Anya Lehnsherr | Earth 97400 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fridgetothefire) wrote2014-02-17 08:14 pm
fridgetothefire) wrote2014-02-17 08:14 pm
041 ☣ something for everyone
[Filtered to graduates/wardens who were once inmates]
What did you sacrifice, to graduate?
Someone asked me recently, and I didn't have an answer. I'm wondering if that's strange.
[Filtered to wardens who were never inmates.]
Do any of you feel trapped here? Or have you, in the past, because you needed your deal so badly? It just - it seems like a much more important distinction, in some ways, between wardens and inmates, than being able to get a drink without asking someone to buzz you in first, that we can walk away and they can't.
But I'm not sure it's that straightforward.
[Filtered to inmates]
How many of you want to change? Not to graduate, that's a very different question, and not necessarily into - whoever the admiral wants you to be. Just change, in general.
Do you want to be different than you are, in any way, or not?
[Private to the Admiral]
[Wryly, amiably.]
I don't suppose you'll tell me what you're getting out of all this.
[Spam for Harvey]
[For a long time, she practiced in private. In Bruce's room, in Cass's. She'd work with Natasha or Sokolov or Bea in the gym, because that's where they were, but when she was on her own, without the clear label of 'student' hanging over her, she'd do it with a yoga mat and a locking door. Old paranoid habits, needing to be underestimated. She's realized, lately, how much more convenient the gym is, has been gradually trying to acclimate herself to working through drills under anyone else's eyes. She's there now, moving through forms and combinations Bruce taught her, counting out her breaths. Her lungs are - compensating, slowly, better than they were, even if she'll never quite hit the same caliber of athleticism that she might have otherwise. It feels good, not just to push herself, but to know she's going somewhere.]
[Private to Abigail; wibbly timed to after their conversations with Ben.]
I told you once that I was being as straightforward with you as I knew how to be. In the interest of resurrecting that - this scares me. Not what Ben's doing, me and you.
But I will do everything in my power to take care of both of you, as much as you need.
What did you sacrifice, to graduate?
Someone asked me recently, and I didn't have an answer. I'm wondering if that's strange.
[Filtered to wardens who were never inmates.]
Do any of you feel trapped here? Or have you, in the past, because you needed your deal so badly? It just - it seems like a much more important distinction, in some ways, between wardens and inmates, than being able to get a drink without asking someone to buzz you in first, that we can walk away and they can't.
But I'm not sure it's that straightforward.
[Filtered to inmates]
How many of you want to change? Not to graduate, that's a very different question, and not necessarily into - whoever the admiral wants you to be. Just change, in general.
Do you want to be different than you are, in any way, or not?
[Private to the Admiral]
[Wryly, amiably.]
I don't suppose you'll tell me what you're getting out of all this.
[Spam for Harvey]
[For a long time, she practiced in private. In Bruce's room, in Cass's. She'd work with Natasha or Sokolov or Bea in the gym, because that's where they were, but when she was on her own, without the clear label of 'student' hanging over her, she'd do it with a yoga mat and a locking door. Old paranoid habits, needing to be underestimated. She's realized, lately, how much more convenient the gym is, has been gradually trying to acclimate herself to working through drills under anyone else's eyes. She's there now, moving through forms and combinations Bruce taught her, counting out her breaths. Her lungs are - compensating, slowly, better than they were, even if she'll never quite hit the same caliber of athleticism that she might have otherwise. It feels good, not just to push herself, but to know she's going somewhere.]
[Private to Abigail; wibbly timed to after their conversations with Ben.]
I told you once that I was being as straightforward with you as I knew how to be. In the interest of resurrecting that - this scares me. Not what Ben's doing, me and you.
But I will do everything in my power to take care of both of you, as much as you need.
[video]
[Her first real friend was murderer Batman. She doesn't consider this a bad thing.]
[video]
[video]
I think maybe that's important. That a lot of us can empathize against the barge, that part of it.
[video]
I 'ope you're right. That I'm not just being a hypocrite. 'Cause I really love this boat.
[video]
And loving things with all their flaws - that's one of your greatest strengths. I don't think something like that just stops with people.
[video]
I 'adn't quite looked at it that way. No wonder you're so valuable in Maintenance and Repair, lovey. Nails 'it square on their 'eads every time.
[video]
We've all got really different strengths. The Admiral's careless about a lot of things, but not that, I'm pretty sure.
[video]
Flaws, too. Those are what makes everything interesting. They're not a thing to love in spite of. They're a thing to love. Try too 'ard for flawless and you end up with Cybermen, and those aren't fun for any bugger.
[video]
I do think it's about setting people free, in the end. Not that that - justifies anything, any more than 'they'd be dead otherwise' justifies it, not some of the things that happpen here.
But someone like Harvey. Or Junko. They're trapped in something a lot worse than a place.
[video]
If 'e disappears on me, so help me, I'm going after 'im. Causality be buggered.
[video]
[Solid, almost vicious. She's not sure she'd rescue Junko, if she had the means - she's not sure she could save Junko, even if she plucked her out of death - but Harvey's different altogether.]
Stubborn bastard. He's so much more than he thinks he is, you know?
