Tʜᴇ Gᴏᴠᴇʀɴᴏʀ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
broughtwhiskey) wrote2014-12-14 06:32 pm
broughtwhiskey) wrote2014-12-14 06:32 pm
♕ 003 spam/private
spam.
[Philip comes out of his room only when strictly necessary. But lately, he's having to spend more time right outside his door when he does emerge. It seems like every time he opens his door again, there Christmas decorations on nearby doors and around the hallway have somehow managed to reproduce themselves and spill over onto his door. Each time, he takes the time to take it off. Everything finds its way to the floor, crumpled up and certainly worse for wear before he moves it aside with a foot. He'd like to think after the first time whoever is decorating his door would get the hint, but here he is once again having to take down decorations.]
[Once his door is clear again, Philip heads to the cafeteria to eat. He prefers sitting by himself. Anyone who sits at his table generally just gets a brief glance in their direction before he goes back to finishing his meal. Some of it leaves with him, particularly anything nonperishable. It saves him from having to be around people much, but it also let's him start a stockpile. Paranoia and old habits die incredibly hard.]
[Other times, Philip can be found in the library--usually there just long enough to pick something and then he's off--or in the hallways as he's making his way back to his cabin.]
private - admiral claus.
[Add yet another thing to the list of things he doesn't want to do and yet he finds himself doing anyway. He keeps it short and to the point.]
[Philip comes out of his room only when strictly necessary. But lately, he's having to spend more time right outside his door when he does emerge. It seems like every time he opens his door again, there Christmas decorations on nearby doors and around the hallway have somehow managed to reproduce themselves and spill over onto his door. Each time, he takes the time to take it off. Everything finds its way to the floor, crumpled up and certainly worse for wear before he moves it aside with a foot. He'd like to think after the first time whoever is decorating his door would get the hint, but here he is once again having to take down decorations.]
[Once his door is clear again, Philip heads to the cafeteria to eat. He prefers sitting by himself. Anyone who sits at his table generally just gets a brief glance in their direction before he goes back to finishing his meal. Some of it leaves with him, particularly anything nonperishable. It saves him from having to be around people much, but it also let's him start a stockpile. Paranoia and old habits die incredibly hard.]
[Other times, Philip can be found in the library--usually there just long enough to pick something and then he's off--or in the hallways as he's making his way back to his cabin.]
private - admiral claus.
[Add yet another thing to the list of things he doesn't want to do and yet he finds himself doing anyway. He keeps it short and to the point.]
Clementine - Leatherman multi-tool.
Roderick - A copy of How to Win Friends & Influence People.
Arkin - Something to branch into a new hobby.
T'Pol - A sense of humor.
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[There's a bare hint of a wry smile. There really is not much point to it knowing that someone will just come by and replace the decorations. But he doesn't want anything like that on his door. He doesn't want to be reminded of the holidays more than he has to be with everything else on the Barge.]
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[But he probably wouldn't appreciate hearing that. So she just comes over quietly and starts to help him pull down the decorations.]
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[Philip glances over at her as she walks over and starts to help. He doesn't know what to make of her. While she seems to be continuing the unspoken tradition of being helpful and friendly, there's something different about her, too. Something he can't quite place his finger on.]
[It's only when he realizes that he's starting to think on what it is that he suddenly reaches over and pulls something down she was about to reach for.]
I got it.
[That's how these things start and he won't let it happen again.]
no subject
[The thing is, Abigail isn't a good person. She doesn't get hurt like Scott does when people dismiss her. She gets angry, and when she gets angry, she gets cold.]
[When he snatches down the decoration she was reaching for, she just looks at him evenly and pulls down another decoration.]
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[He doesn't suppose that it should come as any surprise that she's stubborn. While he doesn't know if she's a warden or inmate, such classification seems rather moot when it comes to some of the kids here. Sure, some are very clearly in over their heads. They haven't experienced a whole lot or, if they have, it hasn't managed to change them much somehow.]
