Ill-gotten LV was still burning in his bones, a wildfire clouding his thoughts and contributing heavily to his current state; as well as that of his surroundings. Everything in his current quarters was trashed, broken beyond repair. It looked almost as if some kind of a whirlwind had passed through, leaving nothing in its path untouched. In reality, it had all been Tick. In his LV induced rage-high he’d set his magic upon anything and everything. Nothing was to be spared from his outburst; his show of anger and anguish. An extreme kind of temper tantrum. Half beyond his control, half beyond his care. He just wanted his space to reflect his mind, his emotions. An utter mess. Scattered. Disjointed. Not how it was supposed to be. Not at all.

Tick had been abandoned here by Him. Told to think about what he’d done, his failures. (There was that word again, burned into his mind like a brand; failure.) Tick was under strict instructions to sit there and wait out the LV spike. There was to be no contact with Him until he was through. It had been days (...hadn’t it?). Nothing was changing. (Stagnante). He was still there, still abandoned alone. Still seemingly just as high on LV as he was when he first arrived.Some distant part of him wondered if that was his punishment. To be stuck here in this state for an eternity. A failure. Unworthy of His attention. Discarded the moment he proved not to be of the use He needed. It wasn’t like Tick was unaware that was the truth of his situation; he just hoped it hadn’t already come to that. No. No No No. It had not. It couldn’t have. One. One small mistake failure can’t have been enough for that. He inhales sharply, exhaling with the same force. Calm. Tick must calm himself. That’s what He’d said; get through the spike and get to go home return to Him.

It should have been easy. Why couldn’t it have been easy. He moved to smack one of his palms into the side of his skull, sharply. “Idiot.” Tick berated himself, “Simple plan. Get in. Capture not kill. You should have-” He cuts himself off. Thinking about the death he’d cause just made his bones itch, feel hotter. That train of thought must be avoided. He forced his arm back down, fisting it into the material of his jacket. None of this was helping. He was still just. Just here. Not where he was supposed to be. Not helping Him. Not… not cleaning up after his mess. He wanted to. So very badly. Prove he hadn’t ruined everything, that he hadn’t failed.

Mid lap his eyelights were drawn to a shard of what had once been a mirror on the ground, Tick studied himself within it. All he could see reflected back was a failure; the word still ringing in skull like poison, tainting his every thought. Tick was a failure, unlike Him. That thought had him pausing, ‘unlike Him.’ He would never have ruined such carefully laid plans like Tick had. Tick… Tick should be more like Him. He was still staring unblinking at himself while his mind processed the idea. He bent down to retrieve the shard, uncaring or perhaps unnoticing of the marrow now slowly oozing from where the edges had cut into his palms; grip on the piece firm enough it was a miracle it hadn't further cracked under the force. “Not a failure.” Watching himself say it didn’t make it any more convincing to Tick. Hearing Him say it would be the only balm to this wounded feeling festering in his soul. Still staring into the lights of failure, an idea crossed his hazy unfocused mind. It struck suddenly. Much like how everything had suddenly gone wrong. Tick needed to model himself after Him. To emulate Him. Be the best. Why not… make that literal. Just the outfit must not be enough. Tick needed to physically be more like Him. A single phalange traced a line down from his socket and over his cheekbone. He could. He honestly actually could. Tick wasn’t thinking clearly now, not by any definition of the word. The only things that rattled around his mind was how it sounded when He called him a failure and His face. The need to be (more like) Him. His will was resolute; this was happening.

What debatably rational parts of his mind were left reasoned that just smacking something into his skull might not give the pattern he craved, that doing so recklessly was most likely to simply spiderweb instead; unbidden stained glass came to mind. The way you’d score the glass first, giving it a path to follow; training it to behave. Something he knew a thing or two about. He glanced at the shard still clasped in his hand and figured it would work. Without so much as a second to reconsider, he slashed the sharp tip of it down his cheek; aiming for a straight line. He exhaled sharply at the feeling, it hurt. Not badly enough to stop him from repeating the action again and again, just enough to be felt above the LV still snapping at his senses. Readjusting his grip, he checked the results in the shard. They were… satisfactory; not a failure. It should work for his purposes, he hoped.

Ignoring the throbbing pain radiating from the cut, he cast his lights around for something suited to the next step, not just any old object would do. Despite his ‘pre preparation’ it still had to be just right in order to work. He only had this one shot and he wasn’t going to fail, not this time. They landed on something that should be suitable. Sturdy. Weighty. A nice point, which would better distribute the force of the impact. He’s not entirely sure what it used to be, nor does it matter, but he knows what it will become. The key instrument in his betterment.

Intent was everything when it came to monsters and he sure intended on making this stick.  Taking a steady breath he drew his arm back and then, point first, he smashed it into the pre-marked cut with as much force as he could muster. He succeeded in hitting his target, dead centre.

In his clouded state of judgement Tick hasn’t particularly factored in how much worse it would hurt to crack open his own skull and hurt it did, a line of fire burning hotter and deeper than the rest of his LV soaked bones. He hissed, instinctively dropping both objects; clattering to the floor and blending in with the rest of the mess. He pressed a hand against the injury, which only caused it to hurt more. Despite that he could help but revel in the feeling of it underneath the tips of his phalanges, a soft laugh escaping him which was soon tinged with hysteria. Volume steadily increasing until it almost hurt to listen too. Hand falling away at the same time as he fell to his knees, lights scanning desperately for where the mirror shard had gone. Seeing that it had further shattered on impact, rendering it too small to be usable. “Oh no no no…” His muttering was desperate, he needed to see the results of his work. Right. Now. He crawled over to where he’d found the first shard, still uncaring of the other injury he was causing himself. He located another sizable shard and hurriedly picked it up, a sickening mixture of anticipation and dread building higher and higher with every passing second he couldn’t see. His hands were visibly trembling, a mix of pain LV and adrenalin. 

When he saw his reflection he couldn’t help but smile, wide enough to make even the undamaged size of his face ache. “Perfection.” He breathed, unable to tear his gaze away from the sight. “Just like Him…” It was everything he could have asked for. Almost. The faint upwards flick on the tail of the crack somewhat ruined the effect, the effectiveness of the mimicry emulation. “Not a failure..” Free hand repeatedly stroking alongside the injury, “no. not a failure. I could never be Him. It’s only right; to not be exactly the same. What right do I have anyways? To be exactly like him.” Overly wide smile not abating even as he reassured himself.