Disclaim Her: Shockingly, I own nothing. Title and summary stolen from Bright Eyes's 'Down in a rabbit hole'. I suggest listening to it.
Violence. Imagery. Spoilers for 202, the Tap Out Job.
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taste butaine
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You don't control the violence, you tell Sophie and that's God's honest truth.
You tried, hell, you tried.
As a kid of twelve, listening to Billie Jones's jeering, his clumsy, childish, hurtful insults of little Spencer, the kid that never fit, the weird one. You tried. But he said something, you don't even remember what, and you snapped.
Snapped and broke his nose, for all that he was twice your size.
Your Ma sat you down for a stern talking to and your Da shook you around for a bit, telling you to keep your fists to yourself and your head down. You did. Kept your head down, kept your rage down and tried to forget the feeling of bones breaking under your hands.
Tried being the key word.
Later, almost sixteen, madly in love with Aimee, who was normal and smooth and soft. Nothing hard about her, nothing angry. No edges to cut yourself on and watch the blood flow. And for some unfathomable reason, she liked you back.
She made the memory of violence, the thirst for blood, go away. Horses and Aimee and hard work. That was your life and you told yourself that it was good. But whenever you looked down the road, twenty years, thirty, tried to see what was waiting there, kids and dogs and horses, all you found was dirt and dust.
You told yourself you liked your life the way it was but you could never imagine it past today.
And then, nineteen and still convinced you could keep the parts that wanted to break things down, you woke in a cold sweat with the image of your girlfriend's blood on your hands and her broken body at your feet and you felt… good. You woke with the dream memory of her breaking bones under your skin and you smiled.
She asked why you never came back and your told her you were busy. The truth was, you weren't sure you could resist the lure of those soft limbs and curves, the allure of easily broken skin, so fragile.
You can't control the violence and trying to keep it locked away was the worst thing you could have done. You ran, that night, ran and ran and ran until you found yourself on the other side of the planet, far from Aimee, far from anyone who knew the Spencer boy.
And you let the violence go.
You let it go because some people are born with madness in their heads and you're good at it. So good. Fifteen years and five continents and no-one ever beats you, ever breaks you. Broken bones and broken people, that's what you were born for and horses and kids and dogs and Aimee become nothing but a vague memory through a haze of red and a network of scars.
When you're spitting blood, you feel alive. When you're breathing through broken rips, you feel right. You can take the punishment.
Later, years and years later, you hear Sophie yell over the din of an excited crowd. She says that you fight to survive. She says that it takes all your control not to kill. She thinks she's acting, but she's telling the truth.
You can't control the violence.
You can only aim and let go, hoping you'll survive the fallout.
Whenever you look down the road now, you see dirt and dust and red flowers blooming at the wayside.
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