worthallthis | The Last Voyages: IC Inbox

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.

B nods at that. "Guess it's kind of a matter of... looking for people that nobody else has taken in. Not unpaired exactly, but alone." B hasn't been great at that lately, either, focusing mainly on people he's familiar with rather than people who really need something.... "Maybe we both can work on it," he adds, a little ruefully.

Steve nods, because, "It's easy to think that people who're paired are being taken care of." In whatever way you want to interpret that.

But it's not necessarily true.

And while he doesn't want to undermine B, he does admit, "I think you're pretty good at it. For the record. I mean, you help a lot of people in the kennels. With the animals."

Tilting his head, unable to really deny that, B allows, "Turning the kennel into a place to play with animals was a good idea. But it's just people coming to me, if they want to. It ain't me seeking out people who need it, you know? I feel like I don't know half the people on this boat anymore." Sometimes he feels like he knew and interacted with more people back when he was still struggling to act like a person.

That definitely gets a sigh, in clear agreement. "Yeah. Me either." Steve hasn't been very social since he mutinied, but even so, he knew more people before. "Things have really turned over, I guess. Sometimes it just does that, right from underneath you."

Well, that, "And it has been a while since the whole ship has been forced into something together."

"Considering the last time involved being chased by the Authority, I'm going to be glad for that," B decides. "And you and me are just gonna hafta try and meet some people on our own, without an emergency making us do it."

"There used to be other things. Although some people might argue they were almost as bad."

But also, not a great way to meet people for someone like Steve, anyway. He lets out a breath, but it's not really an exasperated noise. Maybe more accepting. Ish.

"I guess so."

Even if he knows he can't really do it the way most people would. He's not comfortable starting up some kind of group or meetup. But he can say hello to people. He can try to keep a lookout for someone that needs a hand. "I'll try," he adds - agrees, really - softly.

One on one, Steve. That's always the best way to do it. B bumps Steve's hip gently with his own. "All anybody can ever ask."

But also, because he's curious, and Steve doesn't really say a whole lot about the Barge's past: "What else made the whole Barge have to come together? Before my time, I'm guessing?"

"Yeah," Steve confirms - most things he can think of were a long time ago, now.

"Mostly pretty unpleasant ports. There were some caves... an awful circus. One where some kind of something was trying to take over that world." He shrugs. "And there was the times we ran into the Mirror Barge. Although that seemed more designed to split us up, I guess," he admits. Those that had been left behind, though, had tried to band together.

"Although there was one Christmas the Admiral just locked us all in the dining hall and wouldn't let anyone leave 'till they'd danced with everyone on the dance cards he gave us." He offers B a rueful smile. "I kinda keep wondering when he's going to remember that and think it's a good idea again."

"The last cave and circus weren't too bad. Must've been something really terrible," B muses. "I think you've mentioned the party before. What was so bad about dancing?" He pauses, then asks, a little more grimly, "Wasn't making you dance with that Clark asshole or something, was it?"

"The circus was... " Steve trails off. It was awful, but maybe he'd brought some of it on himself. Which just makes what Lark did for him even worse, quite honestly, but it's easier to talk about the Christmas party, because, "No," he says, and there's this weird twitch of his mouth, almost like he wants to smile, which is dumb. "No, you could - you could just stay until the night was over if you didn't want to do the dance card thing. So that's what I did."

He'd danced with other people so they could leave, if he was on their cards. But he hadn't been in a place to be willing to ask someone else to help him with his. He shrugs one shoulder. "It wasn't bad, it was - just a party, I guess."

But he's still not great at parties, and he'd been much, much worse at them before. "It was more just that the whole Barge was in the same place at the same time, all in fancy clothes. Some tempers were high. Yara didn't do well with it."

B nods, and doesn't pursue the circus if Steve doesn't want to talk about it. "Well, it'd be better this time if he did remember and decide to do it again." He leans over again, against Steve's side more firmly. "Cuz you'd have me and Sameen and Laura to actually dance with you. And I could oogle you in your fancy clothes."

"It didn't quite work that way," Steve points out with a dumb little half-smile tugging at one corner of his lips. "I mean, we didn't get to choose who to dance with to get out of there. But maybe I'd give you a dance, anyway."

(They both know he absolutely would.)

"That suit was clearly just a gift for yourself," he muses, though for all his teasing here, too, "It was a really, really nice gift. You always get me really nice things." And maybe he ought to say so more; there's nothing like being on the Barge for realizing you shouldn't leave things unsaid.

Edited (whoops got my threads mixed up a little XD) 2023-11-06 04:16 (UTC)

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