worthallthis | The Last Voyages: IC Inbox

Steve glances over; he can't be frustrated with the dogs right there, so he crouches down to pay them the attention they're seeking with a smile that's trying to be rueful, but maybe comes out a little pained.

"Nah. Just - "

But he doesn't even know what just to call it, in the end. Just did a bad job of supporting Sameen? Just tried to be an authority figure when I feel like I don't have the right anymore?

Yeah, staring at the oven was easier. "Just making some bread," he settles on. "Been a - day." He doesn't even have an adjective. Just a day.

"Nobody ever says they had a day when it was a good one," B observes, settling C on the armchair and following the dogs into the kitchen area to lean against the counter next to Steve. "Wanna talk about it or just wanna glare at the stove s'more?"

"No," Steve agrees, but then he feels kind of guilty. "It wasn't - " Bad, necessarily. He feels stupid. Overwhelmed. And not particularly good about himself, but none of those are things B can fix. And none of those are Shaw's fault for asking him to come.

He props his chin up on the heel of his hand as he mentally considers how much longer the bread needs. It's almost done, but not quite.

"Shaw wanted me to come with her to this... meeting. About one of the inmates. Lestat?"

Steve had known nothing about the guy, but Steve is aware he's not like most wardens.

B scoots over enough that his side is up against Steve's knee, and he can rest his arm on that side over Steve's thighs like an armrest. "The vampire, right? He gives piano lessons. Monopolizes the piano sometimes. I just kinda avoid him, but I didn't think he'd gotten into any trouble recently. What was the meeting about?"

"What to do about him," is the soft, slightly sour reply. "Or - well. Yeah. What to do about him. He's been involved in a couple of, you know. Incidents."

Who among them hasn't, at this point?

"His warden wanted to take responsibility for punishment, which is - good. He wanted to talk to other people about it. Which is good. But it's also... I don't know."

Steve has very complicated feelings about what wardens do by taking responsibility, sometimes, and he it's even sure whether he's blowing things out of proportion or not, just like he knows the wardens here now aren't the wardens that were here before.

"I feel like it was a lot of posturing. And Lestat wasn't there, which - I get, but I still feel uncomfortable about. And if Shaw wanted me there to support her... I kind of did a shitty job of that, too."

He runs a hand through his hair. He knows Shaw hadn't called him just so she could feel right in this meeting, but he still feels weirdly like he let her down, all the same.

"I don't know if Sameen wants support from anybody," B muses, first. "I think if you supported her without question she'd either look at you like you grew a second head, or would get insufferable. Maybe both. So. I wouldn't worry too much about that part."

B loops his arm around Steve's thighs rather than just resting on it. "Do wardens usually have, er, meetings about inmates? I know back around when I graduated, I played bodyguard at something like one, but I think that was more. Inmates trying to hash something out together, with wardens and me present to keep them from, I dunno, hitting each other or something."

One corner of Steve's mouth twitches up - B's right about Shaw, but even if she doesn't want support, he wants to give it to her. Maybe she could really use it.

He lets out a breath and his shoulders inch down just a little when B moves. "I don't know," he admits. "I never thought so, but maybe they do and I just don't know." He doesn't know a lot about what goes on on this ship, after all. "It was always my impression they just generally took it upon themselves to do what they thought was appropriate - and I mean, I'm not mad there was a meeting, I just -"

He isn't sure what's bothering him so much. Maybe it's still that Lestat wasn't there. Or that, when Shaw had asked to film it, she'd been told no.

Actually, yeah. Those things are it: "It felt too much like a privileged private meeting. I'm not saying every situation needs a goddamn Barge town hall, but - Sameen wanted to film it to keep records and share it with her inmate, too, and they told her no. It's not even any of my business, but I just don't like how it went down. The supposed 'impersonal moderator' 'held fondness' for both parties involved - that's not impersonal."

He shrugs, folding back in on himself a little. "It's not what I would do, I guess. But I wasn't the one doing it, so I know it doesn't matter."

Edited 2023-07-31 16:38 (UTC)

Well, B doesn't blame them on the whole recording shit thing, sometimes you don't want your words replayed out of context to strangers, but not having the inmate in question there is kinda rude. "What was the point of this meeting, exactly?" he asks skeptically, squinting at the oven as if it might answer, for Steve. "Was there anything that needed deciding in this meeting, or was it just to-- I don't know, parade about that the warden was 'doing something' even if that something was just talk?"

"To talk about how Lestat was being 'treated,' which - Shaw was being Shaw." Which is where it gets into Steve feeling like he didn't do a good job of supporting her, if he was supposed to, because, "She's been tailing him. Not... maliciously. But you know her. She's keeping an eye on him and hasn't been pretending otherwise."

He blows out a breath. It's so fucking personal for a situation that isn't personal at all. And he knows B doesn't know that.

