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WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, AMANDA. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 102.92.004.06 *** gameover has joined 102.92.004.06 <gameover> This is Amanda. <gameover> If you need to contact me, do so here. <gameover> DO NOT waste my time with stupid shit. | ||||
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Glad do hear it. We are well on our way, Mademoiselle. I have about seven players confirmed, most of them Priests. The rest I am scouting. As for how we might start to go about this...
[His eyes narrow, voice dropping to a silky murmur.]
Once my Dog brings me Monsieur Aunamee intact, as I am betting he will shortly enough, we might discuss the particulars. I have an inkling targeting his Priests and more dedicated pawns and allowing Madame to wring them dry of his powers might offer Her something. But we must be cautious. And we must be patient. Wait for the proper time to gather them up and squeeze them in our claws.
In the meanwhile.
[He holds up a hand to bid Amanda to wait, bending over the backside of his desk to open a drawer. He rifles through a little bit and pulls out a recent newspaper from Bavan City. He'll hold it up to her, showing off the headlines from this string of murders at the end of August.]
The Monsieur had the novel idea to begun turning the public against keeping radios in their home. Clever thinking on his part. What do you say about continuing his venture?
cw: child murder
She hopes they were quick and painless, at least. Let the adults suffer, let them scream like pigs in their agony, but not the fucking kids.]
...Yeah. Count me in. Whatever it takes, right?
[Unavoidable casualties, she tries to convince herself, but it doesn't quell the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She holds the paper back out for Javert to take.]
But I don't...I don't wanna kill kids. They haven't done shit to deserve it.
Re: cw: child murder
So don't follow his methods, [he suggests grimly.] He is ostentatious, and we will have the rest of the peninsula up in arms too quick before long if we follow suit. We can set our aim higher.
They must have manufacturing facilities we can see to. Stop the production, rather. Follow the brand labels to their plants.
CW: child abuse and alcoholism mentions
She remembers her father raining blows upon her tiny body, reeking of alcohol all the while, then dragging her to the closet under the stairs and locking her in the dark for hours. She remembers pissing herself in fear, lost in her nyctophobia, and how that only made him angrier. She will not visit that upon another child. She will not become him.]
I can do that. [She feels very at home in such facilities, having spent the final months of her life on Earth in an abandoned meat packing plant. This will be easy for her.] I have plenty of experience with plants and production. I can hit 'em where it hurts most.
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I trust you will manage it. You are welcome to apply your own je ne sais quoi to it, your own flavor. I shall not stop you. All the better if you assemble a trusted team and add to our numbers. Simply do this under tight discretion, and don't let on we are working towards a greater attack. Remember that Elias and his ilk believe we are incapable of organization. Let's not correct them to soon.
[And he throws in, for an extra white flag of fellowship,]
Do you want to be appraised when Aunamee is in hand?
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[She'll put her own je ne sais quoi to it, alright. Amanda has a number of bombs at her fingertips at all times...literally, in fact. She can detach each of her fingernails with little effort and use them as powerful explosives, detonating them remotely with a mere thought. She's armed with 30 "nail bombs" right this fucking minute, and only those already aware of her power would even know she's armed. Another gift from Fog Mom.]
And you're damn right I do. Isn't there something we can do for him now? I don't like the thought of him languishing in there if I can help it.
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I will throw him a man. [His eyes drop floorward, thoughtful, his chin tucked into his starched collars.] He will need some strength and grounding. So. If they won't give him the courtesy of a decent meal, well! He will be covered. Even at my most severe, I am known to feed the cretins I've got locked up for execution.
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If you know where he is, just haul him the fuck out of there! He's your ally, for fucks sake!
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No. I won't interfere.
[He holds up a hand to pre-empt another outburst, and swiftly appends in a growl,]
He had a veritable horde on his arse, Mademoiselle, and I damn well had no intention of throwing him in the jug, or turning my teeth against him for what amounted to an ill-advised fit of fury. I do not punish Madame Fog's faithful. However, one of fellows in that hoard, mind you, is another of our allies, who has proven very useful to me, and he wanted blood in revenge for a murdered lover. I convinced him against going for the kill, he and a wretched wagon of unholy avengers bled out of the woodworks, and we have what you see as the result.
