[How the fuck does one answer that question? Yes - No - Look, he was getting to it. Before the whole preoccupation with his profession.]
I died here. And then I went home, and something worse than dying happened to me. If you're the kinda person who likes hearing about bad guys getting what they deserve, I got plenty of stories for you.
Except for the guy who killed me. He got everything he wanted.
You were--but Saul said--[Well, that does explain why the other man was so sure Jesse would be back. Kotetsu goes silent for a bit, jaw a little slack.]
Shit. [He lets out a little breath, helplessly.] Look, you're not--I don't...
[Okay, these sentence fragments really need to stop, this is getting ridiculous. He cards a hand through his hair, and--lord, why didn't he get more drunk before this happened, he's entirely too aware of everything around him and he doesn't know how to deal with any of it.]
I don't like it when awful shit happens to anyone, okay? And--didn't I just get done telling you before that I wouldn't care less or think you deserved it if you were a criminal?
[Another little breath. At least he's getting a little calmer. He thinks. His hands are still shaking slightly; he shoves them in his pockets.]
You oughta report it. To the police, or...RISE, at least.
Edited (whoops i realized that was a super dumb question) 2016-02-27 23:51 (UTC)
[Oh, he wasn't referring to himself in that collection of people who got what was coming to them. But he lets it slide, because no way is Kotetsu actually going to enjoy hearing about Jesse squeezing the life out of the guy who did all this to him.]
Why would I? I don't need no police or RISE to handle my shit for me.
'Cause if someone dangerous like that's still around, people oughta know so they can try to keep 'emselves safe. Plus, we could bring 'em in and that'd be at least four months they couldn't hurt anybody, even if that's not much.
[He lowers himself back down to his seat, taking a drink of his no-longer-celebratory whiskey.]
...So you're, you're building up a new life now, here. That's why you're telling me? To start over?
[He's still confused, still has entirely too many questions, but at least Jesse's convinced him that this is true. The mention of his own murder drained out the last of his denial, really. No one would make something like that up.]
[Jesse snorts with derisive amusement at the idea that the police or RISE could even begin to get a handle on Walter White. No, he won't be asking for their help in this matter. He remembers quite well what happened when he went to the DEA with this. Burned into his memory, in fact - and his skin, until very recently.]
[Kotetsu frowns at that snort, though. He's concerned--both for Jesse and everyone else. He realizes it could be personal, some kind of long-held grudge between the two and maybe everyone else was safe. But maybe they weren't. And either way, it's still murder. Four months might be a pittance for that, but they damn well ought to serve at least that much. He'll probably press it again later; he doesn't want Jesse to get up and try to leave again.]
...Like, not being a criminal anymore? Finding something better to do with your life? I dunno, whatever you want it to mean, I guess.
You know what they say in rehab? One day at a time.
[Maybe there are people in this world capable of writing a map for their lives, deciding on a path and then following it to the end. Jesse isn't that kind of person. It's a fucking stupid expectation, in his opinion.]
[He lets out a sigh, rubbing his face with a hand. He's still not sure what to do with this information at all, or even why it's being given to him. He thought maybe it was Jesse's way of putting his past behind him by clearing the air between them, but maybe it's just...as simple as the fact that he asked.
That's something else he's entirely unsure how he should process. This whole thing...it feels different than what happened with Yuri, and it is, because they're having this conversation in a bar, together, rather than Kotetsu scrambling to get in touch with Yuri repeatedly over the course of a day to try to hear his side of the story regarding the accusations being launched against him...only to have the rug pulled out from under him and told they were never friends.
Still, doubt creeps up at the base of his spine, and before he even thinks it properly through, he finds himself asking--]
We're--you think of me as a friend, right? I mean, did you?
[Not the question Jesse was expecting to hear, though he understands immediately why it's being asked. To be lied to for so long - even a lie by omission - throws an entire history of friendship into the garbage. Jesse is a scumbag, for sure, to do that to Kotetsu and everyone else he's played.]
