"Shut up!" he hollers, still having a meltdown in fact, "How dare you! How dare you! You know what I am! They, they know what I am," he gestures to where the Banekin may or may not still be, he isn't looking, and then gesturing down to Powell's still-present beaten and bitten and bloody rotten corpse, "he knows what I am!"
He brings up his hands, his bloody fingers, laughing into them--a shrill, demented howl. "Preach," he gasps, "preach what? What invests me with the right? After what I've done! I didn't even know! I don't remember it!" His gestures are wild, clawing at the air because he cannot claw his chest, cannot pull at his hair. "I had to guess! I had to be told what I did! Because like an animal I couldn't help myself, and no matter how much I try to be good and practice patience and fidelity and mercy, that is who I am! An animal!"
He presses his hands to his eyes. "Of course any man has a right to defend himself. I learned how to box for it. But--I joined the priesthood for a reason. I'm meant to set the example. And think about the men I was surrounded with on Earth. Doctors. The sick and wounded. Hawkeye--he might give someone a black eye, but at no moment would it ever occur to him, from the bottom of his heart to the top, to murder someone else. I know this--I saw it, spirit, he died beside me countless times for it--" his voice strangles as he searches fruitlessly for another stone, "--and yet, after decades of preaching His word and surrounding myself with healers, nothing has worked!"
(To stop being his father's son. He got his awful temper from him.)
He seethes, "I hate him! I would kill him again, I know I would! I would kill 2! I am an angry, hateful creature, I dream of vengeance more than mercy, and I don't know what is so wrong with me that I failed to change this! Spirit, what is there to grow from such poisoned roots? The thing to do would be to rip them out and--"
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cw maladapted spirituality from religious abuse, light reference to child abuse, suicidal ideation
Date: 2025-01-03 03:50 am (UTC)He brings up his hands, his bloody fingers, laughing into them--a shrill, demented howl. "Preach," he gasps, "preach what? What invests me with the right? After what I've done! I didn't even know! I don't remember it!" His gestures are wild, clawing at the air because he cannot claw his chest, cannot pull at his hair. "I had to guess! I had to be told what I did! Because like an animal I couldn't help myself, and no matter how much I try to be good and practice patience and fidelity and mercy, that is who I am! An animal!"
He presses his hands to his eyes. "Of course any man has a right to defend himself. I learned how to box for it. But--I joined the priesthood for a reason. I'm meant to set the example. And think about the men I was surrounded with on Earth. Doctors. The sick and wounded. Hawkeye--he might give someone a black eye, but at no moment would it ever occur to him, from the bottom of his heart to the top, to murder someone else. I know this--I saw it, spirit, he died beside me countless times for it--" his voice strangles as he searches fruitlessly for another stone, "--and yet, after decades of preaching His word and surrounding myself with healers, nothing has worked!"
(To stop being his father's son. He got his awful temper from him.)
He seethes, "I hate him! I would kill him again, I know I would! I would kill 2! I am an angry, hateful creature, I dream of vengeance more than mercy, and I don't know what is so wrong with me that I failed to change this! Spirit, what is there to grow from such poisoned roots? The thing to do would be to rip them out and--"
... he stops, suddenly, eyes wide, shaking.