[Neal has some nerve putting it that way, considering the fact that he's the one who had done the hurting last with no thought at all for whether he was attacking people who Eiffel also loved: but Hakkai swallows back his flare of temper and closes his eyes for a long moment before composing a reasonable response.]
My old cabin? Level three, cabin four.
[He tends to use it as a meeting place; more private than the common rooms, no longer personal. And not either his invading Neal's space or allowing Neal into theirs. Or anywhere near Jedao.]
He agrees and signs off, heading for the cabin after debating whether or not to leave a note behind. He doesn't, in the end. He doesn't know Hakkai well at all but he wants to believe him, even if instinct says this is a trap. If it is a trap he'll deserve the result, even if he can't mentally stand touching why, yet. Not if he wants to stay present and functioning.
"It's open," Hakkai calls from inside. There's a slightly beaten-up iron kettle on the stove, steam beginning to curl up from its spout; Hakkai is measuring tea leaves into a small blue-and-white pot, expression politely neutral. "I hope you don't mind tea?"
He finds it soothing to make and soothing to hold, so regardless of Neal's answer, he intends to continue making it, but he might only pour one cup.
The room is mostly bare; there's a round white table with two chairs set close to the small kitchen, and a couch, endtable and several empty bookshelves on the other side of the room. A few windows look out onto the purple-and-green swirl of the void the Barge moves through.
"Not at all, thank you. That would be nice." Poisoned, drugged, or innocuous, the result will be acceptable. He moves to the window, looking out at the emptiness.
"I'm sorry," he says, quietly. "For what hap... For what I did. I'm going to apologize to Jedao, if he's willing to talk to me once he's... I don't want to try and apologize while he's... not going to believe he deserves it. I haven't figured out what to say yet."
Hakkai sets out the cups, pouring hot water from the kettle over the leaves in the pot, the soft clink and splash of porcelain and water the only sound he makes for the space of several breaths.
At last, his voice also quiet, he asks, "Did you know Jedao loves Eiffel dearly?"
Did he know before, Hakkai means. Because he knows that Neal doesn't know Jedao that well, but the utter mechanical tone of Jedao's post had been so obvious to him that it's hard for him to believe anyone would have missed it unless they didn't have the context.
Neal takes the tea, staring at it before he looks at Hakkai. Studies the other man's face. "I can't tell if you're saying you understand why I broke, or if you're saying that's what you want to do to me."
"I'm saying I understand what it is to break." Hakkai's own light tenor is mild, as if he's talking about the weather; his eye lingers on the view out the window, letting Neal look at him without guarding his expression or returning the gaze.
After a long moment, he adds, just as mild, "This..." and lifts one hand to his face, brushing a finger under the monocle that disguises his glass eye, still not meeting Neal's gaze. "This eye is glass because I gave the original to a man whose brother I'd killed, when he demanded his revenge in turn. So, maybe, I understand both sides of this."
Neal nods, silent, and looks out the window again himself. He grips the cup a little too tightly, letting the heat of it sting his palms.
He's been thinking about this, thinking about it long and hard and privately, and he wanted to tell Norton first--but maybe Hakkai deserves to know.
"I'm leaving the barge," he says, softly. "Maybe not forever. Probably not forever. But who I was in that room is... not someone I want to be. I need to figure out where he came from, and I need to figure out how to keep him from coming back."
Hakkai's gaze slides over to Neal for a moment, considering his expression in turn now that he's looking away.
"Once you've broken," he says at last, quietly, "you'll always know where the cracks are. You will always be the person who shot me in front of my shattered lover so I couldn't stop you from ordering him to hurt himself."
There's no anger in his voice, but there is a certain deliberate tone. Neal may not like what he's capable of. Hakkai doesn't like what he's capable of, either, but not liking it did not make Hakkai's hands any cleaner. It doesn't absolve Neal.
But he's spent a long time learning to live with the knowledge of who he is, too.
"Knowing what you're capable of - knowing where the cracks are... that can help you learn how not to do things you will be ashamed of in the future.
"It helped me. It does take time. But don't let yourself pretend the man holding the gun was a different, worse you, someone who you can kill in yourself and be free of after."
Neal meets his eyes, and something small and soft in him retreats behind an iron wall that's newish, but not unfamiliar.
