016 ☣ Some private video messages

[fridgetothefire]

[Private to Cassel]

Okay, now that I can carry and pour things, let's do this. You, me, cooking sherry and an insane amount of chocolate. Cabin 4-20.


[Private to Junko]

You know, you should give me a makeover.


[Private to Pietro]

Let's talk. Tell me you're not busy.

Comments

it does and i don't know what to make of it

[patheticvillain]

[The cape is - he raises his eyebrows at that more than at the scars.]

The cape's a little dramatic for you, but you know, whatever, that's fine.

[He brushes past her into the room.]

If we're going to kill people with cookies, can I make a list of first victims?

Re: it does and i don't know what to make of it

[fridgetothefire]

My cape is great, you're just jealous. It was my father's until I killed him, it's like a trophy I can wear.

[She doesn't say it particularly pompously, all devil-may-care frankness, but she does toss the excess over her shoulder.]

And sure, knock yourself out.

[patheticvillain]

I'm really not jealous. There's blood on it. Have you never heard of dry-cleaning?

[He glances around, looking, honestly, for the sherry.]

Cool. I have ideas. Can we get drunk now?

[fridgetothefire]

I like it bloody!

[She laughs, and gets it out of the small, 20s-era ice box - most of the other ingredients are already piled on the countertops - and passes it over.]

So what prompted the pressing need for booze?

[patheticvillain]

That's disgusting. [But you know, you do you, Anya. You do you. He pours a small glass, considers it, pours some more. Can't even.]

People from here mixing with people from home gives me a headache and a need for a worse one. Plus in the last couple of days I disowned my entire past life and now have no idea what the hell I'm doing for the next - ever.

What're we making? Brownies?

[fridgetothefire]

Were you happy?

[She's guessing not, because of the whole disowning thing, and also Cassel, but there are other possible reasons, so she asks.]

And yeah, I'm thinking brownies with centimeter-thick fudge based icing.

[She flips through some index cards with handwriten partial recipes on them in neat blue ink, and hands Cassel one for the wet bowl.]

You take this one? I still don't have the dexterity back to crack eggs neatly.

[patheticvillain]

No. I guess not. Probably not. I don't think so. It doesn't matter, though.

[He takes the card, scrutinizes it, and reaches for the eggs.]

Centimeter and a half.

[fridgetothefire]

What else matters?

[It sounds a little sociopathic, and it isn't really. It's...humanist, almost utilitarian. Happiness matters, not just hers, or his.]

I agree to to these terms.

[patheticvillain]

Being alive. Which, you might have noticed, we both failed at, so. Other than that, I don't know.

[He cracks an egg pretty viciously into the bowl.]

[fridgetothefire]

And now we're functionally immortal, some restrictions apply.

[She mimics the tone of a contest commercial, has a dazed moment of trying to remember where on earth that was from before placing it as a residual memory from bargewell.]

So maybe it's time.

[patheticvillain]

[He glances at her, holding the broken eggshell in his hand for a moment before discarding it. It's probably symbolic of something, but for once he finds he doesn't give a shit.]

Time for what?

[fridgetothefire]

Figuring out what we need from the rest of ever to be happy.

[patheticvillain]

Oh. What, you don't think that we're supposed to put on our hero tights and go save the world?

[His warden is an actual superhero. He's a little weirded out.]

[fridgetothefire]

[She crackles with laughter.]

Forget tights. This is not a hero's cape.

[patheticvillain]

So what, then? What's the plan?

[fridgetothefire]

Well, I like it here. You should maybe start taking notes when we stop off in non-soul-eating worlds, you're kind of getting a free interdimensional sampler platter here.

[patheticvillain]

I like it here too. How do you know I'm not taking notes? I take plenty of notes. That's all I do all the time, is take notes.

[fridgetothefire]

So what's the problem?

[She sets a little pot full of chocolate chips in a larger pot of water on the burner to melt them without burning, then pours the extra chocolate into a bowl for grazing purposes and offers him some.]

You disowned a life that made you miserable. Now you've got something better, albeit interspersed with terror, and a chance at better.

[patheticvillain]

[He looks at the chocolate chips suspiciously, then shrugs and takes a handful.]

It's not right to push family away. No matter how shit they are.

[fridgetothefire]

Horseshit.

[Cassel that's stupid and she feels stupider for hearing you say it.]

Family is as family does, the same as everything else.

[patheticvillain]

Says you. That's not what I learned.

[fridgetothefire]

Even Hitler had a mom, Cassel. Every person who's ever lived had some kind of family. Some people don't deserve loyalty. Some poeple don't deserve anything. 'No matter how shit they are' is a really, really high bar.

Quad erat demonstrandum, you're wrong.

[patheticvillain]

[He rattles the remaining chocolate chips in the palm of his hand, pursing his lips. He's trying to think of a way to explain what he means, but even being forced to tell the truth doesn't help if he has no idea what the truth actually is.]

[Finally he gives up and just repeats himself.]

That's not what I learned, is all.

[Logic doesn't apply to brainwashing, unfortunately.]

[fridgetothefire]

Who taught it to you? And why?

[Ulterior motives are kind of his thing. Maybe that'll be an easier way to think about it. She grates some nutmeg over the dry bowl.]

[patheticvillain]

My mom. And - safety. [He tilts his head.] Hers or ours. I don't know.