The Alliance pulled me out of prison for a 'special assignment'. Said they could use someone like me. They'd pair me up with a navigator and a starfighter with some experimental tech installed. I was supposed to get close to my partner. Make sure they felt something for me. That's how the tech works - what makes it trigger.
Abel didn't know about any of it. I pushed him into a physical relationship with me and made sure I chased off anyone who could warn him about what I was doing. I had him tailed. I spent a year making him believe I really cared about him, keeping him close, manipulating him every chance I got.
Because it was him or me, and he was my last chance to get it right. If I didn't do it I was being sent back to that hellhole. Prison on the colonies is bad. Even worse with an Alliance target on you. I couldn't afford to fail.
[Nothing more than that for now. Of course Sheehan doesn't judge him for it and of course he doesn't think of him differently, but there's a certain steel to his intentions now.]
[He doesn't say that it's because his brain hadn't finished forming or that trauma impacts the mind, especially in childhood, and that manipulation of this kind is a Very Big Deal that was inappropriately sprung on him.]
It sounds like you were a victim just like Abel was. Not that it absolves you, but there is only so much guilt you can carry.
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I am not diminishing what is likely a very big, very important secret. But I know myself. And what I have seen from people. And I know my limits.
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[Okay...]
The Alliance pulled me out of prison for a 'special assignment'. Said they could use someone like me. They'd pair me up with a navigator and a starfighter with some experimental tech installed. I was supposed to get close to my partner. Make sure they felt something for me. That's how the tech works - what makes it trigger.
Abel didn't know about any of it. I pushed him into a physical relationship with me and made sure I chased off anyone who could warn him about what I was doing. I had him tailed. I spent a year making him believe I really cared about him, keeping him close, manipulating him every chance I got.
Because it was him or me, and he was my last chance to get it right. If I didn't do it I was being sent back to that hellhole. Prison on the colonies is bad. Even worse with an Alliance target on you. I couldn't afford to fail.
Then he found out about all of it.
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[Nothing more than that for now. Of course Sheehan doesn't judge him for it and of course he doesn't think of him differently, but there's a certain steel to his intentions now.]
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Everything kind of fell to shit around us and we had to get out of there. We stole our starfighter and ran.
I don't know what happened after.
[Because that's when he's supposed to have died, but he still doesn't believe that happened.]
When I showed up here... things were weird, at the start. And we still haven't talked about it.
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Things seem fine.
But we haven't talked about it. And we should, right? We can't just pretend it didn't happen.
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This place created a very nice distraction. But you're right. You need to talk about it.
And starting with an apology like we talked about would be good.
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I get it if you want to keep your distance after this.
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I don't think differently of you.
You're a very young man who was given an impossible choice. You did what you thought was best.
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I did what I thought would save my own ass.
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[He doesn't say that it's because his brain hadn't finished forming or that trauma impacts the mind, especially in childhood, and that manipulation of this kind is a Very Big Deal that was inappropriately sprung on him.]
It sounds like you were a victim just like Abel was. Not that it absolves you, but there is only so much guilt you can carry.
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I can't just pretend that I didn't
That I went through all of that and fucked around with Abel and the others and didn't know what I was doing
Maybe it was a shitty choice to have to make but I made it
[And thank fuck for autocorrect, because by the end of that he can barely see the screen.]
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I know they made you think that.
But you were not given a choice. Not really.
You might have known what you were doing, but would you have chosen the same way if the other choice was freedom?
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If I didn't have to do any of it and they'd just let me go?
No, of course not. I wouldn't have done any of it.
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It's a forced choice, which is what people use when they want someone to do something and make it seem like it was their idea.
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I could have been nicer to him.
You've seen that scar on his lip, right? I did that. I did it to make sure everyone knew which navigator was mine.
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But it's exhausting to carry guilt you didn't earn.
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Maybe it wasn't all me. But saying I was put in a shitty position doesn't absolve me of responsibility for my actions.
I didn't even always feel bad about it. How fucked up is that.
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It makes sense.
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I don't.
I'm not.
I'm just too good at pretending to be one.
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I am sorry that you were made to act like one.
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