riverviewlogs | ( closed ) misery loves company

Entry tags:

( closed ) misery loves company

who: Tony Starks (

buildsomething) and Steve Rogers

livingsymbol)
what: Quantum Tentacles
when: 12th Feb onwards
where: Back of a bar
warnings: alcoholism, suicidal thoughts, depression

There's nothing to suggest this day would be any different from any other day except at some point they'll suddenly feel the heavy weight of Tony's unhappiness. Tony had finally run out of those candles and he was handling the mood drop poorly. Every now and then he lets himself entertain the possibility of ending it. His direct thoughts aren't revealed by the unexpected connection so they're spared Tony's detailed plans if he ever decided to go through with it.

He failed once and he wouldn't fail a second time.

His depression feels like a suffocating weight making everything seem pointless until Tony gets his hands on some alcohol and the mental haze it produces gives him just enough breathing room that he can ignore his darker thoughts. To others there's a barely noticeable difference except now he's clearly drunk.

Surrounded by bottles, too lethargic to do anything else and not drunk enough to pass out, Tony would call this being content.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It takes Tony a little while to realize something is wrong -- honestly, feeling miserable and craving a drink aren't exactly new things for him. But eventually, it's the sheer overpowering weight of it that finally clues Tony in to the fact that this isn't his unhappiness, or at least not entirely. The fact that it feels close enough is probably a good indicator of exactly who it belongs to. And jesus, if he feels like this all the time...

I got low echoes in his head, and that's enough to get Tony on his feet and out the door, even through the oppressive haze hanging over him. He has no idea what he's actually planning to do when he finds the younger Stark, but the part of him that isn't drowning is screaming that Tony can't just leave him like this. He knows what this kind of desperate drunkenness feels like, he has a pretty good indication of where to start looking. The part where that sounds like an excellent idea, he's just going to ignore that. Or try to.

Pushing through the misery to keep looking after a few false starts is hard, but Tony just grits his teeth and tries to treat it like his own issues. Something to be dealt with later. Just get through it for now.

Though when he does finally find a familiar figure slumped low enough that Tony can barely make out his face, he can't help but introduce himself by plucking the glass out of the other Stark's lax hand and taking a long drink himself.

Tony stirs as the glass is taken from him and he slowly raises his head to stare at the thief. There's a brief moment of confusion before it turns to a tiny spark of happiness to see that it's old man him, but his overall mood stays overwhelmingly the same.

"Come to join me?"

He's far drunker than he normally gets, but he still pulls himself up and gestures to take a seat.

"I've been drinking all day so I'll be poor company, but you're more than welcome."

The briefest flash of something brighter is confusing, but so is all the rest of this. It does at least get Tony to take the seat, watching the other Stark with something he doesn't quite want to call concern.

"So what's up?" He asks as he takes another drink and sets the glass down. Tony can say with relative certainty that neither of them need any more of it at the moment, but he also knows his own mind well enough to say that trying to cut him off isn't going to go anywhere good.

"Trying to drown my sorrows, the usual." Tony doesn't really trust anyone, but the other man is the closest it would come to and so he's less likely to actively manipulate their view of him. However he finds himself questioning the other Stark's motives since it almost seems like he's sought him out.

He tries to pour out another drink with unsteady hands before the shame of letting someone see that makes him stop trying.

"What brings you here?"

Tony's mouth opens, and then immediately closes it again. What's he supposed to say, that he's pretty sure he can see inside the other man's head? Letting alone the fact it sounds crazier than even most things about this place, Tony can't imagine that he'd take the idea of that kind of invasion well.

"Just looking for you." It's not a lie. He makes a point of not watching the man's hands, even though it itches at him to do something to help.

"Did something happen?"

As impaired as he is, there's still the stirrings of suspicion although he can't pull himself together enough to do anything about it.

"No. This is what I do every day."

Tony is usually the one that goes to find people so when it doesn't happen on his terms things look a little different. He's starting to sag, the effort put into keeping him upright seems less and less worth it.

"Ah." Well that's...jesus. Tony absently rubs a hand over his mouth, desperately trying to figure out how to play this over the cloud of constant misery that seems to have taken up residence in his head.

