"Oh, the cards are just my item. They get snarky about him, sometimes," Jedao explains idly. He pulls another card, and it's some kind of face card, although the person depicted doesn't wear a crow. The suit is roses; they're blue. This one, too, is upside down.
"Or maybe they're teasing me for being compulsive," Jedao adds dourly. He shuffles once and tucks them back into a pocket.
"Ah," he sounds quietly, nodding faintly at the answer. He was never much into that kind of mysticism, but to each their own. He had questions, of course, but now wasn't the time for them.
"Of course I have. For most of my formative life and far too frequently here." Between making sure Roman was okay and making sure that James was okay, Raylan had already had something of a small breakdown that was had behind the security of his own cabin door.
"But I'm guessin' you're asking to make a point." In a way of asking what that point was - he doubted Jedao wanted him to lay it all out for him and Raylan wasn't the kind of man to look for sympathy.
Jedao frowns a little, a miniscule furrow between his eyebrows, like he's trying to work out a puzzle. He assumes everything James says to him in private, especially about emotions, is effectively in confidence, and Jedao is unwilling to betray that confidence, even if the odds that Raylan has already heard some version of the same feelings are excellent. Sometimes you don't want your partner to see every fear and insecurity, even if you trust them, and that's not Jedao's to choose or guess.
"I'm trying to get a different perspective on things. One that's closer to James's reactions than mine, maybe."
That was a surprise. Raylan hummed a note and shifted, straightening in his chair to stare out over the field as he considers that answer. A different perspective, Raylan had, but they were brutal and ugly in the way they were gotten.
"It's.. Hard. To stand by and watch people you care about gettin' hurt without doin' anything. The common sense argument might be 'What good will it do, what does it solve, what does it actually get you' but in the moment - It'll do a lotta good, it goes a little way towards solving the hurricane in a man's chest, and it gets him blood. I know that the idea of 'Their Language' is hard for.. more liberal minded people to accept - Peace is always an option, use your words not your fists, love not war, that kinda shit - But that doesn't change the reality of there bein' a lot more men like him and I out there than not. I grew up in a place where things were controlled by fear and I know it wasn't healthy, but that's the way of the world. Civility is great and all, but when you get down to brass tacks, there's only so far you can go with bullheaded people that only know one way of the world."
He pulls his flask back out and unscrews the top in one swift motion.
"The view you're lookin' at, by the way, is one of the hollers in Harlan County, Kentucky. My father was a big player in the criminal element and he used to beat my mother and me... Arlo always made the house feel like a tornado was stormin' in the living room.. I won't give you any of the messy details but.. Somewhere along the way, I learned that peaceful hopes don't stop an angry man. Doesn't matter much what he's actually angry about." It was capped off with a swig from his little bottle to wash the words down.
"In this last breach," Jedao says quietly, "I beat my father to death with a solid sapphire paperweight. Which was actually...so much easier than that man's assassination in real life, which took months of planning, while living under this thumb and doing his war crimes to avoid arousing his suspicion, multiple branches of higher mathematics, and the lives of hundreds, if not thousands of good soldiers. If you think I believe that peace is always an option, Raylan Givens, then you have very seriously mistaken me."
He holds his hand out for the flask; his face is utterly blank.
His eyebrows bob at that opener - hellva way to start kid, that was impressive.
The flask was handed over.
"I put my father in prison. Three different times. Why'd you wanna kill yours?"
His tone was too casual for the conversation, emotions half checked at the door because it was safer that way. Easier to talk about these things with more than a few long lengths.
"I didn't want to," Jedao says, and for just a moment, his voice cracks. He closes his eyes and takes a very deep breath, and the monotone returns.
"To be fair, Nirai-Zho was not an angry man. He was calm almost to the very end, in fact. Only an...unfathomably selfish one, vindictive over old grudges, cruel when bored, brilliant and ruthless and resourceful enough to become immensely powerful, impossible to reliably contain. But he was not often cruel to me. He made me to be his. He would have made me the happiest pet in the world, if I were willing to let him eat everyone else's hearts to sustain his selfishness. But I wasn't. So he had to die. And no one else was close enough to do it."
When he opens his eyes, they're shiny with tears, but they don't fall.
"All of which is to say. I do understand feeling - trapped, terrified, horrified, furious. But I could not afford to be anything less than extremely pragmatic about it. I don't want James to feel like that. But I can't turn the barge safe. And I don't think he can, either. None of us can turn life safe, not for sure. I don't know what's in between those points. I wondered if you had any experience of - in between. Or suggestions what it might look like."
There should have been some small part of Raylan that was a little jealous of that, in the way he was almost jealous of Roman's love for his father, but oddly - there wasn't. There was no little boy reaching for the idea of a father to hold him tight, to teach him how to hunt and tie a tie.
The absence of that didn't mean he didn't empathize with Jedao. He knew wanting to kill your father wasn't the healthiest perspective. He's still not sorry.
"I'm sorry to hear that's the way it was for you," he says, edges softened for the statement. He wasn't going to linger on it, but he felt it needed to be said. "But no, there's no making life Safe. The only thing you can do is mitigate the possibility. James's problem is that he doesn't know how to sit still when something's happening. And when he's left out of it, it stings him because he couldn't do anything about it. The thing is, he's gotta realize that a scratch isn't a gut wound. That a stubbed toe doesn't mean you burn the dresser down for the offence. It comes from a good place, no matter how much blood he's willin' to shed for it.. He's gonna have to if he wants to keep his sanity back in Miami." He looks over.
"He can do it. He just needs to build the confidence that one bad thing isn't gonna take everything he cares about away all over again. He's allowed to be sensitive about that, I think."
"I know he can. If it comes to that, I want to teach him field medicine, in addition to triage. Metaphorically speaking."
More than anything, Jedao thinks Flint needs things to do, practical things, things that actually help, other than holding back or lashing out, proportional or not.
"Shit, I might need'ta join that class if I'm ever gonna be stitching anyone again," he comments with a sigh.
"We've.. I've tried. When I was murdered. It didn't go well. He doesn't like feeling useless. He doesn't like not-" He sighs out his nose and holds his hand back out for his flask. "We did make some progress. . He admitted to those things. Felt guilty that he didn't consider my wishes in it all. It's a step in the right direction. Like I said, he needs some confidence and the revival mechanic doesn't seem to be giving him any. He's gonna lose his mind the first time gunrunners from South America come after me with intent to put me in the ground."
James has talked to Jedao about some of those feelings too; if he's admitted them to Raylan already then Jedao feels less constrained in discussing it.
"Ultimately, the solution to feeling useless is to do something useful. He knows that. The problem is that right now he's confused doing what he wants to do with something productive." He's asked Jedao for other solutions, but he never likes the answers. Jedao doesn't have easy solutions for him. But action doesn't have to fix everything to be useful - and what Flint wants to do mostly isn't going to help.
"You're taking him to a new war?" Jedao asks, neutrally. It's not really important to the topic at hand, but - maybe they've said as much as they can say on it, for now.
"That solution applies to where there's somethin' useful to do, in such a practical way. Gunfire, a fire, someone to protect or someone to revenge. But there's another option and it's.. It's goddamned uncomfortable. To accept what has happened and trust another person to protect themselves when they say they can. We're-"
He stops himself, sighing out his nose. It was hard to convince people who were scared of losing everything that they wouldn't. Just as hard to convince people like himself, too scared of being left to trust themselves to those who'd leave. It was nuanced, complicated. It was Human in the best and worst way.
"I'm a Marshal, not a Solider. It's government work; stopping assholes bringing guns, drugs, and murder into the country. Chasin' down murderers and keepin' people safe from their consequences. That comes with some inherent dangers. I trust he'll be able to take care of himself if somethin' happens, but I'm more worried about him trying to go after Cartel. My world doesn't work like his does. He's a tough, capable man. That's already been shredded by bullets once. It can't work like that in a place where he won't come back."
"You're missing my meaning. There's useful things to do besides fighting. When it's quiet, I mean. Building something, learning something, teaching something. The barge provides so much of what we need, which makes it tricky to feel like we're not just marking time between disasters, but not everything. And even if it has to be protection - he's maintenance, maybe he could work with B on B's alarm project. Something he can achieve, even if it's not reorganizing the whole barge."
Which is not, now Jedao says it out loud, a bad idea, and when James is in a better frame of mind he might suggest it.
"So you're taking him into another war he can't win, without enough back-up, expecting him to sit around and let you fight it yourself, is what I'm hearing," Jedao adds dryly. "I'm sure I'm getting that wrong somewhere, so please clarify."
He's not afraid of James being helpless, because he isn't, or even dying, really - humans die. But Jedao doesn't want him to die without having had the life of peace that part of him still so desperately wants.
"You keep sayin' war. I've got the entire US Federal Government behind me; I'm not one man ridin' off into the distance or somethin'. Attacking me means attacking that, the most powerful force in the world when it's applied. Attacking me is attacking 4,000 souls - it's not just me. That's what you both seem to be misunderstandin'."
He shakes his head a little. "I won't argue about there bein' things to do that aren't fighting but those aren't my life back home. Here, I've found chickens and work and that's about all. Maybe that's why I snapped on Izzy, but - I support James gettin' into somethin' like that here. Something to keep his attention and care. But what it is here is not what I am going back to. It's a line to walk, I know that. We're both doing our best and I think that he's making progress. Pained progress but progress nonetheless. Nothing about this will be painless. I don't know that there's a way to do that. I would hope there is but life doesn't often give me that option, and the Barge doesn't either. A complication to work around."
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"Or maybe they're teasing me for being compulsive," Jedao adds dourly. He shuffles once and tucks them back into a pocket.
"Have you ever felt helpless, Raylan?"
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"Of course I have. For most of my formative life and far too frequently here." Between making sure Roman was okay and making sure that James was okay, Raylan had already had something of a small breakdown that was had behind the security of his own cabin door.
"But I'm guessin' you're asking to make a point." In a way of asking what that point was - he doubted Jedao wanted him to lay it all out for him and Raylan wasn't the kind of man to look for sympathy.
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Jedao frowns a little, a miniscule furrow between his eyebrows, like he's trying to work out a puzzle. He assumes everything James says to him in private, especially about emotions, is effectively in confidence, and Jedao is unwilling to betray that confidence, even if the odds that Raylan has already heard some version of the same feelings are excellent. Sometimes you don't want your partner to see every fear and insecurity, even if you trust them, and that's not Jedao's to choose or guess.
"I'm trying to get a different perspective on things. One that's closer to James's reactions than mine, maybe."
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"It's.. Hard. To stand by and watch people you care about gettin' hurt without doin' anything. The common sense argument might be 'What good will it do, what does it solve, what does it actually get you' but in the moment - It'll do a lotta good, it goes a little way towards solving the hurricane in a man's chest, and it gets him blood. I know that the idea of 'Their Language' is hard for.. more liberal minded people to accept - Peace is always an option, use your words not your fists, love not war, that kinda shit - But that doesn't change the reality of there bein' a lot more men like him and I out there than not. I grew up in a place where things were controlled by fear and I know it wasn't healthy, but that's the way of the world. Civility is great and all, but when you get down to brass tacks, there's only so far you can go with bullheaded people that only know one way of the world."
He pulls his flask back out and unscrews the top in one swift motion.
"The view you're lookin' at, by the way, is one of the hollers in Harlan County, Kentucky. My father was a big player in the criminal element and he used to beat my mother and me... Arlo always made the house feel like a tornado was stormin' in the living room.. I won't give you any of the messy details but.. Somewhere along the way, I learned that peaceful hopes don't stop an angry man. Doesn't matter much what he's actually angry about." It was capped off with a swig from his little bottle to wash the words down.
"I still own you onn'a those."
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He holds his hand out for the flask; his face is utterly blank.
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The flask was handed over.
"I put my father in prison. Three different times. Why'd you wanna kill yours?"
His tone was too casual for the conversation, emotions half checked at the door because it was safer that way. Easier to talk about these things with more than a few long lengths.
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"To be fair, Nirai-Zho was not an angry man. He was calm almost to the very end, in fact. Only an...unfathomably selfish one, vindictive over old grudges, cruel when bored, brilliant and ruthless and resourceful enough to become immensely powerful, impossible to reliably contain. But he was not often cruel to me. He made me to be his. He would have made me the happiest pet in the world, if I were willing to let him eat everyone else's hearts to sustain his selfishness. But I wasn't. So he had to die. And no one else was close enough to do it."
When he opens his eyes, they're shiny with tears, but they don't fall.
"All of which is to say. I do understand feeling - trapped, terrified, horrified, furious. But I could not afford to be anything less than extremely pragmatic about it. I don't want James to feel like that. But I can't turn the barge safe. And I don't think he can, either. None of us can turn life safe, not for sure. I don't know what's in between those points. I wondered if you had any experience of - in between. Or suggestions what it might look like."
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The absence of that didn't mean he didn't empathize with Jedao. He knew wanting to kill your father wasn't the healthiest perspective. He's still not sorry.
"I'm sorry to hear that's the way it was for you," he says, edges softened for the statement. He wasn't going to linger on it, but he felt it needed to be said. "But no, there's no making life Safe. The only thing you can do is mitigate the possibility. James's problem is that he doesn't know how to sit still when something's happening. And when he's left out of it, it stings him because he couldn't do anything about it. The thing is, he's gotta realize that a scratch isn't a gut wound. That a stubbed toe doesn't mean you burn the dresser down for the offence. It comes from a good place, no matter how much blood he's willin' to shed for it.. He's gonna have to if he wants to keep his sanity back in Miami." He looks over.
"He can do it. He just needs to build the confidence that one bad thing isn't gonna take everything he cares about away all over again. He's allowed to be sensitive about that, I think."
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More than anything, Jedao thinks Flint needs things to do, practical things, things that actually help, other than holding back or lashing out, proportional or not.
"Have you two talked about that?"
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"We've.. I've tried. When I was murdered. It didn't go well. He doesn't like feeling useless. He doesn't like not-" He sighs out his nose and holds his hand back out for his flask. "We did make some progress. . He admitted to those things. Felt guilty that he didn't consider my wishes in it all. It's a step in the right direction. Like I said, he needs some confidence and the revival mechanic doesn't seem to be giving him any. He's gonna lose his mind the first time gunrunners from South America come after me with intent to put me in the ground."
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"Ultimately, the solution to feeling useless is to do something useful. He knows that. The problem is that right now he's confused doing what he wants to do with something productive." He's asked Jedao for other solutions, but he never likes the answers. Jedao doesn't have easy solutions for him. But action doesn't have to fix everything to be useful - and what Flint wants to do mostly isn't going to help.
"You're taking him to a new war?" Jedao asks, neutrally. It's not really important to the topic at hand, but - maybe they've said as much as they can say on it, for now.
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He stops himself, sighing out his nose. It was hard to convince people who were scared of losing everything that they wouldn't. Just as hard to convince people like himself, too scared of being left to trust themselves to those who'd leave. It was nuanced, complicated. It was Human in the best and worst way.
"I'm a Marshal, not a Solider. It's government work; stopping assholes bringing guns, drugs, and murder into the country. Chasin' down murderers and keepin' people safe from their consequences. That comes with some inherent dangers. I trust he'll be able to take care of himself if somethin' happens, but I'm more worried about him trying to go after Cartel. My world doesn't work like his does. He's a tough, capable man. That's already been shredded by bullets once. It can't work like that in a place where he won't come back."
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"You're missing my meaning. There's useful things to do besides fighting. When it's quiet, I mean. Building something, learning something, teaching something. The barge provides so much of what we need, which makes it tricky to feel like we're not just marking time between disasters, but not everything. And even if it has to be protection - he's maintenance, maybe he could work with B on B's alarm project. Something he can achieve, even if it's not reorganizing the whole barge."
Which is not, now Jedao says it out loud, a bad idea, and when James is in a better frame of mind he might suggest it.
"So you're taking him into another war he can't win, without enough back-up, expecting him to sit around and let you fight it yourself, is what I'm hearing," Jedao adds dryly. "I'm sure I'm getting that wrong somewhere, so please clarify."
He's not afraid of James being helpless, because he isn't, or even dying, really - humans die. But Jedao doesn't want him to die without having had the life of peace that part of him still so desperately wants.
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He shakes his head a little. "I won't argue about there bein' things to do that aren't fighting but those aren't my life back home. Here, I've found chickens and work and that's about all. Maybe that's why I snapped on Izzy, but - I support James gettin' into somethin' like that here. Something to keep his attention and care. But what it is here is not what I am going back to. It's a line to walk, I know that. We're both doing our best and I think that he's making progress. Pained progress but progress nonetheless. Nothing about this will be painless. I don't know that there's a way to do that. I would hope there is but life doesn't often give me that option, and the Barge doesn't either. A complication to work around."