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[forensicks]

[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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[mukha]

His eyes widen, realizing his blunder. Damn it, Walter! What can he say to make you realize that the woman you knew from the internet is gone.

"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?"

[forensicks]

Walter doesn't miss a beat as he answers, though he immediately thinks that this is a very noticeable shift. Pyotr hates the 21st century victim narrative. He might even be throwing it in, looking down at Walter who has been pondering complying with the Admiral's system on any level at all. Walter's nimble mind summons an image of Trevor overzealous during the flood, attacking that "vampire" Pyotr was killed by in a way that was reckless due to his trauma, perhaps Pyotr hurt in the crossfire somehow.

"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."

[mukha]

"I don't want you to freak out or make a big deal about it." He crosses his arms. "This happened weeks ago, so I'm fine. It doesn't matter. Trevor and I made up—I guess. I'm only telling you this so you know. Trevor gets, I guess, triggered if you're not careful. He's so broken, Walter. He hates himself so much. Based on what you heard from Archer and what I just told you, I think you can understand why he's like that, and why he's so fixated on demotion and demoting himself. I truly don't think it's his fault. He's just what this place has made him into."

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..."

[forensicks]

Walter is listening thoughtfully at first. Yeah, he can understand. Pyotr had reminded him that Trevor was clearly an alcoholic as well, and Walter is feeling empathetic to their "mutual friend's" pain, how lost he is away from everything he knew.

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."

[mukha]

For a moment, Pyotr's face twists into such a look of anger and hatred that he almost looks demonic himself. "I can deal with Blitzø."

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.

[forensicks]

"...okay," Walter says, swallowing with his lips pressed together, dead serious. Yeah, Pyotr can deal with Blitzø. In almost any other circumstance Walter wouldn't encourage this outright, considering how often the very foolish you killed me so I kill you dance occurs on the barge, or whatever equivalent. But for Pyotr to feel in control? Yeah. He won't say anything against that at all.

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?

[mukha]

"It was Trevor. Or at least it looked like him and acted like him. I was in one of the cabins"—his lips quirk with faint amusement at that—"and he came looking for me specifically."

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."

[forensicks]

"That's screwy," Walter says. He thinks a bit longer about whether there's practical information to be gleaned from questioning the details of the incident and then realizes there isn't, resting his elbow on his knee in exhaustion.

"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...

[mukha]

"Now, now. Labels are very hurtful! We must be very careful with how we use language and watch every single word we say! We wouldn't want to offend anyone on this glorious vision of an enlightened prison."

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.

[forensicks]

"Do you think we're the weird ones? Do you think the alternate beings are lurking in the shadows and we just don't know it?"

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.

[mukha]

It's a variation on Pyotr's paranoid suspicion that everyone here might be a demon in disguise: the kind of thoughts that he knows ought to be ignored.

"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.

[forensicks]

"Yeah, I gotta make sure I'm not doing that," Walter says with a small smile, the tap-tap on his metallicized skull a reminder that death could come for them at any moment.

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...