"If you want me to be crushed by what I did, devastated that I'm capable of it, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but it's not going to happen." His tone is calm, neutral, and equally deliberate. "I know I am that man. I've been less violent versions of that man in the past. I've made his acquaintance more closely than I'd like while I've been here."
A pause, but not enough of one for Hakkai to speak unless he tries to talk over what Neal says next. "I am truly sorry for what I did. I don't hate myself for having done it, and I don't know why, but given how long I've hated myself for so many things that weren't my fault, I can't be ashamed of that, either. I am going to apologize to Jedao. And I am sorry for what I did to you. Both physically and... emotionally. But I don't hate myself for doing what anyone on board is equally capable of in the wrong circumstances."
"Every time someone points out your faults, you assume it's because they want you to crawl," Hakkai murmurs, letting his posture soften back against the wall; he lifts the still-warm teacup to his lips.
"I cracked once, Neal. I'll always be the person who killed every one of my victims, and I couldn't learn to do better until I learned to accept everything that was a part of me. I'm..."
He glances away, the corner of his mouth twisting awkwardly, vulnerable.
"Trying to help. As someone who -- also learned what I was capable of in a... difficult situation."
Who knows what it's like to feel as if his hands are someone else's, until he saw all the blood.
"When I say you hurt me, I'm not asking you to be sorry about it, or that you should hate yourself, you're irredeemable. I'm saying... what you have done was done by you. I had to understand that about myself, before I could believe I could choose what I would do tomorrow."
He looks down into his teacup, mouth twisting again. "Maybe that's not a lesson you need. But it helped me, once."
"Because every time someone has pointed out my faults in the past, it's been because they wanted me to crawl," he says, but it's that same tone. "I'm not used to any other expectation but the desire for punishment. And that..."
He stops, surprised at his own train of thought. His voice goes softer. "That is not a fault on my part. It's a result of the faults of others."
Another pause. "But I appreciate that it's not what you're trying to do. Genuinely."
"No one who has badly harmed me has ever cared how I would feel," Hakkai murmurs, and takes another sip of his tea. "Sometimes, they may care about whether I'm going to hurt them for what they did, but that's all. You don't even know me, Neal. I certainly don't expect you to care about my pain or about my approval, and I'm not going to hurt you."
So: he has no leverage at all. He wonders whether showing his open hands will make Neal lower his own defenses a little, or if it'll inspire him to attack.
"The way other people have treated you in the past isn't a fault of yours, but it also isn't a fault of mine," he adds, softly. "It's theirs."
"I know." The softness persists, at least. "But that doesn't change my expectations. I don't know you. I believe you when you say you're not going to hurt me. When you say it here, face to face. But I've had that lie told to me a hundred times by others. The way people have treated me in the past is the only gauge I have for situations like this. I..."
He studies his tea, finally taking a sip now that it's cooled somewhat. "My defensiveness isn't a judgement of you. It's the only way I've had to keep myself safe, and I'm not apologizing for it. Which is also not a statement aimed at you. I'll learn to put that shield down, maybe. But it's going to take time. I can't just... decide to be okay. Not after living my whole life with the expectation of pain if I put trust in the wrong person."
He has a right to his defenses, and a right to keep them until they aren't his first instinct. There are some he doesn't assume the worst with, any more. Some. Very few. It's a work in progress.
Devastatingly, in -- ways that he thinks Neal doesn't quite have the right to be given details about. Nor is it relevant, really.
"You hurt the man I love. Of course you have the right to be defensive, but... you don't have the right to treat your pain as more important than anyone else's. Even if it comes of never having anyone else care about your pain, and having had to be your only champion."
His shoulders sag a little, and he breathes a soft laugh, looking away. "Here I am, talking as if I've learned that lesson. I'm just feeling sorry for myself. Would you like more tea?"
He empties the rest of his cup in a single swallow, though it's still too hot for that and stings his tongue.
"I'm not treating it that way," Neal says. The softness fades, but he doesn't raise his voice. "I'm treating my pain like it matters at all, which is a first for me. My brother died because someone else's pain drove them to act alone. He's not bothered. I am. That's still true. It's as true as the fact that what I did was unacceptable, that I made you suffer, that I made Jedao suffer, and that the fallout of my choices will persist even if I'm not here to see the damage. That is a reality I'm aware of, that I can't be unaware of, and that I am sorry for."