A good friend wouldn'ta done what I did.
[He'll admit that.]
But I care about you. I'd never wanna hurt you. And I - I'll always protect you. None of that was a lie. And it hasn't changed.
[That's. Some kind of comfort, he supposes. It does less than expected to calm the roiling storm of confusion and distress in his gut, though, and he idly runs his thumb along the rim of his glass. This wasn't the conversation he was expecting to have an hour ago; he was supposed to be pleasantly drunk by now, laughing and joking about something or another inconsequential.
He can't even decide whether or not he's glad Jesse told him. Later, there won't even be a question, especially as he continues to be confronted with Yuri's existence in this world, but right now, some part of him prefers his former ignorance.]
I care about you, too. I still do, I mean.
[Just in case that was in question. He doesn't know the rest of how he feels because he's terrible at self-reflection on a good day, let alone right now. But he already knows that much. But then, Kotetsu cares about everyone, really. It's all a matter of degree, and how personal it is. If he were honest with himself, he still cares about Yuri too, underneath all that anger and hurt.]
[Kotetsu doesn't owe him that assurance, and Jesse's instinct is to shrug it off. No - he knows better than anyone - a betrayal like this is worth some anger and resentment, some distrust and suspicion and maybe even retaliation. He exhales a short breath.]
You don't have to. It wouldn't make you a bad person if you couldn't stand me anymore. If you ask me, forgiveness is kinda overrated.
[He disagrees with that, but he doesn't have the energy to argue about it right now. He stares blankly into his reflection in the half-empty glass, as if it could hold some sort of answers for him.
A few long moments later, he finally asks, not looking up--]
...Xavier's. It was always safe, right? Those kids--you would never do anything to put them in danger. Right?
[Maybe he should be done with Jesse, but on the contrary he's looking for excuses to justify remaining friends. It's not like his social circle is 100% squeaky clean, after all. He's on decent terms with Callaghan. Ken had wanted to kill Shinjiro in revenge for his mother. Kaneki is a cannibal.
And Jesse...Jesse means so much to Kotetsu. He doesn't want to give up their friendship. He doesn't want to be angry and resentful.]
[How can he answer that? He brought Walt there himself. Walt killed him there. Everyone was in danger - in constant danger - and Jesse knew it, even if he didn't predict his own murder. It's why Jesse's quitting Xavier's now: He was as much a danger to the school as he was the one person who could heal any injuries suffered by those kids.]
Emma - Emma knew about me. Straight from the beginning. And she wanted me there anyway, because she knew I'd protect those kids with my life.
I don't know if she made the right choice. But I wouldn'ta let anything happen to 'em. Not if I could help it.
[Emma....he remembers, suddenly, having that conversation with Jesse, ages ago. Kotetsu making that precise argument, that Emma wouldn't have let him into the school if she thought he was a danger. Back then, Jesse had argued that it wouldn't have bothered Emma even if he was. But maybe that was just Jesse's guilty conscience talking, because of the secrets he knew he was keeping?
He hates this. He really hates this. Reevaluating all those old conversations, wondering which things were truth and which were falsehood. He lets out a frustrated sigh.]
See, that's the part I don't get. You're saying you're this hundred-percent-asshole, done every felony in the book, but--you were always taking care of people. The kids, the innocents who got hurt every time something blew up, the sick and injured people in hospitals...
...It's not even like--I mean, you went through hell for those people. Nobody'd go that far just for an act.
[And this may be a level of morality too nuanced for people from societies with Official Heroes. Jesse has some patience for that. But he wants to be very clear on this.]
I can be more than one thing. I can be a drug dealer who'd never sell to a kid. I can be a murderer who'd never kill somebody without a good reason. I can hurt people and still hate hurting people. I can hurt somebody one day and heal 'em the next. One thing's got nothing to do with the other.
