13th metal . spam & text . cw: self-harm

[godsays]

[ He winds long bandages around his arms before he goes to take a shower, covering himself from elbow to palm. He makes it look more like gauntlets than anything else, to minimize any questions asked, moves furtively and quickly, dodges out as soon as possible. And he longs for the days when the servants had to bring him a bath, and he didn't care what they saw - let them gossip, let them spread the word that he hurts himself. Let it add to the terror they see in him.

Here, it only adds to his shame and frustration. The voice is gone, and he shouldn't need to control himself this way, but the longer he resists, the greater the need becomes, and he always gives in eventually.

It seems wrong to him, anyway, that his arms are mostly bare of scars. That his chest, too, is unmarked. That the other evidence of his violent life is erased, leaving his skin as ordinary as a child's. Sometimes he remembers the scars and he feels the temptation to bring them back.

He has also often been stepping into the gardens and the greenhouse lately, mostly just sitting still and watching the plants. He recognizes their progress. Tries, though it makes him feel a little ridiculous, to murmur things to them sometimes. To talk to them. ]

[ text ]

If you have scars, are they important to you? Do you think they matter?

[ video ; private to Charles ]

I told Megamind you wouldn't object to me attending school. I knew it was the kind of thing that you like.

Comments

[halftheman]

Are scars important, he asks...

The hell do you think?

[godsays]

[ He doesn't flinch, but his eyes do narrow, slightly, as he takes in the exposed scars of Harvey's face. ]

I think for you they'd have to.

[halftheman]

No shit, kid. Wasn't much older than you, the first time I was burned.

[ He digs out his cigarette, brings it up to his mouth. The hand matches, though it's not nearly so bad-- burned patches on his fingers, knuckles, hand, where he touched his face as it burned, where he let acid trickle over his knuckles when he burned himself, years later, to return to what he knew he was: Two-Faced. ]

Scars are your story. They tell the truth about what you are, what you endure. Don't let anybody take them away.

[godsays]

[ He watches. His gaze is keen and interested. ]

Has someone tried with you?

[halftheman]

Tried. Succeeded. I put them back.

[ He cut into his face, let the acid burn deep, pulled at his sizzling flesh. All to get his scars back, to reveal the truth of himself; that there are two sides to him, and they needed vent. ]

[godsays]

[ A subtle widening of his eyes, then, and he leans forward. ]

How?

[halftheman]

They made me think I could be whole without them. All they did was slap cheap plaster over the cracks that weren't going away. So-- I peeled it away.

All I needed was a scalpel, acid and determination.

[ He tilts his face, breath whistling through his exposed teeth. ]

[godsays]

You wanted to show the truth? About what you are.

[halftheman]

About who we are; Two-Faced.

[godsays]

Is that a royal we?

[halftheman]

Did it sound like a royal we?

[godsays]

Some people here use it.

[halftheman]

Not us. Harvey and Two-Face. Two people. You're talking to Harvey, right now.

[godsays]

Which one is the scars?

[halftheman]

Two-Face. You'll know when he talks to you.

[ Since their vocal patterns are different. ]

[ ...unless he's pretending to be Harvey. Which he's done in the past. ]

[godsays]

Because he's your dark half?

[halftheman]

You could put it that way.

[godsays]

How would you put it?

[halftheman]

Every man has two sides. [ He holds up his coin, it's face clean -- Lady Liberty in scuffed silver. ]

The face we are expected to present. The face that believes in truth, justice, God; the things that man has built to make sense of the world that is in truth-- [ The coin is turned, revealing it's double head, scratched out ] equal parts savage horror, kill or be killed, might makes right. The first face make living one step away from the second more... palatable, for most.

We show our true selves; the man and the monster.

[godsays]

You and your killer, then.

[ Sounds like a dark side to him. The halves of his own nature that he has trouble integrating sometimes. Or telling apart.

Maybe the clear boundaries help this man. ]

[halftheman]

[ There was a grating laugh. ]

You say that like it's all that I am. [ Two-Face had taken over; it was in the glint of his bad eye, the way his sneer deepened. ] Like that's it. Just a fucking thug. I'm so much more than that.

[godsays]

If I'd meant Thug, I would have said it.

[halftheman]

Not a lot else you can attach to killer. I controlled gangs, I ran city blocks. Protection money, rackets, gambling. More than a killer.

[godsays]

A killer can be an assassin. Someone skilled and ruthless who hits from the shadows and can't be stopped.

Controlling gangs sounds more like a thug to me.

[halftheman]

Spoken like a man who has never had to run anything in his life.

They're thugs. I'm the boss.