On the one hand, he can very much understand the urge to lick his wounds in private. On the other, he's also increasingly understanding why everyone else tells him what a terrible idea that is. And he can only use so many of his own reactions as a baseline when it comes to this alternate him.

"Does it have to be here?" He finds himself asking.

He frowns at the other man at that and there's a sort of grim acceptance that accompanies it. "If I annoy you too it'd be easier for you to go. I doubt I can walk right now."

What did it mean for him if his own alternate universe version's of himself didn't want to stick around? He knew he grated on people's nerves, but he thought he couldn't possibly annoy himself.

The only reason Tony doesn't roll his eyes is because he knows from experience that it won't feel pleasant. Experiencing this kind of drunkenness from the outside is a hell of a thing. It is, at least, distracting him from something that feels uncomfortably like sympathy.

"I meant, did you want to find some place more comfortable." And with slightly less ease of access to more alcohol, but that's not something he's going to bring up.

That he understands. Tony gets enough comments about his drinking to read between the lines and he reaches over and grabs a bottle in case his counterpart decided to be the first person to actually try and stop him.

"This is comfortable." It's really not, but he's numb enough that he won't care until he wakes up the next day. He's being petulant, but he's marginally happier just from having someone be there talking to him.

The eyeroll does happen this time, consequences be damned.

"Sure it is," he says as he holds out a hand towards the bottle. "And you could at least share."

He's already swimming in second-hand plastered, what could an extra drink or two hurt? If there's anything Tony knows, it's his own tolerance limits. From the feel of things, this other Stark could drink him under the table without trying.

Tony squints at his half-empty bottle before looking over. Asking to share isn't the same as stopping him so he ends up pushing it over. It's the sort of logic he definitely wouldn't be using if he wasn't so wasted.

"Fine, but you're getting the next one."

"I can probably manage that." And he does indeed grab the bottle and take a healthy drink. There's a brief moment where his brain gets confused, unsure if the sensation is his or not, but the burn clears that up soon enough. It's a familiar enough feeling.

"So," he says once he's set the bottle back down. There's a little bit left in it, nothing much. "At least tell me what we're drinking to."

Tony finally gives up and slouches in his seat. He stares up at the ceiling and briefly ponders what to say. "My shitty brain, I guess. I got to remember what it felt like to be happy and now I can't handle being depressed again."

He scrubs his face with a hand. "Do you have a therapist? Ignore that, it'd be a stupid idea seeing the same person."

He blinks once. "I don't, no." Whether or not he should have a therapist is a very different question. "There's got to be at least one around here, though. Sam, if nothing else."

Though it does make him pause for a second. Tony is well aware that he is probably one of the last people qualified to have this conversation, but. He's here. He can't just drop it and run.

"So you...feel like this all the time?" Jesus.

"I have one, they're not clicking and it's a terrible idea to see someone you know."

His next words has Tony look over to try and figure out what he meant by that. Tony put in less effort to cover things with his counterpart, but not to the extent where he should be asking something like this.

"Like what?"

He's not going to be able to do any rocket science in this condition, but he's going to try and figure this out.

Is it? That might explain why Bruce whines so much whenever Tony tries to talk to him. But he shakes his head. "I meant more he might have a better idea of who all else might be available." And he has plenty of experience with the general superhero mindset, let alone Tony himself.

But the question pulls him away from that line of thought in a hurry, even if it's just to fix the other Stark with a long, dry stare.

"Unhappy," he responds finally, because he's going for the gold in the understatement olympics today. And Tony might be oblivious about some things, but even he could take in the way the man's slumped down against the bar surrounded by empty bottles and put two and two together. Without the aid of feeling exactly how bad it is.

Tony bursts into laughter. He's never tried to hide how he felt even as he pushed people off kilter so they didn't know how to handle it.

"I thought that was obvious."

He lays across the table with his head in his arms as he tries to stifle further giggles. If not this he'd probably cry because this was the saddest thing he's ever heard. This is how much people don't pay attention to him and he's probably brought it on himself because that's just how he is.

The laughter visibly startles him, but Tony doesn't have to feel it to recognize gallows humor when it's smacking him in the face. And christ, what is he even doing here? How does he think he can help with this at all?