[There's a bit of a pause. Kotetsu, at least, is more malleable to this line of thinking than say, someone like Lunatic, considering his belief in the idea that everyone's life is valuable, no exceptions. It's still difficult for him, of course. He's gone so long believing it unthinkable that Jesse was even capable of harming anyone intentionally.
He still doesn't really believe in there being good reasons to kill someone--beyond heat-of-the-moment self-defense, of course--but the idea of what Jesse's saying doesn't go over his head completely.
Eventually:]
...Why, then? [Beat] Did you do the things you did, I mean. ...There and here.
[Because Jesse, for one, hates excuses. And he doesn't want to sound like he's giving any.]
I know there's other ways to do what I wanted to do. Every choice I ever made, I coulda done something different. A better person woulda done different. But me? I'm not smart. I don't have any skills. Before I got here, there wasn't a single thing I could do to actually help people. My whole life, the only thing I was good at was hurting 'em. I was only ever good at being a criminal. There was nothing else for me.
But I tried, you know? Tried to get out, tried to do other things. This life's got a way of dragging you back. The kinda people I worked for, you couldn't just walk away from 'em.
It's not about making it better. I just want to know.
[It's about understanding why, and more importantly, understanding Jesse. When Callaghan's past had come out, Kotetsu needed to know just who it was he was working for. Making horrible decisions you later regretted because of the trauma of losing a child wasn't the same as making those same decisions for personal gain, for money or power or something that would've made him resign from Xavier's and never speak to Callaghan again unless he did something to endanger others here.
And now, he wants to know the truth about this man, the one he's trusted and been close to for a very long time.]
You're wrong, by the way. There's not a single person in the world that's incapable of helping people. Hundreds of people or maybe more're alive here 'cause of you, and your powers were just the tool for that. They're alive 'cause you cared enough to literally torture yourself for their sake. You always had that.
[He knows a thing or two about feeling like you can only hurt people, after all.]
...And that doesn't explain why you took it back up here, either.
[And here's where everyone in the world is wrong about him, when they assume that he wants to suffer or that he's being selfless in his quest to heal the world's pain.]
And I don't mean superpowerless. I mean that feeling where you can't control anything that's going on. Being at somebody else's mercy. Other people, the government, God... I hate having to stand back and shut my mouth and just let things happen.
When I left my world, when I first came here and saw this fucking tattoo on my wrist and found out I had these nanites in my blood and read this whole goddamn file they were keeping on me... I don't know if you know the feeling, if you're used to all this shit from your world, but I wasn't. Everybody else might be ignoring it, but I knew from that second I was officially government property. And I wasn't about to have that.
You know what's more powerful than any government? Money. No matter what situation you're in, if you got the money, you can get out of it. So I did what I do best. I got to work on my own little security plan.
[...He's not sure why it is that he feels utterly disappointed by that answer.]
There's gotta be better ways of making money than all that. [He rubs at his face, unhappily.] Hell, you coulda sold your power, even. Nobody would'a blamed you for it, considering what you go through to do it.
[But he's pretty sure Jesse never did, except those times when the proceeds went to charity. It's another one of those little contradictions that he can't fit together, despite what Jesse said about being able to be more than than one thing. Why do such a selfless thing for free for years, if that's what he wanted? Why hurt people if he didn't want when that kind of thing was an option?]
...That's not what you meant when you talked about a good reason to kill people, right? For money?
[Jesse's glad that Kotetsu sounds disappointed. He should be disappointed. God, it makes so much sense to disappoint people. More sense than all the praise or even the criticism of his so-called martyr behavior.]
No. I don't kill people for money. And I do sell my power. Just not to the kinda people you'd see me healing in public.
It's not enough. Even all the stuff I'm doing isn't enough. Do you have any idea how much it's gonna cost? Us freeing ourselves. How much land, how much technology, how many weapons and body armor we're gonna need? How many allies we're gonna have to buy? I make over a million dollars a week and three-quarters of that gets sunk back into keeping it all running. Just keeping up the goddamn status quo.
