indispensible | twelve. spam & voice. the sound when we come running. ( backdated post-port. )

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twelve. spam & voice. the sound when we come running. ( backdated post-port. )

voice } helena ( backdated )

Did you die? Did you kill anyone? [These seem like the two most likely options.]

voice } lydia ( backdated )

You got separated. You should learn self-defense. [This vaguely reproachful, which is a coded way of saying god that sucked, are you okay.]

voice } elsa ( present dated )

[She waits to get in touch with Elsa, who seems as easily overwhelmed as Vin was herself, not very long ago. Still, the desire to check in nags at her, and eventually she gives in.]

I'm worried about you. [It's simultaneously frank, honest, and very forward, but it seems like the right thing to say all the same.]

spam } stark ( backdated )

[She has been texting him incessantly and, of course, he hasn't been responding. She doesn't know why she's surprised. But she knows where to find him, at least. In the bar or in his cabin.]

[The bar's almost empty and he's not in there, so she slips up to his room and opens the door before he can voice an objection. Her look is steely; she knows he's done something or he wouldn't be avoiding her, but she doesn't know what.]

Why are you hiding?

open spam } present dated

[Today Vin is in the art room - or rather, the annex off of the art room that holds the piano. She is sitting at it, but not playing it, because she doesn't know how to. Instead, she is considering it, leafing through the music that she found in its bench, and arranging it in various patterns across the keyboard in an effort to make sense of it.]

[So far she hasn't had any luck, but she seems absorbed in her work. It's like learning a foreign language with no guide whatsoever. She can't help but imagine Sazed would be fascinated.]

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I was going to clean it.

[It's not a lie. But that doesn't mean he wasn't still half-expecting someone. Not that he really expects Roderick to retaliate, at least not so soon. But with the exception of leading Mason down the rabbit hole, that port's been the closest Stark has come to the past eleven years of his life. There's no easy off-button for habits like that.]

[And in the end, he doesn't need a gun to kill someone. Vin knows that.]

Why don't we cut the bullshit, save some time, and you just ask me what you actually want to know?

[She can handle it and he doesn't need her to be delicate about it.]

[She purses her lips, but doesn't do him the disservice of looking away from him. It's true. She doesn't need to be babied, and he doesn't need to be delicate. They're both stronger than most people would expect, have weathered more than most people can imagine. There's tenderness in them, but not as much as in most people.]

I want to know what you did there.

[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.]

[Her expression is shuttered. No, she's not surprised. She just regrets. But spending all your time regretting won't get you anywhere.]

[She knows what he is. She's never been under the illusion that he's a better person than he is. His limits are his limits. It's her job as his warden to push them.]

Now that you're here. You don't regret it, I don't think. [She probably wouldn't, not much.] But compared to how it was there - what are you doing? Why are you pointing weapons at me? Why does your heart sound like you've been running races?

Am I talking to Stark, or Sandman Slim?

[Stark knows he has the answers to everything, but he still chooses to come up empty-handed.]

That's the million dollar question, isn't it?

[The line between Stark and Sandman Slim is getting hazier by the day and the difference is getting harder and harder to tell. But it's not something Stark questions. He felt Stark fall away from him and nearly die once when all there was left was the angel. It was a weakness that had been snuffed out. He liked it. He doesn't like the angel rolling around in his head so much now, but he liked losing that weakness. He liked becoming what everyone around him seemed either eager to see him become or scared half to death that would be all that's left.]

I know we weren't Downtown, but I knew the rules. You become the bigger monster, you live to see the next day. You don't think about it, you just do it. And you understand there's no going back. You can't ever really be a person.

The only real difference between what we just went through and Hell is someone else is usually holding your leash. I answered to Azazel back then. This time, I didn't have anyone holding me back.

So you tell me, Vin.

Which is it?

I think you're both.

[Only she doesn't say think like she means think. She says think like she means know. It's a little more confidence than she really feels, but she's stubborn enough to ride her near-certainty until she gets better information. And one of them has to be sure. It's her job, isn't it, as his warden, to be sure.]

I think you can be the biggest monster or the best man, and sometimes you're both at once. When you aren't held back you can hurt people or you can help them and it's your choice, Stark, not anyone else's.

[She bites back Nobody's making you do anything anymore because it's a lie - the Admiral is, she is - and they both think it's for the best, but it could still feel like a hand on the leash.]

I guess the question then is do you trust me enough to make the right one. Or should I expect hovering and possibly a soapbox?

[Does he? It's fifty/fifty sometimes, but push comes to shove, Stark thinks he makes the right choice. He didn't put down Roderick for the fun of it, not even necessarily for his own particular survival either. He did it because he was hellbent on finding Vin down there and he sure as hell couldn't find her if he was dead.]

[It's a selfish move, maybe, but Stark's never been all that interested in being selfless possibly his whole life. He looks after the people who he thinks will look after him. If it comes down between them or himself, he'll choose them. If it comes down between them and other people, there's no question of who he'll choose.]

This wasn't the right choice.

[The issue isn't that he made the wrong choice. It's that he doesn't realize it, won't acknowledge it. Once Vin might have made that same choice, too. But she would have discovered it was wrong, not made it again. Stark keeps making the same wrong choices over and over again. That's the difference.]

[Still, that seems to be the extent of the soapbox. She looks at him dead on, keeps his eye, but doesn't say anything further, just lets the silence stretch.]

[Stark holds her gaze for a little longer and then he simply shrugs. Unloading the gun in his hands, he starts taking it apart by rote memory rather than any particular type of concentration. Going back to what he was doing before she walked in isn't an admission or recognition of anything. He's just simply going back to what he was doing and withdrawing.]

[There's more Sandman Slim than Stark in this room right now.]

If you're expecting an apology or for me to make amends with Roderick or something, you're barking up the wrong tree. I did what I had to, Vin. It wasn't pretty and it wasn't nice, but I haven't been pretty or nice in a really long goddamn time.

So don't like it all you want. [He lifts his gaze again.] I'm not here to jump through hoops for your approval.

But what I did? That would be a bad decision for here, for being on the Barge. Because this isn't Downtown. It's a cakewalk compared to that. But it was the right decision there. I'm not sorry you don't understand. I wouldn't really want you to.

But what I need you to understand is that I'm not a good guy, Vin. I never have been and I never will be. Back home, I still kill monsters. But I'm not looking to help people or save anyone because I can't. Monsters don't do that and they aren't heroes.

[They just destroy. And Stark is more than competent when it comes to destruction. He's become a master at it whether it was by birth or by grooming. It's what he needs to be if he's going to survive the coming storm, too. Lucifer has plans that Stark can't avoid, can't sweep under the rug and pretend they don't exist. If problems could go away like that, Stark would do it in a heartbeat. But the fabric of the universe could collapse if he doesn't do something, if he doesn't just accept it. So he's trying to find his way there.]

I don't want you to apologize. It wouldn't be real and it wouldn't mean anything. Besides, apologizing for killing people is stupid. Apologies are for doing things like hurting people's feelings, not for something that big.

[She hesitates, then barrels forward, because she knows what she's about to say is true. She also knows it isn't nice and it isn't pretty, but it needs to be said.]

You're not a good guy, but you're not a bad guy either. Things aren't as simple as good guys and bad guys, there are just people, and you're a person. A person and a monster. Both.

You make yourself seem so much smaller and simpler than you are.

[There's something that creeps into Stark's eyes and his jaw tightens for a moment before he looks away from her again.]

[It's not shame that he feels. It's not even what he gets when he realizes he's being stupid or wrong. He knows what those are without a second thought because the people around him back home know how to kick them up pretty damn quick. What he feels right now isn't something that he recognizes.]

[Or maybe you make me too big and too complex than what I really am.]

[It's what he wants to say, but doesn't. Stark, even at his cruelest, can't throw that back at her. People need something to believe in whether it's God, themselves, or their ideas about other people. Even he does. And maybe that's what he's feeling right now and why he doesn't recognize it. He wants to believe what Vin does. Who wouldn't want to think that? But he has other ideas that speak so much louder than anything else, it's hard to even consider the possibility of another perspective.]

[But as is typical of Vin, she challenges it. She doesn't just let things lie as they are. She won't let it. She won't let him.]

Maybe, [he says, more to himself than to her, but it's all he says.]

[She never will let him believe the worst of himself, the simplest things about himself. He does bad things, yes. Frequently, with enthusiasm. But so did she, once, and she is not bad. She is a person who does good things and bad things and neutral things and hurts people without meaning to or knowing what she's doing. Sometimes she does nothing at all.]

[She and Stark are not the same person, but they're both people. That's what she means: neither of them can be reduced to neat packages because humanity isn't neat and never has been. It encompasses both creation and destruction, good and evil, life and death. If it doesn't encompass all these things, it isn't human.]

[This is her whole point. Stark is human - blisteringly, frustratingly, caustically, bitterly human. That's why she loves him, and that's why she won't give up on him.]

[She wants a hug, but knows he doesn't, so she just stands watching him for another minute. Then a quiet echo:] Maybe.

Do you talk to anybody? Besides me? [She doubts it, but wants to be surprised. Wants him to be doing better than she thinks he is.]

[He could ask her what exactly she means by that, but he would be obtuse and Vin would see through it. More importantly, she wouldn't just let it go either as that is one distinct problem with Vin. Other people might see through his bullshit, but they tend to just let it be. They accept that he doesn't want to talk about something and they move on, but not Vin. She just sees that as a sign that they have to talk about it.]

[In the end, it's just better to give what she wants even if he can't tell her what she wants to hear.]

Not really.

[Not that he's been exactly trying. There are a few people still that he talks to, off and on, but there's no connection there that he feels. People either buy into his bullshit and think that flippant sarcasm is mostly what there is to have or they regard him with wary caution. He doesn't do much to inspire anything different or further than that. The distance and barriers he places between himself is entirely intentional.]

[Much in the same that he puts more out there for Vin is intentional.]

Look. I know.

I should be. I should be.

But people aren't like you, Vin. Deep down, I know you don't know really want to know about the shit I've seen and done. If you could, you'd run for the fucking hills. [And the things that happened to him. But he'll never even think of that, much less say it.] Any sane or rational person would. But you stick it out anyway. Part of it because it's your job, but part of it because you got balls that most people don't and you can actually understand some of it. You can actually get past that kneejerk response.

But most people don't.

People would rather bury their head in the sand and pretend otherwise. And I don't blame them.

[He would, if he could.]

So whether it's here, home, or where the fuck ever, I don't make an issue out of it. I just leave things alone and let people do the same.

[The way Stark sees it, people are happier that way and so is he. It'd...It'd suck if he didn't have Vin. He can't deny that. But he could get by because it's how he's almost always managed to get by.]

[She could argue with him, tell him she doesn't want to run from him, that she loves him, that he's family and she'll never leave. But telling things like that is cheap. The only way to make them believable is to just do it. So that's what she does: she doesn't run, she loves him, she makes him family, and she stays by his side.]

[Now, the best thing she can do for him is keep him in her view, not let him out of her sight until she gets through to him what she means, what he needs to know.]

There are worse people than me and better people than me. I'm just someone. I'm not special.

It's not about what you should or shouldn't do. It's about what you deserve, Stark. You don't deserve to be alone.

[She says he's more than what he thinks he is and in the same breath would say that she's no one special. There's probably something deeper here about human nature, but Stark's not one to ask questions or pick at something like that. So, he just lets her say it while knowing otherwise.]

[For the rest of it, Stark vacillates between wanting to believe what she's saying and throwing it aside, however. The angel, of course, has no opinion. He doesn't care about something like that. Stark does though. And maybe that's just his whole damn problem.]

[What he does back home is easier done when there isn't anyone to care about, when he doesn't have to factor in what other people might say or think or do and all he has to vaguely worry about is himself. That's what makes being a monster so damn easy. But there's still the person inside of Stark somewhere. Part of it is the nineteen year old kid he used to be. Part of it is what's left after he finally busted out of Downtown. He wants to shake it sometimes. Other times, he wants to hold onto it and be that person again. It depends how bad the nightmares are and how much he's had to drink.]

[But wishing and wanting doesn't produce anything. He's stuck with the hand that's been dealt to him and most of the time he chooses not to look at it.]

I'm not alone, Vin.

[Stark isn't looking at what he does or doesn't deserve.]

I don't know if you noticed, but Just Someone's kinda a pain in my ass and I got a small handful of those back home, too.

[Stark thinks of Vidocq and Allegra. Both of them usually act like the cliché angels on his shoulder, trying to get him to do and be better. He even thinks of Carlos, always ready with liquor and greasy food, and Brigitte, who was smart enough to walk away. And, of course, Stark thinks of Candy. He's not sure if he should because they don't really know that much about each other, but they know the worst of one another and neither of them seem intent on running for the hills. That must count for something, right?]

[He misses them back in his world. All the people he vaguely sorta maybe matters to. Even fucking Kasabian.]

[It's weird reminiscing even a little about L.A. and not Downtown. But it's not a terrible change of pace, all things considered.]

[She smiles at that, soft if not quite sweet. She's still too worried - too concerned - to be entirely kind, which is a trial for her at the best of times. But it's nice to know she's a pain in his ass.]

Do you think all these smart people would waste our time on you if it wasn't worth it? All these pains in your ass?

[She knows he knows better. Somewhere under the bluster and the alcohol and the self-loathing, he's smarter than that. He's one of the smartest idiots she's ever known.]

[But he doesn't want to let go. That's the biggest thing, getting him to let go of his own sense of worthlessness, his own sense of monsterhood. She was a monster once. She didn't know how freeing it was not to be one until, all of a sudden, she let herself be human. Be Mistborn. Be a girl.]

[Stark is human - angel - Sub Rosa - Sandman Slim - he is all of these things. He is not simple. And she loves him for that. Someday, he'll love himself just a little for it, too.]

[Vin does this a lot with Stark, he's starting to notice. Every time he thinks he might stand a chance, she still finds a way to back him into this kind of corner. It's not something that's done aggressively. He's never coerced. Vin goes about it quietly and while not always kind, not always soft, there's still something gentle about it. It's not what he's used to. Even when he knows it's what she's doing and he can see it coming, he still doesn't know how to respond.]

[He's pretty sure she knows that, too.]

They say there's a fine line between genius and insanity, you know.

[So he just falls back on bullshitting and bluffing his way through it, something that can either be read as message received (if not entirely accepted) or message ignored.]

[Vin puts her head in her hand, just for a moment. He's going to give her a headache, and she doesn't even get headaches.]

What's the word for when you say something deliberately unrelated to be distracting?

[Because that's what he's doing. That's what he always does, when he doesn't know how to respond.]

[It's okay. It's even a little sweet. More than that, it's just - a Stark thing.]

That would be the fine art of deflecting.

[One of the few things he's really, really good at that doesn't involve blood loss.]

[Usually.]

Is it working?

Deflecting. Yes.

[She rolls her eyes at him, but she's smiling, too. Instead of punching him. You're welcome, Stark.]

It's about half working. [Meaning she knows what he's doing but she'll let him get away with it. For now.]

[Not that he doesn't rightfully deserve a punch, he's not going to be caught complaining.]

Half, completely...it's almost the same thing in my books.

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twelve. spam & voice. the sound when we come running. ( backdated post-port. )

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