[ He'd probably fit in at Hyperion, it sounds like he would have liked it too. ]
It was a hail from an old work associate [ ENEMY ] They screwed me over on a deal, and I thought they'd come crawling back to make it up to me. I don't know if it was them or someone they hired who ended up attacking me but either way: severely uncool.
[ And to continue the question for an answer game: ]
I don't know. [ Which is what every graduated inmate says. I don't know, it was personal. He wishes he had some moment to point to—some test passed, a perfect, definitive summing-up.
That's not how people work. ] I knew I was a bad person—that's why I dressed that way. The hat belonged to a dead man. I thought I could keep it contained, if I...where I'm from I'm a world-renowned philanthropist. There are all kinds of fucking foundations with my name on them.
You can say it's just money and you'd be right, but when I was a kid a little money would've changed everything.
I've accomplished very good things, but I put as little of myself into them as I could. I didn't want them tainted. I think I hoped wardens would show me how to do it honestly. You know the business world, good people get ground down or they walk away. Nobody sticks their neck out and lives to tell the tale.
There was a breach where someone derailed his whole life for me. He stopped flying planes to spend every day in a dingy apartment, taking care of his crazy brother. But it was an inmate. Larry Trainor.
I never saw a warden choose an inmate over the person they were fucking. Never saw them give up anything they wanted. Heaven forfend they commit to a principle or stand by a decision. It was mostly talk, with them. Platitudes. I hated them not just for being fakes, but for being so bad at it.
I think what happened was I stopped caring about how much they'd hurt me and just wanted to spare anyone else.
It didn't fix anything with Logan. That's still a mess. I still hate him. But I don't like seeing people broken anymore.
He wasn't expecting such an intensive answer, just the usual "I don't know, it's different for everyone" spiel, entirely unhelpful. "Don't be shitty." Okay, great.
It takes a few minutes for Rhys to reply as he parses this, there's parts that read in a way where he feels like he's missing information, an inmate was his brother? And took care of him when they were at port? But he's getting the gist of it, the conclusion, he thinks, is obvious.
Haha, oh my god. You graduated out of spite.
And stuck around out of it too. He can do that! He's great at that!
Fiona.
I didn't have a lot of choice working with her. She tried to con me out of our initial [ stolen ] deal, and when that didn't work out we ended up stumbling on something bigger that needed both of us. Which would have been fine! We both would have won, I was letting bygones be bygones for the other stuff. But the thanks I got for holding up my end of the deal was to get stranded on a space station that was going down.
[ He gets bitter even talking about the basic strokes of it all. She wasn't the only one who screwed him over, or even the worst, but she'd been the last. ]
My turn: What do wardens get out of all of this? Besides showing up the other guys?
[ That echoes some of his own fears so precisely it gives him pause. ] That's how it started, yeah. A fuck you to wardens who said they couldn't help me. But I never set out to graduate. I set out to change.
I'm not here to show anyone up. I stopped caring what they thought a long time ago. Well it feels like that.
Tangibly or intangibly? [ He can guess—this is the guy who thought the casino would be improved by handing out shitty plastic prizes—but hope springs eternal. ]
[ Hey what else would be good to have on the Weenie Hut Jr on steroids express? There was no economy there, and even though everyone seemed armed and dangerous to the teeth the majority of it seemed soooomewhat underhanded. Kiddie prizes for kiddie people. ]
Both? Give me an example of what they bribe you with to stay.
[ Capital? Clout? The people running this gambit clearly had a lot of power. ]
You don't actually believe that right? That we're dead?
[ Cause Rhys still isn't sold. He's taken a lot of what's happened with this kidnapping in stride, but the whole revived from death thing, "you can't go back or you'll be dead forever" is too far fetched even for him. ]
Er. That wasn't my question. Why did you want to change?
Because once you stop changing you might as well be dead. Which I guess answers your other question.
But I meant on the space station. Did you think you'd survive?
[ As for the last question, he takes his time thinking it over. He doesn't want to lie, but it'd be easy for someone like Rhys—someone who'd put dollar signs in his fucking username—to see his windfall as a business opportunity. A chance to undermine a competitor. ] Intangibly, I want to know if a place like this can work the way it's supposed to. [ After a moment he adds: ] I want to believe it can.
I wouldn't have gotten where I am today without being myself.
[ His self who is apparently dead and now here. ]
Okay well, I guess if I changed something it would be to not be so gracious, because then I wouldn't be here. I'd be back home, finalizing a sponsorship deal.
[ Rhys doesn't really get Williams point here. It sounds stupid, sticking around to see if the system is what? Fair? It wasn't, from what Rhys had seen. Child murderers walked free while men like him, who's biggest crime had been being a capitalist, were stuck drifting through the deepest parts of space. It was a waste of time. ]
Things were dicey for a second or two, but yeah I thought I'd survive.
[ Needed to, couldn't let Jack win. ]
A windfall? What's that some kind of... air pressure system?
[ His patience runs out. So much of this annoys him—not knowing what a fucking windfall is is the icing on the cake. Had he not known about deals either? He types out half of a decidedly ungracious reply, deletes it.
Comes back later. Okay. Reset. ] Who are you? When you're not posturing and talking yourself up? What'd you do during that second or two?
[ Rhys does not, in fact, know about the windfalls much less the deals. No one tells him anything around here and he's sick of it.