[Jesse didn't mean just his own freedom. It suddenly clicks now, all those things he couldn't seem to make sense out of. The contradictions aren't quite so puzzling anymore, now that he sees the bigger picture. The disappointment that was coloring his features shifts, becomes something almost helpless as he rakes one hand in his hair.]
Dammit, Jesse--we never asked you to do anything like that for us.
[There's a tone of frustration in his voice, but it's not angry frustration. Because all this makes way too much sense, and he feels--upset? distressed? annoyed? he doesn't know--that Jesse's suffered so much for something like this. Something so stupid and noble and did he mention stupid.]
I don't--I don't want it, and I don't think I'd be the only one.
[He jerks up his arm, that REGISTERED tattoo just barely visible in the dimmer light of the bar.]
This--getting rid of these? It's not worth it, not if it costs the lives of people who won't come back. How could any of us accept that freedom, knowing what was sacrificed in the process?
Yeah, well, I don't really care how anybody else feels about it.
[Which, in a way, brings him back to his original point.]
None of you know what it's like. Real slavery. You think Registration's like paying taxes, and it's kinda shitty but it comes with benefits, and you get to walk around and live your life and go home to a cozy little house the government gave you. And maybe, yeah, if we're lucky, it's gonna stay like this. Maybe I'm just paranoid, like those guys who stock up on canned food 'cause they think doomsday is coming.
But I've lived it: Sleeping in a cage, shitting in a bucket, getting beaten, getting called "rat" or "pussy" or anything other than my name. You stop being human to the people who own you. That's inevitable. And that was my life, man. Not some "what-if".
And I can guarantee you, when that happens to you... You're gonna stop thinking about what's "right" or what's "wrong" or whether anything was "worth it". If that day never comes for us here, then thank god for that. But I'm not waiting 'til it's too late, and I'm sure as hell not worrying about how people who don't even know what it's like might think they feel about it.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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I died here. And then I went home, and something worse than dying happened to me. If you're the kinda person who likes hearing about bad guys getting what they deserve, I got plenty of stories for you.
Except for the guy who killed me. He got everything he wanted.
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How does one even begin to react to all that?]
You were--but Saul said--[Well, that does explain why the other man was so sure Jesse would be back. Kotetsu goes silent for a bit, jaw a little slack.]
Shit. [He lets out a little breath, helplessly.] Look, you're not--I don't...
[Okay, these sentence fragments really need to stop, this is getting ridiculous. He cards a hand through his hair, and--lord, why didn't he get more drunk before this happened, he's entirely too aware of everything around him and he doesn't know how to deal with any of it.]
I don't like it when awful shit happens to anyone, okay? And--didn't I just get done telling you before that I wouldn't care less or think you deserved it if you were a criminal?
[Another little breath. At least he's getting a little calmer. He thinks. His hands are still shaking slightly; he shoves them in his pockets.]
You oughta report it. To the police, or...RISE, at least.
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Why would I? I don't need no police or RISE to handle my shit for me.
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[He lowers himself back down to his seat, taking a drink of his no-longer-celebratory whiskey.]
...So you're, you're building up a new life now, here. That's why you're telling me? To start over?
[He's still confused, still has entirely too many questions, but at least Jesse's convinced him that this is true. The mention of his own murder drained out the last of his denial, really. No one would make something like that up.]
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I don't even what that means, "starting over".
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...Like, not being a criminal anymore? Finding something better to do with your life? I dunno, whatever you want it to mean, I guess.
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[Maybe there are people in this world capable of writing a map for their lives, deciding on a path and then following it to the end. Jesse isn't that kind of person. It's a fucking stupid expectation, in his opinion.]
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[He lets out a sigh, rubbing his face with a hand. He's still not sure what to do with this information at all, or even why it's being given to him. He thought maybe it was Jesse's way of putting his past behind him by clearing the air between them, but maybe it's just...as simple as the fact that he asked.
