[one] β [video]

[freezerburns]

[The video clicks on and Isaac's sitting there, looking all cozy in a thick cardigan. He doesn't really seem like he's freaking out - but he's totally freaking out. Everything's weird. He hasn't even stepped outside his room yet. He's been too wrapped up trying to figure out how the hell he's supposed to do this warden thing. But look, it's time to introduce himself, start the whole process, get it moving. He needs his deal, so he has to do this.]

So this whole BYO room onto the super strange prison spaceship - that's pretty cool, right? I totally didn't expect that part. I kinda had this picture in my head of like, prison cells and guards in uniform. People getting shanked, and smuggling drugs and stuff-- [Isaac, don't say up their butts.] --like in movies. [Nice save. Oh, but what if the room thing is just for wardens? Has he just made a crack about the inequality between wardens and inmates inadvertantly? That could be awkward.] Wait, do inmates get their rooms from home? Or is that just for wardens?

Um. [The pause stretches out for a bit too long and he realises he should maybe give his name. Possibly.] I'm Isaac. Isaac Lahey. From California. I'm not exactly experienced with the whole... spaceship thing. Or the prison thing. But it's cool. I'll get the hang of it.

Comments

[imfollowinghim]

They get their own rooms, but people still get shanked and smuggle shit.

[Hi Isaac, have a slightly worn out looking guy in a battered, old fashioned army uniform. At least his raccoon eye bruises have faded by now??]

[americasdirtiest]

Who said anything about no drugs?

[Mickey looks like someone has recently beat the shit out of him, because someone has recently beat the shit out of him. He's also openly smoking a joint. Welcome aboard, Isaac!]

[freezerburns]

Oh. [THANKS???] Good to know. I mean, not exactly confidence-inspiring, but good to know.

[routemistress]

Oh, we totally still get shanked on the regular, but apart from that it's not a lot like your usual nick. Catch me dead working at one of them.

I'm Iris, sweetheart. Welcome aboard!

[imfollowinghim]

Sorry. Figured it might be for the best not to get any wrong ideas right off the bat.

[freezerburns]

[Oh good, both of the first two replies are from people who either look exhausted or beaten to shit. This is looking more like an actual prison than it may first have appeared. The joint doesn't bother him though.]

Yeah, but did you smuggle it onto the ship? Like, in a body cavity?

[freezerburns]

I'm sensing there's a lot of shanking. Is there a lot of shanking? [You look tired as hell, dude.]

[video]

[theresalwayshope]

[Allison was pushing herself, and had been since the revelation about her ultimate fate...about how they all ended up on the Barge, a pack to the end, fighting for each others' lives.

She was all right, strangely enough. She still is. She's at peace with what she did, what she will do, and with what she still must do for the people who love her this much...love her enough to do more than protect her, love her enough to save her.

Still, facing her own mortality...it's a process. She's still at peace, but today she's angry.

So she's been on the firing line, not with her bow, but with her fathers gun. She's been there for a while, stayed until her arms and back were screaming in protest, until she was too weary to bear the kick of each perfect shot another moment longer.

She's just walking through the door of her cabin, checking her comm for any missed messages when his face fills the screen.

For a moment, she forgets she's on the Barge. She forgets she's tired and sore and still death tolling in lesser degrees...she forgets that, when she gets home, she will die for real.

She forgets her life, and she remembers Isaac.

She's forced herself to forget so she could survive. His smile, his eyes, his quiet, soothing voice. She couldn't let herself remember he was laying in a hospital bed because of her, couldn't think of what he made her feel. She would have been useless if she remembered that, after Scott, there was Isaac.

But now she remembers, and listening to him talk, hearing his voice and staring into his face...tears run silently down her face. She's smiling, laughing...and she's never been in this much pain, not even the death toll, because he's here but he's not right here, right where she can touch him.

With shaking fingers, she clicks on the video feed.]

Don't ask questions, Isaac. Not now. Just...tell me your cabin number.

[imfollowinghim]

Well, I've never worked in a normal prison, so I might not be drawing the fairest comparison here. [And what he does have for past work experience... might not help because there was a lot of shanking in World War II.]

But yeah, shit happens. Not all the time and not to everyone, but be careful.

[freezerburns]

Thanks, Iris. I mean, not that I'm that familiar with usual prisons either. Kinda just what I picked up from TV and stuff. What's different about this one - apart from the obvious spaceship situation?

[semifreakingnormal]

Isaac.

[Teenage werewolves are absolutely awkward, and for a second Scott just stares when his feed comes on. He knows that room, and he's so used to seeing Isaac in that room, now, that he almost doesn't notice that it's Isaac in that room here - and not back at his mom's house.

The dissonance throws him for a second, and then he smiles, grins - and then it fades around the edges. What does he know?]

I don't think there's a lot of drug smuggling, but...I haven't needed to go sniffing for it.

[americasdirtiest]

Up my ass, you mean? No.

[video]

[freezerburns]

[For a moment, he can't speak. He physically can't. It hurts too much. He opens his mouth and nothing comes out. If it wasn't her, he'd close his eyes, take a moment, but he can't. If he stops looking at her, maybe she'll disappear. He swallows and finally manages to make words.]

Allison?

[So this is what actually legitimately going crazy feels like. The whole 'come to our intergalactic prison and redeem a villain to get a wish!' thing should probably have tipped him off. Yeah, now that he comes to think of it, he should definitely have taken that as a hint of some kind of mental... issue. It's totally crazy.

