xp_logs | Hope and Topaz; Amanda and Topaz || Sunday Night

Hope's homecoming is less happy and more anger-filled when she finds out what her suitemate has been up to in her absence.

"Topaz?" Hope frowned as she came into their suite, staring a little at seeing her friend sitting in the semi-darkness. Quickly popping her suitcase near the wall, she approached the couch and frowned even more when her friend didn't quite react. "Topaz? Are you alright?"

The semi-darkness was a good cover, at least - Topaz shoved away the bottle quickly, hiding it under a throw pillow. "Hey, look who's back." She grabbed her glass, draining the amber liquid and pushing herself up to go fill it with water instead. "Have fun in Switzerland?"

"I did. Learned quite a lot as well." Hope replied rather absently as she followed her friends actions. What in the world was she up to? "How has the mansion been? I hope everything is still in one piece and the medlab remained quiet?" Sitting down on the couch, she pulled away the throw pillow and frowned even more.

"Well the world didn't end so I guess that's somethin'." She finished pouring her water and turned to see Hope finding her bottle. Oh that was just brilliant. "Don't start." Her voice was flat.

"I am just surprised you can actually drink this." Hope commented dryly as she hefted the bottle of whiskey. "I have heard it tastes like drain cleaner and various other non-appetizing appellations. Should I give it a try as well?"

"No, it's disgustin'." Topaz crossed the room in a couple quick strides, grabbing the bottle from Hope. "But it works better than wine."

"Must be good for something though." Hope grabbed the bottle back and unscrewed the lid, sniffing it. "Ugh, it even smells like drain cleaner. Maybe I should try some though, if it works better then the wine..." She looked around for another glass, or at least pretended to.
"Would you just shut it Hope?" Topaz snapped, yanking the bottle back again and walking away. "You run away to Switzerland, I drink. Who cares how the coping happens as long as the universe doesn't break?"

"Taking a break is something different then switching to using strong liquor." Hope grabbed her purse and pulled out her phone, flipping it open to dig up a number. "Give me one good reason I should not get on the phone with either Ms. Sefton or Marie. Wine is one thing, drain cleaner is a whole other thing."

"Leave Amanda and Rogue out of this." The young witch's voice was heated. "I'm not out bloody club hopping, I'm just sittin' on the couch. I don't plan on drivin'. No one is gettin' hurt. So who the hell cares?"

Hope lifted her hand, her phone still in it. "Me. And I bet if I call them, they will care too. Along with quite a few other people!" Pulling out her most steely look, she turned it on her friend. The look that any person in league with her mother would know it meant the 'cut direct'. "Last chance. One good reason!"

Topaz had faced murderous magic users, other dimensional putty-like beings, and the apocalypse. Hope Abbott did not scare her. "Fine. You want a reason?" Three small balls of light formed in Topaz's hand, shooting out at Hope and exploding right in front of her face. There would be no damage, of course, but resulting burst of light would leave her blind just long enough for Topaz to dart forward and snatch Hope's phone out of her hand. "There's your bloody reason."

She rubbed her eyes vigorously for a moment, as the spots disappeared in front of her eyes and just glared, ignoring the phone that had been neatly pulled from her hand. "You... what the hell do you expect me to do then? I have lost enough friends and I do not need another one to go up in flames."

"Well I don't need you take care of me," Topaz snapped, resisting the urge to throw the phone across the room. She was with it enough to know that breaking it wouldn't do any good; instead she just shoved it in her pocket. "I've got that covered, don't worry about it. Go find another table to decorate."

"Please tell me how? Because this..." Hope hefted bottle, dangling it in front of her eyes. "This doesn't seem to be a very good way of it. Hmm? So please Topaz, explain me how this is taking care of yourself. Maybe something like needing to take a break might not be that bad of an idea..."

Topaz yanked the bottle away from Hope again, storming to the sink to pour it out. "There, happy?" She asked as she watched liquid swirl down the drain. There was twenty dollars she would never get back. "Wanna stop acting like my bloody mother now?"

Hope raised her eyebrow at her and folded her arms. "I would not have to if you had used that drain cleaner for its proper purpose... to clean drains. And if you stick your head under the cold water for a while, you might actually see that for yourself."

"Oh bugger off." Topaz rolled her eyes, tossing the bottle in the trash. "I can look after myself, so do me a favor and just mind your own business."

"Okay, time for the old-fashioned way then." With those words Hope headed for the door.

Topaz didn't bother trying to stop her. She just went into her to pack a bag. She had no intentions of being here when Hope got back with whoever she was going to get.

Hope shook her head as she headed down the hallway, quickly stifling a yawn. Apparently it took a bloody stubborn English witch to deal with a bloody stubborn English witch.

Amanda finds Topaz hiding after the fight with Hope and tries to talk some sense into her. It goes...better?