That's something else he's entirely unsure how he should process. This whole thing...it feels different than what happened with Yuri, and it is, because they're having this conversation in a bar, together, rather than Kotetsu scrambling to get in touch with Yuri repeatedly over the course of a day to try to hear his side of the story regarding the accusations being launched against him...only to have the rug pulled out from under him and told they were never friends.
Still, doubt creeps up at the base of his spine, and before he even thinks it properly through, he finds himself asking--]
We're--you think of me as a friend, right? I mean, did you?
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A good friend wouldn'ta done what I did.
[He'll admit that.]
But I care about you. I'd never wanna hurt you. And I - I'll always protect you. None of that was a lie. And it hasn't changed.
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He can't even decide whether or not he's glad Jesse told him. Later, there won't even be a question, especially as he continues to be confronted with Yuri's existence in this world, but right now, some part of him prefers his former ignorance.]
I care about you, too. I still do, I mean.
[Just in case that was in question. He doesn't know the rest of how he feels because he's terrible at self-reflection on a good day, let alone right now. But he already knows that much. But then, Kotetsu cares about everyone, really. It's all a matter of degree, and how personal it is. If he were honest with himself, he still cares about Yuri too, underneath all that anger and hurt.]
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You don't have to. It wouldn't make you a bad person if you couldn't stand me anymore. If you ask me, forgiveness is kinda overrated.
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A few long moments later, he finally asks, not looking up--]
...Xavier's. It was always safe, right? Those kids--you would never do anything to put them in danger. Right?
[Maybe he should be done with Jesse, but on the contrary he's looking for excuses to justify remaining friends. It's not like his social circle is 100% squeaky clean, after all. He's on decent terms with Callaghan. Ken had wanted to kill Shinjiro in revenge for his mother. Kaneki is a cannibal.
And Jesse...Jesse means so much to Kotetsu. He doesn't want to give up their friendship. He doesn't want to be angry and resentful.]
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Emma - Emma knew about me. Straight from the beginning. And she wanted me there anyway, because she knew I'd protect those kids with my life.
I don't know if she made the right choice. But I wouldn'ta let anything happen to 'em. Not if I could help it.
gently dusts this thread off
He hates this. He really hates this. Reevaluating all those old conversations, wondering which things were truth and which were falsehood. He lets out a frustrated sigh.]
See, that's the part I don't get. You're saying you're this hundred-percent-asshole, done every felony in the book, but--you were always taking care of people. The kids, the innocents who got hurt every time something blew up, the sick and injured people in hospitals...
...It's not even like--I mean, you went through hell for those people. Nobody'd go that far just for an act.
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[And this may be a level of morality too nuanced for people from societies with Official Heroes. Jesse has some patience for that. But he wants to be very clear on this.]
I can be more than one thing. I can be a drug dealer who'd never sell to a kid. I can be a murderer who'd never kill somebody without a good reason. I can hurt people and still hate hurting people. I can hurt somebody one day and heal 'em the next. One thing's got nothing to do with the other.
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He still doesn't really believe in there being good reasons to kill someone--beyond heat-of-the-moment self-defense, of course--but the idea of what Jesse's saying doesn't go over his head completely.
Eventually:]
...Why, then? [Beat] Did you do the things you did, I mean. ...There and here.
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[Because Jesse, for one, hates excuses. And he doesn't want to sound like he's giving any.]
I know there's other ways to do what I wanted to do. Every choice I ever made, I coulda done something different. A better person woulda done different. But me? I'm not smart. I don't have any skills. Before I got here, there wasn't a single thing I could do to actually help people. My whole life, the only thing I was good at was hurting 'em. I was only ever good at being a criminal. There was nothing else for me.
But I tried, you know? Tried to get out, tried to do other things. This life's got a way of dragging you back. The kinda people I worked for, you couldn't just walk away from 'em.