"I think what it comes down to is everybody has different ideas about how to keep him out of trouble. Which is nothing new. Half of it was arguing over who should decide anything at all. Half of it was - "

He shakes his head.

"Shit. I don't know. The Barge is so fucking insular, it's... When people do things. Hurt other people, murder other people. It's dealt with so privately - if it's dealt with at all - that the victims never know if anything's been done at all. And then the perpetrators go right back to doing it and their wardens wring their hands and hold meetings and - "

He makes a helpless, dismissive gesture. "People graduate. Obviously it works."

But obviously Steve hates so much about it that it's hard to even put it all straight, and he's still maybe a little inherently, unconsciously worried that B will get fed up with Steve being difficult and hating the system and just being Steve about it.

"I guess it's stupid to say nobody talks when there was a lot of talking, but I don't know if there was a lot of listening," he finally says, quietly. "I don't really get the feeling anything was resolved. I sure didn't walk out of there feeling any better about anything."

B listens, keeping his arm looped around Steve's knees. He winces at the description of Shaw being, yeah, Shaw. And winces again at hearing that whoever Lestat hurt didn't even know he'd been punished? If he had>? Jesus, it's all such a mess.

"That don't seem right. Somebody's victims need to be told they'll be safe going forward. And it needs to be true. That's not-- that's not gonna help anybody graduate, not feeling safe. Which is Sameen's problem, too, cuz she ain't helping anybody feel safe by obviously tailing them, either...."

He shakes his head a little. He doesn't know what the solution is, he never has, except for trying to spread the alarm system so maybe people have another way of feeling safe. Or safer. But he can definitely agree: "Yeah, I can see how that counts as a Day." He gives Steve's far calf a soothing little rub.

"At least she's trying," Steve says, softly, leaning into B a little, though it also sort of feels like he's holding himself back. (Mostly because he feels bad wanting comfort. Like he doesn't deserve it. But he does want it. He's weird like that.)

"I don't always agree with her, but she does things. She's not just talk. People can see her doing things." And he respects the hell out of it. He wishes he could be more like that. Like he used to be, but - that had gone terribly wrong.

Shaw goes wrong sometimes, too, but he will do his damnedest to make sure she never makes as bad a mistake as he did.

"She definitely does do things. Usually very visibly, you're right." B isn't always sure doing things is necessarily a good thing if they're actively the wrong things. But he doesn't exactly want to, say, discourage Steve from doing things, either, just because his experience with "doing things" has largely gone badly.

Well. Out in the world, anyway. Here it hasn't been so bad.

"So the meeting was pointless and people're mad at Sameen, and you had to sit in and act like you had some kinda authority?" B guesses.

Steve snorts, but the intent behind it is definitely directed inward. "Yeah. Yeah, what a horribly tough life I live, huh."

He's so damned privileged, and he's sitting here complaining about it. Like some kind of... well. Privileged asshole. No wonder Sweeney needed space from him.

It's then that he tenses a little, and grimaces as his mental timer goes off and he shifts on the stool. "Gotta take the bread out now," he says, quietly, maybe a little glad for the distraction.

That is kind of the opposite of what B had been intending to get across, but of course Steve took it badly. He's already in a bad mood. He frowns, but unwinds his arm to let Steve climb down. "Steve. That wasn't a-- a criticism. You're allowed to have feelings about a shitty day. You're allowed to have shitty days, even."

Steve makes a face at the oven, so at least B can't see it. "Yeah, I know."

Yes, he's aware it makes him sound like a belligerent child. It's not like he never expects to have shitty days. This just... feels like a massive failure on his part, so it's only fair that he feels bad.

Maybe it's just that he's all too aware: "It woulda been different. Before."

He would've been different. Before everything. He would've been better at handling that. At contributing.

"And maybe before, Sameen wouldn't have even invited you to come along," B counters, leaning back against the cabinets and watching Steve's back. "You can't know how it woulda been, Steve. We're different people now. That don't mean who you are now is bad." B happens to love who Steve is now very much, after all. Maybe he'd love the old Steve, too, but... the old Steve is the one who left him.

"Besides," he adds, "to hear you tell it, nobody ever had any kind of authority here, not you or anyone else."

"We have the authority we give ourselves," he says, quietly, pulling open the door to check the bread - then pulling the pan out and setting it on the burner, using the dish towel. "Or that we let other people give themselves."

That's all authority is anywhere, in the end, he supposes. Just usually there's more... agreement. Oversight. Something. With the Barge, it's fractured. But it wasn't, always. At least, not in the same way.

He shrugs a little, still looking at the pan. "I don't - "

Well. He doesn't even know how to finish that sentence, really. He doesn't want it, but he doesn't want to be ignored. Finding the middle ground is his own damn problem; it always has been.

He shakes his head. "Nevermind. You want some fresh bread?"

