Ned § Video 01 § Day 57

[nedofpies]

[ The video feed switches on upon Ned's determined face. It's his first video communication; he hasn't been using the network much, but this is an important community matter. ]

Does anyone know who is responsible for these? [ Ned waves a copy of that mysterious flyer which has popped up around town so suddenly. He turns the camera back to his own face, talking directly to his fellow captives. ]

Whoever it is, it seems to me like they are trying to sow the seeds of doubt and turn us on one another. Make us so suspicious of one another so we can't work together. Which makes me think it might have come from the people who are keeping us here. And it makes me think that we're starting to worry them. [ There is an edge of anger to his voice, beneath the surface, if you listen closely enough. ]

But I think they're underestimating us. Gossip? Really? [ He half-laughs and shakes his head in amused disbelief. ] We're all grown-ups here. We aren't going to be- to be manipulated by some anonymous bullies. [ The spite in the way he delivers that last word makes it sound as if he's had some experience with bullies. ] We just need to trust one another, and not let this nonsense come between us. Part of that is... coming clean.

So. Me first. [ Ned swallows, takes a moment to collect his courage. It's a big thing to confess, even if plenty of people already know about it. For all his big talk, honesty is against Ned's very nature. But this isn't exactly a normal place, and at this point, owning up is just a part of damage control. ]

...It's true. I brought someone back to life. [ He exhales, half in relief. It's done, now. No going back. ] It's not like that was a secret. It happened in broad daylight and there were like, a dozen witnesses, so this- [ He brandishes the paper again ] is not exactly an exposé, is it? As for being 'mint-in-the-box', well, I don't even know what that means, so I can't say if I am one way or another.

Comments

[violenthearted]

[ Erik's mouth curls into a long, dry smile; he's put that out there and he's--well, by rote exactly as distant as Ned suspects. Even among the new community he's found, extending much of himself for too long feels like trying to exercise an atrophied muscle. So he's wry, as if that will suffice for his usual remoteness. ]

You'd suffered a head injury; it didn't strike me as the ideal occasion to demonstrate.

[ A pause. He's not wary of sharing his new found identity, exactly, it's more that he's drawn such strict lines between mutants and not-mutants that this requires some internal shuffling, but--then what matters is what Ned can do. He's gifted, extraordinary, as Erik sees it, and that deserves to be acknowledged. ]

Where I'm from you'd call us mutants.

[nedofpies]

[ Mutants. It doesn't sound a very flattering term to Ned, but then, he's used to thinking of himself as a freak. Mutant is just a more scientific word for the same concept. The 'us' gives him a very strange jolt of something not unlike happiness. He's so unused to being part of any kind of 'us'. ]

So... you think that might be what I am? A... a mutant? [ The question carries with it plenty of implications; that Ned has no idea what he is. That he wants to know. That he wants to believe it but is still skeptical. ]

[violenthearted]

[ Ned's not really wrong; as soon as anyone knew mutants existed within a day there were people calling them exactly that: freaks. But Erik wants a name as badly as he wants an us, and he's understood since he was a child the feeling of having a person's identity deemed pejorative just for being what it was. If he makes 'mutant' his, he owns it. ]

Charles would be the one to ask, he's the geneticist. [ [Another of those pauses; he could talk about himself here, but--no. It's too revealing. They have commonalities and he wants to extend those to Ned, but he needs to do it without the expense of too much of himself. So instead he flips his phrasing, turns it into a mirror. ]

If you've hidden what you can do because you're afraid, because you understand the world will always fear what it can't understand, that humans hate what they fear, then--you are a mutant. You're the next stage in human evolution. And you shouldn't have to hide.

[nedofpies]

[ Ned doesn't need to say anything for it to be clear that Erik's description rings true; his expression is an eloquent confirmation. It's a relief that Erik obviously understands, without any explanation from Ned, why he's always been afraid. Because wishful thinking aside, being different has very serious consequences. Ned knows it, and Erik clearly does, too. After a moment of silence he murmurs softly: ] ....then I guess I'm a mutant.

