To Those in the Know away from Stephie and Scarlett

[suave_thomas]

Do you think there's only so much a person can endure before the humanity is tortured...or burned...out of them?

Since coming home from the hospital, I've found it so hard to care about anything unless I've been rushing off to try to stop Amaris. At the hospital, I had something to focus on. People to keep safe. I could ignore the vast emptiness inside. In Spain, I could focus on fear. Here...I feel nothing. No, that's not true. I feel resigned, even if I'm hiding it. Resigned to suffering. Resigned to the world being a shitty place where no one good gets what they want, and even good things end up shit anyway. This isn't me, but I can't blame it on zombie fever this time.

I really think I've simply been broken. They set out to do it, Amaris and the Templar. And combined, they succeeded.

Comments

[in-spectre-mors.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if I know the answer to that, Thomas. Recently, I might have said yes, and I probably would have used my father as a prime example. However, he has demonstrated that one can actually reclaim their humanity, even after decades of having existed without it. Bearing that in mind, I think there is very little, if anything, that can burn out the spark of humanity completely. It does make me wonder, however, if there are certain individuals who never had it to begin with. Amaris and Brian come to mind.

I don't think you've had your humanity permanently taken away from you, Thomas. And obviously, intense situations can still make you feel. It may be difficult to reach you at the moment, but clearly there is a you to reach. Honey, I'd be more inclined to suggest that everything you've been through has brought you at least to depression, and possibly that you might be suffering some level of PTSD. That's more of a question for Abby, though. What I am sure of, is that they haven't burnt the humanity out of you. None of them could do that.

[suave-thomas.livejournal.com]

I'd like to think so. That there's some clinical name for it. But I was at the ocean and all I could do was stare at it. It gave me nothing. Not peace, not joy...absolutely nothing.

[in-spectre-mors.livejournal.com]

Oh, Thomas. I'm so sorry. I understand what a tremendous thing that is.

When was the last time you did feel those things?

[suave-thomas.livejournal.com]

Peace and joy? Without faking it? God... When James and I planted the garden together probably. I think that was...May? Though it's worse since the Templar.

[in-spectre-mors.livejournal.com]

Hmm... in that case, I think you're right. Mary may well have something there.

I'm so sorry things have been this way for you, Thomas. You deserve the utmost in happiness, and not the shite that's been heaped upon you.

[suave-thomas.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry too. I'm not the only one who has to deal with it, at least I can still see that. If affects people, which is why I tried so hard to ignore it.

I guess I'll go be a monk then. See what happens. I don't know what to say, Adrian.

[in-spectre-mors.livejournal.com]

Thomas, if there's one thing you've always done, it's the right thing by your family. You don't have to apologise. All I want is for you to do what you need to do to start recovering. We can take everything else as it comes. I love you, Thomas. You can contact me any time you need to. I'll miss you, but more than that, I'll be wishing and hoping with all I am for positive things to come upon you.

[suave-thomas.livejournal.com]

I know you will. I know that very well. I guess you're doing the thing that speaks to your soul and I'll go try to figure out what mine is.

[in-spectre-mors.livejournal.com]

I hope when you find it, Thomas, you find something that you're able to make peace with. I think you will.

[suave-thomas.livejournal.com]

I don't even know why I'm bothering to try though. It'll just get tortured out of me again.

[in-spectre-mors.livejournal.com]

I think the why is part of what you'll find. It may not even be the first thing, but it's out there. I can assure you of that. Please... I know you can't feel it yourself, but take me at my word.

You and I both know it would be foolish to say there's any certainty about where our lives might lead. We live dangerous ones. But to forsake life on the basis of that is no life at all, and you have a very full life here. I think, if you give it time, you'll find it's a life worth the risk of living.

[suave-thomas.livejournal.com]

I burned for forty hours. Christ wandered for forty days. In the end he didn't give into temptation, but I fear I burned because I already have.

[in-spectre-mors.livejournal.com]

Oh, Thomas... that's only what they want you to believe. The sort of thing Samson would have once had me believe. But even he has come to see the wrong of that. It didn't happen because of temptation, it happened because they're evil men, and you're good and brave enough to stand up to them. That too is something Christ's experiences, unfortunately, showed us. That there are always those who will stop at nothing to persecute just and upright men.

[suave-thomas.livejournal.com]

But I will never stop being that heretic in their eyes. I will always be the Antichrist's lover. Which means they won't ever stop. And praying to their God seems...dirty. Even if once He was mine.

[in-spectre-mors.livejournal.com]

Yes... I understand. While personally, I cannot reconcile their God with the one I would like to believe in, or the man I believed Christ to be, I can understand that having come from a shared tradition with them, there's a great deal of conflict there. All I can really say is that we'll oppose them, and one day, perhaps we'll stop them. Doubtless there was a time when it looked like the Nazis would never be defeated, too. And while they weren't around for nearly as long, I think their defeat does show that good can triumph, and not just in fiction.

