A/N: This chapter is rated M for violence, language, and self-harm.
He slammed the door shut, knowing no one had followed him to his quarters. His shirt was the first thing to be thrown across the room. Heavy boots flew into the far wall. Anger burned through him like molten metal. It coursed through his veins causing his filthy Altean marks to glow. They traced lavender aberrations along his muscular arms and back.
Lotor ground his teeth, sweeping his arm over the sparsely occupied chest across his bed. Items clattered to the floor. A scream boiled deep within him, slipping out as a loud growl that tore at his throat. He brought his hands up to his temples and squeezed, urging the voices to leave him alone. They never listened.
You are weak. You claim to hold control and yet you are AFRAID. Use this anger, utilise your fear to overcome these basal needs.
"How?!" He forced the words though clenched teeth. Foam flecked his lips. Sharp pressure flooded his ears.
She means nothing.
Another non-answer. Rage brimmed over. Hopelessly, he fell onto to the bed. Tears were threatening to come, but they would not fall. The lump in his throat was enormous, but he had been unable to break the watershed for years now.
She means nothing. The words reverberated in his skull.
His hands shook and balled into fists. She cared. She meant everything. But how? His emotions swung the opposite direction once again. How could she care about him? When she found out everything he had ever done, she would cast him aside. This he knew. This thing they had growing between them was all a game. He was playing her and, unwittingly, she was playing too.
She has only scratched the surface of you, wretch.
The truth in those words was crushing. He felt like crying again. Not for the first time he wondered. Was this insanity? Being stuck in this constant loop of arguing with the different parallels of himself… Lotor covered his eyes with his forearm, urging, pleading for tears to fall.
None came, and another wave of rage overwhelmed him. It was exhausting. He sank his talons around his shoulders, focusing on the pain instead of the words running circles in his head.
She had offered him help. She genuinely wished to help him. Would that hand still be extended when she finally knew him? Was she worrying for him right now, since he had abruptly left her? Would she still worry for his sake when she learned every last ragged atrocity he had committed? Was it enough that his reasons were just? Wasn't that enough?
No. Not for her. If she does continue trying, she only wants something from it.
"Allura is not like me," he whispered hoarsely. The words ached his heart. Why was he like this?
Then she would be forced to break the promise.
The realisation branded deep into his soul. He ran his bloody fingertips over his face in despair. Lotor rose from the bed and paced. A deranged resolve lit his face, followed quickly by darkening anger.
"I am not like you," he spat. The thick voice did not sound like his own. It was vengeful and saturated with hatred. He wrung his claws over his forearms. Chills broke out over his body.
I am you.
He shattered.
"You are all these fucking memories!" He screamed the words, pounding both fists into the wall. Caution went out the airlock and he smashed the heels of his hands into the wall over and over. "I am not you," he choked out. It wasn't true.
Cycle after cycle swallowed him until blood ran down his biceps, dribbling around his bare feet in dark puddles on the metal floor. Bruises marred his sculpted hands. A scarlet smudge stained the wall.
He slumped to his knees, still unable to let the tears fall. Numbness and exhaustion left him vulnerable to the flashbacks. It happened every time. He was trapped.