![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
video
[How to do this, then. Somehar isn't speaking to him and catching him in a corner isn't going to help. Neither will sending him a message directly--he'll just see who it's from and ignore it. Unfortunately, that means sharing far more of himself with the general populace than he's fully comfortable with, hoping that somehar will hear it by accident. He'd like to mend ties with Flick if he could. Although he doesn't hold much hope for that.
So Cal, cigarette in hand, sits staring at nothing. Glaring, really. But that's basically his normal expression, isn't it? He should have waited to turn the thing on--he's still trying to put his thoughts together, but he buys himself some time inhaling smoke and breathing it out again. Story time.]
Most often it's the beasts that survive. The world is a cruel place and innocence seldom lasts. It's the food of the monsters that inhabit it beyond the safety of the walls of childhood. Monsters make more monsters since they have to be monsters to survive the monsters. It's a cycle all but impossible to break from. Because there are always monsters.
[Is he defending himself? Is that even a defense? He takes another drag on the cigarette, partly to think, but partly for courage to keep talking.]
Sometimes they even need the demons. But not forever. Never for that long. And they're happy to forget them once they're finished, send them back to the darkness empty once they've been used. Existence breaks them into pieces and then blames them when they do what they were taught, be what they were made. Most of them convince themselves they like it, if only to wear the shabby armor that gives them. If they like being what they are, there's not a goddamn thing that can touch them--even when all of it does.
[He extinguishes the cigarette in his hand and lights another one. Clearly he's done that a few times.]
The biggest problem comes when they step out of line--when they try to be people again. Their darkness might have a place, but it's one that no one wants to acknowledge. So long as it lives in its own filth in a place they can't see, they're happy to leave it be--no one beards the lion in its den. [Ha.] God forbid one of them tries to change.
There have been a few. It never worked, no matter how much they might have wished or wanted or prayed that it would be otherwise. Even they want to feel the touch of the pure, sometimes. Especially once they've forgotten the touch.
One of them dared to love the burning beacon, so all anyhar else could see was another shadow. So he was cast out with the rest of them, called what he was, what he'd started to believe. And maybe he was a monster--maybe he still is. Maybe trying not to be won't matter, if that's all he knows how to be. No one misses the darkness. No one pines for the caress of a beast because they had claws, once. Never mind whether they still do, or whether they've dulled--from age or use.
[He pauses once more, for several puffs of smoke this time, before he shakes his head, and reaches to turn off the device, but before he does--]
This place leaves too much time for thinking.
So Cal, cigarette in hand, sits staring at nothing. Glaring, really. But that's basically his normal expression, isn't it? He should have waited to turn the thing on--he's still trying to put his thoughts together, but he buys himself some time inhaling smoke and breathing it out again. Story time.]
Most often it's the beasts that survive. The world is a cruel place and innocence seldom lasts. It's the food of the monsters that inhabit it beyond the safety of the walls of childhood. Monsters make more monsters since they have to be monsters to survive the monsters. It's a cycle all but impossible to break from. Because there are always monsters.
[Is he defending himself? Is that even a defense? He takes another drag on the cigarette, partly to think, but partly for courage to keep talking.]
Sometimes they even need the demons. But not forever. Never for that long. And they're happy to forget them once they're finished, send them back to the darkness empty once they've been used. Existence breaks them into pieces and then blames them when they do what they were taught, be what they were made. Most of them convince themselves they like it, if only to wear the shabby armor that gives them. If they like being what they are, there's not a goddamn thing that can touch them--even when all of it does.
[He extinguishes the cigarette in his hand and lights another one. Clearly he's done that a few times.]
The biggest problem comes when they step out of line--when they try to be people again. Their darkness might have a place, but it's one that no one wants to acknowledge. So long as it lives in its own filth in a place they can't see, they're happy to leave it be--no one beards the lion in its den. [Ha.] God forbid one of them tries to change.
There have been a few. It never worked, no matter how much they might have wished or wanted or prayed that it would be otherwise. Even they want to feel the touch of the pure, sometimes. Especially once they've forgotten the touch.
One of them dared to love the burning beacon, so all anyhar else could see was another shadow. So he was cast out with the rest of them, called what he was, what he'd started to believe. And maybe he was a monster--maybe he still is. Maybe trying not to be won't matter, if that's all he knows how to be. No one misses the darkness. No one pines for the caress of a beast because they had claws, once. Never mind whether they still do, or whether they've dulled--from age or use.
[He pauses once more, for several puffs of smoke this time, before he shakes his head, and reaches to turn off the device, but before he does--]
This place leaves too much time for thinking.
voice
Why are you telling me this?
Did you send this to everyone?
Re: voice
[Cal's aren't finished. Apparently. He's still coming to terms with that.]
I can't exorcise my own demons? Aren't confessions supposed to be a part of that?
no subject
[Ugh, the disdain.]
Are you mangling bits and pieces of human religion?
no subject
Is that really the thing you're concerned about?
Video
You're rambling.
Did you mean what you said? Is that supposed to be an excuse? Am I supposed to forgive you now?
Re: Video
Re: Video
[Flick's rolling little balls of cookie now.]
What about Wraxilan. Seel. Am I supposed to forgive them too?
[When it came down to it, they were the same, weren't they? Uigenna taint.]
Re: Video
[He sighs.]
No. They neither deserve it nor want it.
Re: Video
[Flick's still rolling balls of cookie dough, faster now that you're talking to him and he's more stressed.]
What makes you different then? Than Seel and Wraxilan?
Re: Video
[Another sigh.]
Nothing makes me different. Except that I might still remember what the ache feels like.
Re: Video
Why should I forgive you then?
[Flick stopped momentarily, before continuing to roll the last of the cookies, putting what he had in the oven.]
They'll be ready in fifteen minutes if you want some.
[It was a small offer. A place to start.]
Re: Video
You shouldn't. I didn't ask you to. [And he isn't going to change. At least, it isn't likely he will.]
Do you actually want me there?
Re: Video
[He sounded dejected, and moved to the sink to wash his hands.]
Sometimes I think being blind would be better.
Re: Video
[It probably could have, if not for Pell.]
Would it? How are you supposed to see the monsters?
Re: Video
[He finishes washing his hands and moves on, preparing something else, small movements catch on the screen.]
You're not. In some ways, it would be easier wouldn't it? Not seeing?
[The way he'd been with Seel? Trusting.]
Re: Video
Maybe it is easier. Until they come from the shadows and you aren't prepared for them. But at least I suppose there wouldn't be nightmares.
Re: Video
I'm not sure what to do. I don't know how to fix things.
Re: Video
Neither do I.
Re: Video
[Flick paused what he was doing and sighed.]
I'm sorry about how I acted before.
Re: Video
[He should be more understanding. This is already far better than the non-interactions they were having before.]
Was that you or the liquor?
Re: Video
Part of me wants to ask you here now, bad things happen when we're together. Can I trust you not to hurt me?
[that was a stupid question, Flick thought. He'd shown that he can't be trusted....but he didn't do a thing when Flick was impaired.]
Re: Video
Re: Video
Alright. If you want, you can come over. I'll have the cookies and some bread fresh out of the oven. Maybe we should really talk.
Re: Video
Are you sure?
Re: Video
No, I'm not but we have to do something. Besides, I have some....substances that Tranquility gave me. It might help.
Re: Video
There's a long pause before he answers. Probably he's finishing his cigarette.]
Fine. Give me ten minutes.
Re: Video
Alright. I'll see you then.