#he's not as off the deep end as jack vessalius who i am now realising i might have gathered

[mythvoiced]

@astremourante | 'I've killed for you, who else can say that?' for doe 😌😌😌😌

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Doe wishes he could honestly claim he does drugs.

He wishes he'd be familiar enough with them to have more intimate ways of referring to it, having mastered both the art and the lingo of those who see control in the loss of control granted by the proper kind of intoxication, poisoning for the greater goal of forgetting one's alive.

But he can't lose what little control he has left.

Even if he gets drunk enough to laugh and lose the concept of what he's so upset about all the time, he relinquishes in the high of feeling like nothing matters... and in the atrocities awaiting him the next day.

Almost as though he drinks specifically for the hangover.

Maybe Amelia serves the same role.

Maybe drowning himself in her knowing he'll only end up looking back with nothing but regret and nausea is one of the many ways he chooses to actually maintain control.

The freedom of inebration, of a good high, those aren't control.

Being the one to determine how exactly and what will hurt, that is what true control is about.

Maybe he's just lost his mind.

Maybe he should have bought something comfier to sit in for himself.

He's slumped on his chair, his legs stretched away from himself, his back halfway on its way to slide down completely. His arms hang, limb and devoid of purpose, and he's staring at the same ceiling tile he stares at at least once a day.

He doesn't remember the name of the person this building belonged to.

Who else can say that, indeed?

He turns his head the way one might try to turn a heavy rock to show a different side of itself. The motion looks as though he and his neck weren't in total agreement of performing it, as though he is drunk right now or finally admitting to not being the real owner of his own body.

He looks at Amelia - he luxury he doesn't always allow himself.

She's the epitome of all he should show to hide everything as well as she does. The confidence in her movements and posture, the training that must have gone, perhaps privately chosen perhaps forced upon her, that allows her to move exactly as she intends to, to portray exactly the person she intends to be.

He can't fully believe she is the way she presents herself. It's not so much an instinct, as it is a grotesquely and deeply buried-alive desire that maybe, just maybe, there is more to whatever is going on here than the joy she portrays at getting on his nerves.

Tom and Jerry were supposedly friends too, pretending to fight to keep actual mouse-eating cats out of the household.

The comparison doesn't sit too well, they aren't friends, Doe doesn't know how to have friends, anyway.

Nor is there a bigger, meaner cat somewhere one of them must ward off to protect the other.

He can't imagine they are out to protect the other, anyway, he can't imagine either of them would even welcome that - would even know how to.

But she does kill for him.

He pays her to do so, sure. But she's skilled, efficient, renown, she doesn't need his money. She doesn't need him.

And frankly, one job turning into two, turning into three was never the plan, either. If he were to run things as he usually does, and make use of her con-artistry and intel instead, things might even runner smoother.

But she has killed for him.

And it fills a corner of the abyss inside him with rotten, blood-coloured paste.

A smile crawls tiredly onto his lips, stretches itself out there like a man done fighting for his life, lying down, ready to welcome death.

"No one," he shakes his head to underline his words, then nods to concede to hers. No one.

"Tell me, do you want me to kill for you, too? What do you want me to do? Should I burn the world down?" Doe-eyes were his allegedly as a child, always torn wide open, darting to and fro, like a doe waiting for the hunter to finally show himself. Now he holds them wide open in memory of that child, as if trying be genuine just this once.

"What should I do? What would you like me to do?"