His reply is terse, like William is scratching the paint job on his new car with blunt fingernails, but in his other hand he has a set of keys ready to do some real damage. ]
That's cause you only met me a month and a half ago, this is me. In those couple seconds I thought "I hope I don't die!" and then I didn't.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2022-01-24 11:41 pm (UTC)[ He'd probably fit in at Hyperion, it sounds like he would have liked it too. ]
It was a hail from an old work associate [ ENEMY ] They screwed me over on a deal, and I thought they'd come crawling back to make it up to me. I don't know if it was them or someone they hired who ended up attacking me but either way: severely uncool.
[ And to continue the question for an answer game: ]
How did you graduate?
1/2 ðŸ˜ðŸ’¼
Date: 2022-01-25 04:13 pm (UTC)I don't know. [ Which is what every graduated inmate says. I don't know, it was personal. He wishes he had some moment to point to—some test passed, a perfect, definitive summing-up.
That's not how people work. ] I knew I was a bad person—that's why I dressed that way. The hat belonged to a dead man. I thought I could keep it contained, if I...where I'm from I'm a world-renowned philanthropist. There are all kinds of fucking foundations with my name on them.
You can say it's just money and you'd be right, but when I was a kid a little money would've changed everything.
I've accomplished very good things, but I put as little of myself into them as I could. I didn't want them tainted. I think I hoped wardens would show me how to do it honestly. You know the business world, good people get ground down or they walk away. Nobody sticks their neck out and lives to tell the tale.
There was a breach where someone derailed his whole life for me. He stopped flying planes to spend every day in a dingy apartment, taking care of his crazy brother. But it was an inmate. Larry Trainor.
I never saw a warden choose an inmate over the person they were fucking. Never saw them give up anything they wanted. Heaven forfend they commit to a principle or stand by a decision. It was mostly talk, with them. Platitudes. I hated them not just for being fakes, but for being so bad at it.
I think what happened was I stopped caring about how much they'd hurt me and just wanted to spare anyone else.
It didn't fix anything with Logan. That's still a mess. I still hate him. But I don't like seeing people broken anymore.
2/2
Date: 2022-01-25 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-25 06:41 pm (UTC)It takes a few minutes for Rhys to reply as he parses this, there's parts that read in a way where he feels like he's missing information, an inmate was his brother? And took care of him when they were at port? But he's getting the gist of it, the conclusion, he thinks, is obvious.
Haha, oh my god. You graduated out of spite.
And stuck around out of it too. He can do that! He's great at that!
Fiona.
I didn't have a lot of choice working with her. She tried to con me out of our initial [ stolen ] deal, and when that didn't work out we ended up stumbling on something bigger that needed both of us. Which would have been fine! We both would have won, I was letting bygones be bygones for the other stuff. But the thanks I got for holding up my end of the deal was to get stranded on a space station that was going down.
[ He gets bitter even talking about the basic strokes of it all. She wasn't the only one who screwed him over, or even the worst, but she'd been the last. ]
My turn: What do wardens get out of all of this? Besides showing up the other guys?
1/2
Date: 2022-01-29 01:35 am (UTC)I'm not here to show anyone up. I stopped caring what they thought a long time ago. Well it feels like that.
Tangibly or intangibly? [ He can guess—this is the guy who thought the casino would be improved by handing out shitty plastic prizes—but hope springs eternal. ]
2/2
Date: 2022-01-29 01:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-29 02:07 am (UTC)Both? Give me an example of what they bribe you with to stay.
[ Capital? Clout? The people running this gambit clearly had a lot of power. ]
You don't actually believe that right? That we're dead?
[ Cause Rhys still isn't sold. He's taken a lot of what's happened with this kidnapping in stride, but the whole revived from death thing, "you can't go back or you'll be dead forever" is too far fetched even for him. ]
Er. That wasn't my question. Why did you want to change?
no subject
Date: 2022-01-31 01:36 pm (UTC)But I meant on the space station. Did you think you'd survive?
[ As for the last question, he takes his time thinking it over. He doesn't want to lie, but it'd be easy for someone like Rhys—someone who'd put dollar signs in his fucking username—to see his windfall as a business opportunity. A chance to undermine a competitor. ] Intangibly, I want to know if a place like this can work the way it's supposed to. [ After a moment he adds: ] I want to believe it can.
My windfall's connected to that. Choice.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-01 12:48 am (UTC)[ His self who is apparently dead and now here. ]
Okay well, I guess if I changed something it would be to not be so gracious, because then I wouldn't be here. I'd be back home, finalizing a sponsorship deal.
[ Rhys doesn't really get Williams point here. It sounds stupid, sticking around to see if the system is what? Fair? It wasn't, from what Rhys had seen. Child murderers walked free while men like him, who's biggest crime had been being a capitalist, were stuck drifting through the deepest parts of space. It was a waste of time. ]
Things were dicey for a second or two, but yeah I thought I'd survive.
[ Needed to, couldn't let Jack win. ]
A windfall? What's that some kind of... air pressure system?
no subject
Date: 2022-02-07 08:55 pm (UTC)Comes back later. Okay. Reset. ] Who are you? When you're not posturing and talking yourself up? What'd you do during that second or two?
I feel like I don't know you at all.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-07 10:56 pm (UTC)His reply is terse, like William is scratching the paint job on his new car with blunt fingernails, but in his other hand he has a set of keys ready to do some real damage. ]
That's cause you only met me a month and a half ago, this is me. In those couple seconds I thought "I hope I don't die!" and then I didn't.
[ Back the fuck away from his car. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-02-11 10:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-12 01:01 am (UTC)Unsuccessful, but that's not going to be much of an issue for me.
[ Doubtful that William will get much more outta him today. ]