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forensicks) wrote2024-03-10 08:59 pm
forensicks) wrote2024-03-10 08:59 pm
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[Walter has recorded a video message from the point of view of someone who has just come through the door into his cabin and sees Walter at his desk in the chair turned around to face the viewer. He gives a little salute-wave.]
Didn't get me. But nice try.
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"But... Another Misty was with me. Which makes three, I guess. She was a monster, but she was more like how I remembered, she already remembered me. And... Eventually, a monster attacked us. That's how my shoulder was injured, and she was killed. I know it might have just been a dream, but, I don't know, it felt real to me, it lasted for days everywhere we went... Maybe there was something more I was supposed to do..."
He pats his shoulder. "Hilbert gave me more morphine than he should have, I honestly don't know if that was an evil monster or what. Malcolm and I were talking about his experiments, and it did make me think..." Meeting his friend's steely gaze. "Pretty much every graduate seems to give up what's most important to them... You know?"
Like the one inmate who really, truly hated the admiral and was trying to kill him?
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"It was meant to torment us, nothing more." It comes out sharper than he intended, maybe even sounding a little defensive. He quickly corrects himself, speaking softer. "Your worst fear isn't rats, but something happening to her. That's why you saw it. You can't do anything to help her now, whatever she was, but why assume the worst? If not a dream, it might have all been an illusion or a trick, an elaborate theatre."
His tone flattens toward the end. He shakes his head, lowering his eyes to try to think. All these different Ms. Quigleys... Are they all the same? Is giving up one the same as giving up all of them? Or are some more important than others? He'd like to say something that might give Walter courage, but he's realizing now that the man's thoughts must be so tangled by all this mess... In other words, he understands Walter's mind far less well than he would like, and that irritates him.
"I do know..." Maybe talking more about graduation will clarify things. "I'm sure there are some counter examples, like how Allan doesn't seem to have given up on Ken, but I guess that relationship is pathetic enough to meet the Admiral's approval... but I think for you, it won't be so convenient. Probably because she's already graduated, and you have another 'ungraduated' version of her anchoring you to your own world and former life. He probably did it deliberately, bringing her when she hadn't even met you yet and waiting until she was graduated to bring you. He did it to try and drive you mad."
It seems to be working. Are they both going mad? He takes a deep breath, exhaling.
"Walter, don't graduate... I know we speculated that maybe the brainwashing is so sloppy that it might not be such a big deal, but... I'm sorry, I know it's painful because of Ms. Quigley, but you're right. Graduation changes people, at least while they're still here. They can call it a 'meaningful inner transformation of the soul' or whatever flimflam they like, but the truth is clear to see. Look at all the wardens who used to be inmates, and if you go back through the network, you'll see that they used to be quite different... Sometimes it's striking, and sometimes it's subtle, but in the end, they all comply with the Admiral. All of them."
He needs to understand that. He'll tell him about Trevor, if it proves the point. After the rapid stream of words, Pyotr looks at Walter again, eyes bright and intense the way they were during the Avenue Q movie night.
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Should he just wish or ask for someone to remove his memories? The brainwashed docile Misty couldn't even accept the monster version. How would the reverse ever play out fairly? Friendship isn't so bad, especially when Misty has so few others to slather her affections on... Walter tries to keep his eyes on his goals, but they feel so far away at this point. The pain cuts into his voice here.
"Why?" (Why this? rather than a direct counter to anything.) "I really don't get why the person I care about is the one graduate who doesn't get to be happy. Ulla gave up on her homeland, she has a new home. Hilbert gave up on his experiments, he's back to normal with his team. Trevor gave up on fighting every monster he could get his hands on, he certainly has monster friends now..."
The monsters remind him of something, and he shakes his head. "I don't have much time. Malcolm saw the monster during the flood. He managed to get over it pretty quickly, I guess the werewolf powers helped, but that can't last forever. If I'm going to try to influence her deal, it needs to be soon. That's what matters to me, that's what's making me do this. If I'll be one of the tough cases who's stuck here for another year after that first murder, then fine. But Petya, what's the point of just living like this, getting hurt over and over? They can't ever compromise you with those bonds after enough breaches? Or bring in someone else who 'died' to force your hand?"
It's too serious a conversation for Walter to use the finger quotes that go with that American English inflection. They both doubt the premise of their deaths at this point, at least irreversible deaths. But there's another reason to emphasize that word. They both know there's a person who could change things.
