TLV: IC Inbox

[lestercraft]

"This is Arthur Lester. I'm not available right now, but do leave a message and I'll find the time. A-a voice message, please."

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[OOC: Please note Arthur is blind, so audio format is strongly ICly preferred, but by God don't let that stop you]

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[lestercraft]

The growl sounds a bit too off from human not to send an unpleasant thrill down Arthur's spine, and he finishes his own in one hit to shake the feeling off.

"Congratulations, you got manipulated. Explain to me how that's your fucking fault," he bites back flatly.

[epistemological]

That makes him blink.

Then he just stares at Arthur.

And finally he starts laughing. Not at Arthur. Just letting out the sick, sad, awful feeling inside in a way that isn't crying, because that's not happening. Not here, not to Arthur, not in public. No way no how.

When he can speak.

"Oh, Dorian's a rat bastard, make no mistake, but I don't think- no, no, if he was going to be manipulative, he wouldn't have been so bloody bad at it."

[lestercraft]

The silence goes on long enough that Arthur, who is altogether too many drinks in at this point, turns his face away slightly to let the silence and his buzz take him.

So when Jon laughs, unexpectedly, Arthur startles a fraction on his way back to attention - and immediately recognises that particular laugh for what it is. God knows it's come out of his own mouth enough times.

"Alright then, so." He lifts his drink, realises it's empty a little late, and abandons the cup on the table so he can gesture with his hand. "Either he's, he's-- he's a dogshit manipulator and he brute forced you into it because- 'cos he's a fucking wanker. Or- he's better than we give him credit for, 'cos he always gets what he wants," he mimics in a scathing tone.

His hand reaches for the bottle, finding it shortly. "But at the end of the day, he got you into a position where it was easier to say yes than deal with being harangued by it. Er-fucking-go." He tilts the bottle as he shrugs, and takes a swig.

[epistemological]

"Were you making fun of me or him there?" Comes the quick question before huffing out a less-sickly laugh as he finishes his own. He decides then to go get another bottle.

Before it's difficult to get up to get it.

"I'm coming right back."

[lestercraft]

"If you're having fun forcing the shoe to fit, who am I to stop you?" he asks with an ironic cheer.

And their first bottle will be empty too, by the time Jon gets back. And Arthur is starting to smell much more lived-in with his alcohol.

[epistemological]

"Fuck you, Lester," said as he walks up, and he'll return with the next bottle.

"So were you going to start in on what's up your arse, or just let me rant and heckle all the while?"

[lestercraft]

Oh joy. Christ, he was happier arguing about why Sims deserved happiness than detailing his own issues and the reason he's here to begin with. Especially this far drunk.

"John and I had... we had an argument," he says, and even as he does he knows how lame and incomplete it sounds. The lines might as well be the railings on a highway with how open they are to interpretation. "About something I am very much not comfortable discussing."

[epistemological]

"I know I'm supposed to go 'ooooo, trouble in Paradise' but that always struck me as a bit shit," he says amiably enough. "And you don't have to tell me why. But you should get out how unreasonable and unfair he's being. Go on about shitty things he said or something. It's your universe-given right."

[lestercraft]

He lifts his hand and runs down his jaw, feeling the bristling threat of stubble not yet visible.

"That's the fucking problem," he mutters, almost more to himself than Jon. "He was so-- so fucking reasonable about it. I'm the one who's being a bastard for not being a decent goddamn warden to help him."

[epistemological]

"'Reasonable'? How dare he. Honestly."

A little mocking, but only a little. There's a thread of sincerity in it, that that is sometimes the worst: when someone is being reasonable and your paranoid/panic brain cannot even handle the idea of being 'reasonable' about something.

"Everyone's got things they're a bastard about. Or something that's too fresh or too- to something. Don't be too hard on yourself."