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

[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.

[fridgetothefire]

[She makes a face, like - ew, that.]

My father said it was all for my protection, too. It's a racket, it's a delusion, it lets them be so awful and never even consider they could be wrong.

[patheticvillain]

You make a lot of generalizations.

[fridgetothefire]

So tell me I'm wrong. Tell me it wasn't another axiom of life that kept you trapped.

[patheticvillain]

I can't tell you you're wrong. But then again, she kept me alive.

[Something in his expression flickers, then, because that's more or less exactly what Barron had said to him. Whose excuses is he making right now? Whose words are in his mouth?]

I can't know what she was thinking when she did it. I can't ever know that.

[fridgetothefire]

It doesn't really matter what they were thinking.

[She's gone a little quieter, less belligerent but even more certain, withdrawn a little into the core of herself.]

My father kept me alive, too. It's something, I'll grant them that. But it's not enough.

[patheticvillain]

Then what's enough?

[It doesn't come out how he wanted; it comes out desperate, demanding, hungry. He wants answers more than he wants anything else, other than to be, above all, useful. He wants that, but he wants the truth, too.]

[fridgetothefire]

If you love something, set it free?

[It's sheepish, painfully awkward, the awful sappiness of it declared and self-deprecating, front and center.]

I don't know how to say it concisely and sound any less dumb. But I know it when I get it. Bruce cared for me without controlling me or shutting me away. Other people here would too.

[patheticvillain]

[He thinks, briefly, painfully, rebelliously, of Barbara, and frowns. What comes next is a mantra, so important that he has to say it over and over.]

Blood is blood. Blood's blood.

[Twice more, and then he stops, with a crooked, self-defensive smile.]

Why do I keep saying that?

[fridgetothefire]

Blood is mostly water, actually.

I dunno, it does sound a little creepy-brainwashy.

[patheticvillain]

You could be brainwashing me, too. With brownies. I'm just saying.

[fridgetothefire]

Please. If I were brainwashing you, you'd have more sense.

[patheticvillain]

You'd probably do it more subtly than by drugging me first thing, too. Right?

[fridgetothefire]

Honestly, my style was more manipulating people into doing things that deep down they were always willing to do. Brainwashing is less reliable than using the motivations that are already there.

Beat this.

[She hands him a whisk.]

[patheticvillain]

Allegedly, it was about half that anyway. Well, allegedly it was all that. Maybe there was brainwashing too.

[He takes that whisk and beats the shit out of those eggs.]