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It's all so confusing. He starts to lose his temper, somewhere between the revelation of Misty Quigley's lesbian relationship and Malcolm's secret lycanthropy (or was that just another creature like the vampire Trevor? Communication is impossible when the rules of basic reality aren't clear—). The rest sounds like raving, but the final unspoken accusation finally makes him snap. No, they are not talking about Stavrogin.
"What, so because they hurt me, I'm supposed to agree to their terms? I'm not even supposed to try to free myself!? You know they're going to hurt me anyway, Walter. Even if I changed my mind and decided I want to graduate like a good, sensible boy, you think I wouldn't still end up stuck here for years like Sweeney!?" He waves a hand, lowering his voice to a flat tone. "They hate people like me here."
It's a simple truth, one he feels deeply, even if his face and voice are cold. They hate me, and I'm glad. I want them to hate me more. That's the point of all this.
"She's not going to listen to you, Walter, you fool. You're nothing to her—just some uncooperative inmate. You don't have to worry about betraying her to the rats. They already got to her first, and she's already agreed to everything. That's how they are here."
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He... He thinks about demotions, terrible events at home that overwrite the progress of the barge and cause the people to resort to violence again, but even those seem to be a ruse, a fairy story to keep wardens from acting in defense of inmates.
"This sucks! It's not right. The way they hurt us, the way they're trying to change us... It's really bad." A fate worse than death in the eyes of some, to be honest. Walter's afraid to even say it out loud, that Pyotr really might be thinking this way. "But if we're hitting our heads against the wall when we run, and ports and wardens can't get us what we need... Maybe it's time for plan B. Like if Erskine can't go home himself, he can make a warden send his friends a note to summon us or something."
Maybe the warden will so convincingly pretends to respect privacy that they don't read it. ... Yeah, he's grasping at straws.
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Walter's complaints really do seem childish. Of course the Barge 'sucks' and is 'really bad.' That's why they need to escape. That's why they need to discipline themselves into an organized unit that accepts this is total war and fights back with everything they've got.
"Take Trevor, for instance... He is the first warden to openly concede with your perspective about the Barge being 'really bad,' but he wouldn't even go along with your anodyne scheme for a new monitor, would he?"
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"Trevor was helping me when the monsters were around, but that didn't prevent the flood in the first place..." Would Trevor have been willing to unlock Hanna's magic that led to all this? What good have his weapons actually done in the long term? Caught up in the moment of trying to reassure his friend that he isn't weak or unwary of the wardens, Walter says: "I don't think anyone besides Trevor is interested either, not to mention what a mess custodial is right now... Do you think it's worth the risk trying to find out what the wardens are saying about this without us around?" Knowing that Charlie and Xie Lian talked without him making an announcement, and that even the later introduction simply presented Charlie as a helpful warden, he has to wonder whether Trevor was privy to these discussions all along.
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He'll let that sink in. "Do you understand that? It's the same as with Trevor. He was beaten by wardens as an inmate. He told me so himself. But that doesn't matter now, he'll still close ranks with them, including the ones who beat him—I'm almost certain—though I don't know their names. But he defends Lark, who was his warden. Oh, speaking of that, do you know how Trevor graduated? Trevor and Lark were put on one of the other ships together, but on the other ship, Trevor was the warden and Lark an inmate. Lark asked him to demote himself, and Trevor agreed. That's how he 'graduated.' By showing complete obedience and submission to his warden, even when he didn't have to, even at great personal cost."
So much for 'minimally brainwashed.' Is any of this getting through to Walter? If Trevor saved him during the hell flood, he probably won't want to hear the truth and could even turn on Pyotr himself over it. As is, he may have said too much, especially by trying to cast doubt upon Misty. On the other hand, Trevor is a striking example of exactly what graduation entails.
"I do think it would be enlightening if you could find out what they're saying behind your back," he says cautiously. "Because I guarantee you that Trevor was not pleased with you making things difficult for his esteemed colleague. You should be careful around him."
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In the moment, Pyotr may feel it was unwise to make this push around his blindered friend, as imagining that Misty has such a sad story only makes Walter more determined. But perhaps in the long term, this will help him realize how little she shared with him in return...
"You know, Archer told me that Trevor attacked a lot of nonhumans for a while. A lot. I might have benefitted from that, but maybe trying to get inmates from all different backgrounds to come together for him was never going to work. And he was saying... a lot of people tried to keep it to themselves what happened to them... like Trevor has with these other beatings he got..."
Could it be that even the "rampages" he's so worried about are just a fraction of all the violence that goes on, because the very newest residents don't yet benefit from these evil forced loyalties? Especially "beatings" that could be healed fully with no death toll that would be obvious to others. It's still just an inference at this point, so Walter says dryly with only the faintest sinking feeling in the back of his brain:
"There's really even more abuse than we know about, huh?"
