Letters read
Jul. 16th, 2006 09:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
abetterlieafter this
As soon as Bernard hands you the letter, you know. When you actually read it, on the balcony because the sudden lack of air makes you nearly throw up, the words mix and mingle with two other letters, one written to you, one written by you, and it's hard, so hard, to keep them separate.
Dearest Stephen, this is a most difficult letter for me to write.
..You're probably going to understand what motivated this letter, but there is a good chance that you're going to be pissed off that you're being told in a letter instead of me in person...
Dearest Justine, don't tear the letter up before you've read it. I know you'll want to after anyway.
You mean more to me than anything in this world or any other.
...I love you. I told you in the hospital room that no matter what went down, that in the end I would always love you...
Thank you for being with me. I know what you think about lies, and how we all use them. But you're the most real person I've ever known.
by the time you receive this, I will be gone. I hope one day you will be able to forgive an old man's weakness, which compels him to say these things in a letter. But to attempt a good-bye in your presence would be impossible for me.
...the reason you're reading about it instead of hearing me tell you is that I'm not sure I would have the guts to awalk out of the door if I had to face you first...
I know I'm betraying the mission, but there is a Slayer in Los Angeles now, so there is someone to help people. I'm betraying you by leaving as well, but that's better than getting you killed, or hurting you again...
I'm comforted by that certainty and the knowledge that with him you will discover your true purpose and come to know who it is you are meant to be.
But I have to get away from Manhattan, and the life of Harry Osborn so I can figure out who I am on my own.
What happened with my - what happened wasn't a coincidence. It keeps happening, again and again. They all die. Everyone I care about. He said each time I get a family I destroy everything, and he was right. But maybe I can stop it from happening if I just go away.
Full circle. It always comes full circle. And the one thing that keeps you from jumping off that balcony, not to die but to hunt him down, because two hours is nothing, not to you, is that he did what you and your father had not. He promised to come back.
He also made it a question of need and trust not to follow him. That's another thing. He knows you so well, he knows that being told he needs something, being asked to have faith is what works invariably, every time, and for a moment you hate him a little for having that power. Then you think of him bleeding on a table with the corpse of his friend next to him.
That was all about you, baby.
It's not a suicide note, he isn't lying in an alley somewhere after having wished for his death, any more than you did when you started walking in Los Angeles. Though how would you know if he were? If he wasn't caught by the next mugger, never mind vampires and demons? You don't. Nobody knew whether you were still alive or dead, either, for three days, until you started sending brief email messages.
He had been your lifeline then, hope personified while you tried to figure out how the hell to exist with yourself. He hadn't been above pressing buttons then, either.
You know, Connor, I don't care about that other stuff. It happened and you can't change what has happened, but you can make a difference now. If you die or you give up on people then you give up on saving others. If you aren't around to fight the demons? Then who will be? If you aren't around to keep me from doing something stupid? Who will be?
That was almost a year ago. He would not write these words to you now. You two have changed positions, and it is the last thing you ever wanted for him.
Do you have any idea how frustrating and terrifying it is to know that the only reason you are slammed on a table and having your throat ripped away is because some psychopath wants to make your boyfriend hurt?
No, Harry, but I know what is to be an instrument. The only reason I exist was to bring Jasmine into the world. I was her instrument, and I was my fathers' to wreak vengeance on his enemy. It wasn't about me, either. Yes, I know it's not the same thing.
You talk to him in your head because he did not give you the chance to talk to him in person. (Any more than you had given it to Justine, and by the time Justine finally found you, there was little left to say.) Harry Osborn, who hates being lied to, who hates being ignored even more, who considers the fact Peter Parker left him to rescue MJ and never came back that night to talk as near to unforgivable, who told you to never hang up on him again after that early morning argument on the phone you had when you were in Vegas, essentially hung up on you. And what was that last sex but a lie so you would not realize what he truly had on his mind?
You know what it was. Same thing Cordy gave you. Some people call it "I want you to have something real". The rest of us refer to it as a pity fuck. Congratulations, son. Full circle indeed.
Thank you, Daddy.
It occurs to you that this kind of selfish thought train is exactly why Harry should be far away from you while trying to work through everything. It's not Harry's fault that you have tainted Manhattan for him. Or that you can't be to him what he was to you then. You're part of the problem. Not the solution.
Read the letter again, and try to think for a change. If Bernard has a way of calling him back in the case of an emergency, he keeps in contact with someone. Which means at least there will be someone regularly checking whether or not he's dead. If you try to find out who it is, if you try to track Harry down, you'll prove to him that you don't trust him at all, that he is incapable of not being a victim.
