A/N: Tess POV through Departure, canonish, dark and twisty and angsty, a different (much stronger) side of Tess than represented in My Torture. Lyrics are to By the Way by Hinder.
By the Way
In the winding down hours
I let your heart down again
What did I do to make a scene so gory?
I'm no better than the ones before me
There is blood on my hands, crimson streaks on the perfectly pale pink skin, and I wonder why they're so still, why they aren't shaking on the outside like I am on the inside. I did this. I got inside his mind and I twisted it all around, pushed and pulled until he was my little meat puppet as Nasedo used to say, those warm blue eyes blank and hollow as he did my bidding.
It wasn't supposed to kill him. I knew it would hurt him; I won't lie and say I didn't. I knew it was wrong. I even knew that if I had asked, as a friend, he probably would have helped me. But that wasn't how I was designed, that wasn't what my mind had been twisted to do, and even now, I can't say that I would do things differently, that I could do things differently. Humans like to talk about Nature versus Nurture, well I don't have either on my side and while that small, human part of me that stubbornly refuses to die wants things to be different, they aren't.
So I stare at the blood on my hands as Kyle carries him to the trunk, mesmerized by the physical evidence of the lines I've crossed, the bonds I've broken, the life I've taken, and know that somewhere, Nasedo is smiling.
Old habits die hard
I always end up hating the end
What did I do to make a scene so gory?
I'm no better than the ones before me
There was blood on his hands, dried rusty streaks he hadn't bothered to wash off as he sat at the table, reading the files he'd taken from the presumably dead FBI agent while I made dinner. I wondered if he even noticed it was there, if it was done on purpose, another lesson, or if to him the whole world was stained with blood and he was just blending in. He glanced up, eyes dark and hollow and endless and I turned back to the pasta I was straining without a word.
I'd learned not to comment about the things I saw, both with my eyes and my other senses, and had perfected the art of looking at him without really seeing him, something that had proved useful with the human children at school as well. If I didn't see them, I had no desire to befriend them, and remaining cold and aloof was easier, safer, for me, and for them.
After dinner was served and we both sat at the table, silently eating the food I had prepared with ruthless precision, even though he couldn't taste it, he looked at me again, waiting until I actually saw him, before twisting his lips into a cold smile. "Pack your bags tonight, Ava, it's time for the Nelsons to die. Ed and Tess Harding have a trip to make, and Tess has a very nice surprise waiting for her."
I'm in the middle of a breakdown
Watching you scream
In the middle of a breakdown
Screaming at me
And by the way
What made you think you'd have it your way?
His hands wrap around my neck, amber eyes burning maniacally as he yells almost incoherently about lies and Nasedo and murders, and even as my eyes artfully widen, tears glistening on their blue surfaces, I feel like laughing. He is so innocent and so clueless and so everything I have never been, and part of me wants to put him a glass jar where he can remain that way forever, while the rest of me wants to twist him and taint him until he is just like me.
