punched_hitler | ☆ 14 ☆ (VIDEO; Wardens Only, Forward-dated slightly to 11/13, evening after port)

All right, look - now that we're all back on board [and back where they belong] I think we can all agree that Jerry is a bigger problem than your average inmate. Nearly everyone I've talked to has been attacked by him - or killed by him - and it's got to stop. I know he doesn't have a specific warden assigned, but that doesn't mean it's not our job, as wardens, to take care of the situation instead of waiting for someone else to come along and fix it. And I don't think keeping him down in Zero - or killing him a hundred different ways, including setting him on fire - is going to accomplish anything.

[Even if Steve would really, really like to punch him in the face a hundred different ways, by now.]

So. Because this is a problem that affects all of us, as wardens, I think all of us should have a say. I'm - I don't have an assigned inmate right now, so I have the time to keep a personal eye on him. [And the tenacity.] But if someone's got a better suggestion, I want to hear it. I think we all should hear it. This is our Barge, and we need to make it a better place. Maybe it's not as safe as we'd like, but it doesn't have to be a place where people have to hide behind lines of mountain ash and watch their backs. [Or change rooms.] I'm sick of letting one bully with a pair of fangs put everyone here at risk.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[In the other room, Allison can't make the tears stop. She can't stop the tears, because she needs someone to help her make it stop, and the people she needs are gone. She could go to Tig, or Duke, but it's not the same. They don't fit the Lydia shaped hole, the Stiles and Scott shaped holes, because to reach for them would be to choose sides...

She can't even go to Isaac.

The more she thinks about it, the more it hurts...the louder and more numerous the sobs become, and she just keeps crying until there's nothing left. She's raw and bleeding inside, missing limbs...she's just empty.

When she comes back for her communicator, she sees the message Zane left her. Before, she would have protested. Before, she would have had a comeback, an answer.

Except that he's right when he says she has nowhere to go, because she's dead. Back home, where her friends come from, she's still dead, and she'll die soon if she goes back home to the world she came from.

That realization...that aloneness, more than anything, hits her like a fist to the gut.

She has no home. She has no best friend. She has nothing she needs...nothing but her deal.

And she needs her deal...even if she doesn't have her pack, she just can't live in a world where those two boys she loves so dearly are so broken by what had to be done.

More tears slip quietly from her eyes as she looks into the feed again...then she ducks her head to hide them.]

I...okay. I mean--okay, just--

Will you protect them from him? While I'm gone? [Her pack, from Jerry...from that terrible, inevitable moment when he tries to do to them what he did to her.]

[ He's already checked her room. He goes on to Duke's, and that's when he hears the response. Knocks on the door, instead of saying anything back. He starts burning brass and zinc, emotion-metals, starts Soothing the very edges off of more extreme emotions. It might not reach into the cabin. The Barge can be strange like that. ]

[She has a feeling she knows who's knocking, and when she opens the door, standing there at the top of the ladder with Brownie at her side and Duchess on her shoulder, steadied with one of Allison's hands...she feels it. She only recognizes it from the last time Zane did it, the sudden bearable nature of pain she couldn't stand a moment before.

She almost wishes that Zane were playing with her feelings rather than simply easing those raw edges so she can at least breathe again. She'd feel better about telling him to stop...

She says nothing, only steps aside and shoos Brownie away just enough to allow Zane entry.]

[ He slips inside. ]

What happened?

[ That's all he asks. Keeps it simple. He believes she should tell someone, and it sounds like she can't open up to who she wants to. ]

[Allison just stands there for a long moment, shifting Duchess from her shoulder into her arms. The bunny wriggles in protest for a moment, but then seems to understand the way Allison is stroking her, pressing her lips against her soft ears, and after a moment she's content to be cuddled, moving only to sniff at Allison's face and try to nuzzle at her chin.

When she speaks, it's quiet, but her voice is steady.]

Ingesting Jerry's blood is...it's like a drug. A hypnotic or something like that, and it makes you totally...helpless while he does...whatever he wants.

[Her voice catches, and she stops talking, goes totally still and silent until she trusts herself to open her mouth again...still soft, still steady.]

He attacked my friends, but he didn't...attack me. Once he got his blood in me, he...he took me into his arms. He touched my neck, he was...nuzzling...he bit me like I wanted it, and he was too strong for me to stop him. I couldn't even scream, Zane, I couldn't even scream...

[ Powerlessness. He knows that, because it's the worst that he's felt when he was here. Powerless to stop his friends from being hurt, powerless to stop himself from hurting. He'd been driven close to suicide, knowing how futile it would be in a place like this. The worst despair.

A warden shouldn't be in that place. ]

I'm sorry.

[ But, as he's come to realize, he's not been helpless since he Snapped.

He settles down next to her. Quiet, Soothing her emotions still, and a calm presence, at least. It's past time someone found a way to take care of Jerry - he just hadn't expected the vampire to be this stupid about continuing a plague of violence on a ship that he can't escape. ]

Have you ever felt helpless before? Like that.

[She knows he's affecting her feelings, feels that swell of minor hysteria slipping back, not vanishing but smoothing like a rumpled tablecloth under a steady hand. It's nice, and she finds herself leaning against Zane just a little, both for further comfort and as a silent gesture of gratitude.

She's grateful for his power, grateful he's there to help her.

When he asks, she gives the question real thought. She thinks about Peter coming for them at the school. She thinks about losing her mother to Derek's bite, about nearly losing Scott to the madness of wolfsbane and the Darach, losing Stiles to the Nogitsune...

She felt helpless before, lots of times...but never like that. Where she couldn't even scream, couldn't even try to fight. Every other time, she could run or shout or struggle...even if it was futile, she at least had the power to try.

Not with Jerry.

Just thinking about it makes her well up again as she shakes her head before hiding her face against Duchess's fuzzy little body in her arms.]

[ He moves for physical comfort. An arm around her, protectiveness over her and Duchess both. He feels that she is younger than he ever was, but that there are echoes of what he's been through, anyhow. He feels like he could be a brother, or a friend. ]

My kind of powers don't manifest automatically. They have to come from a trauma. It's said that you have to stare into the eyes of death to become an Allomancer.

It became an industry: men who could beat children almost to death but not quite. Enough to make them Snap. Not enough to kill them. But a lot died anyway. [ He breathes out. ] My sister died. I watched her die, and then they took me.

It will get better. There are ways to remember what power you have.

☆ 14 ☆ (VIDEO; Wardens Only, Forward-dated slightly to 11/13, evening after port)

[private]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject