ginger_firebird

There was a lot of soil. It smelled vaguely of death, but he had hauled enough ass though the Nexus to afford no small number of large planters, small planters, planters that had been mercilessly duct taped together so that they fit together to hold more soil… The largest were obviously going to be on the roof. He had a tarp laid out to catch excess soil as he went about tearing open bag and tipping them out. Step one was always preparing the space, then getting the dirt settled, then water, then seeds… It was brutally hot, but it had to get done.

There was a lot of time to think in the Nexus. He’s still wound up by the Doctor and what he had said. So he had read minds without permission. So what? He stopped people who were murderers and worse. It was a gift deep in his blood and impossible to get rid of and yet the old man acted like it was something that could have been taken away with the right tools. He couldn’t even fully control it, even now. If he took his mask off, every damn whisper came in, so it wasn’t even his most useful power at times. He had moved machines larger and heavier than some of the largest animals without even trying. Still could.

Then when did that go wrong? Was it Skull Face? The KGB? FBI? Somewhere he started to slip and get bitter and angry and he stopped caring like he used to. He sighed and leaned on a shovel he had brought up with him. People died because of him in the past. Good people. Bad people. People who were in a wrong crowd. He got okay with that, sought it out, and lived it as his whole world. Liquid wanted that of him and he fed into that relationship like it was nothing.

So what went wrong? Was he that depressed and bitter about it? Absolutely, but it felt like more than that. Mantis looked around at the planters and the unopened potting soil and sighed. He flicked one hand vaguely and a CD player started blasting music from the rooftop of his apartment building. He bobbed his head a little and laid down right by the edge, getting a good look at the ground from where his head and an arm dangled over a little. The shovel hung lazily in mid-air and did an awkward dance as he flicked his fingers and hand around.

“At what point does violently lashing out stop being trauma and start becoming a personality?”