Neal takes a slow, deep breath, and lets out a longer exhale.
"I need to apologize to him in a way he'll hear. If you think that would help. Or stay away from him entirely if you think it wouldn't. I... Whatever my feelings about what happened to Eiffel, Jedao-- I believe absolutely that he didn't want to hurt him. That wasn't what he wanted."
He'd told Eiffel once that sometimes being kind was more important than being right. He still believes it. It wasn't at the fore during this conversation, he also realizes that, but all he can do now is apologize again.
"You can be there, if it would help. If it would help you or him. I don't know what wounds I dug my nails into and I don't have any right to know, but I don't want to make them even deeper."
"I would insist on being there if you did," Hakkai says at once. "For my own peace of mind. Because... I believe that you have good intentions, but I don't want to find, later, that something went wrong and he was hurt again."
He falls silent, looking away, and considering the rest of what Neal had said. At last, quietly, he says, "I don't think you can apologize without... understanding a little more. Mind control is common in the world Jedao comes from: they call it psych surgery. Anyone can be changed in almost any way. Sometimes they know what they have lost. Sometimes they don't. He has seen people he cared for driven to suicide because they were made to be -- compliant. To him, Eiffel changed like that, Eiffel made over in the way his superiors wanted... what he saw was Eiffel suffering to the point of death.
"He's telekinetic. He could sense the device completely and disable it using his powers without, he thought, risking Eiffel in any way. No surgery, no injury, no letting Eiffel continue to suffer.
"Imagine if you saw Eiffel shackled to a torture-machine. Screaming, convulsing, bleeding, with the key on a table right in front of him. You picked up the key, you unlocked the shackle, and the machine shot him through the head so that he fell dead into your arms.
"And then," he adds, "I showed up and said, how dare you murder my best friend, take this gun and shoot yourself just like you shot him. And you hated yourself so much for killing him that you believed I had the right to ask that, so you did. But we're on the Barge, so he came back, and you came back, and I was sorry because I understood later you didn't mean for him to die....
"What could I say to you if that happened? What would make you hear and understand my apology?"
He shakes his head, a tiny terse little gesture, still avoiding meeting Neal's gaze. "I can't speak for Jedao, only for myself. For myself, I believe you want to do better and that you're sorry. I forgive you. For Jedao, you'll have to talk to him about whether he's ready to hear you, but if not... what mostly hurt him is what happened to Eiffel. You encouraged him to hate and hurt himself about it, but he wouldn't have done what you told him to if he didn't already believe you were right.
"So if he's not yet ready to hear you say you were wrong to ask that, and you're sorry, it might be because he's not ready to believe you were wrong. Not because he doesn't believe you're sorry."
Neal closes his eyes as remorse and sympathy roll over him in a crushing tidal flow. "Fuck."
He looks out the window again, expression bleak and distant. "I... Maybe it will help if I tell him about some of the-- the people I've felt responsible for hurting. For-- if not killing, then... driving them toward death."
A soft exhale. "I think it'll also help that I understand now why the things he said with good intentions cut me in places I didn't know I was trying to protect. That I get why... it hurts people when I assume what I do for my own sake."
He smudges his thumb over the tabletop lightly, smearing a drop of condensation from the tea's steam. "Thank you," Neal says, softly. "For helping me understand that. You're the first person who has."
"Maybe," Hakkai grants, quietly. "But it wasn't the first time he's been responsible for the death of someone he loved, either. It's just... it just hurts. Regardless of how much anyone understands, it just hurts for a while.
"So I suppose what I'm saying is, you can ask him, but if he can't hear you yet it doesn't necessarily mean your apology wasn't good enough or he hates you in particular."
He glances up at Neal at last, letting the corner of his mouth tug wryly up in something a little like a smile. "Not any more than it means you really think I'm a murderous monster, just because you can't stop being on guard for the moment I'll lunge for your throat. Thank you for... being willing to understand why that stings. Not everyone would have listened."
He tips the used tea leaves out into their little jar, steam curling up from the tap as the sink water warms and his hands move automatically to wash the teapot clean. Over the rush of water, he adds, almost apologetically, "...When you threw up. It was because you don't like to see someone hurt, wasn't it? Not because Jedao bleeds black and won't die from a knife through his neck?"
Because it might help Jedao, to hear that Neal wasn't disgusted by his body, but Hakkai does want to make sure that's actually true, first. He's never quite sure about humans.
There's a confused moment where he has to remind himself what Hakkai is even talking about, with Jedao's blood.
"The-- Jesus, no, it wasn't because of the way he bled, it was me realizing... me seeing him do that to himself and knowing it was my fault, that I wanted it to happen, even for a minute."
"You should tell him that," Hakkai says, turns off the water, and sets the pot upside down in the sink to drip dry. The click of ceramic is loud in the sudden quiet. "He's more used to that kind of reaction to his body than that kind of reaction to violence, so I think he did... assume."
And that, unlike everything else in this mess, is straightforward enough that Hakkai thinks saying it can't do anything but help.
"I am... notoriously bad at violence. At home, anyway. And amongst my friends." A soft, ironic smile. He shakes his head.
"No, it wasn't his body. I'm mercifully well past dramatic reactions to differences in anatomy."
He pauses, starts to speak, hesitates again, and then commits. "I am sorry for hurting you. Both because of what I did to you and to Jedao, but also because of... the way our particular issues seem to align. I'll work on it. It's not you. It's going to take me time, but if something I do in conversation ever hurts for that reason--please tell me, if you can. Because I promise it's not you, and I'll say it as many times as you need to hear it."
"I guessed as much," Hakkai murmurs. "You don't have the air of someone -- comfortable with violence." Which Jedao, he's sure, can spot as well as Hakkai, but expectations get in the way of observations.
