cactusy | IC contact for lastvoyages

I never read the one on my inmate gets her openly rolling her eyes, and then immediately regretting it, because the movement makes her nauseous. She leans back against the pillows, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"I'm not asking just because I want to gossip. Hearing about it could help me try to figure out the Admiral's standards a little."

"It won't tell you anything you don't already know," he says, not meaning to get defensive, but he kind of is. "I don't understand the standards because I think calling them standards is probably being too generous. It's different for everyone, like I said."

And the fact that some of the people who walked off this boat had really hurt him and never thought about it again means nothing, and he knows it. He knows it, but it still hurts, and he doesn't want to talk about it, because it just sounds self-centered, like most things he says does.

"It's not like passing some test or checking off some boxes. It's up to you to get to know your inmate and learn who they are and how to help them, or how to help them help themselves."

"Says the guy who didn't read his inmate's file," she says slowly. "Look, I just-- wanna know what kinds of things are okay for people to leave on the table when they graduate."

"I read my own file," which he feels like counts for more, but maybe actually counts for less.

But okay. He'll try to help her out. Maybe. A little.

"It depends. Graduating doesn't mean you never kill or make mistakes. It doesn't mean you apologize for what you did."

He sighs, slowly. "I always thought of it as fixing something inside yourself that was broken. Changing the way you dealt with the world. Everyone goes through shit. But not everyone is an inmate. So I thought it had to be more about intent."

He doesn't know if he still believes that - doesn't know if he believes it about himself, most of all - but it has to be right in some cases, at least. He still thinks that's what did it for T'Pol. "One of my inmates, T'Pol. Her people had been enslaved. She wanted to resort to genocide to fix it. Two wrongs don't make a right. That kind of thing."

He adds, "When she did graduate, I went to help her. We did kill a lot of people. But - even in a war, not everyone on the opposing side is your enemy."

"Makes sense," she says, her hand dropping back down onto the mattress. And it's pretty close to what she's been assuming so far, which is somewhat reassuring. "There's people I'd still kill, at home. I figure if that were a dealbreaker, I wouldn't be here."

"Exactly. I don't think that's it," he confirms. Killing may never be justified, exactly, but it's not always the worst choice you can make, either.

"Maybe the best thing to do is talk to a bunch of wardens, and talk to a bunch of inmates. That might give you a better idea. Narrow it down, if it can be narrowed. Some people might know what graduated them or their inmates. Or have some idea." Just because he doesn't, doesn't mean no one else does.

Shaw could absolutely quibble about killing being justified sometimes, but that's not the kind of conversation she particularly enjoys even when her head isn't pounding, so she just leaves it.

"Why do you think I asked you?"

He lets out a sound that's more sigh than laugh, but it's a little bit of a laugh. "Yeah. I figured. I just - I'm not the usual kind of case, is all."

He stares at the wall over the bed, eyes flicking over the note he'd written without really reading it.

"I thought I was just - here to be punished, after what happened. Case closed. I know it's stupid. Other people have been demoted and graduated. I'm not actually special. But I wasn't - I'm not really sorry for wanting to do what I did. And everything everyone told me - I never expected to be able to leave. So I don't know why I can now. I don't know what changed, except for things I don't like, and maybe them's the breaks, but I'd like to think that most people are happier after they graduate."

He is happy, in a lot of ways. But he's still afraid of losing it, and still afraid of what he has lost.

"What did everyone tell you?" she wonders, carefully watching his face.

Edited 2023-04-10 04:05 (UTC)

"That I'm selfish," he says quietly, and he's not watching her face, still looking at the wall. "That I didn't do it for anyone on the ship but myself."

"Were they right or wrong?"

Her voice is flat, like it often is, which means there's no heat or judgement to it. After a moment more of watching him, her eyes flick away too, landing on the wall opposite the one he's focused on.

"I don't know."

It's frustrated - but also honest. He really doesn't.

