lestercraft | TLV: IC Inbox

"My business partner was Asian American," he points out dryly. "If I ever had been inclined, he'd have knocked my fucking head off my shoulders about it and I'd deserve it."

Then he sighs quietly after his next sip.

"I don't know, honestly. I've recused myself from Lark's custody, I've arranged with other wardens to assist me in the interim - and it's not like I'm unaware that I overreacted, but given that it was in response to being provoked I hardly see anything to correct just yet."

Which only raises her estimation more: that he had such a partner, and that he considered him within his rights to knock him around over something like that.

"Less 'correct' and more prevent," she says mildly. "Memory is a funny thing. And it tends to fall in line with power structures, I'm sorry to say."

She sips at her coffee.

"I'd like to write up what happened in the ledger on your entry: as a witness and as someone who's kept quiet about their feelings on the matter. Make sure it stays that way for anyone new who'd be looking to work with you and not just another 'inmate acted out' story."

Edited 2024-05-06 15:31 (UTC)

He does take a second to think about it, hiding behind his mug for a moment as he weighs up the embarrassment of putting it down in writing, versus having no recorded precedent for his biased behaviour in future.

"...by all means," he eventually decides. "I'd much rather it be recorded so that people are aware of the bad blood, rather than confirm Lark's bias against me. It's not like the current witnesses will always be present."

"That's what I was thinking," she admits with some sympathy. She takes another sip of her coffee. "I'll bring the write up by later, a copy of it, anyway. I'm not giving either of you say on what I say, but he gets to see it, so do you. That work for you?"

"It does, yeah." And Saga has well and truly cemented herself as someone he can rely on, with that.

So, he's confident to tell her with a wry amusement, "I believe Mr Leickenbloom was the one who set up something similar in the Speakeasy for the inmates, a sort of warden ledger."

"And have you been having fun taking a look at what's in there?" she can't help but ask.

"Inmates are far less prudent about sharing their opinions in person to need to document them in a ledger, I've noticed by now," he says dryly. "Whereas due to the nature of temporary wardens, documenting that sort of information on ways to help the inmate is good praxis. It's a log of useful information versus a gossip rag."

"That bad, huh?" she shakes her head, sips her coffee, stares out for a moment. ~~A note goes into a folder in a file cabinet.~~

"Then again, prison gossip can tell you a lot. I heard there's a whole speakeasy, as a matter of fact?"

Arthur snickers a bit. "It's something of an open secret, really - in the same way the wardens have the conference room that inmates can't access, we have the speakeasy as our private spot to avoid wardens. Generally it's considered a matter of good form for the wardens to ignore it unless your inmate happens to get harmed there." He takes a sip so he can really emphasise the dry tone he continues with: "Ms Shaw tried to act against it shortly after her arrival, more or less demanding that we perform weapon searches on all the inmates and strip the speakeasy. The pushback was universal, especially with how many wardens we have who are former inmates."

Edited 2024-05-09 01:01 (UTC)

"She mentioned that," and she'd talked about it in terms that had alarmed Saga as well, so it's not that she doesn't see the concern. But hearing it from Arthur gives her another perspective; ultimately, it's something that exists and it's widely accepted. She's curious, but not curious enough to disturb things.

"Shaw, I mean. She was one of the first people I met here."

"I think I might have been one of the first she met here," he comments dryly. "I was still blind at the time and she refused to believe I could take care of myself unless I fucking demonstrated it in hand-to-hand and tried to assist me with grabbing something I was collecting in the library for me. It was a bit of a poor first impression, admittedly - she strikes me as something of an acquired taste."

That gets a widening of her eyes as she has to admit-

"...yeah, sounds like. Jesus." She likes Shaw. A lot. She's one of the ones she's gotten closer to. But a hand to hand assessment?

"You get everything clear once she calmed down?"

"Frankly I didn't really engage with her much after that," he admits readily. "I'm sure she's perfectly pleasant, once you get to know her, but I'll admit I didn't have the patience between working on memorising the Barge and assisting my inmate."

"As long as she isn't jumping you in the hallways..." she says wryly, which she wouldn't think Shaw would do but she also wouldn't have thought that she'd ask for trial by combat. Yeesh.