[ Ned lets out a slow breath, and it's a little shaky. It's so unreal, having this conversation. He'd always assumed he'd go through his entire life without talking about these kinds of things. That no one existed out there with whom he could talk about them. ]

Hiding is the only thing that's kept me safe all these years. [ Ned thinks about how exposed his now, and his insides feel as if they are twisting into knots. He lets out another slightly unsteady breath and admits: ] I wouldn't have said any of that if hiding were still an option, but too many people already knew. They saw me. [ And it's clear from the note of fear at the end of that sentence that Ned does expect reprisals, that his brave little network message was just a way of hurrying along the inevitable danger ]

[violenthearted]

[ Erik's not the telepath, but that sense of relief from Ned is still palpable, sunlight when a person had no way of knowing how warmth could feel. His expression seems stuck somewhere between that and the faint chill of an old shadow, the latter mostly unreadable. ]

It can only save you for so long. I speak from experience.

[ And that's it, apparently, for as neutral as his expression is: he hasn't suffered, hasn't been deprived or known pain, he's just experienced, and come out, as far as he's concerned, better. Stronger. Untouchable. ]

Be that as it may. Anyone who wants to get to you has to get through me.

[ Because surely what Ned has always wanted is a scary, scary man to cast his Mutant Banner over him, right? ] You have a point about turning on one another. Most will, given the chance, if you deprive them of enough. We're well-advised to protect each other.

[nedofpies]

[ Ned listens quietly; he agrees with what Erik is saying. He'd always known it was only a matter of time before he slipped up and people found out about him. In hindsight, it's remarkable he's made it this long. As for what Erik says about knowing from personal experience, Ned is curious, but he doesn't pry. He doubts that it makes very well for light conversation. It's enough for now to know that it's something they have in common. Neither of them are hiding anymore. ]

[ And then Erik is making his offer of protection and it takes Ned a moment to find his voice. There's something in the way Erik had said it that lets Ned know this is no idle talk; he means it. ]

I don't know what to say. Just like that?

[ Ned isn't suspicious, exactly, but the look on his face makes it clear that this is staring to all seem a little too good to be true. He's never had anyone on his side like that before (except perhaps River, these past few days). Not since before his mother died. The idea that he is alone--that he will always be alone, that he deserves to be alone, and that he will thus always have to fend for himself--is embedded in him far too deeply for him to pluck it out easily.]

But you don't even... you barely know anything about me.

[ What Erik is saying about sticking together might make sense if Ned had something to offer. He'd understand a simple quid pro quo, a question of safety in comptent numbers. But he's just... Ned, a piemaker who also dabbles in reanimating corpses. Not really very useful. ]

[ It occurs to Ned with a sudden and sinking feeling that Erik doesn't know the whole story. All he'd said in the message was that he had brought someone back from the dead. He hadn't mentioned the cost. Here he is, letting himself get his hopes up, when for all he knows there's some strict mutant code against murder. Maybe whatever powers Erik and others like him might have because of their mutation are nowhere as deadly or unnatural as his own? Or perhaps he isn't even a mutant, really; Erik had said he would have to ask Charles about it. Just because he's also had to hide doesn't mean they are entirely the same. ]

What if I told you there's more to what I can do than I said on the video? That... that there are consequences, when I bring someone back?

[violenthearted]

Ideal bounds.

[ It's not the most obscure of references, but it's not much modernly accessible either, especially since Erik is more playing with the concept of the words, and imbuing them with the Saharan tonality that suggests a total lack of surprise. ] We all pay a cost, I think.

[Not that he'd trade, he'd sooner lose a limb. But it's fact that every mutant he's ever met does trade on some kind of physiological price: Sean's hearing soars out of control to the point that a police siren in the distance can deafen him, Raven can't say how old she is or isn't, not for sure, and Charles--

He never used to think about what it was like to be anyone else. It's still rare, and probably always will be; he knows if he were Charles he'd have cut the world in bloody swathes, doesn't understand why Charles doesn't--

But the shadows under his eyes are something Erik knows. He knows enough to know he doesn't understand. None of which really has much to do with Ned's fear, except for the cyclical idea that life and death aren't boundaries crossed without a toll. Even Erik knows that, it's just that all his tools lately have been paid in someone else's blood, and to him that's symmetry, even if there can never be justice. ]

I suspect it wouldn't change much. But I've seen enough of the monstrousness of men. I'm not a merciful judge of character. Or anything else.

