![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
abetterlieA few months ago when I couldn’t sleep, I watched this old sci fi show on tv with really weird costumes. Everyone had British accents which reminded me of my father, and at one point a girl said: “My people have a saying: he who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.”
The guy she told this to said that life expectancy must be pretty low among her people, which was sort of what I was thinking, but not quite. I don’t think betrayal is about trust. Especially not trust in strangers. It’s about loyalty. You can’t betray someone you have no reason to be loyal to. You can only betray someone you care about. The other people? You can deceive them, trick them, sure. But not betray them.
When Fred found out what I had done to Angel, she kept asking me “how could you do that to your father?” or “how could you betray your father like that?”. (Not sure anymore which one it was; I got tasered at the time.) But the thing is, I hadn’t. This was before I had even started to think of him as anyone other than the thing who had killed my father. I also thought she and Gunn had been helping him to do that, by distracting me with that beach trip. So I hadn’t betrayed Angel any more than I had betrayed any of the demons in Quortoth which I had lured in a trap.
Only it wasn’t that simple, but it took me a while to figure that out. I don’t mean because I was wrong about what had happened between Angel and Holtz. But I had stayed with Fred and Gunn all through the summer. At first I thought it was just because I had to make sure they wouldn’t find out what had happened, but that was just an excuse; I didn’t have to live with them to do that. Now I wonder whether it wasn’t because I had never been on my own, and this entire dimension was still freaking me out, big time, and Fred was the only one who had a clue what that was like.
So I stayed with them, and they took care of me, and I started to like them. And that is why I betrayed them. Not Angel, but Fred and Gunn. Liking them and lying to them all the time meant I was betraying them. That’s why I got why Fred was so angry once she found out. She was right about betrayal, just wrong about who it happened to.
The worst time I betrayed someone was something else altogether, though. I don’t mean the worst thing I have done – you can do far worse things than betrayal. But as I said, if you care for someone, if you have reason to be loyal to them and still turn against them – that’s betrayal. That’s what happened when I killed Jasmine. I was the last one she had left, and it wasn’t like she had forced me to love her. It wasn’t like that at all. She needed my help, she pleaded with me to help her, and I killed her. I can’t even say that if I could go back, I wouldn’t do it again. Because she was in agony. Because she was about to killAngel others. But I still betrayed her, and later, when Angel brought down the knife, I thought that was the just punishment for it. Only it wasn’t; I got a new life out of it. Which is good. I don’t want to go back, and I don’t want to die anymore; I truly don’t.
But. Betrayal should be punished. My father taught me that, you know, all those years back in Quortoth. And that’s why I keep waiting for the punishment to show up.
The guy she told this to said that life expectancy must be pretty low among her people, which was sort of what I was thinking, but not quite. I don’t think betrayal is about trust. Especially not trust in strangers. It’s about loyalty. You can’t betray someone you have no reason to be loyal to. You can only betray someone you care about. The other people? You can deceive them, trick them, sure. But not betray them.
When Fred found out what I had done to Angel, she kept asking me “how could you do that to your father?” or “how could you betray your father like that?”. (Not sure anymore which one it was; I got tasered at the time.) But the thing is, I hadn’t. This was before I had even started to think of him as anyone other than the thing who had killed my father. I also thought she and Gunn had been helping him to do that, by distracting me with that beach trip. So I hadn’t betrayed Angel any more than I had betrayed any of the demons in Quortoth which I had lured in a trap.
Only it wasn’t that simple, but it took me a while to figure that out. I don’t mean because I was wrong about what had happened between Angel and Holtz. But I had stayed with Fred and Gunn all through the summer. At first I thought it was just because I had to make sure they wouldn’t find out what had happened, but that was just an excuse; I didn’t have to live with them to do that. Now I wonder whether it wasn’t because I had never been on my own, and this entire dimension was still freaking me out, big time, and Fred was the only one who had a clue what that was like.
So I stayed with them, and they took care of me, and I started to like them. And that is why I betrayed them. Not Angel, but Fred and Gunn. Liking them and lying to them all the time meant I was betraying them. That’s why I got why Fred was so angry once she found out. She was right about betrayal, just wrong about who it happened to.
The worst time I betrayed someone was something else altogether, though. I don’t mean the worst thing I have done – you can do far worse things than betrayal. But as I said, if you care for someone, if you have reason to be loyal to them and still turn against them – that’s betrayal. That’s what happened when I killed Jasmine. I was the last one she had left, and it wasn’t like she had forced me to love her. It wasn’t like that at all. She needed my help, she pleaded with me to help her, and I killed her. I can’t even say that if I could go back, I wouldn’t do it again. Because she was in agony. Because she was about to kill
But. Betrayal should be punished. My father taught me that, you know, all those years back in Quortoth. And that’s why I keep waiting for the punishment to show up.
