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He is aware of the spider there... but as it is asleep, he is content to leave it there. He doesn't love it, though.

"So have I," he says with a snort. "That doesn't make this less shit."

He gestures to Henry.

"Can I ask what happened or is it something that will upset you?"

"The bigger burns are from the lightning strikes in the other world," he comments lightly, as if it's something that happens to everyone. "The small one is from the shock collar in the lab."

He lies back to stare up at the ceiling. Lying down seems to alleviate the pain. "It's not upsetting," he adds, just as pleasantly as always.

"You're welcome to ask about any of mine," he says with a little huff of a laugh.

"And of course they had a shock collar. Good lord do I hate your doctor."

"They used it sparingly because he relied more on gaining the children's trust and lying to them," he explains.

"Do you want to talk about yours so that they disappear?" he wonders. "I could pick for you."

"Not particularly," he admits, "and there's some I firmly won't talk about, as they're Marks."

He breathes out slowly as he leans against the chair. Bless Tim, they'd worked out enough to get his skinning wounds down to scars. The stab from Georgie is still there, but there's still bandages to cover it. The bruising is just bruising.

"They could make you experience things... and I don't have the control right now to ensure they... don't."

"Experience what?" he wonders, glancing over to him out of the corner of his eye. He's in too much pain to actually pry in his way, but he is tempted.

His eyes are closed but he can't help it entirely, the power in his words, in his voice, in the names as he answers.

"I have walked into the heart of the Lonely, down deep into the Forever Dark Below Creation itself, wandered the hallways of the Twisting Deceit and floated through The Coming End That Waits For All And Cannot Be Ignored. I have Seen the Forever Blind and Known I Do Not Know You at its heart."

Henry can feel it, feel the power he has as he speaks them. It's a subtle reaction for him, but as they brush by him - Lonely, especially - he feels an involuntary shudder run along his spine.

"So you live with it."

It's not exactly a question, as he's seen that part of Jon that he wasn't supposed to. Henry knows what lurks underneath the surface.

"I've heard that these don't last long. You'll be back to covering all of that up soon enough."

His eyes are still closed.

"Hmphf."

Is what he says to that.

"Just because I don't constantly... horrify everyone doesn't mean I'm... covering anything."

"I meant in the more literal sense of covering all of your wounds," he snorts and pushes himself up slightly, though it clearly pains him.

"You make the choice not to horrify people," he adds. "I understand the concept."

"They're scars usually," he says more evenly, "and I don't cover them... so much as wear clothes. "It would hardly become me... to walk about in just my pants."

"The bruises on your face? Your eyes? The bleeding?"

He closes his eyes, resting his hands in his stomach.

"Healed, usually. And do you mean the eyes in my head or..."

He gestures around him.

"I assume the ones not in your head are compensating for the physical ones at the moment," he mutters.

"There was a 'game' they played with the children. They would place them facing each other in circles on opposite sides of the room. They blindfolded them, naturally. The winner would be the one who would knock the other from their circle."

The expression on his face says it all.

Someone is almost hoping for a VIP flood. He won't punch the man but he might ask someone else to punch him. Trixie has a boyfriend or something, right? Surely he would. For the healing and all.

"So they taught you all to compete instead of work together. To hurt one another instead of support one another."

"He wanted them strong and independent. He was afraid that if they worked together, they would want to escape."

He adds, just under his breath. "He was right."

"Yes, which is why I want to shake him like-" damn but what do you shake? Not a polaroid picture, obviously, that's a myth. But, er-

"-like a salt shaker," he ends lamely, but the feeling is still there.

"He was just a man," he chides him gently. "Only human."

Henry doesn't forgive him, but he considers it nothing more than part of his simple nature.

"He was a dickhead," he says, "and a bastard. And you don't need to be human for those. They're completely agnostic of species, I assure you."

There was a bigger monster, Henry thinks but keeps to himself. At least Brenner was easy to anticipate. His motivations were simple.

"It doesn't matter now. That lab won't be able to function for a while."

"True enough, true enough," he says, and he can't help but think of the aftermath of the rituals, how everything had sort of reset. He wonders if there's something like that in Henry's world. If he'd destroyed something building he hadn't even realized.

Thoughts for another time.

"Hopefully, it will shut down."

"I don't think I killed Brenner," he says softly, trying to contain his feelings. "He was locked away with Ten."

And death would be too good for Dr. Brenner.

Gone is the nonchalance from moments before. Gone is his "forgiving" nature. Henry remembers how he felt in that moment, now with the pain radiating through his body.

He had wanted him to hurt. Seeing his children broken and dead would hurt more than any nightmare Henry could artificially reproduce.

"So he might start again. He had one more subject."

"Oh?"

Curious; he won't pretend differently. Just a sound of interest to nudge him along, to not get in his way. He wants to know more, always. From Henry especially.

He laughs. "There's nothing else to say. I was gone from that place and never looked back."

Henry raises a foot on his cot. "I'm not here to talk out my troubles. They tried that."

But he does know where this is leading.

"'They?'" he asks, clearly unsure if it's someone here or Dr. Brenner and his goons.

Trixie had used the word and he likes it now.

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Re: early to mid exit wounds

Re: early to mid exit wounds

Re: early to mid exit wounds

Re: early to mid exit wounds

Re: early to mid exit wounds

Re: early to mid exit wounds

Re: early to mid exit wounds

Re: early to mid exit wounds

Re: early to mid exit wounds

Re: early to mid exit wounds

Re: early to mid exit wounds

Re: early to mid exit wounds

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