You know as well as I do that Madame Fog accepts this 'sorting out' of our disagreements. They will leave off him once they finish their fun, and we will be at leisure to conduct our business without them pounding on our windows and doors at all hours of the day.
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If you're too much of a coward to save him, tell me where to find him and I'll do it my fuckin' self! And tell me which of our "allies" joined in against him.
[She practically spits the word, venomous. Compatriot in the Fog or not, whoever did it is no ally of Amanda's. It's in this whole pro-Fog operation's best interests that Javert tell her nothing in regards to either of her demands. She might very well go rogue and ruin everything for them all in her short-sighted fury. She needs to cool the fuck off.]
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Control yourself!
Listen carefully. It is vital they have this win. Or they will sniff around us and we shall never have the peace to operate as we want.
[His hands tremble as they grip the edge of his desk; claws splinter wood with the force of his digging. In stark contrast, his voice lowers to a fierce, quiet growl.]
I am going to tell you something.
Do you know what I saw, just before Aunamee went on his tirade, and drew this group's attention on him? That damned false god trapped the Fog in a human cage, with the help of one of his little minions. Like a rat, buried under a mound of bones. Filthy, for a full week. Had you heard Her screams when She at last broke free you would understand why this nimble footwork and careful planning is necessary. We cannot allow them another avenue to divide and distract us. We must be focused. We must let them think they are in control, when we are the ones puppeteering the strings. Do you hear me? Don't make the next steps of our work go up in smoke before it begins.
[Javert abruptly drops his grip, and the tension in the air drains in degrees. He rolls his neck, jaw set firm, and shifts a dour glance to the dented plaster.
Maybe he ought to have Beat make up the difference and take care of the repairs for shielding his wagging tail from Amanda's wrath. He absently makes a terse note to task the repairs to his Dog.]
I already killed the woman responsible for capturing Madame Fog and burned her notes on the affair. I cleaned up quite thoroughly. No one else will do the same as she. So that is finished, at least. For now.
Cw: mention of emeto, mention of seizure
Amanda hardly has time to be furious with him for forcing her gaze before she's overcome with the urge to throw the fuck up. Violently. Thankfully for Javert and his flooring, there's no food in her stomach right now. Nothing in this world or any other could keep Amanda from freeing Aunamee, nothing.
Except for this.
She's so sickened by Javert's description of what was done to the Fog, her mother, that she can hardly think past it. She can cut people open, torture them, kill them, watch them mutilate themselves with a smile on her face, but she can't handle this.]
Fuck. Fuck! [It's all she can croak out, rubbing furiously at the moisture gathering beneath her eyes. It's for the best she hadn't been around to see it for herself; witnessing John's worst seizure had nearly killed her where she stood.] That worthless cunt--how?!
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And all he feels is exhaustion.
He watches Amanda bleakly as she moves from fit to fit, her fury and upset threatening to blow her top, and recognizes how he's overburdened her by letting his mouth run, and run, and run, merely to try and get her to understand. So rather than inundate her with more immediately, he presses a palm to the bridge of his nose and slides over to his liquor cabinet.
He fetches a good, strong whiskey and pours it straight for them both.]
It makes no difference now. The method is nothing but ashes.
Please, do not get swept away. I must apologize to you, Mademoiselle. I've been a damn ass and let my mouth run off unbridled, not a lick of tact. It has been... too long... since I have spoken freely.
[He offers her a glass.]
Drink. I will tell you what you want. But remember you only just returned. Do you need me to fetch someone to eat, or have you got it handled?
CW: addiction/alcoholism/child abuse mentions
And now this. The motherfucker is offering her liquor. Far from a peace offering, a token meant to bring comfort, she takes it as a grave insult. Just one more blow against her, huh, Javert? It's not enough for him to break her, he has to taunt her about her past as an addict and what she'd suffered at her alcoholic father's hands as his coup de grace.
She's been so broken in such a brief period that it doesn't even occur to her that he doesn't know. Not about her childhood, at least, and while she's been more or less open about her former drug addiction he very well may not have seen her discussions of it on the network.
Despite how deeply, obviously offended she is in this moment, her voice emerges even smaller than usual. The bravado is gone from it: all that's left is a weary, pained outrage. She doesn't have it in her right now to act bigger than her body.]
You piece of shit.
[Shaking, she smacks the proffered glass right out of his hand, then backs up a step.]
