IC contact for lastvoyages

[cactusy]

[If I don't have an active post up, feel free to use this post to have your character call, videochat, text, or knock on Shaw's door.]

Comments

[cactusy]

Don't mind Shaw, boys; she's busy setting some water to boil on the stove, keeping her back turned, and trying very hard not to laugh out loud. The flood is making this harder than it should be. She definitely lets out a couple of snorts.

[cactusy]

[Not wanting to talk about how Franky is sexy?? A very weird choice, in Shaw's flood-addled mind. Not talking at all is okay with her, though, even with the flood's influence; she tosses her bra carelessly onto the floor, catching Natalie's bottom lip with her teeth as she eagerly returns the kiss.]

[conning]

Neal turns his head to look at Eiffel, see-sawing between amusement and concern. "Are you okay?"

[pitofguilt]

[ Why does Natalie end up fucking so many weirdos, gosh, it can't possibly be that she has a type.

Anyway, this is much better, getting right down to business, no strings, no feelings except the physical. She hooks a leg around Shaw's hip, and pulls herself against her, hands on Shaw's back, fingers curling into her shoulder blades. She doesn't moan at the little bite, giving instead a low, throaty chuckle. Hell yeah, girl. That's good stuff. ]

juuuust post-katydo flood, pre-tribunal icouldn'thelpmyself

[conning]

Neal seesaws his way to Shaw's cabin, nearly puking twice and desperately hoping she's actually there. He feels like ass, but he's... well. He's furious, to put it lightly. He's pretty sure the last time he was this mad, he stole a gun and used a display banner to Indiana-Jones his way through a museum window.

He takes a moment outside her door to gather himself, wipe the sweat off his face with the back of one hand, and take a deep breath. Then he pounds on it, hard.

[cactusy]

No verbal response comes - no "Just a minute!" or "Who is it?" - but there's the sound of stirring from inside. About thirty seconds after he knocks, the door opens, and there stands Shaw in all her disheveled glory. She looks at him blankly for a few moments, noting both the anger and the fact that he's still clearly death-tolling.

"You look like shit," she says, her voice as dull as her expression, and then steps back to let him in.

[conning]

Neal has been fomenting the whole way here. On a better day, he'd notice immediately. On a better day, the utter blankness would be an immediate snap out of the rage, but he's furious and nauseated and just wants to sit down. He comes inside, making it to her table and plopping himself onto one of the chairs, which might undercut the force of his statement a little.

"Is it because he's an inmate, because he's a vampire, or because whatever he did to you hurt in a way you won't admit? Why, with all the murderers on board who have caused shit in the past four months, do you keep riding Lestat like it's a psychological rodeo and you're going for the gold?"

[cactusy]

Ah. Well, that explains the anger.

"It's because he doesn't give a crap," she says, following him and sinking down into the chair opposite his. "It wasn't revenge for anything, it wasn't a crime of passion, it wasn't something he regretted later. It was sadism. He thought it was funny. People are bugs and Eiffel was annoying, and I was a convenient tool."

She pauses.

"He's not the only one I keep an eye on."

[conning]

"Who else? Because he might not be the only one who's stopped enjoying leaving his cabin because he can't take two steps without a tail. This isn't the military. You're not on a mission, Shaw. You're a warden. That's your job. You agreed to help inmates in exchange for compensation. Even if you don't give a shit about them, even if you don't think they're worth it. That's what you agreed to. You don't get to have a fucking grudge, you signed away that right at the door."

He braces himself on the table, gripping the edge lightly. "He offered piano lessons in a public space and Malcolm responded by asking him if he was planning on keeping people locked in a box underneath it."

[cactusy]

"I'm trying to help inmates," she says, and a flash of frustration shoots across her face. "I'm trying to keep the people here safe; I'm trying to keep them from getting hurt, killed, or traumatized. So yeah, I watch him. And Avalon, and de Vilers, and Quill, and Quigley, and anyone else who I think might go after innocent people. I don't stop them from giving piano lessons or whatever the hell else they want to do. It's not about not thinking they're worth it. It's being prepared. Prevention is part of a warden's job."

[conning]

His anger is starting to wane a little bit, as he notices that moment of frustration, starts to see exactly what she's doing to herself. Which means he's also noticing the blankness.

He's still mad. But now he's also starting to be concerned and frustrated himself.

"There is no being prepared here. Not in that way. There is no way to keep people from getting hurt, killed, or traumatized, no matter how well you prepare, because we never know what's coming. I'm not saying you should stop trying to protect people, but you need to recognize when your normal ways of protecting people aren't working. Stalking inmates when we don't know what's coming isn't going to keep anyone from being attacked, it's going to wind them up until they do it out of spite."

He gathers breath to say something else and then lets it whoosh out as he truly registers the way she looks. "...What happened? Are you okay?"

[cactusy]

"I'm fine," she says, very clearly not fine but also not particularly sounding like she's lying. Such is the way of Shaw.

