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[vrdantwind]

"Hey, this is Claude! Pretty sure I'm doing this correctly. You can leave me a message here, and I'll get to it as soon as I can. Talk to you soon~."

Comments

[fingersandteeth]

[Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

Claude had the audacity to try to infiltrate the Rockets during the Christmas Heist. That took balls. While Steven doesn't really bear a grudge for anything that happened during it--they were all just trying to do their jobs, after all--he does feel like it would be a good idea for one of them to keep an eye on Claude and perhaps steer him away from trying something like that again.

So sharing something of himself to Claude? It's a way of cultivating that trust in Claude. To make him that much easier to keep an eye on.

And for all that it seems like he's disclosed a lot of intimate details to Claude, there's no real secrets in it. Nothing about what Jack did to his daughter. Nothing about how he snuck into Thace's dream during the weird weekend. Just that he'd met Thace when he was still with Jack, that Jack was a narcissist and that when things had gone bad with Jack, they'd gone bad fast. Steven was okay with people knowing that much.]

Oh, it can be hot. Definitely. But it's a fine line to walk and even when things were *good* with Jack, I was cautious of being on the wrong side of that line.

I'd like to think that Baby Jack could be steered away from the man he was going to become, but I don't think I could do it. I see too much of his future self in him to be able to interact with him consistently and comfortably. But maybe you or one of your friends could.

[vrdantwind]

[A fair plan, Steven. Claude is certainly more likely to trust Steven now with similar details about his own life...but, of course, Claude is - fortunately for himself - quite paranoid in his own right. He keeps secrets even from his closest friends who he can unreservedly trust; Steven won't find himself privy to much that's sensitive from Claude, especially only on the weight of personal-but-not-compromising tidbits.

Really, Jaskier enjoyed a faster and more intimate trust with Claude than this...but Jaskier is also someone Claude met before crossing Team Rocket. Before Claude had any enemies here. He's got more reason to be circumspect now.]

Oh yeah, definitely. I'm not sure a narcissist could walk that line at all.

That said, I can sympathize with not being able to interact with younger Jack for personal reasons. Even without hints of what he'll become, frankly, I could see it being painful as his ex and someone who used to know him so well, and yet isn't even remembered by him. I wonder if people who don't know the first thing about him - either about who he is now or who he's going to become - are necessarily the next best option, though...I mean, there's got to be someone who's more familiar with him that wouldn't object to dealing with him, right?

Besides, I'm kind of trying to help a friend walk a better path of his own. That's actually part of the reason I was wondering about younger Jack - I'm curious if catching someone before they make certain decisions, certain mistakes, can change where they end up. What happens to them, and the people around them.

[fingersandteeth]

[It's fine. He's planted his seed and is willing to see how it grows from here.]

There might be. I'm not sure who would be, though. He's burnt a lot of bridges over the years. About the only people from his world that are here are people who I wouldn't feel comfortable asking this of.

And, well, I don't know how well people who knew the older him would work. A lot of our mutual friends are either gone now or, well, I got them in the break-up. I don't know. He seemed to get along with Scorpia in his post--maybe I could coach her through it, even though she didn't really know him before.

[vrdantwind]

Huh. Well, if there's no better people for the job than relative strangers, I guess we're not completely unqualified.

That said, I haven't spoken to the guy at all. I don't know if any of my friends have, either. That said...I'd definitely be the best candidate for that kind of project out of all of us. I'm just not sure I want to commit to trying to rehabilitate a stranger's presemt to reform his future...all the more so because I feel like I'd need to become friends with the guy for that. And making friends with someone on the basis of wanting to change them is getting into sketchy territory. I can be manipulative at times, but that sort of thing is on another level, you know?

[fingersandteeth]

No, I do get it.

And it's fine. If any of your crowd becomes friends with Baby Jack on your own, feel free to try to reform him, but don't become friends with him just for his reformation. He'll either learn better here with or without friends--or, well, he won't.

[vrdantwind]

That's fair enough. And hey, honestly, I might be the best choice for intentional reformation, but all my friends are good people by nature. Much better people than I am, that's for sure. If Baby Jack makes friends with any of them, he'll have good influences on his side whether or not that was intentional.

We'll see how things go, anyway. I guess unless his older self shows up again significantly improved, we're not really going to know whether or not we've affected any changes in him anyhow.

[fingersandteeth]

It looks like your friend with the rats, Dimitri, sent him some booze at some point, so there's that. Maybe it'll turn into friendship--who knows?

And I do understand all about having friends who are naturally better people than you.

[vrdantwind]

For all his rat-throwing tendencies, Dimitri's a great guy. And now that he's recovering from a pretty bad spell, he's definitely not the worst influence Baby Jack could have. Hopefully they get along.

Do you? You don't seem like too bad of a guy yourself...I mean, outside of running a potentially sketchy establishment like a fight club. But that didn't even start out as yours, it sounds like.

[fingersandteeth]

Well, I was always a partner in it. But Tyler was the one who ran things on site.

[vrdantwind]

Well, even so. Even if it's a little legally questionable, I don't know if that makes you a sketchy person.

So, do you just have really virtuous friends, or are you a lot shadier than you appear?

[fingersandteeth]

If it were the second, do you think I'd admit it?

But no, I just have some friends who are really good people.

[vrdantwind]

I mean, you might, to a fellow unsavory individual.

So aside from Thace - who's probably included in your good person count - what other friends do you have? Anyone I might already know?

[fingersandteeth]

I might.

Well, there's Scorpia. She's such a sweetheart. And my other employee, Chloe, is a real good kid too. And I'm friends with Armin and Shiro. They're both good people. Carly's also got a good heart. And so does little Kiri, the bird girl. And back home there was my sister, Charley, and Polly who rescued me once and Polly's girlfriend Petra.

[vrdantwind]

Any number of people, huh? And I don't think I've met a single one of them.

[Well, Claude's met Carly. But he doesn't know he met Carly.]

Funny, I know a Petra back home. I'm positive they're unrelated, but it's a small world...or small collection of wildly disparate worlds.

[fingersandteeth]

Is your Petra a Canadian immigrant studying law and practicing the sword? Because that's my Petra.

[vrdantwind]

More of a foreign princess held political hostage by a hostile neighboring country. She does use swords sometimes, though!

But yeah, pretty sure they're different people.

[fingersandteeth]

Yeah, my Petra's no princess. I'm fairly sure they aren't.