forensicks | lastvoyages Inbox

"'I understand' would have sufficed." He draws a hand to his forehead, cringing. "Why do you keep telling me that it's 'my business' like I'm divulging something sordid?" His face feels hot, not out of shame over anything to do with Stavrogin, but because he is realizing now that he was right. Walter really does think he is some kind of disgusting pervert, like all these Barge people.

How dare he! His jaw clenches, and he shoots him an angry look.

"I see now this conversation was needed indeed, embarrassing as it is for the both of us. But no, Walter. Stavrogin isn't and never will be my husband. He's not my 'boyfriend.' We aren't and never were 'dating.'" He laughs cynically. "He was my friend. My comrade. An aristocrat with connections, who helped me get back into Russia so that we could start a revolution together. Lizaveta was his fiancee, and if things were different, yes, I too would like to marry a girl and live a normal life, believe it or not. I just never met the right one. I don't know many girls, and I'm not exactly popular with the ladies. Being a bloody pauper because my idiot of a father spent the inheritance left to me by my mother doesn't help."

He isn't ashamed of his relationship with Stavrogin, but Walter need not worry that he would share 'his business.' These things aren't talked about where he's from, at all, and this conversation has cemented that they shouldn't be.

"I admit, I hoped that Lucy might... but no." He sighs. "I've irritated her, and I suspect that freckled green girl is more her type anyway."

There's plenty of clearance in this thin dining room chair; Walter's legs swing awkwardly as he almost literally kicks himself. No!!!!! He was trying to sound convincing that it was totally different from a marriage! Ack...

"It just was starting to sound like you thought there was something to misunderstand." He puts up his hand. "But I get it now. No more misunderstanding." He's serious. Even if intimacy is less totally unspeakable when he was growing up, Walter is used to the idea that someone should be the last word on what's said about their relationships, at least.

He puts his hand down, slumping. "Maybe that's for the best that you two didn't go anywhere, the. Greenie creeps me the heck out."

"Nothing to misunderstand," he confirms with a nod.

It's the most natural lie to tell, even if he has mixed feelings about having to tell it. But it really is for the best, he reminds himself.

They can shift to the much easier conversation now of insulting Tendi. "Yes, I'm afraid I don't quite understand Miss Maclean's taste in women either. I wouldn't want to end up the third person of that ménage à trois. No, no thank you... Goodness, now I know a little about how you must have felt. Sorry, I didn't mean to speak so flippantly about sensitive matters..." And tilting his head, he looks at Walter with the most gentle, sensitive look he can manage:

"How are things going with Ms. Quigley, by the way...?"

He knows a barb when he feels one but he deserves it so okay then!!! "O-oh... Cheese and crackers, I never quite pictured that..." Walter looks up at the blank ceiling to clear his mind of images. Although in reality Misty had been "hooking up" with Sweeney and Natalie simultaneously and then become serious and exclusive with the latter, Walter has been able to think that it was some light serial monogamy. After all, that's what was presented to him, when Misty solemnly said that they couldn't be together not because of that but because she was taken.

"Well, we still hang out a lot, which is good. Better than I deserve in most moral frameworks, really." That's what Malcolm would call glib. "But even if she accepted things... Like the thing..." You know. The pie. (He usually says "let me in" but he is not providing any innuendo ammo right now!!) "I'm not sure it was ever an option for us to be together properly. Maybe in a crash scenario, the extenuating circumstances would arise, but." But for now, she's a warden who can come and go freely. She could be with Natalie, or anyone she wants. He purses his lips, shifting gears, voice a bit higher. "You know, there were cops everywhere when the stroke took me out. Considering that I had just killed one of them. I've wondered if... It would be for the best that they keep thinking that they saw me die for good."

Even the "real" Misty he remembers. If she actually went looking for him after that... That would be the dream.

[Walter will return to his cabin to find an envelope taped to his door. It has a crude stick-drawing of a cat’s face in the corner. No signature, but the cat’s mouth is shaped like an ‘M’. Inside the envelope is a flash drive. On the flash drive is about ten hours of cat videos. Someone may have taken a very brief trip to LA.]

Hey. So. What’s all this about you wanting to talk to the person that just murder spree’d with the warden protections keeping them from killing some more? I thought you a) wanted to avoid violence against your person and b) wanted wardens to keep killer inmates from killing? This premise seems to work against both objectives. Are you at least taking your shield and phaser?

I want to talk to them without John watching, that's completely different.

Do you want me to come with you?

Actually, here's the thing. I asked first if it could be Zero. He said no, that his conditions were clear, meeting with Ashton without the dancer would have to be in a non-empty cabin. Are you aware of any that would be particularly suitable for such purposes?

[He's been thinking about it since the talk with Vincent Smith - about an inmate planting something in a warden's shower.]

You can both come to mine.

Oho? Do you have any conditions?

I don't understand what that means in this context.

You know, conditions. Stipulations. "You can only stay for X minutes." And the like.

No, of course not. Do you want me to make hot chocolate or anything?

Well, you know, vampire. Scent might throw off the mood, so no. Oh. Tomorrow. John's still gonna be busy with them today, so, tomorrow. Though I guess I'll actually ask them now? Gee, it'll be embarrassing if they say no after all this.

I hope you understand that they shouldn't cause any trouble in a werewolf's house. They'll be able to scent what we are.

That's true, but John Doe is by a decent number of definitions a god, so it's safe to say that what Ashton should do and will do might be a little different.

Why? Ashton's not a god.

Making trouble for a god is probably even more misguided than making trouble for a werewolf, even taking ancestral rivalries into account.

That’s why she did it when he wasn’t watching. And why he is now always watching. What do you want her to talk about that you don’t want John to hear?

I know the barge has kind of rotted out brains and gotten us used to public voice chats, but wanting to have a conversation without some third party listening is actually extremely normal. It's more normal than the other thing, in fact, sine qua non.

It's not normal in a prison, which is what you think this is.

No, I think that it would be far more reasonable and just for this place to be a prison. This is a cult compound where I can't avoid specific people indefinitely.

I'm pretty sure there is also no expectation of privacy in a cult.

Cults don't just immediately evaporate every single pretense of common human behavior. Otherwise we'd have even more exhibitionists on the deck, given what this place encourages.

Look. I would like to know why Ashton did the thing. Is that so unreasonable?

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A Few Days After Inmate Bill Of Rights To Shut Up

After Walter asks John if he can talk to Ashton

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