"I really thought -" He shakes his head. "It doesn't matter what I thought. The road to hell and all that, right? What matters is how people took it. Safest thing seems to be not to risk it again."

Which he hates. So much.

"... You seem frustrated," she says slowly, half-expecting him to put a stop to this line of conversation at any moment. "Kinda guilty, even if you don't feel bad about your intentions. You don't sound selfish to me, though."

He doesn't like talking about this, but - she's like Lark. She's somehow easy to talk to, in a way that B isn't, because he hates admitting how much of a failure he is to the man he's always looked up to. (He might have admitted too much to B recently, while he was drunk, but it still wasn't easy, nor is it something he's proud of.)

But he at least trusts Shaw to give it to him straight, even if she wasn't here when it happened and won't ever understand how horrible what he did was.

"I just - I understand why no one trusted me after. And I don't want to do it again without meaning to. But maybe I'm explaining it badly. If I thought doing something for everyone else was good, but I was only doing it for myself, then I can't trust anything I want until I learn the difference."

"How long ago was this again? You said a couple years, right?"

"Almost seven years," Steve confirms.

Then, "I'm not always a fast learner."

She does not say I'LL say, holy shit, but her eyebrows do jump a little.

"Yeah, your self-esteem being in the toilet probably doesn't help, either."

Yeah, yeah, he knows. He knows both those things.

He shrugs and says, wryly, "Feeling good about yourself clearly isn't a requirement for graduating."

Also, "I wouldn't want to get too cocky." The last - the only - time he really thinks he felt good about himself was during the war, and it was a fucking war. So, what does that say about him.

"All I really care about now is helping people who really do need off this ship get - well. Off the ship. I can try to do that without, y'know. Imparting advice that might be shitty."

"Based on what I've learned about this place so far... I'm pretty sure saying that makes you better-suited to be a warden here than I am."

She says it, but then goes quiet, wondering if it'll be read as an insult.

He doesn't; or, rather, he takes it as her insulting herself, if anything.

"Well, given that the criteria are 'willing to come here and graduate an inmate in return for a deal,' I think I'm probably the outlier," he points out wryly.

But seriously: "You're gonna be a great warden."

He means that, very sincerely.

She rolls her eyes, because of course she does.

"I won't suck as much as a lot of here probably think I will, but this place is a lot more emotion-based than I thought it'd be. You know I'm at a disadvantage."

"You woulda been great with T'Pol. I was just a big, dumb, emotional, illogical human at her 'till she caved. Not very efficient."

Okay, that's not exactly how it went, but - "A lot of people that come here are emotional. But think about the people, like you, who aren't, and how they need someone to understand them, too. Or maybe someone needs to be outstubborned or argued out of their corner. You'll fit somewhere no one else does, whether it's someone you're assigned to or not."

"Sure, that's what I'm thinking."

Or what she's hoping, anyway. So far, she's clashed with about as many inmates as she has wardens, though there are at least some from each category that she seems to click well with.

"But I still hate most of my coworkers' priorities, and I'm guessing at least some of them are still convinced that I wanna strip their inmates' cabins. It's been a while since I've been a part of a big group like this, and even that was... different. This isn't anything like the Marines."

"It's definitely nothing like the Army, either," Steve admits. "Not that it has to be, but - "

He shrugs. It had been a big sticking point of his, early on. He still thinks things could be better. More organized. Less lax, when it comes to serious wrongs, but he isn't sure how to change it.

Back to feeling guilty for being complacent, these days.

"You come on strong," he finally says, "but you mean well. I mean. I kinda thought you wanted to strip everybody's cabin the first time we talked."

At least she's trying. He respects that, more than anything else. But it's not easy to stand alone in a place like this. "This group isn't like any other you'll ever be part of. It's not - really a group, in a lot of ways."

"I just wanna strip the cabins of the violent ones who have a history of going on massacres."

And this is a hill she will die on, thank you very much.

"Every group I've ever been in has been like nothing else I've ever been a part of. I hate this one the most, though."

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