It's harder, to answer Neal's other offer, and he hesitates for a long time before he speaks. Still, even hesitating, he doesn't look away; his gaze lingers thoughtfully on Neal's face.
At last, he says, "I'll tell you. Or remind you, at least; but I think hearing it once will do for a while. I'm not so sensitive usually. It's just--" His smile is small, and a little bitter, but genuine; he shrugs. "It's been a long week."
Neal's smile is pained at best. "Had a few of those myself. I'm going to... wait, to talk to him, until I see him out and about again. Jedao. I don't want to push an apology on him when he's not ready to be around people at all. Are you usually... with him? In his cabin? If I were to stop by later?"
"Our cabin," Hakkai admits with another little hitch of one shoulder. "We've lived together these last six months. So -- yes, unless I'm working, you'll find me there."
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"I need to apologize to him in a way he'll hear. If you think that would help. Or stay away from him entirely if you think it wouldn't. I... Whatever my feelings about what happened to Eiffel, Jedao-- I believe absolutely that he didn't want to hurt him. That wasn't what he wanted."
He'd told Eiffel once that sometimes being kind was more important than being right. He still believes it. It wasn't at the fore during this conversation, he also realizes that, but all he can do now is apologize again.
"You can be there, if it would help. If it would help you or him. I don't know what wounds I dug my nails into and I don't have any right to know, but I don't want to make them even deeper."
cw discussion of suicide
He falls silent, looking away, and considering the rest of what Neal had said. At last, quietly, he says, "I don't think you can apologize without... understanding a little more. Mind control is common in the world Jedao comes from: they call it psych surgery. Anyone can be changed in almost any way. Sometimes they know what they have lost. Sometimes they don't. He has seen people he cared for driven to suicide because they were made to be -- compliant. To him, Eiffel changed like that, Eiffel made over in the way his superiors wanted... what he saw was Eiffel suffering to the point of death.
"He's telekinetic. He could sense the device completely and disable it using his powers without, he thought, risking Eiffel in any way. No surgery, no injury, no letting Eiffel continue to suffer.
"Imagine if you saw Eiffel shackled to a torture-machine. Screaming, convulsing, bleeding, with the key on a table right in front of him. You picked up the key, you unlocked the shackle, and the machine shot him through the head so that he fell dead into your arms.
"And then," he adds, "I showed up and said, how dare you murder my best friend, take this gun and shoot yourself just like you shot him. And you hated yourself so much for killing him that you believed I had the right to ask that, so you did. But we're on the Barge, so he came back, and you came back, and I was sorry because I understood later you didn't mean for him to die....
"What could I say to you if that happened? What would make you hear and understand my apology?"
He shakes his head, a tiny terse little gesture, still avoiding meeting Neal's gaze. "I can't speak for Jedao, only for myself. For myself, I believe you want to do better and that you're sorry. I forgive you. For Jedao, you'll have to talk to him about whether he's ready to hear you, but if not... what mostly hurt him is what happened to Eiffel. You encouraged him to hate and hurt himself about it, but he wouldn't have done what you told him to if he didn't already believe you were right.
"So if he's not yet ready to hear you say you were wrong to ask that, and you're sorry, it might be because he's not ready to believe you were wrong. Not because he doesn't believe you're sorry."
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He looks out the window again, expression bleak and distant. "I... Maybe it will help if I tell him about some of the-- the people I've felt responsible for hurting. For-- if not killing, then... driving them toward death."
A soft exhale. "I think it'll also help that I understand now why the things he said with good intentions cut me in places I didn't know I was trying to protect. That I get why... it hurts people when I assume what I do for my own sake."
He smudges his thumb over the tabletop lightly, smearing a drop of condensation from the tea's steam. "Thank you," Neal says, softly. "For helping me understand that. You're the first person who has."
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"So I suppose what I'm saying is, you can ask him, but if he can't hear you yet it doesn't necessarily mean your apology wasn't good enough or he hates you in particular."
He glances up at Neal at last, letting the corner of his mouth tug wryly up in something a little like a smile. "Not any more than it means you really think I'm a murderous monster, just because you can't stop being on guard for the moment I'll lunge for your throat. Thank you for... being willing to understand why that stings. Not everyone would have listened."
He tips the used tea leaves out into their little jar, steam curling up from the tap as the sink water warms and his hands move automatically to wash the teapot clean. Over the rush of water, he adds, almost apologetically, "...When you threw up. It was because you don't like to see someone hurt, wasn't it? Not because Jedao bleeds black and won't die from a knife through his neck?"
Because it might help Jedao, to hear that Neal wasn't disgusted by his body, but Hakkai does want to make sure that's actually true, first. He's never quite sure about humans.
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"The-- Jesus, no, it wasn't because of the way he bled, it was me realizing... me seeing him do that to himself and knowing it was my fault, that I wanted it to happen, even for a minute."
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And that, unlike everything else in this mess, is straightforward enough that Hakkai thinks saying it can't do anything but help.
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"No, it wasn't his body. I'm mercifully well past dramatic reactions to differences in anatomy."
He pauses, starts to speak, hesitates again, and then commits. "I am sorry for hurting you. Both because of what I did to you and to Jedao, but also because of... the way our particular issues seem to align. I'll work on it. It's not you. It's going to take me time, but if something I do in conversation ever hurts for that reason--please tell me, if you can. Because I promise it's not you, and I'll say it as many times as you need to hear it."
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It's harder, to answer Neal's other offer, and he hesitates for a long time before he speaks. Still, even hesitating, he doesn't look away; his gaze lingers thoughtfully on Neal's face.
At last, he says, "I'll tell you. Or remind you, at least; but I think hearing it once will do for a while. I'm not so sensitive usually. It's just--" His smile is small, and a little bitter, but genuine; he shrugs. "It's been a long week."
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