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[It's about understanding why, and more importantly, understanding Jesse. When Callaghan's past had come out, Kotetsu needed to know just who it was he was working for. Making horrible decisions you later regretted because of the trauma of losing a child wasn't the same as making those same decisions for personal gain, for money or power or something that would've made him resign from Xavier's and never speak to Callaghan again unless he did something to endanger others here.
And now, he wants to know the truth about this man, the one he's trusted and been close to for a very long time.]
You're wrong, by the way. There's not a single person in the world that's incapable of helping people. Hundreds of people or maybe more're alive here 'cause of you, and your powers were just the tool for that. They're alive 'cause you cared enough to literally torture yourself for their sake. You always had that.
[He knows a thing or two about feeling like you can only hurt people, after all.]
...And that doesn't explain why you took it back up here, either.
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[And here's where everyone in the world is wrong about him, when they assume that he wants to suffer or that he's being selfless in his quest to heal the world's pain.]
And I don't mean superpowerless. I mean that feeling where you can't control anything that's going on. Being at somebody else's mercy. Other people, the government, God... I hate having to stand back and shut my mouth and just let things happen.
When I left my world, when I first came here and saw this fucking tattoo on my wrist and found out I had these nanites in my blood and read this whole goddamn file they were keeping on me... I don't know if you know the feeling, if you're used to all this shit from your world, but I wasn't. Everybody else might be ignoring it, but I knew from that second I was officially government property. And I wasn't about to have that.
You know what's more powerful than any government? Money. No matter what situation you're in, if you got the money, you can get out of it. So I did what I do best. I got to work on my own little security plan.
It's as simple as that.
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There's gotta be better ways of making money than all that. [He rubs at his face, unhappily.] Hell, you coulda sold your power, even. Nobody would'a blamed you for it, considering what you go through to do it.
[But he's pretty sure Jesse never did, except those times when the proceeds went to charity. It's another one of those little contradictions that he can't fit together, despite what Jesse said about being able to be more than than one thing. Why do such a selfless thing for free for years, if that's what he wanted? Why hurt people if he didn't want when that kind of thing was an option?]
...That's not what you meant when you talked about a good reason to kill people, right? For money?
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No. I don't kill people for money. And I do sell my power. Just not to the kinda people you'd see me healing in public.
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[Jesse didn't mean just his own freedom. It suddenly clicks now, all those things he couldn't seem to make sense out of. The contradictions aren't quite so puzzling anymore, now that he sees the bigger picture. The disappointment that was coloring his features shifts, becomes something almost helpless as he rakes one hand in his hair.]
Dammit, Jesse--we never asked you to do anything like that for us.
[There's a tone of frustration in his voice, but it's not angry frustration. Because all this makes way too much sense, and he feels--upset? distressed? annoyed? he doesn't know--that Jesse's suffered so much for something like this. Something so stupid and noble and did he mention stupid.]
I don't--I don't want it, and I don't think I'd be the only one.
[He jerks up his arm, that REGISTERED tattoo just barely visible in the dimmer light of the bar.]
This--getting rid of these? It's not worth it, not if it costs the lives of people who won't come back. How could any of us accept that freedom, knowing what was sacrificed in the process?
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[Which, in a way, brings him back to his original point.]
None of you know what it's like. Real slavery. You think Registration's like paying taxes, and it's kinda shitty but it comes with benefits, and you get to walk around and live your life and go home to a cozy little house the government gave you. And maybe, yeah, if we're lucky, it's gonna stay like this. Maybe I'm just paranoid, like those guys who stock up on canned food 'cause they think doomsday is coming.
But I've lived it: Sleeping in a cage, shitting in a bucket, getting beaten, getting called "rat" or "pussy" or anything other than my name. You stop being human to the people who own you. That's inevitable. And that was my life, man. Not some "what-if".
And I can guarantee you, when that happens to you... You're gonna stop thinking about what's "right" or what's "wrong" or whether anything was "worth it". If that day never comes for us here, then thank god for that. But I'm not waiting 'til it's too late, and I'm sure as hell not worrying about how people who don't even know what it's like might think they feel about it.
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