He looks at Hakkai, and stops himself from saying anything else immediately. Stops himself from indulging that small flame of irritation that briefly climbs from his gut to his chest before he stamps it out.
There's so much that feels like it's starting to make sense for the first time. About himself, about Hakkai, even about Jedao. About this ship. About the people on it.
"Your pain, the fact that I caused it, is important to me. My pain is also important to me, as is the fact that Jedao caused it, even if his pain is also what caused that. There's no relative value scale here. No... elevation of one life's tragedies over another. I'm here because what I did was wrong and I know it, and if you needed to hurt me, I was going to let you, if I couldn't talk you down."
Hakkai sets his teacup down much too hard on the counter and starts laughing. There's a wild, harsh edge to the laughter, shuddering just on the edge of becoming a scream.
Your pain is important to me, I was going to let you hurt me--
All of this, everything he's said, and they're still stuck there. Still at the idea that the only thing that matters about Hakkai's pain is whether he's going to hurt Neal about it.
And Neal thinks that constitutes equality--
He presses both hands hard over his face, forcing himself back under control bit by bit, until he trusts himself to speak again.
"As a warden told me when I'd been here for a month," he says through his hands, bitter and suddenly raw, "you're not pushing your weakness onto someone else, Neal. I have no interest in absolving you of what you did by breaking your arm about it.
"Anyway," he adds, deliberately mean, "you don't want me to hurt you. You won't even let me tell you that you did what you did without needing to throw in my face how much you aren't going to feel bad about it."
Neal closes his eyes, shoulders dropping a little as his point, what he was trying to say, glances past as a slap to Hakkai's psyche.
"That isn't what I meant to do. And I'm sorry that I didn't communicate that clearly. I was... trying to explain-- It doesn't matter, really. It doesn't."
He sets his still-half-full glass on the table. "I am sorry. I do feel bad. I don't hate myself, which is a strange enough change in me that I didn't... really register that bringing it up here would be unproductive. I'm not trying to push weakness anywhere, I'm not trying to dismiss your hurt, I'm not trying to prioritize my own."
And that's a part of why he needs to leave. Because no matter what he says, it's never the right thing, and he's tired of causing pain just trying to be understood.
"I am sorry, Hakkai. I am sorry for hurting you, for hurting him, and I'm going to do whatever I can to help... alleviate it. Including shutting the fuck up, if that's what's necessary. I thought we were having a discussion. I thought we were..."
Another deep breath, but he doesn't let it out in a rush. He doesn't want to sound like he's sighing his way through this fresh wave of anxiety and tiredness. "I misunderstood the conversation we were having. And I'm sorry for that, too."
"I wanted to have a discussion-- I'm sorry. Excuse me a moment," Hakkai says, voice veering towards blank polite autopilot for the last few sentences as he turns half away, one hand still pressed hard over his face and his shoulders hunching like a man bracing himself to take a blow.
Eventually, still mostly turned away and not looking at Neal, he murmurs, "I do want to. Have a discussion, that is. But I... can you accept that it's fair that I have never tried to hurt you, and I hate it very much when other people assume I'll be -- violent and vindictive. I don't want you to hate yourself. It's unproductive. But I also wish you wouldn't hear every word I speak with the assumption that I hate you and your only choices are -- are to fight me or to let me hurt you."
"...I feel like the conversations I have that go the worst are the ones where one person's defenses sink claws into the other person's invisible injuries." The softness is back in his voice. "I'm sorry. The-- The things I do, to protect myself, aren't judgments of you personally. Any more than a woman is judging any given man when they cross the street to stay safe instead of taking chances."
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I don't want Eiffel present. He doesn't deserve to be in the middle of this.
I also... have decided I don't want to hurt you. But I do want to understand.
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We can meet wherever you'd be most comfortable.
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My old cabin? Level three, cabin four.
[He tends to use it as a meeting place; more private than the common rooms, no longer personal. And not either his invading Neal's space or allowing Neal into theirs. Or anywhere near Jedao.]
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When he arrives, he knocks.
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He finds it soothing to make and soothing to hold, so regardless of Neal's answer, he intends to continue making it, but he might only pour one cup.