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"There always is," he says dryly. He goes quiet and shifts nervously, fiddling with his gloves. It's mostly performative, though he does feel anxious. That's not quite the right word, but it's close. He feels both anxious and detached, compelled to wring what he can out of this 'friendship' while he still can, even at the risk of it blowing up in his face.
"Hey, Walter, can I tell you something?" he says with as much vulnerability as he can stand to muster, looking at him pleadingly. "It involves Trevor, but I don't want you to be angry with him. He has been through so much. He is a victim as much as me. More so, even. You won't be angry with him, will you?"
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"Of course, why couldn't you? I mean, would it be something Trevor didn't want to talk about?" He quickly harshens his eyes, realizing that of course Pyotr is more important, if he's being vulnerable, from a selfish perspective that theirs is Walter's most prioritized alliance of all, so many reasons. "No, if it affected you, then of course you can tell me. And keep it between us."
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It's now or never. He looks a little pale, but starts the matter-of-fact version of the story that he's already rehearsed many times.
"... I once said something really vague to Trevor about how someone ought to do something about this place. He got really, like I said, what you would call 'triggered'... He was upset. Angry. He started saying that I had all these plans to attack the ship, and it would never work for all these different reasons. I tried to explain to him that I didn't want to do any of that, that I didn't have any plans, and he started talking about demoting himself. I begged him not to, and he went away... This happened over the course of two different conversations, but I'm summarizing."
He rubs at his forehead. "I thought that was the end of it, but then you know that little demon Blitzø? The inmate of Trevor's who wrote all that weird stuff in the warden ledger? He showed up at my door and, well"—Pyotr shrugs—"he stabbed me multiple times, saying that Trevor told him I had all these plans and was trying to get him demoted."
He shrugs again.
"I probably deserved it. I was reckless. I should have known to be more careful, to not let my guard down even a little bit... Everyone else trusts Trevor, but like I said, I'm not meant for this place, and everyone can sense it. I truly wasn't saying I had plans to attack the ship, nor was I trying to get him demoted, but he saw what he wanted to see and acted accordingly as he saw fit. For whatever reason. I begged him to at least clarify matters to Blitzø so that I wouldn't get cursed or spied on by other wardens hearing whatever gossip the little demon spreads, to tell him that it was all a misunderstanding, but he wouldn't even do that. Now we both act like nothing happened, and I'm fine with that. I just want to move on... But that's why I've been avoiding you more, by the way, since I'm probably being spied on and followed, and I don't want them thinking you're 'in on' my non-existent plans..."
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As Pyotr starts to explain that he and Trevor had a talk, or rather two talks, Walter can tell this is definitely... strange. Not like Pyotr's expression of lofty ideas where it's natural to chat in paragraphs. No, this is almost like the speech Walter is rehearsing for Malcolm about how this is a cult. Pyotr, who keeps so much to himself, who barely uses the network despite his chattiness, has something very detailed to tell him because he is so direly in need of someone to understand. To see exactly what happened, something plain that he's left faithless about. Seeing it'll be needed to listen longer, Walter sits down in the pew of the chapel when Pyotr rubs at his forehead, and it's a good thing he did. Because Walter's first thought when his friend relates such a terrible thing that happened is to want to hug him.
That would have been the wrong move, he can feel in the next moment when the wave of concern that crashed across his face falls away. Pyotr is comparatively stiff at the best of times, let alone when he's so detached from some terrible occurrence; he'd probably hate to be touched even more now, "pitied"...
Walter is a bit of a fidgeter by nature, a pacer, what have you. It was good that he sat down. His gaze shifts away restlessly at several moments, no sign he isn't truly listening, but he's trying to organize all this in his mind to understand that he really missed it, and that Trevor had acted like everything was normal. Walter is getting the impression this occurred before "I started avoiding you more", yet he missed physical signs of this. A single stab wound, perhaps Pyotr could be that stubborn. A death toll seems impossible to hide. But multiple, was Pyotr hurt so badly that he resorted to magical healing despite it all? Or did Blitzø use an infernal power to stab him and "heal" him over and over for the attack to occur with impunity? Something else? Walter won't press for this detail, reopen the young man's wound, it's all just... so horrible...
