Growing up in Ireland, surrounded by the IRA and raised on terrorism and death, you would think that you would be able to know a monster when you met one. But monsters come in so many disguises that you don't always recognize them. And even when you do, you can't always escape.
A monster can come with dancing eyes and a soothing Irish brogue. He sidles up beside you, holding a suggestion of danger and hint of sanctuary and chance at a life that is too exceptional to walk away from. He's good and beautiful and fits into your world so perfectly that you swear that God Himself had a hand in the design. Then you wake one morning to find him gone – the whole man nothing but a lie. And you? You can't let him go until you find a way to reconcile what you see with what you know to be true.
A monster can be government sanctioned. He cloaks himself in patriotism and in sacrifice and in blood. He lives the lie of a greater good and necessary evils. He presents himself as a paladin and good knight to those who are weak and in distress, but he follows those ideals into blackness and cloaked secrecy. And you? You stand at the edge of the darkness, willing for him to return.
A monster can be formed by a raging fire, kept alive in bad memories of evil deeds that can't quite be explained away with words like "necessity" and "orders" and "duty". Like the smell of smoke that lingers long after the fire has been vanquished, it never really goes away. Charred by those monstrous flames, he is quick to burst back into an inferno, ready to destroy everything around him. And you? You stand too close for too long and you become accustomed to the burn.
A monster can be a cold, icy demon that locks away all emotion with a fierce and iron will. He is able to leave and to forget and to walk away again and again. No pain, no loss, no love can hold him. There is only this drive, this invincible will, this force of being that follows some enigmatic code that is indecipherable to anyone but him. And you? You keep hoping that your passion will break through to his and free him to be the man you need him to be.
A monster can stand before you, disguised as a man you love. Or is the man you love. Has always been the man you love. He's willing to sacrifice everything - everything he is, everything he has ever had, every good thing that he has ever been. He's willing to throw that all away for a cause and a reason that he can't even articulate anymore. He stands before you and you're not even sure he can hear the words you say, see the pain that you are in, feel the love you have for him. That monster - still beautiful and still God-awful perfect - is willing to let that all die. Willing to let you die with it.
And you? You are willing to die. What's the point of living if the man you love doesn't exist – may have never existed – and all that appears before you is a monster who goes by the name of Michael Westen.