whistling past graveyards

[likesthecoat]

[Filtered to friends]

You know, it's not every day in this job that the bad guys are ordinary people.

It's happened before, of course. What we thought was something malicious and powerful turned out to be petty and small. But still evil. Make no mistake about that.

This . . . I can't say it was evil. More that it was desperate--the same kind of desperation that drives people into a frenzy to feel.

When I want to feel alive, I run. I swim. I cook. I visit family. I talk to friends. If I'm very lucky, I make love.

I can't imagine a life so empty that the only thing that gives it purpose is to risk death.

Comments

[morethanteaboy.livejournal.com]

The more I see, the more I'm convinced "normal" is just a comforting lie we tell ourselves.

[need-to-believe.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well, still, it's a continuum. I've met people for whom the weirdest thing about them was some mild sexual kink or something.

And then there's monsters, serial killers, rapists, kidnappers. And worse.

[morethanteaboy.livejournal.com]

Yes. I know about that sort of thing.

[need-to-believe.livejournal.com]

I hope it isn't as intimately as I do.

[morethanteaboy.livejournal.com]

I suspect not, but enough to be aware.

[need-to-believe.livejournal.com]

Bad enough.

The only thing that gets me through the day most of the time is knowing the opposite's true as well. No matter what evil you find, there's always the people willing to die to beat it.

[morethanteaboy.livejournal.com]

I was once told the danger we face is worth it, to protect people. I'm getting better at believing it.

[need-to-believe.livejournal.com]

I wonder, on my bad days. But those aren't so often anymore. Havin' the kid around makes it easy to see why I gave up everything else. Nothing like offspring for perspective.

[morethanteaboy.livejournal.com]

I've no kids myself and no plans for them but I do have two nieces and a nephew I'd cross an ocean of broken glass for. So, yes. They're worth it.

[need-to-believe.livejournal.com]

Oh, I never did either. Hell, I was 40 when he was born.

But even if most of the adults are a loss, there are a lot of kids on this planet, aren't there?

[morethanteaboy.livejournal.com]

My chosen partner is a bloke. So I'm sure you understand the complications there.

Yes, there are, and they're all worth protecting, but it's easier on the human mind to put a face and a name on an issue than try to understand the vast numbers that actually exist.

[need-to-believe.livejournal.com]

Ah, but you have a partner, nonetheless? Then you never know, not really. Believe me, only the most bizarre of circumstances could've pull Will's mother and I in the position we were in and lead to his birth, and yet here he is.

Not that you should want kids, necessarily. Only pointing out that sometimes they just...happen. And not in the broken condom sort of way.

[morethanteaboy.livejournal.com]

Yes, I do have a partner, but as I said, he's a bloke. And I'm a bloke. And neither of us have the kind of sedate lifestyle that would persuade an adoption agency to give us a child.

[need-to-believe.livejournal.com]

'course not. I don't know, that isn't really what I meant, I just -- well, I don't know what I meant. Forget it.

[morethanteaboy.livejournal.com]

I don't either, so all right.

[need-to-believe.livejournal.com]

Sorry. Today's shaping up to be one of the bad ones.

[morethanteaboy.livejournal.com]

The bad ones?

[need-to-believe.livejournal.com]

Sometimes the memories just get a little overwhelming, that's all.

I think that concludes my emo hour for today. I apologize.

[morethanteaboy.livejournal.com]

It's not trouble, I just don't understand at all.

[need-to-believe.livejournal.com]

I get that a lot. No problem.