Fuck you. Offer me that shit again and I'll break more than a glass, you understand?
CW: addiction and alcohol
He realizes at once that he's made a fatal error. He doesn't truly know this woman.
He operated at a distance from her, watching her through network proceedings with only the occasional run-in. So much of those network conversations have melted into his memories, unreachable, with how many times he's died. But it is a moot point. If he'd known about her history with addiction, he wouldn't have known to associate it with liquor, regardless. It is separate in his old-fashioned head, as natural as Hawkeye Pierce guzzling gin with every quiet moment he gets.
So when Javert saw the storm of emotions wreck her face, her voice, and posture, he understands only that one fact: he overlooked her when he should have owed her his attention. He caused this, and him alone. He's cursing himself violently under his breath, stricken and exhausted.
In what can only be described as a damn blur of movement, he's thrown open both the nearest window and his liquor cabinet and starts to angrily throw each and every bottle out into the abyss of Dyster town. He's cross. He's mad, mostly at himself, and above all, he just wanted to make a pact with another Priest. This has gone cross-eyed, and this is the best way he can think of to make amends.]
I apologize, [he hisses fiercely, fraught with exhaustion, as he reaps his path of destruction. Crash. Crash. Crash. Systematically throwing everything away. He means his apology, too, rarely being a creature to give one.] I've been an ignorant dolt. Knew not a lick about you, did I? See where it's brought us!
[He pauses halfway through throwing a very expensive 100 year whiskey, hand on the bottleneck and reeled back to toss. His gaze skids towards a still-livid Amanda.]
Would you like to throw some? Smash one against my thick skull, if it will please you.
CW: heroin addiction, alcoholism, abuse
[She doesn't want to smash any, not even against his head. Were circumstances different, she'd likely relish the chance to destroy a few bottles--but she doesn't even want to touch one right now.
A waiter in this world had offered her liquor once, when she'd gone out to dinner with Aunamee as they first got to know each other. She'd felt insulted and acted extremely short with the offending human, but she hadn't attacked him, or begrudged Aunamee his own drink order. So long as those drinking in her presence do so in moderation, she'll resign herself to being uncomfortable yet largely civil about it.
Here and now, though? Even that basic civility is too much to ask of her. She's been hit with so much devastating information in so short a time that what might ordinarily strike her as an insult feels instead like a cruel and deeply personal attack. It feels as if he's comparing her to her father, or taunting her over her childhood. As if he offered her the stuff to say he thinks her weak enough to relapse into her old, addictive ways, even though her personal brand of substance abuse was heroin.]
Fuckin' do it yourself.
[In this moment, she knows without a doubt that she hates this man. It goes so far beyond him being a cop, now, that she couldn't put words to how virulently she despises him. It isn't at all fair to him--he'd only been trying to apologize for upsetting her, to forge a friendlier bond--but she's not thinking rationally. Her hatred of him isn't fair and the lifelong string of tragedies and abuse that led her to think in such twisted, fucked-up ways wasn't fair and now she's taking it aaall out on him because there's no one else to take it out on but herself, and that part will have to come later, when she's alone. God, she feels so sick.]
CW: self-harm intrusive thoughts
Like his plans right now. Like his ideas, and his damnable mistake to assume Amanda was just like Ariel Knot and required counter-manipulation.
Instead, he wraps his claws upon the opened window-sill and gazes out into the foggy town, the weight of his own foolishness crushing any goodwill towards himself with every ragged inhale. He longed for a cigarette, or to kill something, or to tear at himself, even, until the pulp was no longer recognizable. He knew better than to try that in Amanda's presence now, when she was already repelled by a glass of liquor. He doubted she would be impressed by performative measures to self-destruct, too.
So what now? What can he do to appeal to Amanda?
Not much. He didn't earn the chance.
He is a damned idiot. A blind idiot. An ignoramus. He could go on.]
I made a hideous mistake, [he says earnestly, voice rasping with his growling tone.] I had a much different conception of you. I was wrong. I should like to start again, Fog be willing, when you are amenable. It need not be now.
And I would like to add something.
I am sorry to be the callous creature to tell you of Atem's loss. I did not recognize you knew him well.