The room is mostly bare; there's a round white table with two chairs set close to the small kitchen, and a couch, endtable and several empty bookshelves on the other side of the room. A few windows look out onto the purple-and-green swirl of the void the Barge moves through.
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"I'm sorry," he says, quietly. "For what hap... For what I did. I'm going to apologize to Jedao, if he's willing to talk to me once he's... I don't want to try and apologize while he's... not going to believe he deserves it. I haven't figured out what to say yet."
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At last, his voice also quiet, he asks, "Did you know Jedao loves Eiffel dearly?"
Did he know before, Hakkai means. Because he knows that Neal doesn't know Jedao that well, but the utter mechanical tone of Jedao's post had been so obvious to him that it's hard for him to believe anyone would have missed it unless they didn't have the context.
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"Once," he says, softly, "I did terrible things, when our neighbors let my sister be kidnapped because she wasn't their family."
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It's a strange relief, the honesty.
cw mention of self-harm/eye squick
After a long moment, he adds, just as mild, "This..." and lifts one hand to his face, brushing a finger under the monocle that disguises his glass eye, still not meeting Neal's gaze. "This eye is glass because I gave the original to a man whose brother I'd killed, when he demanded his revenge in turn. So, maybe, I understand both sides of this."
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He's been thinking about this, thinking about it long and hard and privately, and he wanted to tell Norton first--but maybe Hakkai deserves to know.
"I'm leaving the barge," he says, softly. "Maybe not forever. Probably not forever. But who I was in that room is... not someone I want to be. I need to figure out where he came from, and I need to figure out how to keep him from coming back."
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"Once you've broken," he says at last, quietly, "you'll always know where the cracks are. You will always be the person who shot me in front of my shattered lover so I couldn't stop you from ordering him to hurt himself."
There's no anger in his voice, but there is a certain deliberate tone. Neal may not like what he's capable of. Hakkai doesn't like what he's capable of, either, but not liking it did not make Hakkai's hands any cleaner. It doesn't absolve Neal.
But he's spent a long time learning to live with the knowledge of who he is, too.
"Knowing what you're capable of - knowing where the cracks are... that can help you learn how not to do things you will be ashamed of in the future.
"It helped me. It does take time. But don't let yourself pretend the man holding the gun was a different, worse you, someone who you can kill in yourself and be free of after."
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"If you want me to be crushed by what I did, devastated that I'm capable of it, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but it's not going to happen." His tone is calm, neutral, and equally deliberate. "I know I am that man. I've been less violent versions of that man in the past. I've made his acquaintance more closely than I'd like while I've been here."
A pause, but not enough of one for Hakkai to speak unless he tries to talk over what Neal says next. "I am truly sorry for what I did. I don't hate myself for having done it, and I don't know why, but given how long I've hated myself for so many things that weren't my fault, I can't be ashamed of that, either. I am going to apologize to Jedao. And I am sorry for what I did to you. Both physically and... emotionally. But I don't hate myself for doing what anyone on board is equally capable of in the wrong circumstances."
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"I cracked once, Neal. I'll always be the person who killed every one of my victims, and I couldn't learn to do better until I learned to accept everything that was a part of me. I'm..."
He glances away, the corner of his mouth twisting awkwardly, vulnerable.
"Trying to help. As someone who -- also learned what I was capable of in a... difficult situation."
Who knows what it's like to feel as if his hands are someone else's, until he saw all the blood.
"When I say you hurt me, I'm not asking you to be sorry about it, or that you should hate yourself, you're irredeemable. I'm saying... what you have done was done by you. I had to understand that about myself, before I could believe I could choose what I would do tomorrow."
He looks down into his teacup, mouth twisting again. "Maybe that's not a lesson you need. But it helped me, once."
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He stops, surprised at his own train of thought. His voice goes softer. "That is not a fault on my part. It's a result of the faults of others."
Another pause. "But I appreciate that it's not what you're trying to do. Genuinely."
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So: he has no leverage at all. He wonders whether showing his open hands will make Neal lower his own defenses a little, or if it'll inspire him to attack.
"The way other people have treated you in the past isn't a fault of yours, but it also isn't a fault of mine," he adds, softly. "It's theirs."
