godsays | private . 19th metal

private . 19th metal

[ private to anya ]

I think I need help.

[ private to kelsier ]

I want to ask you to keep Vin away from me, but I don't trust you to put my safety over her comfort.

[ Bald and honest. He cares about Kelsier, and Marsh, and it is unbelievably painful to understand that he would be betrayed. ]

[ private to iris ]

You've been killed before. By people here.

[ private to morgana ]

How did you die?

[ a couple days later, private to Cassel ]

I'm sorry I've been so afraid.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yes you have. Just a couple days ago. You said you didn't feel like giving up anymore. So something changed. It'll keep changing.

I said I feel less like giving up.

Hey. Zane.

What?

I love you.

I'm having trouble thinking of reasons to try anymore. I don't believe I'll succeed here. I think all the Barge has done is show me that my failures are my fault.

Okay. Here are some reasons.

Even if everything's your fault, which I don't think is true, at least now you know. You're here and you know and you can figure out where to go from here. It sucks and it hurts but eventually it'll suck less and hurt less, and when that happens it'll be worth it, I swear it will.

You know what the worst feels like now. You know what it's like to be totally hopeless. This is as bad as it's going to get - unless you just lie down and refuse to get up, in which case yeah, that is your fault because you're smarter and quicker and better to me than almost anybody else here. Giving up and not trying and hiding away from people hurts more than anything, I know, that's what I've been doing for like a week and a half.

There are like a billion people here who love you. I bet you've been pestered by them nonstop. Even Chris, he's gonna forgive you, he's gonna worry, he's probably worrying now, even. He doesn't stay mad. He's the most forgiving person I've ever met, way more than me, and he loves you like family just like I do.

You're the only person I've ever let touch my emotions on purpose. I trust you. You're the second person here I trusted, the first person stronger than me. I'm gonna have your back no matter what, but if you don't think you matter enough to fight for yourself, then I definitely don't.

If you give up now, all you're proving is that you're as weak as you think you are, but if you push you'll prove that you're not helpless and you're not weak and you can't be defeated, not anymore, that nothing can fuck you up badly enough to knock you down forever. Because it can't. I know. I've seen what you can do.

You could lead armies. You can survive Silent Hill. You can get me to trust you, you can sure as hell get over this.

Edited 2013-08-17 03:17 (UTC)

I couldn't lead armies. I was unstable. And Silent Hill was - it was pulls on my control. It was fracturing it. But it never broke it.

The only thing strong enough to break it was someone hurting you.

Which isn't going to happen again.

Remember the part about making promises you can't keep?

Okay. Let me be more specific.

If my hands are working, I'll turn them into a table. If they're not - people are teaching me to fight in other ways. You could teach me, too. That way you can protect me even if you're not right there.

[ He can't teach Cassel. He was taught to kill, as quickly as possible, as smooth and swift and deadly as the perfect predator. He doesn't want to pass that to anyone else. So his breath catches, and he hesitates, and he doesn't know how to say he won't do that without sounding like he won't protect Cassel. ]

[Cassel hears. It reassures him to know that he is, at least for the moment, able to read nuance in Zane's breath again. He goes on without a pause, as if nothing's happened.]

Or we could both learn a different way to fight, together if you want.

I don't want to learn any more of that.

Okay. Cass is teaching me that anyway, and James. You'd like Cass.

We could learn something else together. [Not that Cassel hasn't seen the withdrawal, because he has.] Ivy showed me a book about the environment.

Cassel...

[ He feels certain he knows what Cassel is trying to suggest. ]

Yeah?

You saw.

'Course I saw. I look out for you.

I'm not changing my mind.

Did I say I was asking you to?

You push. It's what we do to each other.

I know. And I will. But right now I'm just happy not to be scared you'll never talk to me again.

Give me two days. Then I'll start hassling you. All right?

I'm not going to learn physics from Megamind.

I'm not going to be near Touko.

I'm not going.

Okay. I am, though. I don't know if I'll be able to deal with Megamind for too long, but I bet Barbara knows physics.

If you think I'm not shoving my books in your face, though, you don't know me at all.