tucky | ♻ 017 | video/spam

[video]

[Tiffany Doggett appears to be moving up in the world. Horatio, Venus, and Tig's posts had sparked the beginnings of "I wonder..." feelings in her; when Venus had asked if anyone had magic powers, she'd experimentally wished for a couple new songs to appear on her iPod - and lo and behold, it had worked.

Two hours later, she's lounging like a queen on one of the poolside chaises, looking cool in a bikini and a pair of designer sunglasses, margarita glass in hand. The clothes folded on the chair beside her look new, too. Behind her, the pool room is noticeably expanded - the ceiling is taller, the pool itself is much bigger, and there's a twenty-foot water slide that empties out into the deep end.

There's also a hot tub.]

Y'all got any requests? I'm feeling generous today.

[Merlin is still in a coma, and she's seriously hating that, spending a good deal of her time hanging around him and fretting. But this? This is a good distraction.]

[spam]

[Every good thing has its downside, though, and non-stop wish-granting is no exception. Every so often, the built-up exhaustion will reach a boiling point and Tiffany will quietly vanish, retreating to her room and crawling into bed for days on end. Calls and texts will go unanswered, as will knocks on her door; however, she won't bother locking it, so anyone who tries can wander in. Eventually, she'll start to perk back up, and the process will begin anew.]

[filtered to Dillon, Iris, Mason, and Simon; dated to after Arthas's post]

I been hearing a lot of real, you know, contradictory things right now - mostly about these powers we got and whether or not we should use them. I have heard we could destroy ourselves if we do, and I have heard they're the only way to save ourselves. I'm gonna tell you right now I don't know what the right answer is, and I'm not gonna ask what you think 'cause I bet no one else really knows either.

So I just wanna say, stay safe. I'm... I'm pretty fucking scared right now, as you can probably see, and I I'm feeling the effects from this a little bit. I think I'm just kinda tired, but I don't know. But I love y'all and I want y'all to be okay, so take care of yourselves and tell me if you need anything from me. Anything at all.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He gives her a look, growing a little more thoughtful.]

Yeah, maybe you would. It is scary, and it's probably a big fuckin' headache, but it's... it's a hell of a thing, when you feel like you can make a difference to people.

I used to be the same way, never been in charge of anything. Never thought that I could be. But we had a big plague back home, end of the world shit, and I ended up sort of in charge in Las Vegas. Second in command to another dude, but still sort of in charge.

Hell of a place to be in charge of.

So you liked it? You made a difference; did some good?

You ain't kiddin'.

[He laughs a little because yeah, Vegas sure was a hell of a place.]

Some of the time I liked it a lot. Best job I ever had by a country mile; felt like I was using muscles in my brain I didn't even know were there. But some of the time I had to do stuff I didn't really want to do, because that was part of the job, too. I dunno. I guess I made some difference, just not enough, in the end.

[He shoots her a wryly bleak look.]

I wouldn't be here if I did much good, would I?

You seem like a good person to me.

[Granted, she doesn't know him that well - but what she has seen of him has been kind.]

I used to say all inmates here sucked; I liked the wardens better. Now, I still got more warden friends than inmate friends, but I know inmates ain't all bad.

[Lloyd smiles a little at that, not really sure where that's coming from. Maybe just that he hasn't been an asshole recently?] Well, thanks, I guess. But I'm nothing like a good person. I'm tryin' to do better, I s'pose, but the shit I did, I'm pretty sure I'm barred from the good guy club for a few lifetimes.

[Not that he really believes in good guys and bad guys, not the way they have them in comic books. He knows most people would think of the people of Flagg's Las Vegas as the bad guys, and he knows how fucking wrong that would be. But he also knows there's no way he could be considered a good person.]

I don't think inmates are all bad, though. And I don't think the wardens are all good, either. I don't think it's ever that fuckin' simple. Most of us, we had tougher shit to deal with than a lot of the wardens. It ain't that hard to be a good person when you never had reason to be anything else.

Yeah, but it's the same for me too, and I get called a good person here. It ain't about the past, it's about right now.

And I know wardens who've been through tough shit. Like... most of 'em, actually. Not even just the ones who used to be inmates.

[She thinks of Merlin, here, and Simon. Dillon, too. She doesn't know all - or even that many of - the details, but terrible things had happened to all of them back on their worlds, and it colors them even now.]

Thing is you're still hauling along all that stuff from your past. It's not like you can just cut it loose. Or maybe you can. I sure as hell haven't managed it.

[He crushes the empty beer can and reaches for a new one. It'd be nice to just let go of the past, but he can't. Sometimes he manages not to think about it, and that's the best he can do. Even if he tried his goddamn hardest to forget, it'd still be there in his dreams, keeping him up at night.

And there's still the stone around his neck, marking him as Flagg's man.]

But you're right, I know some wardens who've been through shit, too. [Venus and her mom, Letty getting killed by that cartel guy, Horatio losing his arm and foot to a psycho.] I guess they must've found a way out, or had somebody to pull 'em out. They didn't stay buried under all that shit.

That's what this place is good for, I think.

[She feels like that's what it's doing for her, anyway.]

But I... yeah. I haven't forgotten the bad stuff from my past. It still gets at me, sometimes.