"Caffrey, we're in a small, contained setting with a bunch of known elements. I bet a solid half of the attacks here could be curbed with a little due diligence. The hell kind of good are we to anybody if we throw weapons around willy-nilly and don't bother to do even the most basic surveillance of what anybody is up to? Most of the wardens here don't take public safety even a little bit seriously because all they care about is that prize at the end."

[conning]

Frustration is starting to win over rage, and worry over that. His voice, croaky as it still is, loses that sharp edge. "So you're going to one-woman army your way into establishing order? You and Malcolm. You're like opposite ends of the same ideologies. You can't brute force change. That's not how it works. This entire place is one big illustration of it not being how that works."

He leans forward a little. "What's going on? You're not fine."

[cactusy]

She makes a disgruntled noise in the back of her throat.

"We can't have two conversations at once. First one's more important right now. Agreed?"

[conning]

He exhales hard through his nose, his own little signal of irritation. Now that he's noticed how well she is not doing, it's hard to switch gears again.

"Not necessarily, but I'll go with it."

[cactusy]

She appreciates it, because she certainly thinks this is more important.

"Zhao and Rogers care about doing safety patrols. B makes personal alarms for people. Cook thinks 'free guns for everybody' and nobody bothering to keep tabs on their inmates is stupid, too. It's not just me."

[conning]

"Okay. And have you all talked about your concerns and come up with a plan or division of labor to manage them? Have you proposed changes to the Admiral of the rest of the wardens in ways that aren't 'let's break into personal cabins for weapons and also take over the speakeasy that they've made for themselves'? The inmates are furious. You're going to get yourself killed."

He rubs the corner of his eye, growling under his breath. "Systemic issues require systemic change. God I sound like a politician."

[cactusy]

"Okay, first of all, I never wanted to randomly break into personal cabins; everybody blew that totally out of proportion. I think wardens should already be spending a lot of time in their inmate's cabin and keeping track of what they have in there. I missed Graham having two knives last month. That was on me."

She pauses, blowing out a breath.

"I shouldn't be in charge of anything big. Think we all know how that'd go. It should be someone like Rogers, or Zhao; I'm support staff."

[conning]

"It getting blown out of proportion is exactly the problem. We're in an enclosed ecosystem here. Once the rage starts it's going to spread and keep spreading, and every person who tells a story will make it worse. Trust me, I'm good at making that happen."

Need rubs his face tiredly, leaning back in his chair a little. "The guy who killed me never should have had a knife. That's on his warden, too, you're right. As is the bullshit his warden said to me after. That a bunch of inmates who enjoy murder got to spend the majority of an inhibition-lowering flood unsupervised is also on their wardens. There's a lot on you. Don't make it harder."

[cactusy]

Oh hey, speaking of.

"If I knew who killed you - if you'd tell me - I'd keep an eye on him, too. This isn't about some grudge against de Lioncourt, Caffrey. I'm just as pissed off about what happened to you."

[conning]

"He hasn't brainwashed me. Dr Reid checked with the Admiral himself to confirm it. What happened was bad, yeah. Was it as bad as getting gutted by one of those plant things? Not in my personal experience."

He presses his lips into a firm line. "I appreciate it, Shaw, I do. But have you talked to the wardens of any of the inmates you're tailing? Told them your concerns, asked what they're doing, how their inmates are doing?"

[cactusy]

"I mean I'm pissed off about what happened to you just now. I know you're not brainwashed; his powers are gone."

She leans forward, resting her forehead against the table.

"Most of the inmates I watch have temps, not permanent wardens. I leave notes about them in the ledger. And I don't tail them, I just keep a close eye on them when I see them around. Haven't seen Creel in a while; he's another one on the list."

[conning]

"Who cares if they're temporary instead of permanent? They're still the wardens those inmates have right now. They might not have a full file to work from, but they're bound to know the inmates better than you. I'm not being insulting, it's just the truth. They're the ones with the greatest degree of contact. They're the ones who can tell you what the current plan for management is."

He reaches out on instinct and runs a hand over her hair, worried. "Look, I get that you hate this. I do. The way the Barge isn't so much 'run' as 'turned loose with crossed fingers.' But when you're the foreign entity joining an existing structure, no matter how chaotic, you have to take things from where they are, not where you want them to be."

God, he really does sound like a politician. Neal makes a face and shakes the weird feeling off. "You know how to tell a compromise is fair? No one leaves happy."

[cactusy]

She doesn't shake him off when he touches her, though her forehead digs a little more insistently into the table.

"I spent the last few years learning that individual lives matter and that I can make a difference for them. And now you're all asking me to look my inmate in the eye and tell him that this doesn't matter and there's nothing we can do about it."

[conning]

“That’s not what I said.” He’s shifted to gentler now. He can’t help it. “What I said was, to paraphrase: when you’re new in town, don’t try to bulldoze the neighborhood without showing your neighbors some design schematics.”