[suave-thomas.livejournal.com]

Good? I don't even believe it exists anymore.

[in-spectre-mors.livejournal.com]

Oh, my Thomas. Then I truly hope that someone or something is able to restore your faith. I hate that this has been done to you. I hate that someone has hurt you so terribly.

[suave-thomas.livejournal.com]

I'll talk to you sometime then, Spectre.

[in-spectre-mors.livejournal.com]

All right, Thomas. I love you.

[suave-thomas.livejournal.com]

I know you do.

[lady-with-thee.livejournal.com]

My personal experience is that people can be damaged, but not destroyed. Something will always remain, and that something can always be nurtured back to some semblance of health. Sometimes it isn't much, I will admit. But it's something.

I can't deny that it's possible to do permanent damage to a person. Some psychological and physiological effects are irreversible. It's undeniable that going through everything you have is going to change things. Trauma like that... it would have to change your outlook. But in all honesty, I don't think what you're feeling now is forever. I think it is something you'll have to weather, and as ever, you'll have your loved ones by your side as you do that, and beyond. But I think all you need do is look at your relationships with your children to see that the humanity is still well and truly alive within you. That you still feel. With time, I think it'll get easier to feel. Maybe when the terrible things aren't so immediate, they'll stop overwhelming the good so much.

[suave-thomas.livejournal.com]

Something is more than nothing.

I uhm...I don't think I should admit to what I'm feeling about my kids right now. It's not bad!! Before...someone smacks me or something. It's just more emptiness.

[lady-with-thee.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't have assumed something bad. But this does worry me deeply, as I'm sure you can imagine. Being a father is something that's ingrained to your core, and if the hurt that's been done to you is reaching that far... well, it's understating the matter terribly to say it's serious.

I know things are made even more difficult by the fact that the Pull is well and truly in effect now, but the most positive thing I can think of for you is to take some serious time out. The quiet might help. And I'm not talking about a hospital, or a day at the beach. I mean something more visceral. Earthy. Like a temple. Maybe somewhere you could garden. Even if you felt nothing about it at first, to engage in a ritual, something that could come to mean something. I think the best thing might be to start something from scratch, before trying to come back to the things that went before.

But that's just my musing. I understand if it doesn't sound right for you.

[suave-thomas.livejournal.com]

You mean go on an actual sabbatical?

You know what? I think you might have it there. I'm still pretty stuck. I'm not going anywhere in a hurry. And I can handle the pain of the Pull, thanks to things fucking up when I was alive.

You're a genius.

[lady-with-thee.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. I'm really glad you like the idea, Thomas. It means you can start with the most basic element, quiet, and move on from there.

[suave-thomas.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

Thank you, Mary.

[lady-with-thee.livejournal.com]

Always, my love.

[empress-tasha.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I could say. I've seen people do inhuman things. I've seen people reduced to the lowest ebb of existence. I've seen them scavenge in the streets, and take from those who were too weak to stop them in order to eke out another day's survival. I've seen the sort of shit men like Magnus and Lucard Noir have done.

I don't have any idea what, if anything, that says about what you're going through now, though. All I know is that I don't think they could do that to you. I think the fact that you're saying this here is a good sign. You want out of this resignation, so you'll find a way. It may not be easy, and it may not even be soon. But I think you can do it, because I know the brave and unrelenting way you approach things, even - and perhaps especially - the hard ones, once you've made a decision.

Is it possible to burn out humanity? Maybe. Is it possible to burn the humanity out of you? If you ask me, probably not.

[suave-thomas.livejournal.com]

I've eaten wood and wallpaper and dead person to do the same. Or tried... How could anything be like it was after that?

I hate feeling this way. I want my old self back. The me before I ever lived twice. I miss that me.

I guess that remains to be seen. I'm just a shell anyway, really.

[empress-tasha.livejournal.com]

I don't think it can be. But I do think that you have it in you to make something positive of the way things are now, even if the way to do that isn't apparent at the moment. I do wish you didn't have to feel this way, though.

I don't think you're a shell. In a way, all our bodies are, but it's the soul inside that matters. It's the soul that animates them. The bodies aren't what make you Thomas. You're still Thomas in the Beyond without it. Your body may be a shell, but you are not.

[suave-thomas.livejournal.com]

I know. So do I.

If that's what you think.

[empress-tasha.livejournal.com]

I do, Thomas. That's not going to change.

[suave-thomas.livejournal.com]

Good. Please keep thinking it?

[empress-tasha.livejournal.com]

Never gonna stop.