(no subject)

[anewlanguage]

When I first got here, and I figured out that no matter what I did I wasn't going to die permanently, I thought the rest of the ship was nuts for panicking every time some worthless psychopath got bored and turned murderer of the day.

I'm rethinking a lot of the shit I thought I "learned" when I graduated, but one thing's the same: I was wrong about that. It matters. And the first person to parrot back what I said when I was an inmate can take a bullet between the eyes, got it?


[Spam for IRIS]

[He does a quick patrol, not because he expects anything to be more wrong than what has already happened, but because he needs to work off some energy before he settles in where he feels he really needs to be.

Which is with his girlfriend who, he's pretty sure, will be at the center of a shitstorm. He goes to her room and knocks, for once.]

Comments

[routemistress]

[It's like watching a balloon cut loose from its string, bobbing upwards in sudden joy. Iris doesn't smirk out loud, but her lips twitch and her shoulders relax visibly.]

She's right, you know. For one, it's what 'e'll be expecting - you'd be fighting 'im on 'is own ground, playing a game where 'e knows all the moves. That's not 'ow you get someone graduated and Tiffany knows it.

I'm right proud of that girl.

[anewlanguage]

Me, too.

[He isn't quite looking at her, though, but guiltily staring into his hands.]

I don't know how much I care about anyone graduating anymore, Iris. That's the problem.

[routemistress]

[This is serious, and Iris takes it seriously, if gently. She scooches along the bed till she can lay her head on his shoulder.]

It's a lot messier'n more complicated than making someone dead, isn't it? And it's a lot 'arder to see your way through it.

[anewlanguage]

[He puts his arm around her, trying not to hold too tight, trying to keep this fairly casual.]

I get why it's important. I'm just thinking I took a wrong turn somewhere.

[routemistress]

My love. I've taken so many wrong turns in me life I 'ad to draw a new map. It's all right.

[She means it. The important thing isn't to always take the right turn; it's in how you deal with the wrong ones.]

You've never done much with any of the temporary inmates. 'Ow d'you feel about 'aving a permanent one?

[anewlanguage]

Temporary ones just need someone to babysit till they get paired up. A permanent one, I don't have much to teach them unless it's guns and knives.

[routemistress]

Well that's bollocks for a start. You can teach someone 'ow to live with themselves instead of giving up. You can teach 'em that everyone's worth saving. You can teach 'em how to defend themselves and when they don't need to. You can teach 'em how to bring someone that loves 'em a drink and never even think the words I told you so.

[This is when she pulls herself upwards by Cain's shoulder so as to drop a kiss just below his ear.]

[anewlanguage]

[By now, Iris has to know his nonverbal way of saying 'you win'. He slumps against her, closes his eyes.

Okay. She wins. He just needs to get the rest of himself, the parts that feel like they died along with Cass, to believe it]