i see the strings that control the system

[hellisforchildren]

WHO: Your Acting Mayor and OPEN
WHERE: City Hall!
WHEN: Sunday, May 8th through Thursday, May 12th
WARNINGS: None yet?
SUMMARY: Alex is doing his best to run things, feel free to bug him with issues, complaints, offers of help, attempted punches to the face, whatever!
FORMAT: WORDS, but make sure to mention when you're visiting in the subject line!

He'd set up food lines, he'd begun establishing a peacekeeping network, he had people in place to handle the power plants, the biggest jobs were out of the way. He even had someone else picking up the slack. There were still things to do, there would always be things to do, but for right now, just for this one moment, he thought he might get a moment's rest.

Boy, was he ever in for a surprise.

Comments

[hellisforchildren]

He'll admit, the scowl only makes him want to grin wider, but he fights the urge. Instead he drowns it with a sip of coffee. "Yeah, that can be a pretty nebulous status in a place like this."

[xuffasch]

Damian's still gulping his down, tapping the bottom of the mug with his fingers to get as much as possible out of it.

"Well, you haven't let it go completely to hell. I guess that's something."

[hellisforchildren]

Alex had to chuckle at that. "Trust me, I know Hell firsthand. I wouldn't wish it on any but my worst enemies, and I certainly wouldn't let it happen to the City."

[xuffasch]

"That's a pretty weighty statement." Again, a searching look. He doesn't exactly trust Alex, but Damian finds him tolerable, so he wants to, in a way.

[hellisforchildren]

Alex doesn't really trust anyone, but he figures spilling what he can without full disclosure would make things easier to gain it from others. "No exaggeration, either. It was no small matter I escaped when I got here."

[xuffasch]

"Maybe this is your purgatory--working off those sins." In the way Damian says this, it's clear he doesn't really believe that. Heaven and Hell, even death itself, are abstract concepts to him.

[hellisforchildren]

"Well, that's the way I've been looking at it," he answered, a little uncomfortable to share as much as he was. "I chance to balance out the mistakes of the past, even though I doubt it'll do me any good if I ever end up back home."

[xuffasch]

"I don't know if it's so much about balance as outcome," Damian replies thoughtfully. "If everyone went around tallying up everything everyone did, it'd get old, fast. Not to mention you'd have to have a universal system for judging whether that was 'good' or 'bad'. Doesn't that seem a bit simplistic?"

Late nights, coffee, and stress are the perfect combination to make a ten-year-old wax philosophic, apparently.

[hellisforchildren]

Alex slumped against the wall and continued to nurse his coffee.

"I didn't write the rules, I just deal with the fallout when I apparently break them."

[xuffasch]

"That's dumb. If the rules are stupid, you shouldn't have to follow them."

[hellisforchildren]

He scoffed. "Just because you don't wanna follow the rules doesn't mean there's no one enforcing 'em."

[xuffasch]

"Well, if that enforcement worked in any sense, people like us wouldn't have to be around."

[hellisforchildren]

"That's just how they work, as far as I can tell. The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world he doesn't exist."