IC Inbox

[oohforeshadowing]

Let me get back to you, darling.

Comments

[hauntedcalamari]

Better than the alternative isn't the same as good.

[Ben does, in fact, like the barge, but he's well aware he'd like anything that wasn't stalking Klaus for another fifteen years.]

[oohforeshadowing]

I don't disagree.

[hauntedcalamari]

Sorry, I shouldn't be thinking out loud at you.

[Habit born from years of thinking as loud as he can and nobody listening, and years before that of only ever thinking quietly because he knew what was good for him.]

You did opt in, then? I mean, for a given value of opt in, but you weren't just snatched unawares?

[oohforeshadowing]

I had what sounded very much like the choice between surviving and...not. If we're calling that 'opting in'.

[hauntedcalamari]

Oh, I get that. Not actually a real choice. I just know there are inmates who show up with no idea what's going on.

[oohforeshadowing]

That was all a long time ago anyway, so I'm wondering why you asked?

[hauntedcalamari]

Because I think it matters, straight up kidnapping versus the illusion of choice, and if people are floundering under either of those conditions it might feel like a factor.

[oohforeshadowing]

How do you think my position would be different if I hadn't chosen this?

[hauntedcalamari]

Day to day, maybe not much, but it doesn't sound like day to day is so much the problem as the symptom.

[oohforeshadowing]

A symptom of what, darling?

[hauntedcalamari]

Directionless ennui. Boredom. Trying to give a damn what happens on the magical hell carnival space boat when it won't matter next week. Whatever you want to pin it down with, it sucks.

[oohforeshadowing]

Back to that again.

I'm suspecting there isn't much of a point to prolonging this conversation, is there?

[hauntedcalamari]

I mean, it's not the first time you've asked and you haven't hung up on me yet.

[oohforeshadowing]

Really? My mistake, warden.

[Click.]