[There are some, however, like Abigail who are the opposite. Something's changed. She might look the part with as meek and mild as she appears on the surface, but there's something deeper than that to her that Philip can already sense. She's too quiet and hasn't been chatting away in hopes of getting to know him. Her offered help also isn't like the others. Where they offer to get him anything he might need, she just stands beside him silently taking down decorations. Abigail also isn't bristling or showing offense at his dismissal of her and yet her continued presence doesn't feel like a weak attempt at forcing a companionship that he doesn't want. Instead, it is just her obstinate refusal at being told what to do.]
[It's all things hard not to notice and harder not to accept.]
You usually walk up to strangers without introducing yourself first?
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[She pulls down a very small wreath that she has to stand on tiptoe to reach.]
You didn't seem like you were interested in introductions or politeness anyway. Did I get that wrong?
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And you don't seem interested in doing what anybody wants you to do.
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[It's not that simple, of course. Sometimes she does things that she doesn't want to do, or that are bad for her. But she's not about to explain the intricacies of her codependencies on someone she's sure she doesn't trust yet. Philip radiates untrustworthiness.]
[Which is not in itself a reason to stay away from him, in Abigail's opinion. After all, she made friends with half the Gotham Rogues' Gallery for a reason: she is drawn to danger, and to power, and to madness.]
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[This is said derisively, of course.]
[Philip doesn't believe it's a bad thing for her to have a mind of her own if she does, but it's that if that causes the problem. People think they have minds of their own right up until the point in which it's convenient to not. It's easier to push that responsibility into the hands of someone else instead of accepting it as their own. It's easier to blame someone else for when things go wrong or when things get ugly.]
[Not that he doesn't understand the impulse. But he's been on the receiving end of the blame, of the responsibility enough times that he resents it.]
[He doesn't bother with explaining any of this to Abigail, however. If she takes it another way, if it hurts her feelings, it's no skin off his back.]
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Sometimes. Nobody does all of the time. If they think they do, they're lying to themselves or to everyone else. Or both.
People naturally gravitate towards leaders. I'm not a leader. Are you?
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[It's a duplicitous answer. It's soft when coming at the end of a breath, but beneath there lies a sharp edge to it. There is an anger inside of Philip at all times, roiling just beneath the surface. When questions like this are asked, it's difficult for some of it to not slip past his guard.]
[It's doubtful if things had gone very differently, if the ones that mattered the most to him had survived, he would have given her a different answer. Very few leaders would ever claim to be leaders. Whether it is by another person's design or there is a need, something makes them become leaders. It's not a choice anyone really makes willingly. It's always placed upon them and his circumstances were no different. Penny needed him. The people of Woodbury needed him. Meghan, Lilly, and Tara needed him. If Martinez had't been so weak, if Rick had't been such a danger, if Michonne hadn't--]
[He cuts his thoughts off there, not wanting to dwell in the past or pondering what might have been.]
[He answered her question. He's not a leader. (He doesn't want to be a leader.) That's all there is to it.]
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[It makes her curious. She wants to figure out how it works, how to handle it, how to turn it on and off. Because surely even anger is a tool that can be used to one's best advantage. A tool like any other.]
[She gives him a soft smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes, that says she doesn't totally believe him; then she turns back to pulling down decorations.]
Well, we'll see. This place turns people into all kinds of things they don't expect.
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[She says this place can turn people into things they don't expect. Well, he's already been through that once. He thought for a time that there was a chance he could walk away from it, never go down that path again, but it was too late. He was already changed irrevocably in all the ways that would classify him as undeserving of the mercy Lilly gave him in his final moments on Earth. He doesn't think this place, or any other place, has any chance in hell of changing him for good or for ill.]
[But there is a danger of more than just that anger rising. There is the chance that all that he secretly fears and hates about himself will rise to the surface and take hold before he can control it. Where there are people, that danger will always be and even more so with people like her who look at him like that.]
[He doesn't trust her smile any more than he trusts himself.]
[Philip says nothing, only stops pulling down decorations and takes a step away. He pauses for a moment. Just a moment. Just long enough to say,] I have to go.
[He has to. He has nowhere to go, but he has to. Philip walks away.]