He gives a dry huff. "No, we've left each other alone since. We simply travel in different crowds. The only ones who've sought me out to cause trouble otherwise have been inmates. Collins, of course- Miss Quigley and I had a great deal of strife back in our early days, but she's... rather settled since she graduated. And Mr Strange," which comes with a slight acerbic bite, "Who has tried to exorcise John from me twice, before he had his own body."

He'll get to watch her eyes go very wide.

"You'd think someone would catch a hint the first time. Then again..."

He'd been the cause of the darkness. It certainly had a way of clouding people's sight in more ways than one.

He just flicks his eyebrows with a 'don't I fucking know it' look behind his mug as he finishes the coffee.

"He can call himself intelligent all he wants, that doesn't make him fucking clever," he comments with profound snideness. Full British Bitch about it. "He was so convinced he was right that he nearly killed us about it."

So people deciding what's best for you didn't just start when you were demoted.

"But you and John were all right in the end?"

It's hopeful, and frustrated that they were put through that.

He hums softly.

"John is... part of a being, an eldritch god, whose scope of power far outstrips anything possible in the entirety of Earth's potential. Even he couldn't separate us without causing irreparable harm, not if we weren't willing. A-and we weren't, obviously, not until John had somewhere safe to reside that wouldn't send him immediately back to- to essentially Hell, for all intents and purposes."

He makes a face. "Strange got it into his head that John was manipulating me into keeping him, that I wasn't of sound mind to make that estimation or understand my circumstances with him." He puts his mug down on one of the flat counters on the couch. "We were fine, of course, we always are. It was just a fucking painful experience."

Which makes me wonder how 'fine' you really were. Or are.

"He was in Hell?"

A pause before.

"Not... not running it or anything?
He doesn't seem the type. "

She's trying to put the pieces together from everything he's said.

"N-no, no," he chuckles softly. "John was, um- no."

It's hard to know how much he should say about John's experience - certainly he's not bringing up the second time, but their meeting surely was fair game by this point.

Though- he thinks for a moment, and asks instead.

"You mentioned in that- dream we shared. A-and I promise this is relevant, but - what is the Dark Place, exactly?"

"I don't have a satisfying answer for that," she warns, right from the getgo, "but... it's... it's also a Hell, frankly. I've been there, not for long but- it... feeds on your insecurities, your fears. Everything is hostile there, even the things you think of as familiar and normal, they get... twisted into something almost true enough to believe. It tries to tear you down so it can remake you into something it can use."

She sips her coffee and shakes her head.

"It's full of phantoms and shadows; nothing is safe."

A glance down in her coffee.

"My grandfather and his brother are there now. By choice, for some reason. I don't really understand it. I'm worried about them, honestly."

"In our universe we have the Dark World," he returns simply. He's rather glad that he doesn't have to explain the core concept and can focus on the differences. "It's... similar. A dumping ground for everything that dies, in every timelines. An endless expanse of nightmares, where- nothing is safe and time has even less meaning than here, it moves differently."

He glances up at the ceiling as he leans back into the couch. "Before John and I met, he spent- what must have been ten years in reality, was more lifetimes than he can remember, long enough a-and violent enough to completely destroy his sense of who or what he even was. He didn't have a name when we met, he chose John later on."

He angles his head to look at Saga. "So. That's where we'll end up going if we do eventually die for good in our world."

A dumping ground.

She can't help that it makes her wonder if they are the same place. After all, it's not a lake, it's an ocean. And the depths of the ocean are a very different thing from the shore. A place vs a world.

Not important right now, but she'll nod to what she's saying. She can't help but ask, however-

"And is there anyone there to help you get out if it happens?"

His expression cools, closing off, but it's not aimed at her.

"John's being there was- an unusual circumstance. He didn't have a physical anchor in the human world - he was bound to a ritual book, one made to trap a different entity entirely. When there wasn't someone holding the book for him to engage with, he was- trapped there, until someone opened it so that he could possess them."

His voice is neutral though, statements of fact that he's fully come to accept as is.

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