[She doesn't say anything about what he deserves; she knows she can't be rational about it. But fuck justice, anyway. He's her friend.]
[video/private now]
[There are the tears. She wipes them impatiently, swiftly away with the back of her hand, and adds no more words, but she gazes back at Anya pleadingly. Do something. Fix it.]
[video/private now]
[Quiet, and she doesn't tear up, but there's a soft, taut quaver to it. She remembers, vivid and visceral, the way he felt finding his counselor's body, the crashing inevitable sense of the price must be paid. The coin in collusion with the world.]
But - shown. Maybe that. He'll show himself, if he gets the chance. And this place is all chances.
[video/private now]
[It's as though she shrinks, physically and dramatically. Iris is a small woman, but she habitually carries herself largely; when she crumples inwards, her face falling into her hands, it's a startling contrast. When she speaks again, her voice is thick with tears.]
I tried and I've done nowt but make it worse. I should step right back and leave 'im alone, and I don't want to and honestly, neither does 'e. We're both a bit stupid that way. I wish shooting me 'ad 'elped. I wish doing it again would 'elp. 'As 'e talked to you about it, at all?
[video/private now]
I'm sorry. I've finally gotten him to stop pushing me away. It makes me pry less. Maybe I should have.
What happened in the memory flood?
[video/private now]
We didn't like each other. We still don't, much, that's the bugger of it. 'E caught some of me memories in that flood - Babs and me rescuing 'er cat, as it 'appens - and 'e got curious. Asked 'ow deep I could go into 'is mind. Offered it up to me.
[She fishes for a handkerchief - it's a turquoise lace one with B.S.S. embroidered in a corner and it has several phone numbers scribbled on it - and dabs her eyes as a cover for the moment she takes to linger on that memory, to gather herself for the next part.]
...We were doing all right after that. That's the worst part. We got up each other's noses so much and we were enjoying it. Then we 'ad the Mirrorverse breach.
[She looks back at Anya, trying to gauge how much of that story she needs to fill in; that, and whether she has any right to. Whether declining would be honour or cowardice.]
[video/private now]
Ah. That one.
[Sad and knowing; she knows how that one lingers. Anya did her own damage there. Dean still loves her, which makes it easier, but it doesn't undo what she did to him. And it doesn't unmake the cold, proud part of Anya that still thinks, in the dead of night - a few more months, and I'd have had him. She still doesn't know where she stands with Abigail.
She knows some of what went on, the quickly suppressed panic in Harvey's eyes each time he didn't understand what was going on, didn't remember one of Cassel's capricious rules, felt himself lurching with holes. Cassel didn't notice - egotistical enough to assume Harvey's panic was always for him, and not so attentive to the details as Anya was. She remembers Bianca, too, like an obsidian knife, sleek and glittering, nails light on her cheek.]
We weren't very concerned about offers, over there.
[video/private now]
There you go with nails on 'eads again. I just. What the 'eck do I do with that? I'd tear me livers out to make it right. And I don't think I can. I mean - [She waves her hand - not the liver, she could totally do that.]
I mean some wrongs can't be righted.
[video/private now]
I have found it useful. To think of mending and atoning as entirely seperate activities, one of which is a great deal more finite and - definable, than the other. One of which is personal to you, and one of which is not. Not that I know how to mend him. He needs - oh, to be secure in himself. That's not something you can repair, and revenge can't either. But I do believe it can be done.
Do you like Dostoyevsky, Iris? I can't guess.
[The compassion and the polyphony would appeal, she thinks; the religious themes, the mournful perspective and that inimitible Russian style somewhat less.]
[video/private now]
I miss 'im.
[She seizes the subject change with alacrity, if not actual enthusiasm.]
...I knew 'im for a while. Before Siberia. Always meant to get around to reading 'is books.
[video/private now]
There's a...theme, in Crime and Punishment. As soon as Raskalnikov commits the murder, everything goes wrong for him. Not just...arbitrarily, allegorically, not because the universe cares. Because he cannot stop thinking about it and worrying about it, because he does things to try to hide, or escape, because everything escalates, because of self-fulfilling prophecies and human fear and the weight of things on a soul. He ruins his own life. He is a murderer. The punishment is the crime.
Bleak. But - I always found it comforting, in a strange way. That it suits.
I don't know what I'd do if I had to live in the same building with my sister, after the things I did to her, now that I can remember to myself I love her. I hurt Abigail badly, that flood. Now Ben needs me to help her and I'm terrified. I used to want so badly to be her friend, and now I just - don't want to do any more damage. What a pathetic ambition is that?
I'm not. Entirely sure where I'm going with this. Except - maybe all you can do right now is continue to not be her. He certainly looks at the world like it's allegory, sometimes. Like everything has to be proof on one side of the scale or the other. Maybe I need to face it and you need to back off and that's how we suffer with what we've done, or maybe we both need better...balance.
But I can't believe it's good for him to have friends let go, even if it's wrecked right now. A man doesn't push people away the way he tries to unless he believes they'll always go, and he needs that disproven too. He needs to know not everyone is Bruce, lying and holding back. You're a lot better for him than me, on that score. Things might need to shake loose, before he can get any good out of it again. But I do think they have to, sooner or later. That's the only thing the worst of the barge is good for.