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He studies his tea, finally taking a sip now that it's cooled somewhat. "My defensiveness isn't a judgement of you. It's the only way I've had to keep myself safe, and I'm not apologizing for it. Which is also not a statement aimed at you. I'll learn to put that shield down, maybe. But it's going to take time. I can't just... decide to be okay. Not after living my whole life with the expectation of pain if I put trust in the wrong person."
He has a right to his defenses, and a right to keep them until they aren't his first instinct. There are some he doesn't assume the worst with, any more. Some. Very few. It's a work in progress.
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Devastatingly, in -- ways that he thinks Neal doesn't quite have the right to be given details about. Nor is it relevant, really.
"You hurt the man I love. Of course you have the right to be defensive, but... you don't have the right to treat your pain as more important than anyone else's. Even if it comes of never having anyone else care about your pain, and having had to be your only champion."
His shoulders sag a little, and he breathes a soft laugh, looking away. "Here I am, talking as if I've learned that lesson. I'm just feeling sorry for myself. Would you like more tea?"
He empties the rest of his cup in a single swallow, though it's still too hot for that and stings his tongue.
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He looks at Hakkai, and stops himself from saying anything else immediately. Stops himself from indulging that small flame of irritation that briefly climbs from his gut to his chest before he stamps it out.
There's so much that feels like it's starting to make sense for the first time. About himself, about Hakkai, even about Jedao. About this ship. About the people on it.
"Your pain, the fact that I caused it, is important to me. My pain is also important to me, as is the fact that Jedao caused it, even if his pain is also what caused that. There's no relative value scale here. No... elevation of one life's tragedies over another. I'm here because what I did was wrong and I know it, and if you needed to hurt me, I was going to let you, if I couldn't talk you down."
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Your pain is important to me, I was going to let you hurt me--
All of this, everything he's said, and they're still stuck there. Still at the idea that the only thing that matters about Hakkai's pain is whether he's going to hurt Neal about it.
And Neal thinks that constitutes equality--
He presses both hands hard over his face, forcing himself back under control bit by bit, until he trusts himself to speak again.
"As a warden told me when I'd been here for a month," he says through his hands, bitter and suddenly raw, "you're not pushing your weakness onto someone else, Neal. I have no interest in absolving you of what you did by breaking your arm about it.
"Anyway," he adds, deliberately mean, "you don't want me to hurt you. You won't even let me tell you that you did what you did without needing to throw in my face how much you aren't going to feel bad about it."
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"That isn't what I meant to do. And I'm sorry that I didn't communicate that clearly. I was... trying to explain-- It doesn't matter, really. It doesn't."
He sets his still-half-full glass on the table. "I am sorry. I do feel bad. I don't hate myself, which is a strange enough change in me that I didn't... really register that bringing it up here would be unproductive. I'm not trying to push weakness anywhere, I'm not trying to dismiss your hurt, I'm not trying to prioritize my own."
And that's a part of why he needs to leave. Because no matter what he says, it's never the right thing, and he's tired of causing pain just trying to be understood.
"I am sorry, Hakkai. I am sorry for hurting you, for hurting him, and I'm going to do whatever I can to help... alleviate it. Including shutting the fuck up, if that's what's necessary. I thought we were having a discussion. I thought we were..."
Another deep breath, but he doesn't let it out in a rush. He doesn't want to sound like he's sighing his way through this fresh wave of anxiety and tiredness. "I misunderstood the conversation we were having. And I'm sorry for that, too."
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Eventually, still mostly turned away and not looking at Neal, he murmurs, "I do want to. Have a discussion, that is. But I... can you accept that it's fair that I have never tried to hurt you, and I hate it very much when other people assume I'll be -- violent and vindictive. I don't want you to hate yourself. It's unproductive. But I also wish you wouldn't hear every word I speak with the assumption that I hate you and your only choices are -- are to fight me or to let me hurt you."
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That explains-- That explains a lot, actually.
"...I feel like the conversations I have that go the worst are the ones where one person's defenses sink claws into the other person's invisible injuries." The softness is back in his voice. "I'm sorry. The-- The things I do, to protect myself, aren't judgments of you personally. Any more than a woman is judging any given man when they cross the street to stay safe instead of taking chances."
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cw discussion of suicide
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