multiversallogs | She's the kind of girl who looks for love in all the loney places

Who: Stephanie Brown and Megan Gwynn
What: Steph in mom mode
Where: Megan's apartment
When: Early afternoon sometime in the week after Steph's conversation with Jae
Notes: None.
Warnings: sexual assault, rape culture, victim blaming, drug use, disordered eating (copy/pasted from Megan's earlier log in case any of them come up)

It takes her a little while after running into Jae to get sorted for going to see Megan. As far as Steph knows, Megan is sick, feeling a little run down, and Jae had agreed with Steph that a visit might be a good idea. She'd gotten a little sidetracked by sorting out her apartment, but eventually she finds time to make up a batch of chicken soup and buy some basic groceries - she has no idea if Megan's up to doing her own shopping - then she hops on the train to Lich Setting, and walks the rest of the way to Megan's apartment in Howl Barrow.

As she steps up to the front door with the bag of groceries, she wonders whether she should've called first, and whether or not this whole thing is appropriate in the first place. Megan and her have only met once in person and once on the network, but, well, Baedal seems to sort of place where friendships are made fast. Shared traumatic experiences tend to do that. The added bonus of being trapped in a city makes Baedal even better for enabling the sort of friendships that tend to involve a lot of caring for each other while barely knowing each other. As for calling... well, Megan hadn't answered her last texts, so Steph doubts she'd answer any new ones. And Megan can always tell her to leave if she doesn't want her there.

Her doubts assuaged, Steph knocks firmly on the door.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I should have known better." It sounds stupid, even saying it -- there are things she knows objectively aren't true, that she had no way of knowing that this would happen. Who could possibly predict this? It's not really about thoughts so much as feelings -- she feels like she did something wrong, that if she had just followed the Rules, it wouldn't have happened.

The problem is that the game is rigged. They don't tell you what the Rules are, and by the time you've got most of them figured out, you realise you can't follow all of them all the time, anyway.

"It's fine, I'm dealing with it." Yes... 'dealing with it'. Clearly she's doing a super good job of that, what with the abundance of alcohol in her flat and the drugs she can't stop doing.

"How were you supposed to know what he'd do to you?" There's the obvious analogy between what Hilmi has and STIs, but Steph actually has no idea a) if Megan used protection, or b) if condoms actually work against magical addictive dicks.

"You don't really look like you are." Sometimes honesty is the best way to deal with situations, and Steph feels like it's necessary now. Megan looks like shit, and she doubts repressing it will make things better.

"Guys are assholes. They usually pull something." She sounds resigned, not genuinely angry or even upset about that -- in her world, that's just one of those facts of life. Humans hate everything different. Grass is usually green. Guys will do whatever they think they can get away with.

Glancing around her apartment -- she really should clean it up, maybe next time she's up, she'll get around to picking up instead of pacing and manically calling everyone on her contact list -- she shrugs. "It's better than it was last week. It'll be better next week." Until she hits normal again.

"That's their fault, not yours." She doesn't know if she'll be able to make Megan believe it, but she's gonna keep saying it anyway.

"I don't mean the apartment. You look exhausted," she's really thinking that Megan looks like shit, but that's a bit harsher than is necessary. Steph really wants to beat the crap outta Hilmi for doing this.

"That's what I meant, yeah." This time she stubs out her cigarette for good -- it's barely more than a butt, she has more -- and turns, her legs dangling over the arm of the couch. She could sit like a normal person, but where's the fun in that? (Also, wings...)

"Do you want anything? A drink or something? I've got..." She pauses, gazing vaguely in the direction of the kitchen. Steph probably does not want a beer. Nor does she probably want a mimosa. Megan would like a mimosa, but fuck, effort. "Pop, I think. Juice at least." The subject change is not her most graceful, not that they ever are, but that's about all she feels up to talking about on that for now.

"POP would be good," she doesn't want to drink the juice she bought, one of them needs more vitamins in their diet and its not her.

She goes with the subject change, not wanting to upset Megan by saying more. Except then she's not sure what else to say. Normal chit chat seems kind of... weird after having the conversation they just did. She wonders if asking about the wings is impolite -- she's curious, but well aware its really none of her business.

"I nearly got a place in Howl Barrow, after seeing your part of the neighborhood," so that's still a little like chit chat, but its the best she's got, "It's a shame its a little too far out."

Megan pushes herself off the couch and walks -- a little unsteadily, she's still hungover -- into the kitchen, where she roots around for a bottle of pop. The ones they make in Baedal are nice, they use real sugar, not high fructose corn syrup like they do at home. As an afterthought, she gets herself one, too. It's got sugar and caffeine, that's good for you, right?

"It's nice... I like it a lot." It's also a much safer topic than her feelings or anything else that personal, and she seems to stir a bit, becoming more animated. "It'd be nice if it were closer downtown but um... I dunno. People're nice. There's lots to do." It is awfully close to the Spatters, though -- not that she's ever been down that far.

"Yeah, the commute was a little too long for my tastes," Skulkford - where she's planning to go - isn't that much closer, but every minutes of sleep counts when she doesn't get home 'till 4am, "And Skulkford's cheaper, which helps."

"I've not been there -- I heard they raise the prices if you've been there a while? It's a good starter, anyway, I think --" It's not unusual for people to move to a better place after they've been established in Baedal a while and the immediacy of oh god I need a roof over my head right-stat-now has settled down.

She brings them both glasses of pop and sits down with Steph, which, while it's clear that she's a little uncomfortable still, she does eventually chill out. It's like she's been waiting the whole time to be accused of something and when she figures out it isn't going to happen, a weight lifts off her shoulders. She's not used to talking to other girls her age, she's usually surrounded by men, especially not when she's not doing her manic pixie dream girl routine, so this is sort of a first for her, really. She might even eat something eventually.

She's the kind of girl who looks for love in all the loney places

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