SELF-MADE ENDS

Estlin’s laughter might have irritated him, once, but his energy had been drained completely now. He was not broken, not yet, but he had put everything into his testimony against Estlin — a lawyer out for blood who had documented everything, who could describe in detail every crime they had committed together, who could harshly and precisely defame Estlin’s character. He could not reduce his sentence, but he damn well sure that Estlin rotted beside him. After all, he had promised him. Even after he had broken his promise, even after he had cut James off, James could still seize what was rightfully his. So he did, and here they were. And now that they were, James didn’t know how to proceed. “Well, for whatever reason,” he decided to say, tartly, “I can’t seem to get it out of my system.” It was a far reach from the beaches of Mars, that was for certain, and he could only scoff at the other’s words. “Is that your directive? Ought I to sleep with a guard?”

@rockefcllcr

Prison was not a good look on James. He did what he could, of course, but it was a far stretch from the luxury he had gotten used to, the same luxury that had been so quickly seized from him. He worried about his skin, his hair, the way his clothes contrasted with his skin tone, and he did all this while happily shoving down thinking about the fact that it was very likely that he would spend the rest of his life in this damned hellhole. Somewhere, somehow, there was still a part of him that believed that there was a future; that this was temporary, some kind of charitable trip to some indigent wasteland, that he would get to see his friends in Jupiter again, that he would get to see Jupiter’s twinkling lights or the many moons that glittered his sky — there was only one moon on Earth and it made him feel sick, empty, like there was something missing. 

There was nothing more that made him feel sick to the stomach of what he used to have, of course, than the sight of Estlin Rockefeller, who gave him everything that he had to lose. All of which he had lost in one tumble down a cliff, everything gone in a single blink. Their last interactions had been tense — not heated, but cold, rigid, with full recognition of what they had done to each other. It was several weeks now since the last time they had spoken, and — well, James had had some time to think since then. It was fate (or, perhaps, a cruel, knowing watcher) that now brought them together. “I understand why you did what you did, darling,” he said, his arms crossed against his chest, though there was no fire in his voice, only tired resignation. “But let me say it. Just once.” He shoved weakly at his chest. “Fuck you.”

Upon coming here, he didn’t understand the significance of the nickname they gave him. Well-versed in the classics as he was, he nevertheless found it difficult to see why they would name him after the man who dared insult the gods by feeding them the flesh of his own son. His crimes had definitely been... less salacious, but he realised, with the passage of time, that they didn’t name him due to the nature of his sins, but as a cruel reminder to him of what he’d lost: instead, like Tantalus, satisfaction had eluded him, just when he thought it was nearest. How many crimes did he commit in conjunction with James? How many more would they have planned? The world was theirs—or it was supposed to be; but the world turns on its axis, and what has been given can be taken away, and so it was.

Such was life, he supposed, that he now found himself rotting in this miserable planet, a far cry from the luxury of his own, the rust and old metal a far cry from the sleek monochrome and glittering facade that decorated Jupiter. In here, everything was ancient, crumbling, broken down; in here, they were all wretched and forgotten—and how poetic it was, to meet the reason for his downfall in this place where all the damned congregated. “Good day to you too, darling,” he said, a somewhat acrid tone present in his voice. It was a far cry from their days of old. “So goes the way of the world,” he said—and shouldn’t James already know this? Naïveté wasn’t a good look... on either of them, really, and wasn’t that a surprise? Here he was, and he could choose to be honest, dare to say that he didn’t expect James ratting him out as well, confess that he presumed to think that James would have been loyal, that he’d succeeded in grooming a perfect tool for him to wield, but—

“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” Trick was in a good mood. She may not have made as much coin as some of those who’d gone on the more dangerous missions, but she also didn’t have any of the nasty side effects some of them had suffered. “I even got a lollipop out of the deal! Check it out, it made my tongue change color,” she stuck her tongue out to show the other person with a smile. “How’d you make out?”

Estlin narrowed his eyes as the stranger in front of him stuck her tongue out as if he asked for it, despite the fact that he was obviously reading. He scowled then tipped his head to the direction of his foot, bandaged as it was due to the sprain caused by that hideous tap number he was forced to perform. (Still, better to do some silly performance than risk his neck out for money that he already had.) “Got an injury that any other decent company would have been sued for,” he said. “Got a nice book out of it, though,” he said, his mouth drawn up in a hint of a smile. “It’s nice to have some semblance of culture in this place.”

See that person in the NOVA jumpsuit? His name is supposedly ESTLIN ROCKEFELLER, but everyone around here just calls him TANTALUS. The file says he is TWENTY-EIGHT years old. They just picked him up from JUPITER, but you didn’t hear that from me. I’ve heard that he is here because HE BLACKMAILED VARIOUS INDIVIDUALS, INCITED SOMEONE TO MURDER, AND CONSPIRED TO COMMIT FURTHER CRIMES, but that’s probably a rumor. If you look at him closely he kind of resembles XAVIER SERRANO, but that could just be my tired eyes playing tricks on me.

Hello again! C’est moi, Henry, with a new muse in town named Estlin Rockefeller. Read on more below for some stuff about him!