Because clearly the worst part had been getting rejected by Trevor yet again. If Blitzø had just been acting on his own in what the other validated as a genuinely unacceptable way—god, Walter's thinking some modern "secure attachment" bullshit. Maybe it's not the worst thing that Trevor is jaded and reckless, that he didn't manage to stick a band-aid on the wound that stemmed from his own coldness. Because that's how the wardens... all get you.
"Holy shit," he says. Walter reaches up to point almost shakily. "So that was you. That was not just some abstract demon hieroglyph, that drawing was... literally you. Because he did that."
What the fuck? Who else knew about this? Someone else who wrote in the ledger praising Trevor and is his good friend on monster breakfast shift so much more important than monitoring now, Sebastian?? Archer? The friends and wardens of the other gremlins?
They are demons, he remembers now. Demons from hell that are the playthings of those watching down from heaven.
Walter exhales for a second, his face losing the tension of sheer horror at Blitzø's direct actions. He doesn't want to accept the cosmic scale of their predicament, tries to take advantage of his less affected position and think something. "Maybe Trevor was right about one part. Maybe if anyone upstairs thought he was ever going to actually help, he'd be 'demoted' already."
That word came out twisted with contempt. What the hell. He probably shouldn't make very specific assumptions, but what part of a downright milquetoast plan for the monitor, for a single warden to be held accountable by inmates and even then still out of the goodness of their heart, was so difficult to understand!? It feels fundamentally impossible that wardens and inmates can actually work together to common goals, not when they're observed so closely and only promoted when the time is right for the Admiral. Walter has always thought that his salon will be easy to explain when push comes to shove, and now he has reason to fear retaliation for nothing more than an actual speakeasy, an actual refuge from the relentless expectation to open up and accept fate and change. He sits back, shoulders slumping against the furniture. Says something that he figures will hand control back over to Pyotr, how he wants to be respected, Walter not yet steamrolling with his own thoughts.
"Well, it's a good thing we didn't write down anything."
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It's tricky. If Blitzø goes to Trevor, Trevor may go public with the accusations. But he knows very well that if he does nothing, Blitzø will have no reason to be discouraged from attacking again. And his pride can't tolerate the continued taunts from the little bastard.
Pyotr grinds his teeth and takes a quiet breath through his nose, trying to calm himself. Overall, this is a small victory. Trevor, who is so popular and loved by so many inmates, is now viewed with distrust by at least one other inmate besides himself.
He shakes his head, eyes going a little distant. "Do you remember that 'vampire' I mentioned...?"
The one that, you know, killed him.
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Besides, it's both convenient for Walter and less likely to draw negative attention if Walter remains totally uninvolved... He looks up, curious about the vampire that he'd wondered about but now seemed irrelevant to the incident from weeks ago. "Yeah? Was it Dracula or something?"
Ancestral enemy of the Belmont clan who is now beloved in the orbit of the Barge?
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It is another thing he and Trevor do not talk about. He is not even sure whether Trevor knows about it or not, nor whether he was the sole victim or if there were others. He hates how much he does not know.
The corner of his mouth twitches, and his lips form a straight line as he realizes he might have revealed something embarrassing. It is all embarrassing, in fact. Humiliating even. "I almost killed him," he adds hastily. "It just wasn't enough since I was already injured from other monsters. There were a lot of monsters! It was very tiresome."
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"All the wardens—" and he supposes this includes Trevor, even just from their own interaction, and it certainly includes Misty, "tried to act like they knew exactly what was going on. Which makes sense given how nearly identical it was to the nightmare flood, but I guess that means it really is just... a thing. Monsters all over the place. Yippee..."
To say nothing of the inmates and wardens themselves, no matter how prejudiced it is to think of them that way...
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Or else you'll get some boot-licking bastard knocking at your door. He also sits in one of the pews, though several rows back and away from Walter, looking down to hide a facial expression that doesn't match the jocular tone at all.
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Walter does wonder this, though he also knows it's hollow discourse. He hasn't had to do this in a long time, push away someone's better nature slowly over the course of months... He's given himself time. Maybe he shouldn't. Ever since he actually met Misty, everything has been so complicated.
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"Don't think too much about any of it," he says flippantly, but not very convincingly. He's the one who needlessly brought up the Trevor-vampire, after all.
"Wearing yourself out by hitting your head against the wall trying to make sense of the nonsense that happens here is probably just one of the ways they get you."
There's a small smile in his voice at least, despite the lingering unease.
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Neither of them are that strong. Even with a weapon and the other lacking one, there are fights they can't win. Vampire versus gun, S.M.H. That's what Walter had concluded while the fog was still there, that Allan seemed unworthy of trust but contrite enough that provocation was a very big risk under the shifting conditions...