- Jun 18, 2015
- 10,109
- Gender
- Female
- Pronouns
- She/Her
- Posting Status
- Irregularly
Angelo wondered for a moment if he'd always known. Maybe not always, but for a long time. It felt so obvious in retrospect, now that Broen had spelt it out, and his brain kept repeating you always knew this, because a part of him had.
Just like Blade. Just like a lot of people. Broen couldn't just be normal. He couldn't be like Angelo or Travis. He couldn't bother himself with normal things like school and taxes and apartment hunting and normalacy.
But that didn't mean he had to be wrong.
"Please just - just let me talk, alright?" Angelo stayed where he was, sitting on the couch, looking up at Broen's face. At the damage. The damage that might never get undone. "Just let me say my piece, and then you can yell or tell me I'm an idiot or whatever, okay?"
He just had to say it. To say the whole thing, without Broen saying no, that's a stupid idea. Had to explain his reasoning.
"I know. I know you can't do this. You can't just be normal. You can't just... can't just slide into a normal life and graduate and get a job and settle down and have two point five kids and retire and all that. It's not you. It was never you. And that was... I think part of that was my fault, for assuming you could. For assuming that everyone from Halcyon would be like me, could just adjust and be like this and slot back into a normal life they were never a part of. And I'm sorry for that. But..."
There was the but. Anyone listening to him speak must have known it was coming.
"You can be better. You can make things better. Not... not normal. Not civilian. But better. Use it. Use this anger you have and all your skills and use it. You're... you're so smart. You have all these skills. I'm not going to call them gifts, because they're not gifts, you weren't given them, you took them, you earned them for yourself, and you should use them. You should make things better. Like you made me better."
He paused a moment, closing his eyes, and then tried his best to explain.
"You could be a scout. Not an extraction scout, because that would never be you, but a field scout. Someone who gets into the dirt. Who gets involved in the gangs and the organizations, who digs around through the underbelly. Who finds people. People who are being hurt. Kids and adults and teenagers. Who need help. Who you could help. And you could hurt the people who are hurting them, but at the end of the day it's about making sure they're okay. You could... you could do all that, and you'd be the best at that. At saving people who couldn't be saved. And you could make the world better, and still not force yourself into a box."
He could be the person who he wished had saved himself. But Angelo couldn't make himself say that, even as he squeezed his eyes shut, reaching up to rub at his eyes and forcing himself to take a deep breath.
"I just... I know you can be better."
Just like Blade. Just like a lot of people. Broen couldn't just be normal. He couldn't be like Angelo or Travis. He couldn't bother himself with normal things like school and taxes and apartment hunting and normalacy.
But that didn't mean he had to be wrong.
"Please just - just let me talk, alright?" Angelo stayed where he was, sitting on the couch, looking up at Broen's face. At the damage. The damage that might never get undone. "Just let me say my piece, and then you can yell or tell me I'm an idiot or whatever, okay?"
He just had to say it. To say the whole thing, without Broen saying no, that's a stupid idea. Had to explain his reasoning.
"I know. I know you can't do this. You can't just be normal. You can't just... can't just slide into a normal life and graduate and get a job and settle down and have two point five kids and retire and all that. It's not you. It was never you. And that was... I think part of that was my fault, for assuming you could. For assuming that everyone from Halcyon would be like me, could just adjust and be like this and slot back into a normal life they were never a part of. And I'm sorry for that. But..."
There was the but. Anyone listening to him speak must have known it was coming.
"You can be better. You can make things better. Not... not normal. Not civilian. But better. Use it. Use this anger you have and all your skills and use it. You're... you're so smart. You have all these skills. I'm not going to call them gifts, because they're not gifts, you weren't given them, you took them, you earned them for yourself, and you should use them. You should make things better. Like you made me better."
He paused a moment, closing his eyes, and then tried his best to explain.
"You could be a scout. Not an extraction scout, because that would never be you, but a field scout. Someone who gets into the dirt. Who gets involved in the gangs and the organizations, who digs around through the underbelly. Who finds people. People who are being hurt. Kids and adults and teenagers. Who need help. Who you could help. And you could hurt the people who are hurting them, but at the end of the day it's about making sure they're okay. You could... you could do all that, and you'd be the best at that. At saving people who couldn't be saved. And you could make the world better, and still not force yourself into a box."
He could be the person who he wished had saved himself. But Angelo couldn't make himself say that, even as he squeezed his eyes shut, reaching up to rub at his eyes and forcing himself to take a deep breath.
"I just... I know you can be better."
