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.]

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[cactusy]

"Could be mixing it up," she murmurs, closing her eyes for a moment. "I hope you're wrong."

She wants to hear him tell her she's wrong, without telling her she's crazy (no matter how crazy she feels). But she also wants him to be wrong. It's a confusing little contradiction, even to her.

"Sorry," she says wryly, swallowing. "Guess it's kind of shitty to tell someone you hope they're not real."

[worthallthis]

"I don't think you're hoping I'm not real so much as the situation," B muses. "Besides, there's a chance my deal will make that happen, anyway. If I go through with it." Guess who's the first person he's ever told that to is? Her!

He pats the bed and Libby and D both settle down, D sprawled across Shaw's chest and Libby against her side. "But if it helps, I don't think I'm wrong. I feel pretty real."

[cactusy]

"That makes one of us." But she frowns a little, shifting to sit up on her elbows and wincing at the movement. "Your deal will-- is this because of that 'going to live on another world' thing?"

[worthallthis]

"No, that's not my... original deal. Original deal, that I bargained for when I called the Admiral to take me back, is that the serum never takes in me. I die back in World War 2, either on that table being experimented on or in a long fall from a train. Which means maybe I don't exist anymore, because I came to the Barge seventy years after that." He shrugs a little. "I don't know."

[cactusy]

She studies him for a long moment, her arm curled around D to keep him cradled against her chest. She's clearly woozy, and clearly disoriented, but her eyes are more focused than they were a few minutes ago.

"Steve know?" she asks, after a pause. She doesn't sound indignant, or upset. And if the answer is no, there's nothing in her tone that indicates that she plans to tell him.

[worthallthis]

Which may be one of several reason he told her. Getting her outside her own head right now seems like a good idea.

And also, she might actually kind of understand the need to share something important, when she's shared so much already.

"As of right now, only folks who know are me, the Admiral, and now you," B shrugs. He didn't even tell Lark, when he told Lark everything else about that shitty, shitty situation. If he told Steve, he knows Steve would freak out, and that's the last thing he wants. Especially since: "I might change it, if I ever get a permanent inmate. I don't know yet."

[cactusy]

She nods.

"Okay. Why?"

It's not that she can't fathom why - in fact, she can think of several potential reasons right off the bat. She doesn't want to assume the reasons she can think of would be his, though.

[worthallthis]

B debates for a second before deciding, hell, it's just confession hour now, and Shaw gets to hear it. He hopes she really wants to know.

"Well. First, because if I never get the serum, I can never kill a whole shit-ton of people," B starts. "That's a lot of people HYDRA will have to either leave alive, or find some other way to deal with. Second." He sighs a bit. "I thought my coming back into Steve's life, after he'd been starting to finally settle into the future. Upset some kind of balance. When he left all his friends to go into the past. I thought that was my fault. I don't know anymore if that's true. And third. That's a lot of suffering I won't have to go through, myself, if I just. Die before it all happens."

[cactusy]

"You mean the... other Steve. Not this one specifically."

Or had this one gone into the past at some point, too? This multiple universes thing is absolutely the worst.

[worthallthis]

"Yeah, the one in my universe. Other-Steve." His mouth twitches a bit into half a smile. "This Steve comes from earlier in the timeline, well before the time-traveling became a thing. He spent ten years on the Barge, it-- changed him. Like ten years anywhere would, really. We prevented the thing they needed time-travel for in his universe, and faked his death so he could stay with me and the version of me in his universe got some decent closure."

Yes, multiple universes are awful. And also another reason why he isn't so sure about his deal anymore.

[cactusy]

"You don't think not being around would upset some kind of balance for this Steve here?"

[worthallthis]

"Yeah, see, that's why I'm unsure about doing it," B nods. "Because for one, I ain't gonna do that to Steve. If I can get some assurance from the Admiral that who I am now won't go away-- I don't know." He shrugs helplessly. "I got no real desire to die. I've got a lot of good shit in my life. It's just weighing the harm my life caused, in my world, you know?"

[cactusy]

"Yeah."

Pause.

"I'm glad you're not gonna do it to him. You think you can trust the Admiral's word, or would you need proof of some kind?"

[worthallthis]

"I know the Admiral is... squirrely about some things, but I think he means well, and his word is good when he gives it," B says after a moment. "Besides, what kinda proof am I gonna ask for? I don't think there is any." He shrugs. "I still might not do it. I don't really have to think too hard about it until I get a permanent inmate, and at the rate I'm goin', that's never gonna happen."

[cactusy]

"How long have you been waiting?"

[worthallthis]

"It'll be three years in August. Four, counting that year we were shipwrecked," B answers. "I'm doing good here. I've had people graduate who told me I helped them do it. Which is how it should be, we're all here for each other, not just whoever we're assigned, y'know?"

But it's still wearing on him, not having anyone who apparently works well enough with him to be actually his to help. Especially as he sees people just arriving get paired up immediately, seeing people who've been here less tim than him graduate their inmates.

He shakes his head a little. He's not here to mope, even if his moping might help distract her. "It won't be like that for you. I'm the only one who's never been paired. Usually it happens in the first year or so, or sooner."

[cactusy]

"There has to be a reason, though, right? For some reason, you don't go easily with anybody."

And she wouldn't be too surprised if she were the same. Already she can feel how out of step she is with most of the rest of the ship. B fits it far better than she does.

[worthallthis]

He gives a helpless shrug. "Damned if I know what it is. It doesn't matter, though. Either it happens and I deal with it, or it doesn't and I keep being everybody else's backup. Means I don't have to make any big decisions yet, right?" He gives a lop-sided smile.

[cactusy]

"If I'm here for four years, I really am going to go insane."

[worthallthis]

"Like I said, I'm really unusual," B says, shaking his head. "You won't be like me. Most folks who stay here as long as me stay here cuz they want to. Hell, I'm really here because I want to be. This is the closest thing I got to a home."

[cactusy]

"You sound certain about me," she says, raising an eyebrow. "But you really can't be."

[worthallthis]

"Not you, in particular. Just. That's how it almost always goes. Either a warden's paired up within a year, or usually they vanish without making a deal. Anything outside of that is-- pretty rare," B shrugs. "Now, getting paired don't necessarily mean you get your deal. Inmates vanish, too. Or take a long time. But the pairing usually happens a lot quicker than with me."

[cactusy]

She likes that answer. It's factual, backed up with evidence, and it's overall a lot better than the namby-pamby I'm certain because I believe in you response she'd been both half-expecting and fully dreading. It sends a sudden wave of gratitude washing over her, and she sits up a little more in bed, looking at him.

"I'm here because someone died," she says. "At home."

[worthallthis]

D, laying across her chest, flops to one side, laying next to her, so she's boxed in by dogs. Libby looks up and thumps her tail against Shaw's leg a couple times, but doesn't move otherwise unless Shaw nudges her to.

B nods. "Here to get them back?" he guesses. That's what she'd immediately jumped to with him and the Steve in his universe, and it's... a fairly common deal, really.

[cactusy]

"Yeah. The friend I told you about." The friend she's mentioned a couple times to him, now that she thinks about it, though she'd never made it clear that it was all the same person. She scratches Libby's ears as she continues, her voice flat. "The one who searched for me after I was captured and got me that Morse Code message. The one who wears the leather jackets."