"We put on a good show," he says in the face of all that laughter, heavy on the irony. In truth he's never quite sure what this other him is thinking. Too similar and not similar enough. Even then, he couldn't have guessed at quite this depth of misery.

He doesn't frequent bars, but he does, despite some people's beliefs, go drinking now and again. He's almost not surprised when he catches sight of the man practically hiding in the back of the room, and that's when it all slides into place. The heavy feeling at the back of his skull, pushing him, almost compelling him to the bar like going through the door will break through some of the suffocating tension that has settled in his chest. It's a lot like drowning, that feeling, and Steve hasn't even been aware of it up until he sees Tony among his collection of empty bottles and it hits him that this is what pain looks like. It's the look he remembers distantly on a different face. Older, much taller from his mind's perspective, but haggard and wan nonetheless.

He moves to the table silently and sits in the vacant chair next to his friend, moving the bottles to on side in a neat line away from him, one by one. If it were any other day, Steve might not look past the fact that once again Tony is drunk and almost collapsed, but for the moment he actually notices the ache that seems to be present to him somehow. After he cleans up the table's surface, he lays a hand flat against the man's back.

"Tony." They've done this before, and Steve doesn't want to go down the same path, but it's hard for him to bend. "What are you doing?"

Tony is tired of everything. It feels like every time he's had progress dangled in front of him he inevitably has it ripped out from under him. He knew things like the candles were a false sign of improvement, but anything was better than this. He'd give anything for a magical solution that would immediately fix his head.

He sees Steve come in and actually tracks him making his way over, but there's no other reaction from him even with the hand on his back. There's only his blank stare. He doesn't feel up to entertaining Steve, maybe if he could muster enough willpower to pull himself back together after a couple of hours.

"Trying to forget."

At first Tony doesn't seem like he'll really respond, but to Steve's relief he does manage to pull up some words out of whatever black space he has settled into. Steve doesn't move his hand, keeping it on Tony's back when he hears the words. As much as his usual instinct is telling him to pull Tony out away from the bar, he feels the weight of those words and doesn't force him to move.

"Did something happen? You can talk to me."

He doesn't know about the candles, but the shift in mood is sharp enough to get through to him. Steve stays next to Tony, anticipating the brush off, but he's already made up his mind to hold through it.

The candles had made the drop worse, but Tony's black moods had been with him for years. Normally he was able to stay away from others until he felt well enough for the public, but he didn't have his resources here to do it as easily.

"You can't fix this with your fists." He knows Steve won't understand and he'd rather leave him ignorant than expend all that effort and failing anyway. "Actually... can you hit me?"

It wouldn't be the sharp pain he wants to have cut through the weight of his depression, but he'd bruise and he could prod it further without having to worry about scars.

The request catches him by surprise and Steve lifts his hand from Tony's back almost like he's afraid that he might hurt the other man just by having the thought voiced aloud.

"Why would you ask me that?" It's not accusation but concern that filters into Steve's words. Lord knows he's fought with friends before, and he and this man have been at odds, but he hasn't seriously considered hitting him in any capacity. He sits up straighter, almost itching from this strange feeling of depression hanging between them.

"I think we should get out of here. The air's too thick."

Tony nods and decides to move on from that. It was a long shot anyway. It was also something that could get him admitted so it wouldn't be good to linger on that topic.

"But outside doesn't have cheap drinks." He pours out another drink for himself, splashing a good portion onto the table. He usually does have standards, but right now he doesn't care. It's all about getting drunk as quickly as possible and staying there.

Steve, as much as he vents his anger and can be far too aggressive when he's pushing, doesn't have any real love for violence. He's a soldier and it's how he expresses himself sometimes when he's at a loss for words, but the idea of hurting someone without provocation when he actually likes them shakes him. Is that what Tony thinks he's like? What he'll do?

Thankfully he doesn't really get to ask. Tony changes the subject and Steve winces as he sees the man pour a sloppy glassful. He reaches over and takes it from Tony's hands, standing it up again.

"We can find something else. This... You can't keep doing this."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( closed ) misery loves company

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject