[Stark doesn't believe much in his own tenderness anymore. He thinks at some point, it was carved or burnt out of him either by his own hand or someone else's. He can't deny it was never there, but he will often deny that it exists even in a small capacity anymore. You don't last long enough to look the way he does to not have that sort of thing stripped and torn away from you.]

[You just don't keep fucking going and not have it firmly be a thing of the past.]

I killed Roderick. We were going to get overwhelmed and it was me or him. So I put him down. I used him as live bait for those things down there and I got the fuck out of dodge while they tore him apart.

[He's not giving excuses, the more he explains. He's just doing just that. He's explaining.]

[It wasn't the arena, not exactly. But the echoes were strong enough, clear enough that he knew the rules boiled down to just one: kill or be killed. James Stark doesn't have what it takes to survive something like that, but the monster that crawled his way out of Hell does. When survival in a situation like that is on the line, Stark doesn't think. He doesn't care if this is what he was made into or if it's who he was all along deep down. He simply embraces Sandman Slim and he does more than just survive. He thrives in it. Every bit of the struggle, every fresh new scar, every life he puts down isn't done with any kind of glee or joy. He's not that fucked up. But he is fucked up just enough to feel at home, to feel at the top of his game, to know this is something he knows how to do and how to do well.]

[Stark has felt content these past few months on the Barge. Not much has put him in a poor mood or made him feel less at peace than usual. But that port was the first time in months that Stark's felt alive.]