♕ 007 spam

[broughtwhiskey]

spam - slightly backdated to earlier in the week.

[For the first time since Philip arrived on the Barge, it's felt like home. Not in the sense that's he had some sort of sudden attachment to the place, of course, but all of this feels more normal to him than anything.]

[He had been one of the ones left on the Barge and he had immediately hunkered down on his own. As far as he was concerned, it was everyone for themselves once the unnatural things began appearing on-board. Despite the lack of weaponry--something he still resents--he managed just fine without anyone else to look after. Not that there's really anyone here that he feels he might go out of his way to help. But live or die, he thrived while the Barge was falling apart. He felt...alive.]

[And now he busies himself with the clean-up. It's not that he particularly cares one way or another about the status of the Barge, but with the electricity acting the way it is, clear paths in the hallway would be nice. He does this by himself, leaving some of the heavier lifting for those that can manage it by themselves or in teams. But anyone observing him will likely notice the practiced ease with which he drags along the now truly deceased undead before hefting them overboard off the deck.]

Comments

[leavetreadmarks]

That makes you nothing back home.

[This is heavy enough skepticism to drown the unwary. If she's aware of the defensiveness, she does not acknowledge it in any way.]

[broughtwhiskey]

[He doesn't particularly care if she believes him or not. He's not here to make friends much less talk about himself. Which is why he says absolutely nothing in response. She's free to believe what she wants and take his silence she wills.]

[leavetreadmarks]

You know.

[This comes after two floors of silence, which is apparently about as much patience as she has for the silent treatment.]

It's not like there are a lot of people climbing the walls to get out here and do this. So your options at this point are either live with a ship full of rotting bodies until someone else decides to take care of it, do it all yourself, or at least act like you know how to hold a conversation and talk to me. Even if it's to tell me to shut the fuck up.

Cold shoulder is the pussy route, man.

[broughtwhiskey]

[Her attitude, the way she talks, it reminds him of Tara. (Too much like Tara.) She talks tough, pretends as much as she can that she can handle things even with her stomach twisting and turning over what needs to be done, but at the end of the day she can't. She'll break under the pressure sooner or later, or need someone else to take care of things for her. She's someone who shouldn't have lasted this long and wouldn't have if not for luck and her own damn tenacity.]

[He bristles more, takes more offense at the reminder than he does anything she says.]

You asked for my help, not my conversation.

[leavetreadmarks]

[It's an entire sentence though, long enough to need a comma, two separate clauses on one single topic; and there's a note of something besides bland dismissal, besides detachment, behind it.

Letty's pleasure is more prickly than most peoples', but she nods in approval.]

Much better. I knew you had it in you.

You should try using your words more often, you might actually get what you want faster.

[Not that Letty intends to comply, of course, but she approves.]

[broughtwhiskey]

[Aw, man. He made so much progress using a whole sentence like that with some inflection and everything. But nope, he's straight back to stony silence. He doesn't have any use for her approval any more than he does her conversation.]

[leavetreadmarks]

And there you go again.

[She shakes her head, steps off the elevator.]

Pussy route.

[broughtwhiskey]

[It flashes through his mind. Briefly. But it's there. A short violent impulse, a flashbulb of an image of shutting her up in a more permanent fashion. Quick, easy, relatively painless. Getting rid of the body or hiding it would require hardly any effort with the rest of the carnage around the Barge. A fist clenches at his side before he makes himself let it go, pushing aside the thought as he steps off the elevator after her.]

Do you want my help or not?

[leavetreadmarks]

I want your help, but not the creepy silence.

[She's oblivious, of course; not to the fact that she doesn't know anything about him, that he's certainly acting like a weirdo, nor to the fact that he's big enough and clearly strong enough to do some damage if he wanted to. But she's focused, for now, on something else and not that he might go from zero to violent faster than her Roadrunner.

Which is why he's getting the strange look as she glances back at him.]

Is it really so bad? Just talking to another human being?

[broughtwhiskey]

[The short answer to that is yes. (Not that he'll provide a long answer even as he avoids giving her the longer version.)]

[Talking to people is how you get to know them and once you get to know them, you get attached. There's no getting attached to anything anymore. Not in his world, not for him.]

It's not necessary. Just noise.

[leavetreadmarks]

That's not what I asked.

Of course it's not necessary. We're people. It's what we do. Why be more intelligent than a goddamn ape if you don't talk?

[She knows she's not getting that entirely correct but she doesn't care. He's talking, begrudgingly and not actually giving her much, but talking anyway.]

[broughtwhiskey]

[A half-step forward and twenty steps back is the unspoken name of the game today. He's back to the silent treatment almost immediately once more, although he has very little expectation that it will actually shut Letty up. But if she's that in love with the sound of her own voice, there's not a whole lot Philip can do about that.]

[So he simply brushes past her, further down the hall to start making piles.]