"Once it's cooled down enough that I won't have to burn every calorie I get from it healing my mouth up," B says with half a smile, though his expression is a little concerned still. He leans back more securely against the counter, elbows up on it, watching him. "You don't what, Steve? I mean. Obviously, this's bothering you."

Steve just makes a half-bemused, half-noncommittal noise, and carefully pulls said loaf out of the pan and sets it on the towel to cool a bit.

He doesn't want to answer the question, mostly because he's utterly ashamed of the answer: I don't think I deserve this job.

But he doesn't want to lie. And telling B it's nothing is - that's the kind of thing that drove Bucky away. He has to not do that. He's trying to not do that. "I don't think I'm very good at this job, is all," he temporizes; it's not untrue, either, after all. "Not that the Admiral - he's not that kind of boss." You only lose the job when you mess up in ways Steve doesn't want to mess up in, ever again. "But I want - to not be so bad at it, but I don't think I'm that kind of person anymore."

B considers that seriously. It's not like he hasn't had thoughts like that, himself, so he's not going to belittle Steve for it. "The person you were before. Maybe there's people here who don't need that kind of person." He tilts his head a little, eyes on the bread rather than Steve. "Even if maybe you're bad at this job for ninety-nine percent of this Barge... you might be perfect at it for one person. And I think that's worthy, too."

He stretches out a foot to bump Steve's shin with the toe of his boot. "Not that I'm saying you're as bad at it as you think you are. But even if you are. You're not here for ninety-nine percent of the Barge. You're here for the people who you can help, exactly as you are."

Those words help. They help... a lot actually, almost unexpectedly so, and Steve glances up when he feels B's boot bump his leg, a weird mix of surprise and gratification on his face.

He can't explain, not even to himself, quite why or how they help; it's not like he feels completely better, like that worry isn't there, that inadequacy. But what B says also makes sense and Steve can't pretend otherwise.

He's not the person he was before, who wanted to help everyone. But even then, he knows, he'd understood you couldn't. But you still had to try. Because people aren't numbers, aren't statistics. If you thought you could save even one, then you had a duty to get up off your ass and try.

He'd done that for Bucky, after all, a long time ago.

"Yeah," he says, softly. "I - yeah." After all, when he tries to change things for everyone, that's when it all goes terribly wrong, isn't it. He can't be that guy anymore. That guy is - gone, and B still loves him anyway, and Steve wonders how many times he's going to make B point that kind of thing out before he gets it through his thick head.

"You are so smart, you know that?" You'd better know it, B. (You probably do. You are smart, after all.)

B can see tension go out of Steve, even not looking at him directly, and a little of it goes out of him in response. He looks up at the compliment, and rolls his eyes a little, but with a smile. "Only sometimes when I'm very lucky," he says, only about half joking. "And sometimes I think only when I'm on the Barge."

He smiles a bit better, then, and stretches his foot out again to brush Steve's. "But I'm glad I can help."

Steve makes a noise like, I don't think that's how it works, but I also don't want to argue. Because he doesn't - and he doesn't. B is smart all of the time, and if circumstances make him feel otherwise... well, it's somebody else's loss. Steve knows he's more than lucky to have him. Because a lot of the time, he doesn't feel like he deserves this, either, but he still can't bring himself to do anything but hold on like it's all that matters.

"You help," he says, softly, glancing up at B. "You help a lot." He laughs a little, though not like he finds anything actually funny, when he says, "You shoulda come to this damn meeting, maybe." Even though he doesn't think B would have enjoyed it any more than Steve had.

"I guess now I should try to keep an eye on things better." If he hadn't liked the way things had gone, well - the least he can do is make sure they don't get worse.

B lets the first settle without comment; he's just happy he's good for somebody, at least. "I woulda been just as uncomfortable and unhappy with it, I bet," he shrugs to the second bit. "Sounds like not much even got accomplished besides some wardens puffing themselves up. Besides, I'm not the guy Sameen goes to when she wants that kinda thing. What kind of eye are you thinking? You gonna go talk to those wardens, or the vampire, or something else?"

Steve focuses on the questions, though there's some part of him, the part that's still reeling with relief, that tucks what B said, that Sameen came to Steve specifically because she wanted him, away for safekeeping. He knows that. He does. Of course he does. But it's just - it's something else to hear someone else say it out loud.

"Just try to be aware of what's going on, I guess," is the best answer he's got, which still feels insufficient. "I don't think talking anymore is gonna help. I just don't... want people to fall through the cracks."

Which is such a hypocritical thing to say, when he barely knows anyone on board or what they're up to. But maybe what it really comes down to, even more, is, "Maybe I can't help everyone. But I don't want what I'm doing - or not doing - to hurt someone, either."

So many people had hurt him, by singling him out or ignoring him in turns. And maybe he deserved it, maybe he didn't - that's not an argument he wants to get into now. He just doesn't want to do that to anyone else.

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I'm sorry there's so much, let me know if you want me to chop this down

nah it's fine! B's good at listening

he is <333

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