warriorscribe | Snowblind Inbox

[Enoch's sudden hesitation is strange, though it doesn't undo the effect of his words, from which eddies are still spreading like from a rock thrown in a deep pool. The churn drags up memories, and he continues to turn them in his mind and examine them in the light of Enoch's words. To invent reasons or go searching for them is exactly right, or he'd still be a careless thug wandering day to day, thinking like an animal, not an immortal. And it doesn't matter where his path had brought him to - how many closed doors, how many dead ends - worst of all still seems the idea of never starting on it in the first place.

Maybe it would have been better, to never want grace rather than come to the knowledge that he could never have it. But that just seems a different kind of damnation.

He blinks when Enoch's tone changes, and stares, half coming back to the present and taking a while to understand what his friend means. At last his face softens into a sad and sincere version of one of his wry grins. Touching, that Enoch thinks this, but he doesn't understand.]

The human part of me? Don't bother with it, Enoch. The mortal man I was - he was no loss to me because he was barely anything. Everything I am - [his gaze flicks down to his hands as he raises them to look at.] It's all this. But - I'm starting to think that this means very different things than what I assumed.

[Beckett's answering shift in tone brings more warmth to his own. It's...undeniably wonderful, to have a friend he can talk about these things with. Someone else who gained immortality from a mortal life. Who has lived a comparable amount of time, in a largely mortal-populated plane.

He'd like to go on, about how their mortal lives are what shaped their immortal selves, so long ago. Putting these thoughts into words helps him hold on to his reason, too. But he can't linger on this thought and talk over Beckett. He'd be a terrible friend if he didn't follow through here. If he didn't give Beckett the chance to speak for himself and kept tossing assumptions out. Eventually toes would be stepped on, and Heaven forbid he knowingly hurt anyone he cares for. Heaven forbid he damage this bond he's come to treasure more than he thought he would.]

I'd say you never quite lost him. I did little of consequence as a mortal, myself, but it's still where I came from. But...what does it mean to you, to be what you are?

It's more than not doing anything of consequences. I was... asleep. A log in the currents, Anatole called it. He woke me. He - [ The memory is so wildly vivid, it takes over him completely when it comes. He's silent for a little while as he fights his way back to the surface over it.]

He thought I was chosen, [he mutters at last. Now he knows Anatole was right, though he doesn't know if his friend, his first teacher had ever truly known the meaning of it, had ever foreseen what would come of the two of them. But perhaps, knowing Anatole. Perhaps that was his ultimate comfort.]

Once they told me that I was damned, so I set out to prove damnation wasn't real. Then I learned I was wrong, and I thought my continued existence was damnation itself. Now... I wonder if all of it was only in me, in all along. Damnation, grace, meaning - if all of those were only names I've given to my own lack of understanding.

Oh, Beckett...

[The thought that he had believed himself damned by essence, that in finding more purpose than he ever had as a mortal he was somehow wrong, takes such painful hold of his heart he can focus on nothing else.]

I have tasted the agony, fear, ugly hatred, and bleak despair of damnation for myself. You are certainly not. Your capacity to bring joy and comfort to others, and to find it in return, that is not something one corrupted can do without breaking free of its influence. I am...I'm so glad you've moved away from such thoughts.

And-

[He exhales a breath he'd caught in his throat without realizing at the mention of his time in The Darkness. Strangely, the spike of remembered pain and fear doesn't resonate as strongly...]

And even if you somehow were, if a demon had laid claim to you, I would fight for you.

[...It's seemingly useless in the face of the calm conviction of protection. His own feelings had always come after anything he might feel for those around him, especially the ones who had found a place close to his heart.]

[His capacity to bring comfort to others - he almost laughs, because he's a vampire, for heaven's sake, and what does Enoch know about all the blood that's flowed over his hands and down his throat for centuries? But the laughter stops in his tight throat, and he thinks instead about Enoch, and about Angel, and Rhys, and Brian, and back before them he thinks about the last words he'd said to Lucita. his last friend. They hadn't saved her life, but he knows, he knows they had pulled her back from the consuming darkness. He'd invoked Anatole's name, of course, it was Anatole who had freed them both, really. But Anatole was gone and he had remained, her friend.

And here is Enoch now, doing much the same for him. This reminder that there was a path of light to follow, not just outside one's self, but inside as well.]

Enoch, [he says quietly, into the darkness behind his closed eyelids, which is deep and soothing somehow, a dark that is peace.] My friend, I don't know if God has forgiven me, but... I think just now, your forgiveness is enough.

And you will have it, always.

["Show love, mercy, and forgiveness, in the name of the Lord," Michael had said once, so long ago he doesn't remember the context and the words themselves are a faint echo in his memory. He hadn't needed it - love, mercy, and forgiveness were default states of his. Michael had likely been instructed to tell him so, because the reason it was needed was because God and His angels could or would not. Not in a way humans would perceive as any of those three, if so.

So when Beckett says, in serenity that he feels too, that his forgiveness is enough, it fills him with joy and satisfaction. He exhales slowly, calm pervading the shadows that had burrowed into his mind, lifting away their fog and granting him a moment of precious true peace. He had brought to mind his darkest moment, and through this connection with his friend, had hardly felt the wounds it had left on his psyche.

Even if it was only just this once, love truly could conquer all.]

Snowblind Inbox

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject