Angelo and Illyana, Saturday afternoon

[x-snowflake.livejournal.com]

Illyana encounters a stressed-out Angelo in the gym, and they 'chat' in the most sarcastic sense of the word possible. In between discussing the morality of killing and why it's not nice to snark at Clarice when she's upset, a few things Angelo will later wish he hadn't said slip out. Set Saturday, a few hours after Angelo talks to Clarice in the medlab.


After a certain amount of time spent sitting in the waiting room, Angelo couldn't take it any more. Leaving the puppy in Clarice's care, he headed for the gym, picking up a pair of gloves as he entered and casually stripping off his shirt when he saw the room was empty - he intended to be there until he'd destressed at least somewhat, which might take quite some time.

Illyana pushed the door open quietly, dressed for some stress relief herself. Hair pulled out of her face and catching her breath from running, she looked around and spotted Angelo, not permitting herself to look surprised when she saw the scars. She watched him for a few moments before speaking up: "Feeling restless?" she called across the room.

Angelo glanced around sharply, not having heard her come in, then his face shuttered when he realized who it was. "Oh, it's you", he said flatly. "Yeah, just a bit."

"Yes, me," she said, clearly amused by his reaction. She was cool; there was nothing to indicate that she was there for a particular reason. "Disappointing as that is, I do make a habit of being here quite often, as you may remember. Working out your issues?" she asked, sliding a slight point into her voice.

Angelo shot her a sharp look. "Got sick of sittin' in the medlab waitin' for news. This is better than nothin'."

"Right," she said; though she saw the sharp look, she filed it under useless and didn't bother to react. "Got tired of usefully sitting with Clarice, did you?"

He froze for an instant, then shook it off, starting to lay into the punching bag particularly viciously. "You think you could do better? Come on then, Illyana, share your wisdom. What would you do in this situation that's so useful?"

She smiled. "I never claimed to be doing anything even vaguely useful," she said, "although I suppose not crowding the medlab with bodies and questions for busy people counts as something. Luckily, I don't have any compulsion to be continually useful to anyone."

"Who said anythin' about continually?" Angelo demanded pointedly. "Some of us, though, don't like not bein' able to do anythin' when our friends are in trouble. Not that we're gonna do anythin' stupid, before you say it, but that doesn't make the waitin' any easier."

She raised an eyebrow, but otherwise her expression didn't change. "Oh, I understand. Certainly not what I was commenting on. Some of you, however, do seem a bit caught up on the whining about it part."

"Yeah, and?" he asked, turning back to the punchbag. "So, Clarice whines a bit. You couldn't let it lie, just this once? See, unlike you, she cares personally about the people from here who're out there God knows how badly hurt or dead."

She allowed herself to be amused, not irritated, by the comment. "Right -- I forgot, I'm the resident uncaring bitch," she said, and smiled without malice; a task, since she felt quite a lot of malice just then. "Colour me unsurprised to hear it coming from you, but you'll forgive me if I don't take your professed empathic ability at face value."

Angelo shrugged. "Think what you want. Amanda's one of them, an' I know damn well how you feel about her."

"Do you?" Illyana asked, raising her eyebrows. "That's interesting."

Angelo glanced back at her. "Not like you've made any secret of it. Not sayin' you actively want her dead, but don't bother pretendin' you'd shed a tear for anythin' happenin' to her."

"As I rarely shed tears," she said coolly, "that may not be the best basis for your conclusion. Nonetheless, I neither actively nor inactively want Sefton or anyone else dead, as it happens, but I suppose expecting too many people here to respect human life would be over-reaching."

Angelo frowned, temporarily abandoning the punchbag to look at her. "What the fuck kind of place do you think this is? Are you judgin' us all by Sarah? In which case, I could point out the ones she killed had done a whole lot worse than her an' probably would have again. Not like the authorities would've done anythin' about it, with who they were."

"Oh, that's perfectly all right, then," she said.

Angelo shook his head. "Not perfectly all right. But I can understand why she did it."

"Stupidity and a taste for violence?" Illyana asked, raising an eyebrow.

Angelo sighed, not sure she'd ever understand. "Illyana. Those bastards killed her entire family. Hell, her entire clan, if you wanna put it in those terms. Right down to the last child, savin' Artie an' Miles - an' I'm not sure how they made it out. Sarah only survived 'cause she wasn't there. She's been... it was revenge."

"That's fantastic," she said. "What an amazing way to get revenge -- become exactly like the killers. It's all so clear now."

Angelo shook his head. "That's where you're wrong. Not all killin' is the same, Illyana, it's not that black an' white. Sarah's never killed an innocent, an' she never has an' never will harm a child."

"I love how everyone here seems to willing to define innocence," she said, smiling brightly at him. "I mean, by that logic, someone could come and kill -- say, an instructor here, for example -- and be perfectly within their rights. I think what you mean is that it's all right to kill people who aren't your friends, so long as they're suitably tainted to your eye."

"That would depend on what the instructor'd done to them, an' what the circumstances were at the time. The people Sarah killed murdered children an' by all accounts enjoyed it. Tell me that doesn't mean they deserved t'die."

"It doesn't mean they deserved to die," Illyana said steadily. "Life is sacred; they broke it, she broke it, and they're exactly the same. No question."
Angelo turned away, metaphorically throwing his hands up. "We're never gonna come any closer to an agreement on this. But I still say you're wrong."

"I'm not wrong; you're all just a bit dim, I think," she said cheerfully. "Killing is easy; keeping control of oneself is considerably harder. But never let it be said that most people do things the hard way when they could do morally ambiguous things more easily."

Angelo scowled. "Killin' can be easy", he contradicted. "It can be the hardest thing... someone's ever done."

Someone, hmm? she thought, and filed away for later consideration. "Right," she said, "very difficult indeed -- taking the easy way out so that someone can quench their thirst for revenge. Being more alive than the other guy takes so much effort."

"It's not always about revenge", he stated flatly. "In Sarah's case, sure. But not always."

"Of course," she demurred. "I'm sure there are a great many good solid reasons to commit murder."

He shook his head, frustrated. "You keep twistin' it. Not a great many. But there are some."

"I'm not twisting it; you're saying it, and I am repeating it back to you in a very much less tasteful light. There is a difference." She kept the amusement in her voice, even though this conversation was going to repeat itself to her for the foreseeable future. "I should think there is only one -- necessity. And since I don't think crimes of passion count, well." She left it there, watching him carefully.

Angelo was aware of her attention on him and tried - not entirely successfully - not to let her see his reaction. He was unwilling to let her into any of his past, but if it'd make her understand... He remained silent for a moment, thoughts confused and in turmoil.

Illyana shook her head. Time to see where this went, for better or for worse, and now that she had him thinking -- even distracted... "It amazes me," she said conversationally, "how easy it would be to be powerful in this world. All I'd need is a nice new modern weapon and morals like the ones you describe. Wouldn't be too hard to work my way to the top through all those people who got there through war or drugs or killing children, would it? They'd deserve it, wouldn't they? Baby-murderers, men who devastated nations, ones whose souls just weren't right from the beginning. People the authorities won't go after."

Angelo eyed her carefully, not especially liking what she seemed to be getting at. "That'd depend. If you were doin' it just because you wanted power, it'd be almost as bad as killin' innocents. If you weren't... well, then, you wouldn't take the power at the end of it, would you?"

"Why not?" she said. "Say I was just after them because they were bad, bad people. If I was doing the right thing, wouldn't I deserve it? Wouldn't I be the good guy? Shouldn't I be the one running things?"

"Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely", Angelo quoted at her with barely a blink. "No. You shouldn't. 'Cause sooner or later, you'd end up as bad as they ever were. That's why there's a limit on how long any one person can hold political office at a time, in democracies."

"Isn't that why they have laws against killing people, in democracies?" she asked smoothly.

Angelo blinked, realizing how neatly he'd walked into that one, and tried to come up with an answer. "Isn't... what why? The power corrupts thing? I don't quite see your point. What does the one always have to do with the other?"

"The point," she said, getting to it as deliberately as she could, "is that if you say it's all right for someone to have power that they are legally not supposed to have, because their reasons are just, then you devalue the system by which the laws were devised. If power corrupts, then allowing people power in a system where that power is not permitted -- for example, to be overly blunt, a democracy -- corrupts them no matter what."

Angelo sighed. "Maybe it does. But sometimes it's gotta be done all the same. Listen, Illyana, got a story for you." He sighed again, leaning against his punchbag, and continued, carefully avoiding using the word "I". "There's a boy, only fourteen, an' he gets himself into a real bad situation. He's with a friend, an' they get caught by people who wanna hurt them. They both get pretty roughed up, an' then the boy gets given a choice. He kills his friend, nice an' quick, just a bullet to the head an' it's all over, he gets to live an' walk away. He doesn't, they both die, an' not of a nice clean shot to the head, either. So what should he do?"

Interesting, she thought. "I really couldn't say," she said, smiling, careful not to sound too flippant. "Considering that the layout of the conflict and the particulars of the situation aren't completely clear to me, I couldn't possibly make a decision. Sounds depressing, really; I think I'm going to go and run it off," she added airily, and slid through the floor without waiting to hear his reply.

Comments

[x-shinobi.livejournal.com]

Angelo needs to take Speech. He keeps letting things like this slip, the poor boy. *pats him*

Have I mentioned lately that I adore 'Yana?

[x-snowflake.livejournal.com]

Hee! Yeah, poor kid. Though he's up against someone who is not actually playing fair, so, y'know. ;)

Eee! Glad you like. She was fun to write here. *grins* (I think it says something about me that I almost prefer her when she's mocking and cool to happy.)

[x-skin.livejournal.com]

He did take Speech. He just isn't very good at it.