Counselor Aiden Price

[myagents]

● Counselor Aiden Price
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[hallelujahjunction]

[At this, Dan actually rolls his eyes.]

Counselor, you ain't stupid enough to try and get away with killing anyone on this Rig.

[myagents]

I don't really have to get away with it. And I'm definitely stupid enough.

[Now he's the one that doesn't care about getting killed.]

[hallelujahjunction]

Well, whatever you do, it’s your decision. Not mine.

[Dan’s killed enough people, had enough people die while working cases, that he’s gotten good at handling guilt over things he can’t control. And while he’s doing his best to connect with Price, he can’t control him.]

[myagents]

Alright, then.

[He shrugs.]

There is nothing else to do, anyway.

[hallelujahjunction]

Oh, please. [Dan snorts.] We got a gymnasium, we got a library, we got folks to talk to. There’s plenty to do besides hurt people and dodge responsibility from it.

[myagents]

Do you think I have never tried it?

[If he could raise his voice, he would have shouted that sentence.]

There's just no point. I might as well do what I'm good at.

[Ending it there would be enough, but he tries to mellow it down, because while he wants to make it clear that destroying things and people is ALL he's good for, he doesn't want to say it explicitly.]

Which is doing what I want.

[hallelujahjunction]

And how’s that working out for you? Is it making you happy?

[Christ, if he could just get Price to realize how it so obviously doesn’t.]

[myagents]

Sure it makes me happier than walking on eggshells all the time.

[Nobody cares about him, nobody ever has. Ever since he lost control here on the Rig he's been through some sort of horrific age regression, and everything is a bit like it used to be. He's the problem child, the one who inconveniences others and is treated in the way that makes them comfortable.]

[hallelujahjunction]

Not hurting other people ain’t walking on eggshells.

[Dan doesn’t sound exasperated, even though he is. He stays patient, calm. This isn’t personal anymore; this is work, the same as corralling a scared monster away from its prey, the same as dissuading an angry ghost from violent haunting.]

Tell me how you want people to respond to you. Honestly. What do you want from them?

[myagents]

It is when you are like me.

[His expressions saddens at the question. How can he ask to be treated right when he doesn't know what it's like? How can he discern that they're respecting him for real and not trying to make him disappear? His situation has always been so peculiar that he can't really compare it to anyone else's, the textbooks only helped so much.]

It's more complicated than that.

[hallelujahjunction]

You didn't answer my question.

[Maybe the fact that Price can't answer it is information on its face.]

[myagents]

It doesn't matter how they treat me, it will not work out.

[He crosses his arms. It truly doesn't matter if the result is always going to be the same.]

[hallelujahjunction]

Tell me what you mean.

[Dan sits against the railing, settling in for however long this conversation goes.]

Tell me what you mean that it won't work out.

[myagents]

Simply, I don't respond well to any treatment.

[It's already quite obvious that he's never been handled properly. He doesn't want to say it out loud.]

[hallelujahjunction]

How you respond to something is in your control. Reckon it's the only thing that always is.

[But Dan doesn't say this like he's lecturing or dismissing Price, only prodding around the edges of Price's statements in hopes of defining them more.]

[myagents]

That's...

[He sighs.]

Nevermind.

[It's not compliance that helps, nor containing his reponses. It's just that it doesn't actually matter, people have assigned a label to him and whatever he does they will twist to make it conform to it.]

[hallelujahjunction]

No, go on. I'm listening. [And Dan really is.]

[myagents]

I have already gone through this kind of dynamic before. I only overcame it and started functioning because I moved to an environment that was more favourable...But I wasn't even twenty back then, at my current age with my criminal record I doubt there is a place that is right for me.

[He deflects. Then sighs again, he might as well say it more directly. This is an informal conversation, after all.]

Even if I wanted to...'Do the work', even if I did it, everyone would still torment me, and I am tired of having to work ten times as hard as everyone else to achieve a neutral opinion at best while they never get judged as harshly for the bad things that they do.

[hallelujahjunction]

[Dan listens. He gives Price his quiet, focused attention, turning over in his head how to get through to someone whose grievances with the world may be partially self-inflicted, but are quite valid. How do you get someone to accept injustice? How do you get someone to accept that an unfair world is still one worth being good in?]

Well, I might could be the only person on this Rig with a longer criminal record than you. [There are no war crimes on Dan's record, but his is lengthy, and he knows the struggle of having it stand between him and a new start.

He takes a moment to think.]

Maybe all the people here would treat you poorly. But I can tell you for certain, as someone who's traveled and met thousands of people in my time, that not everyone would. I wouldn't. I don't. [He shrugs.] And there are more when I came from.

[myagents]

I am perfectly capable of masking, I have done it for most of my life, but you have to understand that whether I decide to hurt people or not I would still have to lie to them and manipulate them when I need to.

[No matter how ugly it is, the 'monster' that is only good for destroying things is the real him. Destruction always comes with building something different, but no one sees that of course. They are so limited in their petty morals. He smirks.]

I doubt you committed more crimes than I did.

[hallelujahjunction]

So? Lying and manipulating is how people survive. [He knows Price has seen enough of his memories to know Dan and his kid ran grifts.] The point is just not to hurt anyone with that lying and manipulating. Then you don't get the blowback.

[Dan laughs.] Maybe not, but my whole existence is illegal. Point is, I know what it's like for a crime to follow you around.

[Dan doesn't judge people based on their crimes; the world does that enough. The past doesn't matter to him, only what people do going forward, and that's always something they can change now.]

[myagents]

[Price hums without saying anything. Perhaps this should be taken as an opportunity to go somwhere else and start anew, but what is he without the Director and the Agents? He's nothing wthout them.]

[hallelujahjunction]

You don't seem convinced.

[myagents]

If it makes you feel better, I can see why you are making that point.

[He feels stupid thinking of how much he wants and needs connection when he's perfectly aware that he can't truly be a part of it. He's said a few times that he feels 'the urge' to do bad things in order to explain himself but those are merely responses. Yet they're not responses in the way that Dan means, in the way that can be controlled easily, they are just hardwired deep within him, and are ultimately triggered by the awareness that he is permanently unsafe, and they are hardwired because in his life they are the only available answer.

Project Freelancer was the only time in his life where he felt at home, he could find things exactly where he put them. It was almost a paradox how the world of science with the neverending variables within his experiments where easier to secure than mundane one on one relationships, despite the latter not having even a hundreth of its impact.]

What you fail to understand is that what I was in Project Freelancer was the best person I have ever been. I don't see the point in being anything other than that. Stepping down from my job would be a downgrade even to you and your fellow empaths, you can trust me on that.

[hallelujahjunction]

Project Freelancer ain't coming back. [There's probably no way for those words not to just sound harsh.] You say you don't see the point in trying to be anything but the person who just waits for Project Freelancer to come back, but you're miserable, so obviously something's got to give.

[He gives Price a sad shrug.]