IC INBOX for The Last Voyages

[magician_king]

You know what to do.

Comments

[tucky]

I get that.

[Which is very much not the same as I agree with everything you just said, because both her mindset and her approach are very different. But she sees where he's coming from, and she agrees with parts of the broad framework of it.]

Rhys wasn't even involved. I just got into a bad fight with Betelgeuse - like, really bad. And I was gonna quit doing the advocacy group thing with Rhys because all I could think about was how I didn't wanna hang around somebody who could be boyfriends with that asshole. I wasn't pissed at Rhys and I didn't blame him for anything, and I didn't actually want Betelgeuse to be, like, isolated and alone and without anybody who'd stick by him. I just felt like I didn't wanna be around him or the people who were sticking by him.

But me and Betelgeuse made peace, and I changed my mind, so--

[Shrug.]

[magician_king]

Good. They're both- you know. Like a lot of us. Damaged and weird and sometimes incredibly hurtful without meaning to be, but usually trying their best.

[He feels this with all his heart.]

Not that it'd be weird if you all just didn't fit- but good, anyways.

[tucky]

Yeah.

For me, this isn't about seeing people for who they might become, it's--

[There's a pause as she thinks.]

Alfie Solomons killed people and bombed the ship more than once, but he was still the first person to ever make me feel like I had the right to be angry about being treated wrong. Roderick was a serial killer, but I haven't ever known anyone else that I could talk to the way I could talk to him. Sylvanas killed and tortured me and I fucking hated her for it, but looking back, she was the only person back then who treated me like I was any other person instead of somebody who was in over her head and should be coddled.

[Granted, she had been in over her head, but she's currently of the mind that being thrown into the deep end had, in the long run, not been a bad thing.]

And last month, nobody helped me more than Callisto, who just--

[She smacks her palms together.]

-- she can cut right to the heart of shit sometimes, and I trusted her with things I don't think I would've trusted anybody else with. Maybe don't tell her I said that, though, 'cause she's kind of like a cat who's gonna hiss and scratch and take off if you look at her too hard.

Anyway, I don't wanna get to know people because I think someday they might be worth knowing. I wanna look for the parts that make them worth knowing even now.

[magician_king]

[Quentin just smiles- because she's right, in ways he wouldn't have been able to put into words before she said it.]

Hey- fun warden news for you. Callisto smacked into me hard when we were invisible, and then instead of murdering me politely helped me find my glasses where they'd fallen into a snowbank!

[tucky]

Politely?

[Definitely trying not to smile here; that's the only part of this that she questions even a little bit.]

[magician_king]

Well- non-violently, is more what I mean.

[Yeah she was cursing at him pretty much throughout.]

[tucky]

Yeah, okay; that's what I thought.

I just hope she lets people love her someday. Right now, that's the biggest wish I got.

[magician_king]

That's a nice thought.

[Glancing down.]

I haven't inventoried a single damned thing.

[tucky]

Yeah, sorry; I got you distracted. If it helps, it ain't vital right now.

[magician_king]

Good, because I'm about to do a really bad job.

[He predicts, with an outright laugh.]

But I am feeling better.

[tucky]

Me, too. Sorry I started talking about my own shit so much.

[magician_king]

No, I needed it. It took my mind off it.

[He says, reassuringly.]

Thanks, Tiffany.

[major_rawne]

[It was a long day, but Rawne turned up for dinner anyway. He's not going to miss that. He is nodding off afterwards, though. The couch is very comfortable.]

[ukan]

Lark finds him one midday, but instead of his usual smile-nod-hello, he is serious. "Can I talk to you about the maintenance shift?"

[magician_king]

Quentin glances up to Lark, and smiles at the sight of him.

"Sure. What's up?"

[magician_king]

[Quentin notices, and sets a throw blanket over him.

Thinking to himself as he does, they're really going to need a second guest room.]

[ukan]

He has a speech ready. But this is Quentin, who he can be frank and honest with. It's startling sometimes to remember that, to let himself lose all his careful words.

"Steve Rogers fucked up terribly," he says, because he knows better than most. "But it was years ago. And he still feels unwelcome doing jobs on the Barge outside the kitchen. He wants to help out. I think he wants to prove he has learned, but he's convinced he's still banned from maintenance or custodial work."

[major_rawne]

[Rawne sleeps well on the couch, though it takes him a few minutes to realize where he is when he wakes up. He yawns and blinks at the light. His hair has somehow become a worse bed-head than usual.]

[magician_king]

"Oh my god, no, I don't care, I'd be happy to have him on maintenance. He'd be on my shift is the only thing- we're a little awkward around each other sometimes what with the- everything. But that's ninety percent my fault and not his."

Straightening the rest of the way up.

"Tell him I'd offer to trade him for Fives except I can't, because his other maintenance co-inmate is Rawne, who's my inmate, so I deliberately am stationing him with a different warden than me and don't want to take him on for day to day work stuff. So he's kind of inadvertently stuck with me, therefore, as shift lead. But I would be super happy to have him. Or- maybe don't make this offer straight up because it'd fucking suck, but if he really wants maintenance and feels weird about me I'd retire and do something else and find a different supervisor who could work with him. But I would like that to be a last case scenario because I love my job. I just- you know, value inmate health and development more than my day to day comfort." But, drumming his pen on the table; "In the meantime, propose me as an option, but also pitch him Wet Works? Billy Butcher heads that. He's a maintenance alum so he's taken on more of the plumbing than the job used to entail, that could be up Steve's alley?"

[ukan]

He'd known that Quentin wouldn't hold a grudge, but it's still a massive relief to hear it. "My opinion, as his friend, is that he'd be better off working with you. He's avoided so much of the pain he caused, Quentin...I don't think he even realizes that it's possible to move past it. But yeah, I'll let him know all the options. I'm just nervous he'll shy away because it's me and he knows I've forgiven him, you know? He's done that when I've tried to reassure him he's not public enemy number one anymore."

[magician_king]

The door to the kitchen is moving, and Quentin is working inside. There are the sound of dishes, the sounds of steps, of Quentin talking to himself under his breath.

[magician_king]

"Okay. I'll leave it to you. To him. I'll be here."

He says, drumming his pen again and smiling.

"Let me know how it turns out? Especially if you need me to do something."

[major_rawne]

Rawne gets up, pulling the blanket around himself like a cape. He pushes through the door to the kitchen.

"What's breakfast?"

[magician_king]

"Toad in a hole."

Says Quentin, cheerfully. It's not what it sounds like.

"Pull up a seat, help yourself to coffee."

[major_rawne]

"Toad in a what?" He gets a cup of coffee and sits down, blanket still around his shoulders. When he doesn't have to be, he's not a morning person. At all.