Tag: trucidavit

End Of The Game

@trucidavit continued from [x]

The smile that flit across his lips was entirely unintentional – and he knew it would only provoke her further, no matter how swiftly he managed to suppress it. It was there – as clear as her rage with him – that it was an impotent emotion. There was nothing she could do to stop him – nothing she could say that would change this outcome. It was over – and her absolute refusal to accept that she could not hurt him for refusing to stay in this house was just further proof that they were no longer compatible. 

It was perhaps for the best that Miranda did not voice her opinions in regard to his mother – for his will not to strike back would surely wither, and he would feel obligated to point out the bitter truth that the only one who had fought for him as opposed to their own damaged pride was in fact his mother! She was the reason he was not in Bedlam, she was the reason he still remembered his own name, and by God, it was she who had pushed Alfred out of society to make it at all possible for Miranda and James to even access him in the first place, but oh yes – let it be believed that the ones who only took action after they believed him dead were the fucking righteous in this affair! 

As it was, all Miranda had to offer was an attack on him – a will to blame him for all of it – and a display of her own pride in the power that she now wielded over James. He saw no reason not to let her if it meant she would cease mourning a man she had buried well before he was dead. Let her have her rage, let her burn him down until there was nothing left, and perhaps by some remaining grace she would move on. His role in these tales was over – and that was the fact of it all. Whether she liked it or not. 

He stepped forward without a word – he had nothing to say to her, nothing he could say that would not be biting or cruel, and she was right about his pride. Ten years at war with the idea he could even have such a thing, that he could make any decision for himself, had him quite frankly thrilled with the power of making this call. Yet for all that, his posture was neither defiant nor threatening – there was a readiness in case she lashed out physically, but beyond that he seemed to be maintaining an effort to keep himself smaller so as not to tower or loom as he simply made to walk past her. 

He would dismiss himself, and if she fought that effort, what came next would be of her own making.  

💥@thomas in the miranda lives too au

{ Nonverbal Starters }

image

This was it, of course. The moment he had known was inevitable, as inescapable as any other fact of life. As sure as death itself, this loss had been perceived from the very moment of its birth, for no joy could mask sorrows that tracked so deep as this for long, without turning to bitter ash upon one’s tongue. 

It was all he could do, to contain within himself every ounce of his rage, to restrain behind his teeth the venom that pooled upon his tongue like the forgotten taste of sweet and perfumed wines. He would remember this moment for years to come – with the same cacophony of frustrations echoing inside of himself as he recalled so many more, but for the singular difference of pride. 

Too long had he been haunted by the times in which he had been helpless against those who wronged him. Terrorized by the sensation of being dragged to his knees screaming by the force of all that which stood against him – figurative and real alike. And in this moment, when the power rested solely in his hands – he refused to sound as he did then. 

He would not be the animal hauled howling into its confinement, but rather the man who would – with every ounce of dignity remaining to him – wash his hands of it. The chains that bound him to the past had been lifted – and he would be damned if he let his wife and his lover tangle him back up, until at last he was strangled by the suffocating weight of what they claimed had been done in his name. 

Drawing his hand away from the wall it braced itself upon, he faced her one last time. Allowed for her to see his resolve – the stubbornness she claimed to have fallen in love with, and the ferocity that lay behind it. When he spoke, it was not in fury but rather, in the natural finality of what he knew must be said between them.

He had loved her, once. In his own way, he had found the very stars to guide himself in her smile. Her laughter had been incentive enough, at times, to carry on when it felt as though it might be wise, just this once, to not pick up the fight. She had soothed his storms for years, as surely as she had fuelled them. He would do what he could to preserve that between them – it was the last of the promises he owed her. For better or worse indeed – just as death, surely, had parted them.

The death of the life they had once shared together. Of the man he had once been, and the woman who had loved that man. Whomsoever stood before him now – this Miss Barlow – was no more his wife than James Flint was his lover.

“Goodbye, Miranda.” 

Mmkay but imagine a Miranda lives AU in which Thomas inevitably finds out she was the instrumental one is sending James after his parents yikes

I feel like you and @intolerablexsacrifice had a chit-chat cause I was yelling about this at him on Discord after posting that little trifecta of horrors on Thomas and the impact of realizing Flint = McGraw = The man who killed his parents fucking knew them. 

And as outlined there it – is not a rational response. As time passes he absolutely reaches a point of acceptance and in regards to Alfred, he is admittedly fairly indifferent. He understands that, and there is just enough viciousness in him to feel vindicated in knowing his father died trapped and afraid, at the hands of a man who knew his crimes. In the heat of the moment though, there is only one thing that stands out – with James and Miranda both – and that is the fact they treated his mother like fucking collateral. If not a downright tool to torture Alfred by – and while we know that is not the case as viewers – Thomas has no reason to believe otherwise. No reason to believe they showed her mercy, because these are the same people he, up until the moment of revelation, had no reason to think capable of killing her to begin with so it is like an immediate 180 in his mind.

And for a minute. A hot, horrible minute – he sees them as the monsters England forged them into. For a hot minute the premeditation necessary to execute their operation and to commit their crime against his mother ( because his father doesn’t count – in the heat of his fury Thomas feels nothing for Alfred and that is telling. Because while there are days he grieves for the unsaid, the unspoken, the unresolved – ultimately he knows himself vindicated, avenged in his father’s death. He knows he does not regret that he is gone, only that the relationship they had was not the one he wanted ) marks them in his mind as unforgivable. 

