[ video ]

[hostage]

[Goodbye to the Jesse who was a clean and successful art student, hello again to the Jesse who looks like he spent the last three nights sleeping under a bridge.]

Been thinking about this the past couple days, trying to figure out how I really feel about it, but you know what? I still feel the same as I did before:

It was shitty.

It was shitty for you guys to change us back without asking if that's what we wanted. A lot of us were better off the way we were last week. The next time something like that happens, maybe ask how we fucking feel about it.

[He just had to get that off his chest.]

Comments

[hostage]

Yeah. Yeah, I was.

[He can't exactly elaborate, but the feeling's clear in his voice.]

[shifting]

...Sorry.

So even the people who got it better got it bad. Just a giant fuckin' tease.

[hostage]

I don't wanna say you had it easy, but at least it's the bad part of you that's gone now instead of the good.

[shifting]

Well... ain't no such thing as "gone" really. It was still me, at the end of the day. Me with different reasons to make different choices, but all the parts are still there. Maybe. Fuck, I don't know.

[Sam rubs at his forehead.]

Just feels less like this had much to do with good and bad. There were parts of that person I wouldn't mind havin'. There was no part of the other you that you wouldn't find a flaw?

[hostage]

Nah, not... He was exactly how he should be.

[shifting]

...I can't claim to know what sorta life you've lived, but the first time I met you, you were spendin' hours healin' people. There's good in that. Stands to reason some of the good in that other you is here in this one too.

[hostage]

Believe me, I wouldn'ta stuck around this long if I didn't have that power. People act like I'm some kinda saint for that, but the truth is, healing people's the only thing I really got left to live for.

[shifting]

People've picked worse things to live for.

[hostage]

I guess.

[It still feels like a hollow gesture. Not quite the selfless act everyone thinks it is.]