lutrinae lutra lutra

He was doing the crossword in the Herald when Jo came in through the closed door, her once black hair now sort of shimmering in its translucence. It made her even more beautiful, in his opinion, and he wondered often if it was just as silky, or even moreso. "Morning," he said. "What's an eight letter word for dilemma?"

"How are you handling this so easily?" She moved to stand next to him, looking consideringly for a moment at one of the empty chairs but making no effort to sit - or at least to appear to sit - in it.

Pepper shrugged, skipping the clue and moving to fill in 17 across, Swiss mountain, with ALP. "Two options. Either you're really a ghost, which has loads of precedent and is really no weirder than all the ghosts at school. Or I'm hallucinating. Which would make me pretty fucking crazy, but I think I have just cause, so it's sort of un-worrying."

"I can't even touch you..."

At that he looked up, expression pure and sad, unmarred by the guilt that usually featured in the backs of his eyes. "I really did want to have a baby with you, you know."

Look out liars and you highlife scum
who gotta keep your victims poor and dumb--
Your motives and your methods are not disguised
( by your silk, soap, sex, or your smiling lies )

Pepper's death letters are never going to be sent now, but I was having thoughts on the way home from Egyptian about what he would say mostly to the Albion people so I'm writing that one out for fun, since it's relevant to the interests of the most people.


( Completely re-written, August 8, 1980 )

Spoilers for the entire first season of The Mentalist, all of Torchwood and, er, Blurred Lines.


( Patrick Jane, Ianto Jones and Octavius Pepper - the broken tools )

It occurs to me that very few of my Slytherins ever actually want total power. None of them want to be overlords, none of them want to be Minister. Astra wants to be exactly what she is. Dung wants to get away with his crimes, almost for the thrill of it I sometimes think. He could get a proper job, probably, but he likes the underworld, and especially now that the Ministry is run by the "bad guys" he works to keep himself from getting caught.

( More Slytherins in store now )

Pepper has made with the crazy. It's funny, because he was quite sane when he started out. Well, I say quite, but reasonably. He wasn't insane, he didn't have delusions of any kind, he actually had a very pragmatic worldview - with the upbringing he had, he never really had a shot at idealism, after all.

But between the PTSD and the insistence that everything shit that's happened to him in the last couple of years had to mean something, because if it doesn't then it's just random and everything he's lost is for nothing, he really is just not well in any sense of the word. I don't think post-war therapy is going to fix him too easily. Especially since from this point on I think he's going to be willing to do horribly bad things. He did it before out of sacrifice, thinking that he did it to protect other people from having to do it, but if he believes that it wasn't for nothing, then it means that he's supposed to be like this, and that means that it doesn't matter what he does because he's supposed to do bad things. It's not sacrifice, it's purpose. And that's a lot scarier.

Earlier this week I was pondering the whole closure issue for Pepper - the only real funeral/memorial service they had for Mill was basically about an hour or so after she died and Pepper didn't attend, instead going for a walk by himself and avoiding the end of it when he came back. And since then he's really felt pretty alone in his grief, especially after he told everyone what had happened and Ioan demanded he take it down to protect Tibby. And like a month and a half later, it felt like he'd never really got that sense of her moving to the next life, so to speak, he's just sort of been in this grief limbo, so I was debating him having his own very private funeral where he essentially cremates her journal, which he stole out of her room when he was packing up her things way back in February. In the end I decided not to post it and he's started to come through it on his own, but for archival, the narrative is here.


( There's nothing I'd like better than to fall / But I fear I have nothing to give )

I feel like Pepper is one of those people who, when sick, goes into social isolation. When we had a random unrelated-to-plot flu outbreak in the Ministry last year he relegated himself to the couch and bathroom - consciously he told himself it was so he wouldn't bother Jo overnight but I suspect quite a bit of it was this secret need to be in his own space, away from people.

If the DEs had never taken over the Ministry-- well, he wouldn't be going through alcohol withdrawal to start with, but if there was a situation where he still had his flat with Jo and he was going through withdrawal, he would be very, very stubbornly refusing to accept Aloysius' offer to stay there. He has a lot of pride and grit and determination when he wants to and he would be very set about just bunking down in their flat and staying there until either he was better or he failed.

Being at camp is where it gets extra interesting though, because he's not just alone with Jo. Half the ex-DMLE is there too, in a very social-living environment, and these are not all his close friends. In fact, very few of them are particularly close to him, and even those ones he does tend to hold at arm's distance - in the Kate/Pepper log she observed that their friendship is not based on sharing intimate details about their lives, despite the fact that they'd been intimate. And he would very much hate to have people he doesn't know very well and doesn't like, and who don't like him, wandering around nearby when he's at such a low point. It would make him feel very, very vulnerable.

So his decision, essentially, on whether to retreat to Aloysius' basement, is a battle of different kinds of pride - whether to let Aloysius "win", and do something that feels like an admission of failure, need, incapability, and to put himself in a position where he's essentially relying on someone he hasn't before (which I could elaborate on an awful lot, actually; his relationship with Aloysius is so, so different to Jo or Mill), or to do it on his own but allow an awful lot of people to see him in a very weak position.

And, yes, ultimately it's inevitable that he'll relent to the lesser of two evils and give in to Aloysius. It'll probably be strange for him because I think in the past he's subconsciously figured.... hm, how to word this. He considers himself more independent in the relationship than Aloysius probably does. Like his frustrated "I didn't ask you to worry!", he has gone past the point where it's a relationship of momentary amusement and convenience, but he hasn't reached the mutual absolute trust he has with Jo and he definitely doesn't feel the sort-of-submission he did with Mill. So letting/making himself rely on Aloysius for basically the first time? Going to actually be a bit nervy for him, I think.

I feel like, with Mill gone, it's like a completely different phase in Pepper's life now - I actually went and changed his Mental Health section specially. He likes to think of himself as an extremely independent person, and he's an introvert in that when he's upset he wants to damn well be alone. He's always needed his own space, it's part of why he was so anxious about getting really serious with Jo because when you're married you can't just retreat back to your own flat and get some space without making it be a deliberate thing. But he did rely on Mill, a huge amount. And the fact that it was so sudden and unexpected is really troubling for him.

( Pepper ramble )


Astra is a whole different ballgame. Right now of course she's fretting like a mad thing. Rodolphus is this huge figure, very much the head of the family and she's terrified of the idea that he could die. He's supposed to be at the second wedding, the one they're having mostly just so Rodolphus and Corbina can be there, and he's supposed to see his grandchildren so he knows his line is continuing on. He can't die now when everything's so unfinished.

( shorter Astra ramble )


And a meme!

Request a character and I will answer all of the following questions for them.

( Questions x20 )

The lovely thing about Pepper is that I can revel in his flaws. He is petty, vindictive, passive-aggressive, touchy, holds a grudge, and not only is he aware of this, he takes great pleasure in it.

( This got longer than I intended )

We were talking symbols and rune meanings and I managed to get myself into the numerology section of my hippie books and now I'm playing with numbers.

( Pepper's numbers )

Unfortunately I can't simply move this entry over here because it prompted quite a bit of fascinating discussion and 38 comments makes it complicated.

For reference, though, here it is.

Pepper's original "so I'm dead..." letter from when he first joined the Order. Kept because it's hilarious.


( Down the rabbit hole )