There was a time where he never doubted himself, his actions. He would revel, even laugh about the terrible acts he’d accomplish. Some of the worst, without morals or remorse. He’d cherished and loved it when anyone said they’d hated him, that he disgusted them. Terrible and monster were terms of endearment.

Now? He didn’t know what to think of it. It felt like so long ago that Avi had taken things into her own hands. The one who lifted that mirror and torn off his mask, revealing himself to him. Without the veil, his own blinded views and inability to really feel the wrongs he’d done. Funny how just a few weeks, or months, could feel like a lifetime.

Calling him a monster didn’t feel like it used to. Instead, it brought on memories in another woman’s voice, his own cries in a youthful voice. Knuckles knocking against a door until they’d bled, begging and pleading to be taken from the darkness that barrier had set upon him. Fear and dread overcoming him, consuming him, devouring him until there was nothing left but a numb coil of a tiny body on the floor, trembling and silent until he’d fallen asleep.

There had been a time where monster seemed to run in the family. Like father like son. His mother had reminded him time and time again. Treating it like an illness inherited, prophesying he’d wind up just like the man she’d grown to detest, fear, and resent. At first, he’d done it and only spat it in her face later. I guess you were right, with a coyote grin and a maddening cackle.

Even as he curled up in a ball now beneath the thick comforter that afforded little comfort, he felt like nothing more than he did all those decades ago. Confused, self-loathing, believing those words over and over again but he knew damn well he couldn’t rely on a lack of guilt to veil his beliefs.

Shutting himself away from Aviana, as long as it would last, and knowing how little that feeble lock on the door could or would last if she wanted to terrorize him more. After all, wasn’t this Karma? For all those defenseless women who’d been terrorized by him, Aviana included. He didn’t expect any less, and knew exactly it was what he deserved.

Still, he could accept his solace when it was given. As much as he wanted to sleep, he couldn’t. He didn’t know if he had Avi fooled in believing he was napping all those times he’d holed himself up in his room. Sure, he did at times. When his body gave in to the exhaustion and crashed hard enough to leave him stiff and sore. Most times, he spent laying on the bed and staring at the hands that had done so much wrong. All the detestful actions that had made him vomit the moment she’d flipped the Guilt Switch on.

Give and Take in Old English font, scrawled by ink that had seeped into his skin. It had been a morbid trophy of his most favored hobbies, and now they were disgusting reminders of everything he’d done. He could hardly look at himself in the mirror, and when he did, he was taunted by more ink draped like a necklace at his throat in delicate cursive. Forgive But Don’t Forget. How ironic. There was no forgetting, and he knew there was no forgiveness for the likes of him.

When he curled his fingers into a fist to take a break from staring at the ink on his knuckles, more haunting ink was there to remind him. Possibly the one that hurt the most. The images of women on his hands, in Day of the Dead style with their skeletal faces staring back at him. Keepsakes of the Goddess he’d loved so much, and who he thought loved him back.

She’d accepted him in all his terrible, awful glory. She’d seen him without his mask and loved him for it, promised him herself and made more promises that seemed to be shattered. Dust in the wind.

I’ll never leave you. Then where was she now?

Spiraling into a cycle of self-loathing, shame, guilt, and anger, he hated and ached for her at the same time. Blaming himself for his mistakes, ashamed in the consistent thought that she was disappointed in him. That he’d finally crossed that line, and she’d dropped him like a pin in a silent room. He hated her for her lies, selfishly.

When it all came down to it, she left him. She’d promised him the world, and made him feel proud of every monstrous thing he’d ever done - and abandoned him when he stretched himself out further than his usual jobs. But this one had been personal.

Is this what it feels like to be betrayed? Is this what Aviana felt when I did what I did? For a moment, his brows furrowed so deep they threatened to disappear completely into the shadows of his eye sockets. Eyes a dull shade of jade had closed as he wished for sleep that gave him no comfort, only reminded him that he was shut off from Quagmire. Which only further implied she’d left him, why no one had come for him by now.

Even with the other body in this apartment, he felt alone. He still didn’t understand why she kept him around, why he hadn’t woken up to her standing over his bed with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire to bludgeon him to death. Or at the very least… why she didn’t kick his ass to the streets to fend for himself.

The fact she’d taken him in, let him come back, and even dragged his drunken stupefied ass to the couch when he’d tried to find peace at the bottom of a vodka bottle. The only thing he’d found was the newfound ability to truly get drunk again (which, admittedly, wasn’t as bad) but also the inability to walk a straight line. Unless it was to barrel his ass into a wall when he forgot he had a working thumper in his chest and real blood coursing through his veins, leaving him unable to manipulate or shadow portal his ass around town.

She seemed to enjoy fucking with his head, making him doubt … and constantly looking over his shoulder. All of this, even the kiss, and the small acts of kindness like trying to give him a blanket, all seemed to be a plot or a build up for a grander scheme. The other shoe is going to drop at any moment now. He was sure of it, just for paranoia to take hold, and doubt those thoughts, too. Maybe she just wants me to be paranoid… Or… maybe she wants me to think I’m overthinking things and let my guard down so she could strike…

Groaning and growling in a much less impressive way these days, he climbed underneath the thick blanket to assume his favored, curled up position. No part of him was left open to the room, and the only thing that made the heated cocoon bearable to breathe in.. was the fact he didn’t neglect showers in his self-loathing and hatred. No, instead that was another one of his favored places. To stand beneath the pelting water so hot it left his skin pink and raw, as if he could punish himself.

Avi had been right that night. She didn’t need to. He was doing a good bit of it himself. Though, he was sure she still had fun with it.

And just like all the times before, what dragged him from his cocoon was Aviana’s pestering, the need to piss or the sloshing shake of a liquor bottle.