Consider something else. He promises to come back before Egypt. That gives you time to think as well. You can't restore the dead to him, or what was lost when Chilton nearly killed him. You can't even promise, credibly, that you will never fight another vampire again, and not just because of the part in you which craves violence. You have been given your second chance when so many died because of you, starting with a girl in white. All those Jasmine killed to nourish herself. A cop on the roof of a Los Angeles skyscraper, with a family waiting for him. Your parents and Mere. And now, in a way, all those victims Angelus and Darla claimed, because fate had presented you with the moment of the fall, two hundred and fifty years ago in Ireland, and you found yourself incapable of doing what needed to be done. The very least you can do is to use what freakish nature has given you and try to keep others from dying.
I think he knew that as long as he was Spider-man the rest of us were at risk. And he was right.
There is of course another option. The one you saw when you started your own walkabout, leaving Justine and Los Angeles behind, as it turned out for good. Something you can give Harry.
When I think about my dreams and the life I want to have, it doesn't involve hiding from the demon and the criminal of the week.
Say he's not lying somewhere in an alley, even now, dying. Say he comes back in a few weeks, as he promised.
Maybe then you'll be able to do the responsible thing, finally. The one you know you should have been doing all along.
To be perfectly honest with you, it's what I want to give myself.
But you can't, Harry. Not unless someone cuts out the taint in your life altogether.
You're not the one who should have been walking away.
I am.
As soon as Bernard hands you the letter, you know. When you actually read it, on the balcony because the sudden lack of air makes you nearly throw up, the words mix and mingle with two other letters, one written to you, one written by you, and it's hard, so hard, to keep them separate.
Dearest Stephen, this is a most difficult letter for me to write.
..You're probably going to understand what motivated this letter, but there is a good chance that you're going to be pissed off that you're being told in a letter instead of me in person...
Dearest Justine, don't tear the letter up before you've read it. I know you'll want to after anyway.
You mean more to me than anything in this world or any other.
...I love you. I told you in the hospital room that no matter what went down, that in the end I would always love you...
Thank you for being with me. I know what you think about lies, and how we all use them. But you're the most real person I've ever known.
by the time you receive this, I will be gone. I hope one day you will be able to forgive an old man's weakness, which compels him to say these things in a letter. But to attempt a good-bye in your presence would be impossible for me.
...the reason you're reading about it instead of hearing me tell you is that I'm not sure I would have the guts to awalk out of the door if I had to face you first...
I know I'm betraying the mission, but there is a Slayer in Los Angeles now, so there is someone to help people. I'm betraying you by leaving as well, but that's better than getting you killed, or hurting you again...
I'm comforted by that certainty and the knowledge that with him you will discover your true purpose and come to know who it is you are meant to be.
But I have to get away from Manhattan, and the life of Harry Osborn so I can figure out who I am on my own.
What happened with my - what happened wasn't a coincidence. It keeps happening, again and again. They all die. Everyone I care about. He said each time I get a family I destroy everything, and he was right. But maybe I can stop it from happening if I just go away.
Full circle. It always comes full circle. And the one thing that keeps you from jumping off that balcony, not to die but to hunt him down, because two hours is nothing, not to you, is that he did what you and your father had not. He promised to come back.
He also made it a question of need and trust not to follow him. That's another thing. He knows you so well, he knows that being told he needs something, being asked to have faith is what works invariably, every time, and for a moment you hate him a little for having that power. Then you think of him bleeding on a table with the corpse of his friend next to him.
That was all about you, baby.
It's not a suicide note, he isn't lying in an alley somewhere after having wished for his death, any more than you did when you started walking in Los Angeles. Though how would you know if he were? If he wasn't caught by the next mugger, never mind vampires and demons? You don't. Nobody knew whether you were still alive or dead, either, for three days, until you started sending brief email messages.
He had been your lifeline then, hope personified while you tried to figure out how the hell to exist with yourself. He hadn't been above pressing buttons then, either.
You know, Connor, I don't care about that other stuff. It happened and you can't change what has happened, but you can make a difference now. If you die or you give up on people then you give up on saving others. If you aren't around to fight the demons? Then who will be? If you aren't around to keep me from doing something stupid? Who will be?
That was almost a year ago. He would not write these words to you now. You two have changed positions, and it is the last thing you ever wanted for him.
Do you have any idea how frustrating and terrifying it is to know that the only reason you are slammed on a table and having your throat ripped away is because some psychopath wants to make your boyfriend hurt?
No, Harry, but I know what is to be an instrument. The only reason I exist was to bring Jasmine into the world. I was her instrument, and I was my fathers' to wreak vengeance on his enemy. It wasn't about me, either. Yes, I know it's not the same thing.
You talk to him in your head because he did not give you the chance to talk to him in person. (Any more than you had given it to Justine, and by the time Justine finally found you, there was little left to say.) Harry Osborn, who hates being lied to, who hates being ignored even more, who considers the fact Peter Parker left him to rescue MJ and never came back that night to talk as near to unforgivable, who told you to never hang up on him again after that early morning argument on the phone you had when you were in Vegas, essentially hung up on you. And what was that last sex but a lie so you would not realize what he truly had on his mind?
You know what it was. Same thing Cordy gave you. Some people call it "I want you to have something real". The rest of us refer to it as a pity fuck. Congratulations, son. Full circle indeed.