[nedofpies]

[ The Shelley quotation is a little too obscure for Ned, though he can tell the phrase sounds familiar and seems to have a special significance to Erik. Erik's reassurance that they all pay a cost is too abstract to give Ned much comfort; before this goes any further, he needs Erik to know that his cost isn't conceptual. It is tangible. His cost is dead bodies in the clinic, waiting to be buried.]

[It's just a little hard to get his throat to work, when Erik is making dire pronouncements about the monstrousness of men and his own unforgiving nature. Ned looks away from the communicator, swallowing as he braces himself for the outrage or disgust or rejection that he's pretty sure will follow. His voice is quiet, rough with conviction and self-reproach. ]

I don't think I deserve mercy.

[ It's better, he thinks, to get this out of the way now. Better than to try hiding it and get attached, only for the truth to come out later. Someone is going to have to bury Private Ryan soon, and he doesn't doubt that everyone in town will be interested to know what killed him. Or rather, who. ] When I bring someone back to life, someone else has to die. Yesterday, when I brought Laura back... I killed someone.

[ Then Ned's anguish and guilt transforms into anger at the thought of being blamed for more than he ought, at the thought of him losing a potential ally like Erik over a man like Private Ryan. ] And I don't regret it, either. [This is only true some of the time. ] That man walked up and shot her in cold blood. She was just standing there. She hadn't done anything to anybody. So I touched her, and she came back to life, and a minute later he dropped dead. [ His anger falters and he adds, in a voice that's oddly hollow ] And he isn't the first one I've killed, either.

[And now it's done. Erik could have found this much out by asking around; now Ned will know one way or another, if he counts as a monster in Erik's eyes]

[violenthearted]

[ Erik's expression may not be exactly encouraging, depending on where Ned is standing; the revulsion the man fears fails to fester between Erik's brows or at the corner of his mouth, but then he doesn't betray much of anything else, either. Then again that may be telling in and of itself: a dispassionate disposition in the face of such a confession.

Then again, Erik doesn't really expect that Ned is looking at him at all; in some ways he's deeply crippled when it comes to understanding how other people operate. Nothing will compel him to seek absolution for the lives he's taken, and so Ned's fear that Erik will think he's a monster seems very far away. He has a head for languages, but he will never understand how to speak this one. ]

A life for a life. [ He still doesn't sound like he has much feeling either way other than thoughtfulness, as if he's mulling the idea over in his mind. ] When I mentioned judgment I neglected to add the 'jury and executioner' clause that often follows.

[ There could be a shrug here, and isn't; when Erik has taken a life in his mind he's always been justified, so he's not light about it, just certain.] But if you're expecting me to pass sentence on you, you've come to the wrong person. In your position I--

[ His face darkens; Ned can probably gauge by now that this is not a man who often cuts off his own ideas only to start again somewhere else. Of all the things he's going to do today, detail how many men he would have killed to bring his mother back isn't one of them, especially when he can't get his hands on the one who really matters. Shaw, somewhere off where Erik can't reach him. ] Retribution has been all I've ever known of justice. What you do has a symmetry to me.

[nedofpies]

[ Erik's choice of words hits a chord with Ned. Symmetry. Yes, that is an elegant word for it. Somehow, it appeals to him much more than the idea of a reward and a cost. As to retribution, well, there's clearly a story there, but Ned isn't going to ask. He's had his own thoughts and actions pried into plenty today, so much so that he can't imagine doing the same to someone else. But he sets the question aside for later, perhaps, if and when the two of them know one another better. ]

Thank you. It... means a lot to hear that.

[ It does means a lot to Ned, to hear someone - not forgive him, no, but to refuse to pass judgement. Means enough, in fact, that he starts to feel his throat going tight, and he definitely doesn't want Erik to see him getting over-emotional. So he holds it back long enough to give the other man a very small smile and a nod before he cuts the connection. ]