He was sitting in a holding cell. He was drumming on his leg and sitting on a holding cell. It was late August, and he was tired. He was more than just tired. He was going to trial for as much of a reduced sentence as he could get on a plead guilty. His state mandated lawyer was going to argue that mental and physical abuse had let up to him killing his parents, but, but he didn't really care. He couldn't have possibly cared. There had been such a long time when he didn't get it. When he didn't realize that he was hated. Well, maybe not hated but never truly loved. His father had beaten him anxiously before Octavian did anything wrong, did anything at all other than show a little child's emotion. And his mother had never really tried to stop it. Perhaps she intervened now and then, but mostly she watched out for her self and for their perfect-ish family image.
And, because he had begged, he might soon get sentenced to heavily guarded house arrest. He wanted to spend his last days in limbo with Glaceon, who, really, was the only family he had left.
Except that brother they had mentioned. He stood up now. He paced a little. It agitated him. He wanted to talk to his therapist, but... He couldn't imagine facing him now. Lionel Greene had been nice to him despite knowing what kind of person he was. He'd always hoped for that to happen, but only his therapist and Glaceon could treat him with that kind of humanity. In the eyes of everyone else, he was a freak or a monster or both. Now his therapist probably would see him as the same. Glaceon though... Glaceon was the only one who wouldn't betrayed him. The only one he had left.
Except that brought him back to his brother. HE HAD A BROTHER.
He knew that he had been cut off from his family, but he still felt like he should've been told that he had a younger brother. Right? Right? Wasn't that fair?
He felt sick. He pressed his forehead against the wall and a design popped into his head. It didn't help just to trace it on the wall. Nothing ever came unless there was sacrifice. Oh, the gods would say that teddy fluff was just as good, just as sufficient. And sure he could read stuff from that, fuzzily. It wasn't like he got prophecies, although he'd always wished that he could get prophecies. But he'd get like, flashes of what would happen next when he made a proper sacrifice. The better the sacrifice, the better the visions.
His blood was always effective.
His parent's blood had only been momentarily effective, since it wasn't really a sacrifice, but an act of vengeance. Although, in reality, so had half the patterns he'd formed on his own arms and made disappear with way too much aspirin and a little bit of unicorn horn. By the time the vision became just a trick of the light the patterns had taken a hold and he had to keep going until they were compete.
He hated that he derived pleasure from it, but monsters were supposed to. He hadn't been that kind of person from birth, he was sure of it. Somewhere deep down inside was the person that he'd been masquerading as since the restraining order.
He remembered the vision he'd had when he had murdered them. It still felt odd to throw around the word murder, much less plead guilty to it. But that vision took the edge off of it somehow.
He'd seen a girl, with red hair in a braid, and green eyes and an insane amount of freckles, twirling in a bedroom. It was the oddest thing, but the gods had chosen to give it to him.
He knew the girl of course. He loved the girl, or felt like he did. HE'd been in love with her since the first time he laid eyes on her, and had fought it.
That restraining order was the best thing to ever happen to him.
It forced him into a masquerade, where he was normal, happy, owned a dog, went to therapy, stopped his aspirin addiction.
That restraining order had forced him to go down so many of the right roads before he took a short cut to Sacramento.
The murder, that hadn't been fun.
*Murders.
It was the carving that he'd enjoyed. The carving and finally getting revenge. Not the active bit of seeking it out, but finally having it. Finally having it was amazing. And the carving. All his life he'd been fighting who he was, who he wasn't, who was in control, and who wasn't. It always seemed like someone else was in control of him. His parents, other campers, anyone bigger and stronger, anyone more persuasive, eventually, Gaea. That had been pretty awful.
But in Sacramento he found a moment, where he was both in control and not in control. Where he could plead guilty and be fine with it, but where he could also let the burdens roll off of his shoulders and let something else entirely take over.
It had almost been amazing.
But he wanted to go home.
Just for a little bit. He wanted to distract himself with his best friend.
And that got him back right where he started, sitting back down, tapping out a patter on his arms and legs, not being treated like he was a human.
Just like always.
