HOMEOSTASIS

Chapter XII

"Did you try to live on your own,
When you burned down the house and home?
Did you stand too close to the fire,
Like a liar looking for forgiveness from a stone?"

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"HEY! Open up, quick!"

At Masky's voice, Hoodie was immediate to swing open the doors of the van, and first came Clockwork with a shaky and disoriented newcomer. Obviously Helen. His mask is just shattered in his hand. Then, Jane came in. She was moving the cops' bodies out of the way to make space for all the ruckus behind her.

Both Masky and Chaser were dragging Liu, his gaze still moving around and skin pale- spasms and threatening bites was all that came out of him. Like some type of roller-coaster none of them has ever seen. The literal moment the adrenaline rushed over to his brain. And at the sight of the shadows and disfigured faces all around, he could only try to attack. No voice, only groans and growls. They threw him inside before locking the doors for good, and Hoodie took an instant hold of him. Those stab wounds needed to be treated as soon as possible.

Masky threw him his bag, and the hooded proxy took out the chloroform. He knew what to do. He held the embedded cloth over Liu's respiratory canals, pressing hard so his head wouldn't twist all over the place. His other arm held him in a soft chokehold to stop him from accidentally snapping his neck, whispering little nothings in his ear. He's used to do this last part a lot with Toby when he has twitching episodes. He wouldn't hold him down, God no. But just being present is important. Sometimes those episodes would be so violent, he once dislocated his shoulder, and nobody found out until a month later.

Liu's hands and legs were tied by a rope, so he could only kick and jolt, but not with very success. The chloroform had already entered his system and although it would take about five minutes until he passed out, he could already feel all of his strength decaying. Those dark eyes then started blinking incoherently, and his head stopped twitching.

Jeff was silent. His eyes met his brother's for a moment and he didn't know what to think. Who is this guy? That's not the Liu he knows. Liu is not a disturbed man who goes crazy all of a sudden, right?

That's Jeff's role. Not his.

When the brunette stopped growling and moving in general, his breathing became steady, his eyes started to close. His vision went black and he didn't see a thing anymore. It was faster than expected. Maybe his system just shut off by itself due to the exhaustion.

"Hey." Jane called the killer in front of her. Her mask was no longer there. It was in her hand, so Jeff could see how serious she was. He can't stand to look at her face. Not pleasant at all. She opened her mouth in a threatening manner, and the words that came forward were the most dangerous guns he's seen in a while. "You did this. Your brother became this. Because of you." And when Liu fell limb in Hoodie's arms, something in Jeff's mind snapped.

"If hypothetically you knew things would turn out like this in the end... would you have still done it?"

At the time, he didn't know how to answer that. What happened was a click. An impulse. He wasn't thinking rationally when he killed those people. Of course he wouldn't have done it. But a dark side of his mind took over, that day. So even if he did control himself... what guarantees he wouldn't kill somebody else some other day?

The human mind is a deranged thing. It's extremely powerful, yet simple all at once. The truth is, there is no answer for the things that happened. Everything comes down to a bunch of hypothetical scenarios, and there's no way of knowing which one is correct. What he does is malicious, although he may not be completely aware of it. But one thing is for sure: nothing will ever excuse the fact that he takes lives to fill a hole in his own.