels exhausting.

"Shaun wouldn't be fine with it." He might accept it, might even find it easier to accept than that she actually is his dead sister, but he wouldn't be fine with it. It would change things between them. She'd lose him, or at the very least, she'd lose them. "But yes, I did consider it. But being anyone else feels like even more of a lie than claiming I'm still her. Maybe if I didn't have all her memories, it would be different. But I do. I don't know how to be anyone else."

[beatupgrass]

"Thass an excuse," Rocket drawls. "You can say you don't want to, and that's fine n' all, but there's no such thing as not knowin' how to be anyone else, even if you do have all those memories in your head. You just figure it out."

He yawns in a way that shows off all forty-two of his sharp little teeth. Raccoon yawns are not as cute as you'd think they'd be. Mostly it serves to remind you that they're bitey little things. "But what do I know? I'm a science experiment with a drinking problem, 'n a chip on my shoulder." A pause. "I take it back. Be Georgia. Clearly I'm a bad example of how you should revel in your newfound freedom from them."

[choosetruth]

"It's not." She frowns, pulling away so she can look at him. "It's... look. I know I'm not the same woman. Georgia Mason died and her body was cremated and not a single molecule of me was a part of her. But that doesn't change the fact that I remember being her. And if I were to try and be not her, it would feel like I was pretending."

She takes another swig of her beer, turning to glare out the window. "I am Georgia Mason. Or as close as science can get. I can't turn that off, even if I wanted to."

[beatupgrass]

Rocket makes an annoyed sound as he flops over onto his side when she moves, just barely managing to keep a hold of his beer. He blinks blearily, observing her from upside down and trying to process all of this. Maybe he shouldn't have dredged up other people's baggage while drunk. He's not really in a place to process it, but by all the powers that are decent in him (not many, admittedly), he's trying.

"Yeah." He tries to rub his eye and misses his face entirely. No matter how buzzed she might feel right now, she's not a raccoon who just packed away two and a half beers in less than half an hour. "'Course I'd probably still call you Georgie either way. I'm used to it now. It's sticking."

[choosetruth]

She won't take the beer he's holding, but she does take the rest of the beer and move them to her other side. He's drunk enough, and she doesn't want raccoon vomit on her bed.

"No one else calls me that." It's not really a complaint. If she minded she would have said something before now. "Everyone else goes with George or Georgia."

[beatupgrass]

He flails out a hand to try and make her stop REMOVING THE ALCOHOL FROM HIS REACH, but he only has one hand free so it's just a futile attempt and he has to just let his arm flop uselessly onto the bed, while giving her disdainful looks. Raccoons are very good at showing disdain.

"I thought it would piss you off," he mumbles. "You don't even look like a Georgie."

And then it didn't, and his elaborate plan to be the biggest jackass in the room failed, and now she has a nickname that only he uses. There's a win in there somewhere, but hell if he can see it through the beer buzz.

[choosetruth]

She actually smirks at that. "Thought it might be something like that. Asshole." She doesn't sound particularly pissed off, even now.

"A lot of people try to piss me off as a journalist. Usually cause I pissed them off first, but sometimes just because people are shitstains trying to get a reaction." She shrugs a shoulder and takes another sip of her beer. "I have pretty thick skin. It's a job requirement. I only get mad about things worth getting mad about."

[beatupgrass]

"That's me. Professional asshole."

He finishes the last of his beer and with no more within reach to grab, just ends up holding on to the empty like a security blanket. "I take it for granted that not everyone's as easy to rile up as I am."

And he has never, in his life, tried to grow some thicker skin under his shabby fur coat. Why should he? The world hasn't done him right, and becoming hardened against it might make people think it was okay to push you harder. Because it's fine. You can take it.

[choosetruth]

"You can dish it out, but you can't take it." George's tone is dry. She finishes her beer and tucks it into the six pack. That'll be all for her. Maybe when she has Shaun again she'll explore her limits, but now, she doesn't want to get any more drunk than she already is. "You don't see anything wrong with that approach to life?"

[beatupgrass]

"Why would I?" He bares his teeth and rolls over, putting his back to her. "There ain't nothin' wrong with pickin' on people who've got every advantage I don't, especially when I'm the kind of guy those people try to shit-kick."

[choosetruth]

"That's... pretty fucked up."

She frowns at him. She isn't easy to insult, but she also doesn't hold back her opinion. And this is pretty fucked up. She has no doubt Rocket has earned his issues. That doesn't make picking on people out of some weird sense of payback acceptable.

"That's just self-pity talking. You don't know what other people have been through until you know them, and I suspect you don't wait for the shit-kicking before you start fighting back."

[beatupgrass]

No, no he doesn't. Of course he doesn't. Why would you ever allow anyone the opportunity to see your back before they see your teeth when you can help it?

(The irony here is all George can see is his back. That should probably say something, but he's drunk and George is hitting him in the sore spots.) "You call it self-pity, and I call it a preventative measure for getting screwed over. You can't hit a target that won't stop moving."

[choosetruth]

She gives a half smile, leaning back against the wall. "I know a thing or two about preventative measures. My entire world's covered in 'em. Everyone so afraid of dying that they stop living."

Zombies aren't that dangerous if you know what you're doing. Outbreaks are rare when they're not being caused by sabotage and needles filled with a live virus. But everyone stays inside anyway.

[beatupgrass]

Rocket's tail swishes. "Is that supposed to be a thinly veiled commentary on how much I'm really living? 'Cause my life is freakin' grand, Wonderland aside."

A grand life full of drinking and pushing people away. Such life.

[choosetruth]

"It's hardly thinly veiled." She looks over at him and raises an eyebrow. "I don't know enough about your life to say for sure, but people with grand lives don't usually end up drunk on my bed."

Though in fairness, the only other person likely to wind up on her bed at all is Shaun, but the point she's making remains.

[beatupgrass]

"If I had a billion units and I wasn't in Wonderland, my life'd be just swell." It's a half-hearted argument for the sake of arguing, though.

His life pretty much sucks. Maybe the Guardians will change that or maybe they'll just provide him with some new bout of pain. Being unable to accept anything good without trying to push it away will do that to you. He'd like to say he's gotten better at it in Wonderland, but once he's back, all that's gonna go out the window.