The empty classroom was almost oppressively silent. Topaz was curled up in the corner, hand shaking as she tried to focus enough to write in the journal Rogue had given her. She'd switched to English for once - her head was too muddled and it was too much effort to try and remember Hindi in that moment.

English wasn't going much better for her either. She only tried for another minute before she lost her temper completely, slamming the book shut and throwing it across the room. It hit the opposite wall with a satisfying bang.

"You know," came a familiar - and not unexpected - voice from the doorway. "If you want to throw stuff, we can go down to the quarry. They've got lots of rocks there."

Topaz didn't even bother looking to the door. It'd been pretty stupid, choosing a hiding spot Amanda had told her about. "Saint Hope send you then?" There was just the lightest sneer in her voice - as clear a sign as any that she wasn't in her right mind at that moment.

"Yeah, she did." Amanda came in and navigated between the desks, stopping a metre or so away to avoid crowding the empath. "She was worried about you, so she came and got me." Pulling out a chair, she turned it around and sat on it backwards, resting her chin on the back. "To tell the truth, I'm worried too. You seem to be reaching the end of your rope a bit, kiddo."

Reaching? Tried reached. Reached and gone far past it. She'd been floating without a rope for a while now. Topaz shook her head a bit, trying to ward off the thoughts. "I'm fine," she said shortly. Truth be told, part of her really did feel bad about blowing up at Hope - sort of. A little. She'd feel worse about it later. She wanted to avoid a repeat performance with Amanda, though.

Amanda snorted. "Yeah, that's not going to work today, sorry. I've been trying not to hover and give you as much space as you need to adapt and all that, but if you start pulling that 'I'm fine' shite on me, I'm gunna have to do the concerned mentor thing and insist on taking you to the Prof. So, let's try that again." There was concern in her tone, yes, but underneath was a stubborness just as strong as Topaz's own. "What set things off?"

What set things off? That was implying she hadn't been hovering on the edge for a while already. Topaz curled up a bit, knees pulling up to her chest as she wrapped her arms around her waist, still determinedly not looking at Amanda. "Nothin'." It was the truth - more or less. There wasn't any one inciting incident. Nothing had set her off. It was just this world. This bloody, awful world. "I hate this place." The alcohol might've been making her tongue a bit looser than usual.

The older witch sighed, seeing Topaz curling in on herself. And there's fuck-all I can do about that, is there? she asked herself rhetorically. Sure, she could point out that without Xorn's duct-taping of universes together there wouldn't be any places left, to hate or otherwise, but what good would it do? "I'd hoped time would make it easier on you," she admitted at last. "But it's not, is it?"

Topaz closed her eyes for a long moment, letting the words bounce around in her head before she gave up and just said it. "Everyone that died - Clint and Matt and Sue and Billy and Megan and just....everyone...and I'm the one who bloody lives. How does that work?"

Amanda winced at the names, the memories. She'd lost students, but Topaz had lost friends. "It's just how it is, kiddo," she said, voice breaking a little. She got up and shuffled over to where her student was huddled, sliding down the wall until she was sitting next to her, knees pulled up in an echo of Topaz's own position. "Believe me, I've been asking myself the same thing, every bloody day. Why it had to be Billy and Megan, and not me. And there's no fucking answers, nothing either of us could have done different."

The fact that Topaz didn't immediately shuffle away from Amanda was something. "I was with Sue. She was right there, we were all...fightin' together, and I don't even know how she died. I was right there with her and I have no idea how it happened." Losing them all had hurt, so much, but knowing Sue had been less than five feet away...that haunted her.

How could she tell Topaz that was how it happened sometimes? That all of their lives were so fleeting, and that one day it could just all end in a snap? "You weren't meant to be fighting," she said quietly. "None of you kids. That's why I started with the Trenchcoats, to make sure none of the students would have to go through the shite I had to. But 'meant to' isn't a guarantee. I just wish I'd taught you better, all of you. Maybe more of you would have come through."

Topaz squeezed her eyes shut, letting out a shuddering breath. God she was so tired. After a moment her head slid to the side, resting lightly on Amanda's shoulder. "Could've been me," she whispered after a moment. Sue had died, after all. And she had been right there. Sometimes she wished it had been her. But she knew better than to say that out loud. "M'so tired."

"Could have been any of us, kiddo. But it wasn't. Which is both sucky and not, all at the same time." Amanda's heart ached. She wished there was something she could say, something she could do, that could take some of the weight from Topaz's shoulders. She let her cheek rest on the sleek dark head, closing her own eyes against the burning of tears. Not now. "Need the couch?" she said after a moment. "'Cause it's yours if you do."

"Yes please," Topaz said quietly. She couldn't quite fathom the thought of going back to her suite right then. She'd been completely prepared to spend the night in the empty classroom, really.

Shifting slightly, Amanda moved her arm around Topaz's shoulders and gave her a squeeze. "C'mon then," she said gently. "I'll make us both a cuppa when we get there."