#Shaw’s greatest crime being wanting is truly insane to me

[zeebreezin]

While suffering on my trip, I wrote out Shaw’s first (and to date, only) elaboration on what happened to the Red Court incident. Figure you guys should also get to see it :) Featuring @viric-dreams ‘s Robin Jones as the Second Person POV here.

He sits with his hands folded in his lap, drawn over himself. Long shadows are cast over his face, somewhat obscuring his expression. Shaw’s not a particularly large or imposing person, but at this moment he looks… small.

“It… isn’t an easy time for me to speak on.” His voice is quiet. If he was a different man, you’d almost say he was mumbling, but Shaw forces articulation into each and every word. “But if anyone deserves to know what happened there, in the Court… it’s you.”

Even in jest, he never brings up your responsibility for his capture by Red. Never once. It’s another silent line between the two of you. Shaw never mentions the rations he finds squirreled away. You never mention the Red Court, unless it’s for work. Before this, it never looked like a line that would be crossed.

“All my life, I’ve been guilty of… wanting, I suppose. Wanting better for my family, for my friends, for my people, and for myself. It might not sound like a crime to you, but...” The longer he speaks, the more sure that you are that Shaw’s never spoken of this event to anyone. This is, before it is anything else, a confession. “Wanting better has often been treated as one, in my experience.”

He smiles, dryly, as if reminded of a dark joke. “My wanting is what got my daughter killed, you know, Robin? If I hadn’t pushed her, she wouldn’t ever have been known in the Neath. She never would have…” Shaw turns away. He threatens, for a moment, to sink even deeper into himself and the hateful emotions clouding his gaze. Instead, he takes your hand. “…it is that wanting is my undoing. My terribly selfish desire for more. That was my undoing, in the red court.”

“I am happy with my place, on our side. I am. Even if I do not see eye to eye with some of our fellows on darker matters, I… I am happy with what I do. With what our work does for the world.” Shaw won’t meet your eyes. “But there, in the Red, I was offered a taste of what it could be like. That power, wielded only for me and mine. No pretences of revolution, of grand change, just my will. No need to bury myself, to hide what I want, as opposed to what is best for our goals. The temptation of my desire made manifest.”

Somewhere in the rambling, his voice has shifted - rhoticity lost, as he falls closer to his original cadence. Shaw’s expression is wild, haunted by something you cannot see, but he doesn’t dare stop speaking. “She said I was wasted there, for a cause I half believe in, trying to save the people I trust. I could have had everything- she called me a genius, one wasted trying to play the underdog. I was not imprisoned and tortured there, in that tower. What greeted to me wasn’t pain.” He swallows. “I wasn’t there as an enemy, not at first. Red… wanted me. I was offered the chance to change sides, on a bloody platter.”

Shaw pauses, for a moment. His breathing is shaky. “I did not take it. I told them nothing. I am- I am in no way compromised, in that sense.” He lists into your side, an unconscious need for contact. “But… the offer is open, still. I am more useful to Red active, with the temptation on my mind, than off the board. That might be the only reason I’m still… the offer is still open, Robin.”

You don’t ask if he’s considering it. You know the answer he’d give. You also know the truth.