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[stand_unshaken]

 

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[stand_unshaken]

He listens to her, because that's his job, despite the frustration and the anger. Channels those moments when Dutch was at his most frustrating, and Arthur needed him to make sure other people stayed alive.

And then takes it a step further, by staying silent a moment while he processes it. His jaw works, his hands now resting on the back of a chair.

"Fine. Steve's clearly fucked in the head, and something's gotta be done. But that don't change the fact that you had a buyer. Someone asked you, or you heard about that shit and reached out, and you still did it. Calm down and listen to me, like I am listening to you now."

[dog_eat_dog]

It’s tempting to argue — And I’m telling you I started that long before London! But she’s said it already and it doesn’t change the truth of what she did, so she just swallows it.

“Okay, I’m listening,” she says, frustrated but god, she’ll try. He’s trying. “What was I supposed to do?”

[stand_unshaken]

"Tell me," he says, firmly, looking right at her. "We had that big fucking fight in London over the stupid booze. Can't go a couple weeks before something else you're involved in comes up, and this time I don't get to find out from you, even."

Not like he's always learned his lessons on the first try, but it still feels so damn unnecessary.

[dog_eat_dog]

“I was going to talk to you!” she insists. Possibly, she thinks, her shittiest defence ever. “I told you the other week that I’d been offered a partnership and I turned it down, didn’t I? I’m trying to get back out of things I started before I even met you, and I don’t know what you want me to tell you! It’s not like you ever asked for specifics or details.”

[stand_unshaken]

"Because I don't wanna be doing this crap, Tess!"

He slaps the top of the chair in frustration- restraint, but still more aggression than he likes bringing to her. "I don't wanna grill you, or treat you like a child, because I don't wanna assume you're getting up to shit. You told me, you clearly didn't want to elaborate, so I accepted that and shut my mouth. And now I feel like a damn fool for it, because not only are you holding it over my head but someone else is now butting into what we got goin'."

[dog_eat_dog]

“Who wants to be doing this?” Tess shoots back, and she’s tempted to just walk out instead of disappoint him more. “I sure as fuck don’t, I don’t even mean to hold it over your head -— but I’d rather you grill me than get upset when I do shit the only way I know how! Not fucking Yunlan, you.”

[stand_unshaken]

He's holding on to that chair hard enough that he might just break part of it off, and he takes a few seconds- one, two, three- before breathing out.

"I will grill you. If you tell me about shit. I will do my best to not leave you alone and let you hide, if you also do your best to talk to me. You can't get out? You gotta finish the job? You goddamn try and talk to me, Tess."

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess’s eyes fall on that chair for a second. It’s hardly sturdy to begin with, and if he doesn’t then the tension surely will.

“Okay,” she says, voice dipping somewhere more careful. Promising. “I’ll talk to you. I’ll try. And it stays between you and me where it can.”

Other inmates retaliating is no small concern to her, either. No one likes a rat.

[stand_unshaken]

"You and me. First things first, right now: is anything else gonna come of this shit? You ain't got the handkerchief. Is your guy gonna kick up a fuss?"

[dog_eat_dog]

She hesitates, and she knows that damns her, so:

"Steve smeared his blood all over the wall when he offered it to me, so when Yunlan walked off, I still got a sample... a hell of a lot less of it, maybe not even enough to be useable. So when you and I finish here, I'm going to go handle that with my guy."

Bill will be reasonable, hopefully.

[stand_unshaken]

"And there isn't any way you can call it off," he presumes, but still clearly hopes to hear otherwise. "No way to tell him you tried, but you call it quits."

[dog_eat_dog]

"I don't know," she replies, shaking her head. "I know what I do when people don't deliver to me, and I've never tested the waters with him before. Maybe he'll let it go, maybe not."

[stand_unshaken]

"Kill you? Meddle in your affairs, later on?"

[dog_eat_dog]

"I don't know, maybe," she replies. She folds her arms. "If he wanted to catch Steve and drain him of every drop, he could do it himself and take it out on me."

She contemplates her odds: Bill has never shown her much threat. Freeze either. But the potential's there, and she has to weight that against whether they'd be successful in using any of it.

Christ.

"I'll try anyway," she says. "To prove I'm serious."

[stand_unshaken]

He doesn't know who's here who would do a thing like that, but what does he know? He didn't even know about the damn addictive blood.

So he nods, and takes that for what it is. A real concession. "Alright. Thank you. I'm assumin', in the interest of grilling you, you can't tell me who it is?"

[dog_eat_dog]

That makes her hesitate, too. She doesn't want to be a rat, but if it stays between them... well. Having her cards on the table sounds like a load off her mind, but a warden is different than a partner, and she's been screwed over by partners anyway.

"It stays between you and me. No other wardens."

[stand_unshaken]

He puts the gun on the table between them and reaches out a hand. She wants to know he's serious- a handshake is as serious as he's got, here.

"No one else."

He only cares about her graduating. Anyone who's fucking that up for her can go hang, but he's not going to call the police over to tie the rope.

[dog_eat_dog]

Her gaze drifts to the gun at first, but then to his hand. She lingers on a moment and then puts her hand out to shake.

"Bill Cipher and Freeza have a speakeasy for the inmates," she replies. "They're easy enough to get along with for now, and I hope I have leverage by solving their supply issue, but they both have powers, and neither is particularly interested in graduating."

It's not all of it, but it's a start.

[stand_unshaken]

He shakes her hand, first of all, and then listens to her.

It's a strange notion. A place to have alcohol, on the quiet, when there's an actual saloon - well, at least this one might only be accessible to inmates. That might be a point in its favor.

"So they're bad folks paradin' as good ones, so they can get favors. What do you want favors from them for?"

[dog_eat_dog]

"I just wanted the leverage for now," she replies, and she could kick herself, but it's true. "They've been relying on me for the booze supply, so I wanted them to owe me when I did need something."

She shrugs.

Pathetic.

[stand_unshaken]

"I ain't sayin' this to have a go at you, but what could they realistically give you that I wouldn't?"

He's seriously given you a gun, and did so within weeks of first being paired. What else?

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess looks away for a moment. That part's hard to explain. It feels like shit to get caught, but it feels worse when it might be a dig at him, too. She folds her arms.

"All I have is my pride, Arthur, I don't want to just ask you for things," she says. "And I need a back-up plan, too. Say you went into a coma. Say the Admiral sent you home, or you had somewhere else to be. Where does that leave me?"

[stand_unshaken]

He rubs a hand over his mouth and nods. "Can't rely on just one person. But there's gotta be better people than them, right? Folk who might help you, if I wasn't here."

[dog_eat_dog]

She shakes her head. Misty would help, and there are a number of wardens who would help her in a real bind, but she knows she'd rather barter with inmates than risk her pride.

"Wouldn't be the same as working with you," she says. And with a scoff: "You know, I'm pretty sure the Admiral paired us up as soon as I got here because I would have run circles around temps."

[stand_unshaken]

He snorts. "Woman, sometimes you're still runnin' circles around me."

What does she think this is, if not circles being ran?

"So it's the wardens you don't wanna work with? 'Cause they're wardens?"