CW: self-harm mention (cutting)
As for hurting oneself...she's no stranger to it. It's a violence she inflicts upon herself with frightening regularity, a reliable go-to for forcibly compacting all the rage and self-hatred she carries in every waking moment down to a manageable level. The largest scars line her thighs in nearly measured rows, planned as carefully as any device blueprint, while the ones along her forearms are more haphazard.
At another time, seeing Javert harm himself might result in some small level of commiseration. Right now, though? He's right in thinking she'd find it performative. Another targeted insult, maybe, intended to dig at just one more of her failings.]
I don't want your fuckin' apologies. [Not right now, at least; she's incapable of believing he means them sincerely when she's this fucked up, consumed utterly by the darkest parts of herself.] It's time you paid the fuck attention. No more misconceptions.
[There are tears rolling down her cheeks. She isn't even aware of them.]
Are you listening to me now, you pig?
no subject
She is another that is stuck beneath Aunamee's bony thumb, isn't she.
Of course, a Pig. Oink, oink. He deserves no better a moniker. It is no coincidence that the pig statuette modeled after himself sits on a high-up shelf, staring, frozen, into a happy void.
Javert nods, stilted, never breaking his gaze.]
I am listening.
WHAT A FABULOUS ICON | CW: heroin, prison abuse, police corruption
Good. Because I'm not gonna repeat myself.
[She forces herself to stand taller again, faking a confidence she doesn't actually feel, but as her full height is a mere 5'2" that's not saying a whole hell of a lot.]
I'll cooperate with you. For Her sake and her sake alone. I've given her every cell in my body and that's never gonna change.
But we're not friends. We're never gonna be friends, motherfucker. I hate you. You disgust me. And if you use what happened here against me...if you spill any of this...I don't give a shit that we're on the same side, I'll fuckin' kill you. Are we clear?
Thank Tal2!
[For all the atrocities Javert has committed, all the blood he's shed by his own hands -- he was never a bad cop. He doesn't remember it this way, because every single one of his human memories (the ones that remain, for they are all nothing but slivers and fragments now that he is left to piece together into an incoherent whole) are mired in a thick black stain. Where he once cast himself as a righteous hero, he has recast as the villain; what he once thought was probity and following the letter of the law, he now sees in himself as nothing better than selfishness and crude ambition and unwillingness to see beyond the written word.
If he knew what she was thinking, he would take the insults, and resolutely agree with every word.
That isn't what would endear him to her, that's for sure.]
Nothing leaves this room. I swear to you upon my death-scars and my blood, and upon my duty to Her, that not a word shall slither off. Not even of our agreement to our mutual allies.
[He lowers his head in a tilt, eyes half-lidded.]
Unless you wish it.
Furthermore, heft the blame in my direction for whatever credit you are unwilling to take, and take only that which you want. I don't mind.
no subject
Aunamee and Noa--if he's still here--can know. About our agreement. Not the other shit.
[The only blame Amanda's willing to take right now consists of beating herself up for being so pathetic that Javert could drive her to such ruin so easily. She'll make herself pay for this weakness later, of that there's no doubt. Incapable of getting and keeping her emotions under control, she lives a self-inflicted penance for it that will never end. Her emotion is also her weakness, John had once said of her, when he still harbored hope that she might one day overcome it. Too bad for the both of them that his "cure" had only made it exponentially worse, leading directly to both their deaths.]
Don't contact me again unless it's about the plan. [Her voice devolves into a watery croak once more.] Apart from that, you can go fuck yourself.
[One day, they may be able to move past this. Right now it's far too raw, too fresh, for her to even consider it.]
no subject
Outwardly, Javert bows his head in a curt, yet respectful, nod. Perhaps later, when the stifling whirlwind of feeling has loosed their grips, they may look back on this exchange more clearly, more rationally. For now, all there is is one half of the party damning herself for her weakness, and the other half damning himself for his blindness. Self-absorption, always prepared to sabotage the best of attempts at outreach.
Amanda is fortunate that secrets are safe with Javert. He is far too principled, far too honest about his peculiar flavor of service to the Fog to ever disclose what transpired between them. She will find out before long, when the dust as settled, just how far he is willing to go to strengthen their cooperation with one another.]
Noted. I will leave you to your own devices. You will know it when the plan is ready for the next step up.
Rest well, and take comfort in the fact that I am apparently quite practiced in the art of getting myself screwed over.
no subject