Of course, he's got experience with crazy. He really does. He's felt like he's losing his mind before. He's got experience keeping it from showing on his face. It's hard not to just blurt out 'you're dead'. It's really hard. But that would be awful. Admitting it, to her face, that he couldn't help her, would be terrible. The words keep going through his head, over and over and over, and he's remembering her face and her voice from where she lay on the ground, the smell of her blood--

So. He must have missed her so much he had some kind of nervous breakdown and right this minute he's probably sitting in a cell in the closed ward in Eichen House drooling or banging his head against the wall or something and imagining talking to her - seeing her alive again, her face on the video screen, smiling and crying - from his bedroom which has magically been transplanted to some kind of cruise ship flying through space.

So he lost it. He must have. But if he's crazy, he kind of wants to stay this way.]

It's-- [He has to stop, clear his throat, shake his head. There are tears blurring his vision.] Um. It's 502.

[routemistress]

Well. There is the spaceship angle, and there's the floods and breaches and all.

The most important difference, though - it's the purpose. Your average prison, now they might talk about rehabilitation, but it's nearly always all talk. It's just a place to put troublemakers out of everyone's way. Out of sight, out of mind.

That's not 'ow we work 'ere. We're our own little world 'ere and there's no outside to keep out of the way of. So aside from surviving, our job's completely about taking care of our inmates. About finding 'em what they need.

It's the most fun job I've ever 'ad.

[freezerburns]

Scott! You're here too? [And oh, thank god, it is so good that you're here, dude. If he was an actual puppy, his tail would be wagging. Combined with Allison being here - painful, yes, but so great - this is like actually the best thing that could happen. He's not the right person for this job. You can tell him what to do.] I mean, obviously you're here. You're right there. But-- I didn't know you came.

[freezerburns]

Hey, I'm tougher than I look. I can take care of myself. [If he knew Scott's werewolfitude was common knowledge he'd maybe mention his claws right now. As it is, it kind of just seems like lame teenage bravado.]

[imfollowinghim]

Most of the kids here can. Most of the adults, too.

People still get hurt.

[freezerburns]

So there you go: it's totally different from prison on TV. Even with drugs.

[semifreakingnormal]

Yeah! Yeah, I know, things like that - time and stuff - it's weird, here. It's so weird.

[It's weird enough that for another second, Scott just stares. Then he shakes himself, almost bodily, and his eyes leave Isaac's as he flicks through the post. He sees Allison, and breathes a little - not more easily, exactly, but something about all of this is a kind of relief. Isaac will help them save her. Scott knows without asking why he's here.]

Stiles and Lydia are, too. People are gonna start thinking we're taking over, soon.

[americasdirtiest]

Prison on TV's not much like real prison, either.

[lydiascreams]

[She recognizes the voice and at first, she figures it must be someone from the Barge. But when she starts to pay attention to what the guy is saying, she realizes he's a new arrival and turns her attention toward the communicator.

Lydia doesn't respond to his video right away. She stares at a moment she she already knows why he's there. Why they are all there. He's in for a surprise. She should warn him.

But she doesn't wanna cause panic so she greets him with a smile.]

Isaac? Hey.

Video

[voluntaryapnea]

[For a long time, Stiles just sits silently at his desk. He's not surprised that someone else from Beacon Hills has shown up, and he's even less surprised that it's Isaac. He draws in a breath and rubs a hand over his face before addressing him. Pardon him if he's still a little more pale and haggard looking than usual, but he sorta tried to commit harakiri not that long ago and he hasn't fully recovered yet.]

Been here a few months and still not quite used to the whole...spaceship thing.

[freezerburns]

Lydia. [There's that little awkward jolt when she talks to him. They've never been exactly... friends. Not as such. There was too much happening, basically since Scott and Allison and Stiles had gone into the ice baths, for really getting to know each other. And there was the time he tried to kill her. Yeah, that might be a factor in his awkwardness too.

But she's here. She's a familiar face and she's Allison's best friend. And Allison's dead and they've got to all be here to help her, right? So he smiles. It's small a little more 'you smiled at me so here's a courtesy smile back' than actually fully real. But it's still a smile.] Hi. I wasn't expecting the whole pack.

Video

[freezerburns]

[It's not that he doesn't know that this is Stiles and not the Nogitsune - hell, he'd been the one with the box and Stiles had been separate from it for a while before the final showdown - but Stiles looks pale and sleepless and... kind of just generally like shit. Which is awfully similar to how he looked when he was possessed. By the demon fox that was wearing Stiles' face when it sent the Oni that killed Allison. So there's a pause, just a momentary blip in Isaac's expression, making it a grimace for a moment.]

It seems like it would take some getting used to, yeah.

[video]

[theresalwayshope]

I'm coming, okay? Just...don't move. I'll be right there.

[Her voice catches on a sob, but Allison fights for her composure to manage a smile for Isaac before she cuts the feed.

She runs the whole way to level five. She's starting to sway on her feet a little by this point, but she doesn't care. She slows to a jog, though, as she makes her way to his door...the same as Scott's, that familiar wood that makes her breath catch and her chest so tight with emotion her vision gets fuzzy around the edges.

She pounds on it with the heel of her hand.]

Isaac? Isaac, open up!