[the last voyages] ic inbox

[onlyhearmusic]

[a lyrical hum cuts in, almost as if someone didn't know what they were doing]

"Leave yer message."

[oh. no, he knew. he just didn't care. the beep comes after another brief humming stops.]

Comments

[dead_boy]

Nico's eyes narrow, just a little, and he decides not to mention that just because you know you died doesn't mean you know what happened. Gods. Talking to the dead is easier, always has been, but Collins isn't exactly dead anymore.

"I'm not," he confirms, because he was not expecting gratitude. All the same, "If I'm your warden, then I need to do something about what happened. If you know what happened, then do you know who did it?"

[onlyhearmusic]

Collins paused briefly at the question; he had moved over to the desk and begun going through some of his things. Notably there were books stacked there and he bent carefully to pick one up off the ground where it had fallen unceremoniously earlier. He set it back down on top of the others.

"I do know. If you paid any attention it wasn't as if tha fella was quick about it." He had been covered in wounds of various types of torture. His body was in one piece now but he could feel the aches where it had been the worst. It had been just as if he were the one doing it, too, seeing as how he had taught the entity what to do to hurt a person.

He hesitated to say anything more. He wanted a few more seconds to think about it. Whether the wardens would give a rat's ass or not. Whether there would be punishment fitting or not. He knew from experience that they didn't always do jack shit in recompense even for a murder. Like this was beyond all mundane consequences. Fuck this place for even existing. What was the fucking point.

[dead_boy]

"Didn't look like it," he agrees, because he saw the state the body was in, "but that still doesn't guarantee you know the person who did it. Like, by name. That's why I asked."

Because he sure doesn't know everyone on the Barge. He doesn't want to assume everyone else does, either.

"You don't sound overly broken up about it," he observes, leaning one hip against the desk and crossing his arms. "More put out than anything."

[onlyhearmusic]

"Well that's tha way of this place, ain't it?" He asked the boy rhetorically.

He went to the record player next and examined it. He didn't think the entity bothered with any of his things. It had hidden in wait and touching his things beforehand would have given itself away. Then after Collins was restrained it had everything it needed to keep itself busy. And he doubted it stuck around afterward to do much either. Still, he went through the motions of checking what few personal items he had in the room as if to reclaim them as assuredly his own.

He removed the shellac from the player and replaced it in his housing, using the time to continue his train of thought. Should he tell the warden anything at all. Or should he take matters into his own hands instead.

[dead_boy]

Nico steps aside enough to let Collins examine his own record player, frowning as he does. "It seems like it," he agrees. He doesn't like it. He can accept that the Admiral somehow snatches souls before they're judged. But he doesn't like the way they're kept here in a glass jar, in an endless cycle of life and death and life again. That's now how death is supposed to work. Even when Nico brought Hazel back, when he wanted to bring Bianca back, it wasn't like this.

"But that doesn't mean I'm going to ignore the fact that something happened," he adds.

He has to admit, whatever had happened... the scene he'd found had seemed very much like there was some kind of reason, there.

[onlyhearmusic]

That made two of them. Collins hated this place, too. And for essentially the same reason. The dead should stay dead. Memento mori. He would have preferred death to this place.

"Then you better start sleuthing, boyo, if ya really want ta figure out what happened."

In other words, he wasn't talking. A small, crooked smile rested on his face as he continued to examine his things with his back turned to the warden. He'd rather handle it himself.

[dead_boy]

Nico's eyes narrow for a moment, but at some point, he's not sure what he can do to help someone who doesn't want to be helped.

What he finally says is, "If you die again, I'll know it was you. And if someone else dies, I'm going to have to make sure it wasn't you."