94,31 - Self denial is old hat

[ichoosefight]

[ Steph begins the video feed like she always does it, with the camera displaying her face and a few cute doodles in the background. But once she starts talking she just keeps going and the stream of words doesn’t seem to stop. Her hands move in time to the words but not with any logic, like she’s only half-feeling the effect of her words and it’s just a token expressive effort. ]

I hear people arguing over who’s a good guy and who’s a bad guy and who deserves to be a warden and who doesn’t and all it does is remind me how much I really hate this place. Because it doesn’t matter, what’s right and wrong doesn’t matter and we can’t do anything about it. Some people are wardens and some people are inmates and everybody wants some definitive reason but there just isn’t one. I feel like a Roman doctor, trying to kill bacteria that don’t even have names yet and just covering everyone in leeches.

[ A pause. A very brief pause, in which she considers that last statement. And then it begins again. ]

Did the Romans cover people in leeches? I don’t remember. It’s been a while since I’ve had a history class. And that’s another thing I hate, I used to be okay with taking a vacation and turning in the homework that’s been sitting in my desk for months but now I’m too scared to. People leave and they don’t come back, or they come back different, or someone else comes back instead and you lose everything because you just wanted to get a grade on your psych paper already.

So it’s all or nothing, and I’m stuck here because I care too much to just up and leave even though the system is stupid and some of you are really awful and people I care about keep getting hurt.

[ A sigh, and she ends on a bitter note: ]

Whoever said it first was right. I must be crazy.

Comments

[hungryanhorny]

Wish you'd drink. Being an alcholic's my worst fear, too - but at least we'd get to relax together more.

[ichoosefight]

I wish you would find a different way to relax. I hate myself a little bit every time I drink and the smell sometimes reminds me of my dad beating my mother.

[hungryanhorny]

I think you let them control you, too much.

My dad was an abusive murderer. My mother was an alcoholic. When I was sixteen, her drug dealing boyfriend tried to molest me. Same year she died. As a drugged out hooker.

You wanna let that sort of stuff rule you?

[ichoosefight]

I think you have no clue what you're talking about. Everybody is different and they react differently to different things. Just because drinking isn't something I can enjoy one hundred percent doesn't mean my past controls me. It means I'm human and I can't control the way I react to some things. In fact, I think you're projecting your own problems onto me. You act out and push people away because you want to prove that your parents don't control you.

[hungryanhorny]

Not my parents who control me. It's the watcher who died from the vampire that raped and starved me. Then B who abandoned me and acted all surprised when I went crazy.

And the boyfriend who cheated on me with his dead girlfriend, after bringing out the best friend the cost me my old best friend.

CW for Rape in the previous tag

[ichoosefight]

You should really just take anything you say about other people and turn it on yourself.

[hungryanhorny]

Probably.

So what? What am I even to you? A friend or a project?

[ichoosefight]

A friend. And a responsibility.

[hungryanhorny]

Not a time bomb.

Just need someone who can convince me they care.

[ichoosefight]

I do care. But if you keep testing me I'm going to get tired of trying and I won't care so much anymore.

[hungryanhorny]

I don't know how to stop. Not here. You could leave and not even want to.

[ichoosefight]

That's not my fault, and it isn't fair for you to take it out on me.

[hungryanhorny]

Good thing I never said I was fair. [Her expression is pained, though. She can't seem to manage a casual look.]

[ichoosefight]

That's not a good thing, that's a bad thing, and it makes me feel like our friendship is a one-way street that I want out of.

[hungryanhorny]

Something I've been waiting for you to say.

No one ever sticks around.

[ichoosefight]

You're not even trying to get me to stay. That tells me you don't value my friendship more than you value feeling victimized.

[hungryanhorny]

Then maybe you should leave.

I wouldn't be trying to push you away so hard if I wasn't so scared of you leaving on your own. You're already the best friend I've had in years.

[ichoosefight]

[ She's stunned into silence for a moment. ]

You're impossible. If you cared about me you wouldn't do things just to hurt me and push me away. I won't hold it against you because you can't help what you're saying on account of the flood, but you can't treat people like this.

[hungryanhorny]

I was eight the first time grandpa told me I was worthless.

Knowing it's not right doesn't mean I can stop it. Don't know any other way to talk.

[ichoosefight]

How can you expect inmates to change if you won't?

[hungryanhorny]

Except inmates leave, too. It's sorta there thing.

[ichoosefight]

That's not the point, that has nothing to do with anything!

[hungryanhorny]

So what is? 'Cause I gotta say, BG - I don't know what to do anymore,

[ichoosefight]

The point is you have to make a change or I'm out and it's your fault, not mine, because you made this happen.

[hungryanhorny]

Maybe I'd rather that than the reverse.

...But I don't want you gone.