#sadstep

Name: Mikael Hansson | Puppet: Eden | Villain name: Thorne Cautious/anonymous/tech-savvy/tactician/anarchist Outsider scar, truth

Chargestep, short.

Know,

Know them inside and out, stare at them as they hand you the tools to destroy them

"Why are you giving this to me?"

"I trust you." Ortega's face is too open, smile reflected in the way his eyes crinkle up at the ends. It makes your chest feel too tight, you need to look away.

"Don't. You shouldn't."

You don't even trust yourself.

You don't need friends. Don't need a family. You do just fine by yourself, you know how to survive, you've lived without these things for so long and you're still here now, aren't you?

It doesn't stop you from aching for them, though.

You are living out your own nightmares. Hurting the ones you love. Seeing yourself become like them.

Ricardo's fingers intertwine in yours, questions laying on his tongue that go unreleased. Softening at the way your face screws up in pain, the way you look away too quickly. "Is this too much?"

His words only dig themselves in with their innocence, thorns underneath your skin. How can you tell him the reason why you're trying to blink away the wetness in your eyes is because of… of yourself? He's entrapped in your tangled web of lies and he can't even see the way he's bleeding for it.

"It's fine." You can't stop lying.

The soft touch on your cheek hurts more with its kindness than any assault on your body.

A fool.

Now, are you speaking about Ortega or yourself?

Maybe the both of you for clutching to each other so tightly, the shared moments of peace so precious between you. You can't help the tenseness in your shoulders or the way your brow is more furrowed than not nowadays. This...this all feels like a momentary lull, the calm before the storm.

It makes your dreams strange when you have them. You dream of the crackle of electricity aimed at your face and cold, cold eyes that no longer recognise you. Of being brought to your knees in the chaos of it all, half drowned in the rain and mud. Of resigning yourself to your fate with a broken smile as Charge stands above you like a true god of lightning, casting judgement upon you.

The end is always the same: with a hand stretched out towards your heart as the resultant flash lights his face up in all its uncaring fury.

No one is coming to save you.

There is no one lying beside you at night when you choke back muffled sobs in your pillow, mindful of the neighbours. You don't want to be known as the loser who gets passive aggressive noise complaints for submitting to your weakness.

Boys don't cry. (Aren't supposed to. You hate the fact they've poisoned your mind like this.) Stop crying, little girl. (You are not little and you are definitely not a girl, no matter what they said.)

It makes you feel guilty, sometimes. That your own body isn't good enough for you.

(You just want to feel *real*. Maybe that's fucked up, that you will never feel comfortable in your own body. That you think everyone else except you is real and you're the only one faking it all.)

Eden's smile is a bit too close to yours for comfort. Maybe that's why Ortega likes him so much - people are drawn to the familiar, they have a tendency to repeat the patterns that have followed them through life. And it seems that hasn't changed at least, the way you can still sweep him off his feet both physically and emotionally.

But there's one crucial difference, isn't there?

Eden's smiles are happy.

No burdens. No bone deep aches and pains that wrack this young body made right the first time at production. No knees that ache when it rains or twinge when you go up the stairs. You don't need to hide the pain you feel standing still for too long if there *is* no pain. And maybe you're running your own body into the ground - but you don't care. You never even expected to make it to thirty, you had always expected them to have slapped on an expiry date on you once you outlived your use.

Sometimes you wonder if it would have just been easier to puppeteer Eden permanently and do just the bare minimum to keep your own body alive. But, well. You were always too afraid of making the leap.

Change has always been terrifying.