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[heyboss]

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[reargunner]

He doesn't hate me. He should but he doesn't.

It's Abel. He's the one I

It makes it more complicated that it's him.

[heyboss]

What makes it more complicated?

[reargunner]

If I tell you

It's going to change how you look at me.

[heyboss]

I can almost guarantee that it won't.

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.

[reargunner]

Okay.

[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.

[heyboss]

Then what happened? Once he found out about it?

[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.]

[reargunner]

We didn't have time to talk about it. Not really.

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.

[heyboss]

Weird at the start, but how are they now?

[reargunner]

Hard to say.

Things seem fine.

But we haven't talked about it. And we should, right? We can't just pretend it didn't happen.

[heyboss]

You should, yes.

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.

[reargunner]

Just like that huh.

[heyboss]

Just like that.

[reargunner]

You must think I

I get it if you want to keep your distance after this.

[heyboss]

And why would I do that?

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.

[reargunner]

No I didn't.

I did what I thought would save my own ass.

[heyboss]

And for you at the time, that was best.

[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.

[reargunner]

I had a fucking choice Lester

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.]

[heyboss]

I know you think that.

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?

[reargunner]

[Pardon him for about five minutes while he has a brief anxiety spiral.]

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.

[heyboss]

Then it's not a choice. It wasn't something you wanted to do on your own.

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.

[reargunner]

I still didn't have to do it like I did.

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.

[heyboss]

I'm not clearing you, Cain. You did things you shouldn't. You did things you aren't proud of.

But it's exhausting to carry guilt you didn't earn.

[reargunner]

How did I NOT earn this.

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.

[heyboss]

Your mind adapted to what it needed to.

It makes sense.

[reargunner]

How can you be so fucking nice about this?