Short chapter in which not much happens, but we delve a little deeper into the enigma of Rodrick. As always, I hope you enjoy this chapter, it was my 18th on Monday so review as a late birthday present to me, I really want to reach 100 reviews and I know I have enough of you reading to achieve that by this chapter alone, I take time out of my day to write it so pleasepleaseplease take the time to review it! Oh and as always my beta is wonderful and talented and ridiculously eagle eyed, she is also a very nice human being so yeah, Leila blue, check her out because she's awesome.

Rodrick Heffley was and always had been a thinker. Many people were under the impression that his head was full of eye liner and drum beats and yes, to a certain degree it was, but it was also full of conundrums and questions, plans and plots. That was half the reason why he frequented the realms of inebriation so often, it softened the edges of his mind, blurred the sharp questions into each other until his usually fierce train of thoughts was a soft stream of consciousness running through his mind.

He liked losing his inhibitions because his inhibitions were a lot louder than most. It was this complex mind that made him sadistic and cruel, it allowed him to detach himself from his humanity, to torture and tease because he enjoyed seeing how normal people reacted. Greg had always been his favourite test specimen, with his strong sense of right and wrong and his almost comically black and white view of the world around him he was the complete opposite of Rodrick.

He was simple and kind, prone to childish fits of narcissism and crippling embarrassment, whereas Rodrick was complicated and cruel, addicted to playing games with the people around him and with an unhealthy fascination with pain. Rodrick liked playing the drums; he liked how the single solidarity of the beat pulsed through his veins until it exploded into his head making his skull vibrate. Greg liked writing, he liked pouring himself out into something, he liked leaving a trail, and mapping out his life like it was an unchartered sea.

It was the stark contrast between the two of them that had captured his attention, made him unhealthily fascinated with his younger brother. He had become so fascinated that he, on many occasions, had had a malicious urge to split open Greg's head just to see what was inside, to compare it with the labyrinth of dark tunnels that made up his mind. No one else held his attention like Greg did, the minute he showed an interest in people, they lost their spark in their hurry to fall at his feet.

But Greg, Greg resented him, hated him and to Rodrick Heffley, that made his little brother brilliant. But lately Greg had been disobeying the rules, rebelling against him, making it near impossible for Rodrick to manipulate him. He sat on the edge of his bed, fingers steeped and eyes closed, trying to work out how he had lost control so hard and so fast. Something inside him had just snapped, when Greg got all defensive over Holly, pouting and screaming at Rodrick for being just so darn mean, well Rodrick's control which had been strenuous at best over the previous weeks had broken, making all his careful plans crumble into dust as he spat venomous words of possession at his sibling.

And that confession at the door, he had no idea why he had said that, when he had turned back to Greg words of scorn and derisive lies about it all being one big head fuck had been perched on the tip of his tongue but seeing Greg like that, his head bowed, eyes swimming with unshed tears, the truth had spilled forth from his lips without any form of conscious thought whatsoever, and it had been scary.

He prided himself on his immaculate self-control, nothing fazed him and nothing deterred him and when it did he disposed of it and when he found himself unable to dispose of it he distanced himself from it. A set of rules much harder to put into practice when said deferral was his kid brother. He had already run away from Greg once, to do it again would be admitting defeat and quite possibly losing the only person who made him feel vaguely challenged.

No, he would not run and he would not dispose of his brother either, he would simply destroy him. Break him down until he belonged to Rodrick. Because that was what he really wanted, he wanted to possess Greg, he wanted to be the only thing in Greg's life because it simply wasn't fair that Greg was the only thing in his, he wanted -needed the feeling to be mutual and if he had to beat the younger down along the way to achieve that then so be it.

He stood up and picked his way through the layers of debris on the floor to where his iPod lay on top of the shirt he had been wearing yesterday or the day before yesterday or both. The buzz from earlier was wearing off, and Rodrick wished he'd gone for narcotics rather than a hastily rolled blunt. Pills were always much better for switching off and the high lasted longer. He stuffed the buds in his ear canal and lay down on his side on a clean patch of his floor; his temple pressed against the cool floorboards in an attempt to ease the comedown headache that he knew was fast approaching. He closed his eyes as the heavy guitar riffs started up.

Pay no mind what other voices say

They don't care about you, like I do, like I do

Safe from pain and truth and choice and other poison devils

See, they don't give a fuck about you, like I do.

Rodrick Heffley fell asleep with music blaring, a smile on his face and a plan forming itself in his head.

The song in case any of you were wondering is pet by perfect circle, the lyrics are just so Rodrick. I have a playlist of songs I listen to when I'm writing this fic, ones that set the mood and inspire me, tell me in the reviews if you want me to post it in the next chapter, I know that when I read I have to listen to music and I love stories that already have with music to them. Next chapter is the longest yet and is set on Christmas day and there will be head fuckery, sexual tension and turkey, so yeah you have been warned.