http://demonbloodsam.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] demonbloodsam.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] trans_92009-07-20 11:35 pm

Say What You Want [R for Cussing][Open]

Yes, Sam Winchester was still secure in his cell, sitting on his bed, still writing in John Winchester's journal as he had been for much of the time since he'd been locked up. A stack of uneaten slop trays sat outside his cell, a sign that he was still not eating. The only nourishment he would take came from the silver flask of water that sat on the floor near the head of the bed that he had refilled periodically by either Dean or whoever was in the Precinct at the time.

He'd had several visitors, many of them trying to convince him to back down, to start eating again. But each time he had refused, defiantly resisting any and all efforts to change his mind or sway him into thinking he was wrong. He wasn't wrong. He knew it.

[identity profile] el-escarabajo.livejournal.com 2009-07-22 07:27 am (UTC)(link)
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Shifting the armor back to a clawed hand, he looks up at Sam with glowing red eyes and says, "If we all get to decide, do you really think someone like me should get to decide who lives or who dies?"

He really wonders.

"I get why you'd worry for the crew." There's an increasing bit of steel in his voice as he goes. "I understand advocating that death be an option for everyone's safety, if the crime is bad enough. But the reason we need a jury--always--isn't because of you. The reason we need a jury is because of the people like me, that can destroy a planet if I sneeze the wrong way."

Breathing in deep, he clenches a clawed hand into a fist, snuffing out the lights on his fingertips. "Lyta was right. We are dangerous. What she was wrong about is the metas on this ship not having the discipline not to go bugnuts and just recklessly hurt anybody we want. We have that discipline." He leans forward. "You're right about all those other things being something we have to consider. What you're wrong about is thinking that anyone who disagrees with you is 'worse than he is' or that we can't make 'the tough calls without a lot of hand-wringing.'"

The armor sweeps away and fades, the glow in his eyes dies.

"Because, I hate to break it to you, but the hand-wringing is the thing that keeps us responsible with what we've got. Personally, that thought scares me constantly." He stands up. "I haven't judged you. I don't think you're nuts or a murderer. I don't think you're a bad guy. I question your judgment, but that's pretty damn reasonable after everything that's happened to you."

There is a distinct look that indicates an intense loss of respect, however.

"When you have to worry about being able to depopulate a planet, when you have to worry every day about keeping killing from becoming as easy as it could be, and you wring your hands worrying and wondering if you'll ever take it too far--only then do you get to judge me."

With that, Jaime turns to go. He doesn't think Sam is nuts or wrong in trying to get people to consider something for the crew's safety. Even if that something is killing. He doesn't even think he's a bad person.

Jaime just thinks he's a dick.

[identity profile] el-escarabajo.livejournal.com 2009-07-22 08:05 am (UTC)(link)
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"Not at all," Jaime says, wondering if now they're at the root of it. "I think it's human to, when you're in bad situations. I just think you have no idea how much worse it is to totally freakin' lose it when you're a walking thermonuclear bomb, because of the whole thermonuclear bomb part. You're basically conflating naïveté with extreme self-control and rigid self-standards meant to prevent worse things than what the Yeerk did."

A pause.

"Conflate. Vocab word."

That's just a tangent. He's briefly marveling at remembering something from SAT prep.

[identity profile] el-escarabajo.livejournal.com 2009-07-23 01:12 am (UTC)(link)
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"I'm sorry," is the first thing Jaime says. "I'm sorry that happened to your mom, and your girlfriend."

And good God, does he mean it. Written all over his face is the intense sympathy and compassion he feels, sincere as anything in the world can be.

"And that's some scary crap, it definitely sounds like," Jaime says, pausing and coming back towards the cell.

"I won't lie and tell you I know exactly what it's like, but I will tell you what the scarab was for originally. Originally, the scarabs were supposed to latch onto some unsuspecting sap, overwrite everything that they are and rewrite their mind to be mindlessly obedient to the Reach, the aliens that seeded the worlds they wanted to conquer with them."

He holds out his hand.

"I was supposed to help them take over the world. To gain the trust of the superhero community, to betray the other heroes--good people, pretty much all of them--and then kill them one by one. I was supposed to be their enforcer, and help enslave the human race. But through sheer force of will, and luck that the scarab had gotten a little borked up by magic, and through convincing the scarab itself to give that whole freedom thing a try, I dodged that bullet."



"Just like I told someone else once that needed to hear it, we are not what our fathers make us, or what some demons try to make us, or the sum of some alien freak's programming. We make choices. We have free will!"

Gesturing with his hands, he says, "You have a choice here. Now. You have a choice between deciding if you're going to hold on to who you are and who you'd rather be or give it all up trying to regain a sense of control over a universe that can't be controlled. You have a choice between being someone willing to kill to save lives, and someone who does it to try to feel better and safer while pretending it's to save lives."

He jabs a finger in his direction. "Going bad isn't like a switch, Sam, and it's something every person has the capacity to do. Where it starts is that first justification, the first excuse, the first time you dehumanize a sentient being, the first time you decide that someone 'deserves' to die and that you and you alone deserve to decide it, when you know you can't be impartial."

[identity profile] el-escarabajo.livejournal.com 2009-07-23 01:28 am (UTC)(link)
"That's why you don't see me volunteering for jury duty, do you."

[identity profile] el-escarabajo.livejournal.com 2009-07-23 01:35 am (UTC)(link)
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"As long as it seems fair and not like a kangaroo court--like they really considered everything--then at least it will have been fair. I don't go running around pulling people off of death row."

[identity profile] el-escarabajo.livejournal.com 2009-07-23 02:20 am (UTC)(link)
"I don't suppose this means you'll be eating?"

[identity profile] el-escarabajo.livejournal.com 2009-07-23 03:25 am (UTC)(link)
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A sigh.

"Keep drinking, at least. Please? People get 20 percent of their daily water intake through food."