Thank you, Daddy.
It occurs to you that this kind of selfish thought train is exactly why Harry should be far away from you while trying to work through everything. It's not Harry's fault that you have tainted Manhattan for him. Or that you can't be to him what he was to you then. You're part of the problem. Not the solution.
Read the letter again, and try to think for a change. If Bernard has a way of calling him back in the case of an emergency, he keeps in contact with someone. Which means at least there will be someone regularly checking whether or not he's dead. If you try to find out who it is, if you try to track Harry down, you'll prove to him that you don't trust him at all, that he is incapable of not being a victim.
Consider something else. He promises to come back before Egypt. That gives you time to think as well. You can't restore the dead to him, or what was lost when Chilton nearly killed him. You can't even promise, credibly, that you will never fight another vampire again, and not just because of the part in you which craves violence. You have been given your second chance when so many died because of you, starting with a girl in white. All those Jasmine killed to nourish herself. A cop on the roof of a Los Angeles skyscraper, with a family waiting for him. Your parents and Mere. And now, in a way, all those victims Angelus and Darla claimed, because fate had presented you with the moment of the fall, two hundred and fifty years ago in Ireland, and you found yourself incapable of doing what needed to be done. The very least you can do is to use what freakish nature has given you and try to keep others from dying.
I think he knew that as long as he was Spider-man the rest of us were at risk. And he was right.
There is of course another option. The one you saw when you started your own walkabout, leaving Justine and Los Angeles behind, as it turned out for good. Something you can give Harry.
When I think about my dreams and the life I want to have, it doesn't involve hiding from the demon and the criminal of the week.
Say he's not lying somewhere in an alley, even now, dying. Say he comes back in a few weeks, as he promised.
Maybe then you'll be able to do the responsible thing, finally. The one you know you should have been doing all along.
To be perfectly honest with you, it's what I want to give myself.
But you can't, Harry. Not unless someone cuts out the taint in your life altogether.
You're not the one who should have been walking away.
I am.
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Phone Call
Date: 2006-07-18 04:40 am (UTC)She wouldn't appreciate the observation.
"Guess I do," he says, in reply to the "you totally suck", and doesn't comment on the past anymore, or the other options to help not involving supernatural powers. Which of course they are, but they don't free you from the awareness there are things you can do right now. This makes him think of Peter Parker, though, not for the first time, and he decides to point blank ask him about whether it had helped - withdrawing from everyone, and/or quitting.
"But I'm lucky in some things. When we were in Vegas, I thought how amazing you are, and that I'm lucky you want me around."
Instead of, you know, still hating the sight of him. That first evening out had been like his dream of running away to the circus together, in a way, going back to being children for a little while when they were anything but.
"Like I said, I don't know Lex. But I don't think anyone could ever find you boring, Kara. You glow."
Phone Call
Date: 2006-07-18 05:42 am (UTC)She says, relieved at the change of pace, that she can stop thinking of dead girls begging for their life.
"I'm so evolved. I mean, seriously, all things considered you're so lucky I'm so nice to you. You're so lucky I am so totally evolved as a person, because if you'd gone and screwed some other slayer over... like... Faith, I mean, you think Faith is such a totally awesome slayer or whatever, but if you'd screwed her over, well, she isn't HALF as evolved as me and she wouldn't be even a teensy bit as NICE about it. In fact! You'd probably be DEAD or WITHOUT LEGS or something even grosser, because she so wouldn't be as FORGIVING as me."
As for glowing, she heard Cordelia did a whole glowy thing when she got all higher powery, but she doubts Connor is talking about that.
"I do have pretty good skin at the moment." She says. "I think it's because I changed my program - and genetics, a lot of it is just genetics. Anyway, look, I'm sorry you're doing lousy and all - "
And she finds she almost is.
"If you get lonely you should come see us for the weekend or just call or whatever. I mean, I'm sure Harry will be back before you even know it? But, in the meantime, if you don't know what to do with yourself, well, you can brood and angst just as well here as anywhere else, you know?"
Phone Call
Date: 2006-07-18 09:51 am (UTC)There is another reason; he can't make up his mind about how much the staff at the penthouse has figured out about the whole vampire thing. But Bernard rather ominously had mentioned Harry said Connor would "protect them". Which might just be Bernard's way of telling Connor he couldn't chase after Harry, or it might be that the death of Mario Ribisi had shaken the people who knew him very well, and that they wanted someone who could stake vampires around, even if that someone was partly responsible for Harry needing to run away for a while.
"But Harry told them I didn't do it before he left, so I guess that'll settle down soon. So next weekend, maybe. I haven't seen your new car yet, you know."
There is a knock at the door, and outside Bernard's voice can be heard saying there is a phonecall for him. As it's not his cell phone but the Osborn penthouse line, it's probably the police.
"Gotta go," Connor says. "And Kara, thank you. I'm less lousy now, I swear. Bye!"