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[rickitikitarr]

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[formerself]

[Eggsy grimaces. They've discussed this at enough length that Ricki will know Eggsy has no sympathy whatsoever for Guillam's position there. He's not convinced it would be a Zero-able offence, suspects Guillam might have intervened to point that out, but--]

Yeah, fuck that. He deserved it.

[rickitikitarr]

Nah. I probably read a lot into it, he was likely just blowing off a little steam.

[Shaking his head.]

But it was worthwhile.

[formerself]

You've probably done him a fuckin' favour. Means he might not go runnin' his mouth 'round anyone might do a bit more than just punch him.

[rickitikitarr]

Well- not running his mouth so much as remarking that he hadn't liked dying-

Ugh, I might owe him an apology. Well- I'll do the right thing and not do so, so he can hang on to the karmic balance, he'll enjoy that more than actually talking it out.

[formerself]

[Eggsy gives him a look to suggest that is probably enough like running one's mouth for some of the Barge's less rational passengers.]

Yeah. Who the fuck actually talks about their shit around here, anyway.

[This isn't a deliberate reference to the fact that they're both on the brink of utter failure as therapy patients, but it's the first thing that springs to mind after he says it. Fuck it. He's found a(n admittedly unconventional way) to get some sleep, and it doesn't involve feeling vulnerable and humiliated in the office at the back of the Infirmary.]

[rickitikitarr]

I have to go back to Cambridge, don't I?

[Making a face.]

Fuck.

[formerself]

[In the interests of not being a massive hypocrite, all Eggsy can really do is shrug.]

I dunno. If it's helping?

[rickitikitarr]

He pointed something out to me. Which is that I honestly do want to change, and that I honestly do want to go home to my little girl. The thing that keeps holding me back is the fucking principle of the thing, and what it'll do to my sense of self to submit to a broken system.

[formerself]

[Eggsy takes a sip of tea but it's mostly to buy him a few seconds to think. Eventually he has to ask:]

What's it gonna do to your sense of self to not?

[The longer he digs his heels in out of principle - more breaches, more floods, more of the day-to-day humiliations of being an inmate and all that entails. That seems to be more toxic to a person's sense of self than any amount of progress might be.]

[rickitikitarr]

Not ideal, right?

Cambridge's advice is ignore everything else and just do what I want.

[Shockingly simple, but- it actually stands a chance.]

[formerself]

Well - yeah.

I mean, fuck, the system's always gonna be here but you don't have to be.

[rickitikitarr]

And it'd be a shame to cut off my nose to spite my face, when in the days before my death I was actually trying to leave espionage.

[formerself]

[This is news to him - so, how did you die? seems like the kind of question you don't ask under any circumstances - and it shows.]

...yeah. Yeah, it would be.

[He can't help but wonder:]

What were you gonna do instead?

[rickitikitarr]

Fallen back in in six months in desperation.

[Head shaking, bemused.]

[formerself]

[Eggsy smirks and shakes his head, then takes another sip of tea.]

You really didn't know?

[rickitikitarr]

I've done this since I was eighteen. I'm turning forty in a few months.

[Reminding him, with a little shrug.]

Most countries in the world, people will want to kill me. I'll never be able to hold another job that asks for papers, and I don't want to transplant Danny too far from what she knows.

If I can score it, I think I'm going to try to get into one of the small passenger planes and do contract distribution work for the heroin smugglers.

[formerself]

[Which strikes him overwhelmingly as 'getting set up to get killed again, at a later date, while acting as a net contributor to the sum total of human misery'.]

...You don't think the Admiral might not be able to smooth over the rough edges for you, if you ask nice? Papers-wise, I mean. Fuck, I'm pretty sure plenty of people 'round here could give you a hand if what you need is to be with your little girl.

[The deal Ricki's talked about post-graduation involves someone who's dead. If he's getting caught up on the relatively minor issues of professional reputation and paperwork, Eggsy will call bullshit so loudly it'll bounce off the other end of the ship.]

[rickitikitarr]

[It plainly hasn't occurred to him that people would help. He gives him a sort of frozen, astonished look over his teacup.]

It'd be a start. I mean, now that I'm dead, the people trying to kill me likely aren't any longer.

[It has been something he's worried about often.]

[formerself]

Yeah, you ain't wrong. [He frowns thoughtfully.] That kind of stuff - I mean, there's got to be so many people wouldn't be able to go home an' get on, if they didn't get things sorted out for 'em.

[rickitikitarr]

Yes, but when has this place ever been fair or kind?

[He asks, with a shrug.]

I'd expected to be dead again inside the year, to be honest, except Peter tells me it's been a few since I died. Which probably means that 'paused time' fable isn't going to kick in for me.

[formerself]

Yeah, that's -

[His brow furrows.]

Well, I dunno. You go back, different name, keep your nose clean - how's he supposed to know different?

[He accepts that Guillam et al are very good, but nobody's infallible. If Ricki really wants out of it, then being 'dead' in the eyes of the Circus cannot be a bad myth to perpetuate.]

[rickitikitarr]

[He glances over at Eggsy, and sips his tea.]

I don't know, darling. This might just be one of those things that you don't have a sense of because you haven't lived it. You don't- this moment in time, in this part of the world, with my face- and I don't mean being Ricki Tarr, I mean being white- I'll be checked on by at least our people and the Chinese, and probably the Americans.

Then there's what I did to Bill Haydon. This is a colony and a stretch of very active territory. If I can lose ten pounds, and turn to pure muscle, get Max's haircut and grow Solomons' beard, and work up a new voice, with authentic paperwork I might be safe, but I can't help but wonder how he'd pull that off, me being registered as always having been there.

And then, I'm keeping my nose clean how? I mean- I could go back to construction, or work in the rubber tree plantations, if those haven't all been burned, but the first would raise some serious questions and the second would probably get me tortured to death in the next wave of insurgency. I could...

Actually, yeah. My best bet might be pretending to be a missionary.

[formerself]

[That's daunting. Eggsy rubs a hand over his mouth, frustrated on Ricki's behalf, annoyed at himself for how simplistic and limited his worldview is. This isn't fair - just the idea of getting this far and then being fucked by circumstance the second he gets back home.]

Missionary? Yeah, why not. It's that or get Iris to drop you an' Danny an' her mum somewhere else altogether, innit.

[This is a joke, not a suggestion.]

[rickitikitarr]

If only.

[He says, mouth curving in a smile.]

Missionary. Or some kind of silly volunteer or other. I could go teach English in one of the church schools, actually.

[formerself]

Yeah? That'd work. Reckon you'd be a decent teacher.