[24] - [Video]

[sharpememory]

[Philip leans in close to the camera. At the very bottom of the screen, you can see the horrible, ropey scar that runs along the bottom of his neck.]

I want to talk to whoever is in charge here. Fed, magic wizard sea captain, whatever. We're gonna make a deal, because if we don't, things are going to get a bit unpleasant for everyone else around here.

Comments

[buywithme]

Except that he loses his memories, you lose nothing, and you stand to gain a lot more from it in the long run. I thought you said earlier that you loved him, so he didn't need to be your equal.

And you are completely wrong, Comrade. The only reason I'm in this job now is because I want to help him, not the other way around. If I was reassigned, I'd just keep helping Barron, and my new inmate could go to hell, and if he leaves without graduating then I spend my deal going after him. I could give you that in writing, Comrade.

[Overinvestment, thy name is Prefect.]

[sharpememory]

[Pause.] You're in too deep, Fed. You ever step back and take a good long look at yourself?

[buywithme]

Comrade, just because you are incapable of caring at all about your little brother, doesn't mean that the rest of us don't.

[sharpememory]

I'm going to ask you a personal question. Are you in a relationship with my brother or what?

[buywithme]

He and I are just very, very good friends, and what befalls him is important to me! And, when he's thirty, or forty, I want him to remember what he was doing in his twenties! I want him to remember growing up with you and Cassell, and I want him to know why it is that he cares about you, instead of having to just check his journals for it!

[There's a short pause, then Prefect adds:]

I'm sorry. I understand that for you, he's just always been like this, so it must seem normal, but... for me, it seems unfair that he can't have those things.

[sharpememory]

It's not fair, but that's what working is. I don't want to have to feel like shit whenever I handle a problem, but I do. That's life.

[buywithme]

You could find a different way of handling your problems?

Besides, it's different. After a few days, or weeks, you stop feeling like that. Barron's memories don't just come back.

[sharpememory]

Yeah, as if.

They don't, but at least he's not losing fingers or anything.

[buywithme]

Comrade, that doesn't make it better, It doesn't make it all right for him to have to give up his mind.

[sharpememory]

He doesn't have a problem with it.

[buywithme]

Because he doesn't understand what he's losing. He doesn't remember enough to miss it.

[sharpememory]

Exactly, so it's not a problem.

[buywithme]

No, brother, it is a problem! It's like...

...It's like if someone was dying of some kind of terrible disease, and the cure had been posted to them by a kindly doctor, but then the cure was held by the post office for containing potential contaminants, and the person with the illness made their peace with death and passed away without even knowing that they only had to go to the post office, and they would have been fine!

[sharpememory]

Are you being serious right now? Or is that some sort of joke? Barron isn't dying. He's fine.

[buywithme]

Comrade, my point is that he's losing out on really important things, without even realising it. That still matters.

[sharpememory]

He's got everything important that he needs. It's only you that thinks that he doesn't.

[buywithme]

Comrade, do you really not care if one day, you have to remind him who you are? Or to know that he only knows you from a photograph with your name written next to it in a journal somewhere?

[sharpememory]

It's not gonna come to that. He'd have to use his power almost constantly to make that happen.

[buywithme]

He had to keep a note of his own name! And he did use his power almost constantly!

[sharpememory]

I'm pretty sure he didn't. You should check your facts. [Lies, lies.]

[buywithme]

Comrade, when he first got here he worked me immediately, then he worked a whole lot of people for reasons which I'm not even sure he knew. It's just his immediate response to everything!

[sharpememory]

Are you sure that really happened? It sounds like you're just being dramatic to me.

[buywithme]

Comrade, there are reasons why I am worried about your brother. This happening is one of them.

[sharpememory]

Shitty things happen to people all the time. You don't stop driving a car just because you might crash one day.

[buywithme]

No, but you stop if you go blind or lose muscle control or suffer from some other detriment which makes it almost certain that you will crash in the immanent future.