And depending on how he learns of her involvement – I honestly cannot say his response would not be violent. I know he struck James. I cannot honestly say he would not lash at her too and I hate that such violence is a genuine response, but it is. I can’t say he would be able to think past his anger and his grief to some kind of rational point. I do know that, regardless of how he learns this, he will walk out. Whether he lashes out or not, he will leave, because he will need time to consider precisely how he feels about it. 

Finding a balance with Miranda and James again after that would not be easy. When it is just James, we know for a fact James wouldn’t hold Miranda accountable. We know he’d place that noose around his own neck, and that in many ways she would remain the martyr between them. He can forgive James, because James is all that is left, because if he doesn’t then what the fuck was Miranda’s sacrifice for? 

But when she is right there, capable of putting her own voice to it, there’s no way she’d let herself stand as the martyr between them. And what is more – there is less incentive on Thomas’ end to be forgiving of either of them which – really makes me wonder if he would even make himself try. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” @thomas

{ Vaguely Concerning }

The soft, disappointed click of his tongue was at first his only answer as he concluded his sentence. The silence was broken only by the scratch of his quill after that, before at last he docked it and looked over at his wife fondly. In their years as friends and as a married couple, she had come to know him intimately well – predicting his movements as surely as he manipulated the actions of others with his words and experiments. 

She held a certain immunity to his games, though there were times when he felt it necessary to test her – not so much because he felt anything had changed, but because keeping her at her very best was invaluable. James was still in his training phases – enough so that she had heard Thomas deliver the same quiet note of disapproval more in the past few months than had been necessary in years. Between them, it was more of an internal joke than it was a signal – but the connotations it carried were heavy enough to bear the pause he needed. 

“My dear, if I informed you of everything, I fear you may lose the pleasure of experiencing anything resembling surprise in this life of ours.” Amusement pulled at the corners of his lips as he rose to his feet and went to meet her, smiling even as he reached out for her hands – placating as he was stern in his assertion, “It does me no good to be entirely predictable to anyone, least of all you.” 

☁️ & ☢ for Thomas!

{ Headcanon Requests }

☁ : Describe how they would spend a stormy, overcast/rainy day.

Prior to and following his time in Bedlam and the plantation, Thomas’ ideal method of dealing with rainy days involves reading – sometimes even writing – before a fire run low behind the grate, giving off more heat than light. Hours spent on the couch, or even wrapped up in a blanket on the floor, lost in the pages of other people’s ideas is – and has always been – his idea of paradise. 

Of course, prior to the traumatic events he underwent, such luxury as this could not always be afforded what with his burning passion for politics. Rainy days were optimal times for parties and get togethers as everyone wanted to be indoors, gathered together somewhere warm and comfortable where entertainment was readily available and easily maintained. Due to the rarity of his indulgence in privately spent rainy days, they were to Thomas all the more ideal and precious when they were utilized. 

Following his ordeal, how often Thomas is capable of indulging himself varies upon his verse and how he has healed – but it does remain his favored method of coping with the rain, regardless of where he is mentally or how he has recovered. 

☢ : Describe a thought or dream that would cause them to have a mental meltdown.

Thomas has been a hurricane all his life. Though there have been periods of calm, the eye of the storm always passes into a new barrage of action. When he was young and ambitious, these tempestuous periods of activity would find focus in achieving his goals with passionate discourse and heated debates. Keeping up with him was like chasing a tornado – there was a thrill to be found in following a man who spoke such revolutionary ideals, provided there was never any pressure to commit to the actions they claimed to support by listening to a radical voice of reason. 

He was never blind to the thrillseekers – never so naive as to believe that the men and women in his parlor were truly dedicated to his cause. They fancied themselves daring just to be there and he knew it – but it did not stop him from speaking his truth and praying to find the words that would shift the difference between a token presence and someone who truly believed change could be made possible. Though he knew them to be false in their commitments, he had never believed them all to be so false in their friendships – it was not the betrayal of his father that broke Thomas, so much as it was the ease in which the whole world seemed to have abandoned him to it. 

No voice rose in his defense, no man or woman took action in any way shape or form to spare him from the horrors of Bedlam, the indignities of the plantation. When he thinks of those days in the parlour, the passions shared in conversation and the dreams voiced in hurried whispers, Thomas finds a Judas in every face. When he thinks of how easily he was written from the world he had once been such a volatile part of, rage consumes him to the point he can barely breathe for the force of it. 

Hate is a powerful emotion – one of the hardest to overcome – for it requires the will to let go. Hate does not require forgiveness so much as it does the ability to breathe past the hurt – and for Thomas, it takes years to reach that point. Memories of the good days fill him with bile and fury, are painted so bitter and shallow he cannot see them in a kind light. 

The act of healing comes in rebuilding himself from the ground up, for the man he was before brings him no comforts, the man he is now has no individuality left – and the man he becomes always depends on how he decides to direct his hatred and his hurt for all that was done to him, and what little was done for him in any way he could tangibly feel.