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[dog_eat_dog]

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[tucky]

[She waits until Tess arrives to answer, then wheels over in her chair with a bottle containing a few of snazzy futuristic painkillers - Vicodin strength, but without any of the addictive properties.]

Things are doing okay. I'm just worried about what could happen, you know?

[dog_eat_dog]

[Tess is looking a little worse for wear, but mostly tired. Bone tired, weight of the world tired. Vicodin-strength feels promising, at least.]

I’d be surprised if I was in the only scuffle during all that invisible nonsense.

[tucky]

[Tiffany, admittedly, has a bruise or two and an air of weariness about her herself, but not to Tess Levels^TM. Giving her another once-over, she kicks another rolling chair in her direction, inviting her to take a seat and hang out for a bit if she wants.]

You were the worst - at least that I knew about. Not everybody likes coming to the infirmary.

[dog_eat_dog]

[She’ll take it. It’s not like she has anywhere else to be.]

I don’t either, but I’m not risking being able to use my arm. Did Yunlan come in?

[tucky]

Nope. I tried to get him to, but he said he could take care of it by himself and he had people who'd watch out for him and keep him awake.

[She thinks there's a decent chance that he did not, in fact, enlist help or fully follow a concussion care regimen, but she can't exactly force treatment on people - and even if she could, she wouldn't want to.]

You look like shit. Been sleeping?

[dog_eat_dog]

I hope he got brain damage.

[She is, unfortunately, still petty.]

Not much, no. I just read all night, or stare at the ceiling for hours. Not much else to do.

[tucky]

[Good news for you, Tess - a concussion is brain damage!]

Jesus. If it starts hurting that much again and you run out of pills, come back for more, okay?

[dog_eat_dog]

[A one-shouldered shrug.]

I can deal with the pain –– been through worse with far fewer painkillers. Just can't turn my brain off.

[Maybe she needs the concussion.]

[tucky]

[Oh. Well, shit, she's been there. Tiffany sighs, drawing her legs up onto the chair and wrapping her arms around them..]

What do you wanna see done about it, and do you think it's something that's likely to happen?

[dog_eat_dog]

No point in even thinking about it. I doubt I could look at him sidelong now without getting into shit, and he'll do whatever he wants and people will shrug it off anyway. That's just life.

[tucky]

[The answer feels familiar to her in a bone-deep way, and it makes her feel a fresh surge of anger at Yunlan; makes her force herself to take a deep breath in through her nose. She'd meant it when she told him that she doesn't hate him and that she believes he has good intentions, and her opinion there hasn't changed. But when she thinks of him now, she also thinks of the nicer Litchfield guards. When push came to shove, it wouldn't have mattered how friendly and personable they were: she doesn't think a single one of them would have hesitated to break bones over less than what Tess did, even if they never would have done the same to someone on the outside. Would Yunlan have reacted differently if he'd found himself in the same situation with a warden? Maybe not; maybe he would have done it to anyone, warden and inmate alike. But she doesn't feel at all sure of that.]

Fucking guards--

[It slips out, and immediately, she raises a hand in surrender.]

I know, I know; I'm a hypocrite, okay.

[Because she stayed, because she's here, because she's a guard now too in many people's eyes, regardless of how different warden and guard feel in her mental lexicon.]

[dog_eat_dog]

[There's a flicker of confusion on Tess's face –– guards? –– but it clicks just as fast. Tiffany had been imprisoned at some point before being an inmate, hadn't she? It tracks.

She hasn't always liked Tiffany. Parts of her still loathes the tolerance, the withheld judgement. But a Tiffany indignant, heated? That feels like the most relatable thing in the world.]

Yeah, you're one of 'em, but at least you're not a cop. Cops and military types are always bastards, and people are okay with that. That's the rub of it. They just ask what I did to deserve it, rather than if they were justified. Fuck that.

[tucky]

If an inmate broke a warden's arm for being in their cabin, they'd be in Zero.

[She agrees, with a quick nod of her head.]

Even if the warden threw shit at them first, probably. Jesus, punishments here are so fucking stupid. Always have been.

[dog_eat_dog]

It's so fucking stupid. And I could have just shot him outright and been marched to Zero and gotten my warden pissed off at me anyway, and not spent the month with a fucked up arm, but no. I decided I didn't want to stick around to fight him.

[She's pretty sure that she shouldn't be considering that, but it feels true to her: there shouldn't be an incentive for just shooting someone in the head. She'd thought it'd been a fair bit of restraint on her part, and the punishment feels worse for it.]

And even more twisted that he planned to break my arm. He told me he would before he did it.

[tucky]

Was it like "leave right now or I'll break your arm", or "I'm gonna break your arm and there's nothing you can do about it"?

[dog_eat_dog]

"Settle down or I'll break your arm." Worth noting he had already put me in an armlock, frisked me and threatened me a few weeks before that, too – that shit's a pattern. He'll do it again.

[tucky]

Gonna get his ass demoted if he keeps it up. What's he got against you, anyway?

[Tess is prickly, but that's about it, as far as Tiffany knows.]

[dog_eat_dog]

He ran into me wandering around a London back-alley –– I'd been shopping and hanging around in sleazy bars, that's about it. I didn't feel like elaborating just because he asked, and you're not supposed to say no to cops, so suddenly... [a flippant gesture.] No more poker nights.

[tucky]

[Tiffany huffs, closing her eyes for a moment.]

He's a superhero. Definitely.

[She does not say the word like it's a particularly good thing.]

[dog_eat_dog]

Uh huh. Guess that makes me the villain, which... fine, because I've never claimed to be a good person.

[tucky]

I didn't mean it like that. Just-- we've had a lot of them here. Mostly they're really nice, and they care about helping people and want to do good, but they're used to everybody thinking they're right and good and justified, all the time, and they never question their own shit.

[She bites down on another huff.]

I think that's a whole lot more dangerous than hanging out in sleazy bars.

[dog_eat_dog]

[Tess nods. Fair.]

Sounds 'bout right. And agreed. His whole fucking beef with me is based on absolutely no knowledge of what I'm doing. It's just shitty assumptions. He's a cop, I'm a criminal, end of story.

[She feels a small flare of frustration.]

Arthur and I were figuring so much shit out and now it's all fucked up because Yunlan thinks he knows better.

[tucky]

Yeah, well. I'll tell you what I told him. I wasn't there so I don't really know shit, and I've tried to fuck up Callisto before when we were fighting. But.

[The rest of that sentence - but fuck his bullshit - hangs in the air unspoken. So maybe she is a hypocrite, or someone who judges certain types of wardens too quickly sometimes. But regardless, Tess's side is the one that feels familiar and Yunlan's is the one that gets her hackles up, and she knows which side she's picking.]

Can you talk to Arthur? Zhao didn't, like, go behind your back and lie or something, did he?

[That, at least, doesn't sound like him.]

[dog_eat_dog]

[She once thought it was a little insane to throw herself in harm's way just to learn to fight on Callisto's level, but a part of her has to respect it. That's a lot of effort to go through for someone who doesn't even seem completely present. It's a real commitment to a partnership.

Tess shakes her head slowly.]

We talked, and they talked, and now we're not talking, so.

[That stings bad.]

[tucky]

Can you-- talk again? Can you reach out? Or do you not wanna do that.