@breakthecutie
five days at finkton’s workhouse. all he has to show for it is fresh blood on his shoes, and elizabeth’s dwindling rage. optimism says both are a means of timekeeping. booker being without a working pocket-watch, nor a concrete understanding of time. life moves in blurs. a symptom of alcoholism, coupled with an ever sinking feeling he can’t put his finger on. there are days where he appreciates this — inconsistencies make mourning, regret, bloodshed, all palpable.
but only just. more often he wants to see a world crystal-clear. perhaps even like elizabeth does. was. her naivety has been on the slide, rose-tinted glasses turning ever so jade. this is his doing. tells himself he’ll live with it; he’s been living with worse.
they had made their way to the good time club; if a sense of humor decides to rise up in him, he’ll say it’s been anything but. booker’s too tired for humor. he’s too tired for much of anything. how many of these men were sent to die by his hand? fink held a part of the senseless deaths in his own, a small part of booker won’t deny that. the rest knows it wasn’t fink’s gun shooting hot lead, leaving behind a scatter of cold men over the club’s floors.
all this death. for a god damn assessment. a bizarre test of booker’s capabilities for destruction; to be deemed worthy as the head of fink security. it’d be the pinkerton’s all over again. —- no. no, it would be worse.
regardless, they had to get chen lin. the man was their ticket out. hers. her ticket out. being together was only temporary, besides, elizabeth hates him. as she should’ve this entire trip. booker doesn’t hold it against her, he hates him as well.
every part of him aches. old bones and strained muscle; it takes all his will to make it back up the stairs. dead bodies on the floor isn’t what he wants to see at the moment. not ever. he’ll have to look into their blank eyes soon enough, for now he goes to the upstairs bar. half-collapses onto the closest stool, lets his head sink onto counter. a familiar feeling washes over him, not a GOOD one, so he forces his head to lift, lift, lift until he’s confronted with the sight of his shoes.
the boots need a good shine — military regimens snapping in his ear — mud cakes the toes and heels, blood soaks everything in-between. bright red from today’s kills. dark maroon for yesterday’s, and the days before, so on.
booker decides looking a sad drunkard at the bar beats confronting his sins, and rests his head again.
shining wouldn’t do much. in fact his entire ensemble is long past salvaging. for his mental, though, it’d help to do something normal. lack of shoe polish means it’d have to be a spit-shine. despite elizabeth seeing him go far more undignified on this expedition, he’d like to appear SOMEWHAT of a gentleman.
maybe she wouldn’t mind some discussion with a liar and a thug.
❛ elizabeth? ❜ his cheek pressed flush against the bar counter, her name comes out in a sort-of lisp. ❛ you wanna sit down? rest awhile? ❜
