littlebattles | IC contact for lastvoyages

[When June hears his voice, she acts on instinct: she tosses her communicator away from her like it's a small, biting animal, then throws one of her shawls on top of it for good measure, muffling the sound. She leaves the room. She doesn't listen. She doesn't want to hear.

She comes back to it an hour or so later, armed with rationalizations, and this time she does listen - not out of a desire to face what she's done, but because, she tells herself, what she did doesn't really matter. He's back, isn't he? He's alive. He's not a mindless, transformed creature. No harm done. And if this is a more fragile rationalization than usual, one so, so easily disproved by her own traumatizing first-hand experience with turning and mindlessness and subsequent death, that's fine, because she can lock those feelings away in a box for the duration of this conversation. And when she needs to bring them back out, it'll be William's words that'll get locked away in their place - all the conflicting details of this story carefully compartmentalized and never allowed to comingle. It's fine. She can make it work. It's fine.

But still, when she finally responds, her voice is strained.]

We couldn't have. I'm not a fighter, and you-- you had a knife, William. You're a murderer. You had a better chance of defending yourself than I did. If you think you can pin any of this on me--

[ He listens, sits for a minute or two with the communicator in his lap. She has her facts all lined up. It's a relief, in a way—being told you're a murderer. I'm not. Like he's some separate species. He doesn't disagree. ]

She bit someone else. After—me and you. [ Maybe she looked on the network, but knowing her as he does—barely—he assumes not. ] I won't tell you he's a good man, but he didn't deserve that.

[ His voice dips. ] I know you were just trying to do your fucking laundry. But we have to be here for each other. Nobody else is gonna do it.

That sounds to me like a good argument for why we should look after ourselves, not each other.

Most inmates would have done exactly what I did. Plenty of them would have done worse.

Your time as a mindless [ his voice goes tight; he skips past the word ] hasn't given you cause to reconsider?

We're not talking about them, all right? What they might've done. This is about you and what you did. If you think I deserve to die, if that's really what was going through your head...I understand.

But I want you to say it.

[Yes, that's why I did it. You deserved it. It should be easy to say. She rehearses the words in her head, hearing them in her voice, smooth and confident and certain.

She remembers him stepping forward to help, when he could have just kept walking.

She cuts the feed instead, letting out a quiet moan as she buries her face in her hands.]

Two minutes later:

What's your room number?

[She sees the reply about an hour after it comes in, and she stares at it for a while, confused and dazed and just a slight bit perturbed.

She doesn't answer.]

I'm gonna consult with that warden of yours. Mine's 811.

Edited 2021-10-05 13:10 (UTC)

You didn't even try to talk to him.

8th floor common room, stern side. I'm not coming to your cabin and I don't want you in mine.

You know how I feel about that guy. [ And he'd wanted to scare her. He can't quite bring himself to regret it.

He's there before the agreed-upon time—in the hopes of getting himself situated, prolonging whatever she has in mind past a biting remark and an averted glance. Unless she's early as well, she'll find him seated on the couch, his hat on the coffee table. He's reading a flimsy little book that'll buy her a few extra seconds before he notices her. ]

[June would like to be early. She plans on it, even. But she ends up arriving almost fifteen minutes late, owing to the time she'd spent pacing her cabin, psyching herself up and resisting the urge to just not go at all.]

I was a con artist at home.

[She says, when he looks up and notices her hovering in the common room doorway.]

I didn't kill people, or even hurt them physically; I just stole their money. Most of the time, I never even had to see their faces.

[ He tucks away the book. Time moves like a skipped stone while he's reading, but he has the sense she's late—that he's lingered too long in the collection of poems. He nods to one of the armchairs: have a seat.

His expression, for the moment, is watchful. His gaze glued to her. ] What'd you do with all that money?

What everybody does when they have money. I bought nice clothes; nice accessories. I bought a boat. And then I ran out.

[She leans her shoulder against the doorframe, looking past him, gaze unfocused.]

When are you from? The nineteeth century?

[ William rolls his eyes—not extravagantly, but noticeably—at mention of her boat, cast for a moment back to a dinner party. Any dinner party. He looks her over again, something in him hardening toward her, considers her choice of words: con artist.

Not thief. Not a lowly grifter. ]

Twenty-first. [ He says—patient and seemingly unselfconscious. His gaze does not stray to his hat, his boots, the sleeve of his painstakingly accurate nineteenth-century shirt. ] You should sit down.

I'm fine.

[She's not exactly expecting an attack, but all the same, she feels more comfortable on her feet and by the exit.]

What's the cosplay about?

[ For a long second he looks at her blank-faced, betraying nothing. Cosplay.

His mouth sets. ] It's bespoke. [ He says, plucking absently at his jacket cuff. He thinks of all the blood it's soaked up, of men who clutched at his boots and begged. ] To things I did. Choices.

Are you stalling? [ It's asked gently. ]

[It sounds like bullshit, but so does everything that happens on the Barge, and pretending to be a couple hundred years ahead of ones own time would be such a stupid, pointless thing to lie about. She decides to assume he's telling the truth. It's not as if it matters anyway.]

I've just always wondered, that's all.

Do you want to hear all about how bad I feel? The guilt?

[She can't imagine that mattering, either.]

IC contact for lastvoyages

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audio; THIS IS NOT ME ENDING THE THREAD next tag will be her finding him in person

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text; about a day later

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