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Rep narrowed his eyes coldly."It does make a ******** difference. Clothes make the ******** man." It had been so important before to dress right, if you had the wrong coat, the wrong shoes, the wrong brands, you were nothing but a ******** disaster and would be shunned. It had always mattered. "And when I was a ******** minipet I felt like a minipet. I wasn't me."

He got a patronising look. "And of course you'd say that. You aren't going to ******** tell me I'm not manly, you aren't going to tell me that I've been slowly turning into some kind of ******** b***h. Because you want me to be one right? Just telling everyone hello my name is ******** William and I'm a queer, I don't mind wearing ******** dresses and s**t because they are fancy. I'm jealous of women, nice to meet you."

He shuddered physically. "No."

Tracey though was almost embarrassed by the attention on him but his desperation was such that at the same time it felt like a lifeline. "He wants me to ******** hurt things. Everything. He keeps feeding me very ******** satisfying mental images."

"I can take words. Its the ******** JUDGEMENTS I can't ******** stand." His voice kicked up a few notches in pitch. "I don't want people thinking about me doing things and feeling revolted. I don't want people to think about me like that. " he clenched his hands again, remembering the way he was generally treated growing up, as if he was some kind of horrible mould on the fixtures, something that couldn't be gotten rid of and was simply to be tolerated, the way the first people he'd slept with had flinched at his touch and it was all raw, it was all still terrible, and none of it would have been that way if he was female. "I can't ******** handle it. Normally how I feel about myself is ******** background enough to ignore it, but when people start, it's maim them or myself."

Tracey wasn't desummoned but the serrated blade dropped to the sand to rest. "I told you ******** before, I'm jealous of all the s**t they can do that I never ******** could! They have all the ******** freedom, none of the burdens. I'm a guy without a ******** MAP right? No one ever told me how to do this, no one ever ******** told me what it means to be what I am. I was raised by ******** bitches who just lay back and let the world ******** them. I can't even do that. I can't even do that BECAUSE IT DOESN'T WANT ME. I can dress myself up however I ******** want, all I'll ever be is something they aren't interested in, no one will ever be terrified by my beauty or fall for my power by mistaking me for weak. The only ******** people who ever wanted me were you two. I wasn't man enough for the most manly division there is."

His voice ran hoarse as the last of his rage ebbed away. "All I ******** know about being manly is that a real ******** man. A real man hurts everyone around him including himself. He fights and steals and murders and rips out ******** self esteem like a trophy skin. And if doing those things won't ******** earn me respect, I don't know what will. And don't ******** say being a nice guy, being nice gets you ******** NOTHING but used as a doormat."

"Because they have to be. Because I know how ******** like, society feels. I was part of it. I know that no one is going to ******** be okay with someone like me ******** with their boundaries of what's acceptable. It revolts me aye, because no matter what I do, that part of me I made to survive, to fit in, will attack me as much as anyone ******** else."

He frowned deeply at the idea women didn't have a map either. "That's easier." he said. "It's easier to just let people take, to just put your ******** faith in other people. That's fear but its like fear of battle, its something that might happen. It might not. They can choose no to make decisions, they can be a ******** object, a possession, a belonging. Guys can't. Guys aren't ******** allowed to feel, to cry, to hurt, to want their own things, they have to be ******** manly. In Scotland it was more important than anything else, more than ambition or anything."

Shaking his head he went on. "I don't want to be me. What I am is ******** strange and wrong and horrible. You met him. You knew him. He wasn't a ******** nice person or even likable, he was a ******** twisted brutal queen."

At the final question, he stopped dead in his tracks. Not sure how to answer, or what to say. He didn't lie, it wasn't something he could live with himself for. So he didn't. "A man, but not manly."

"I don't." It was like Jordan said, he didn't want to be human, he wanted to be more than that, free from the weaknesses he was subject to. "Jordan they don't care. Deep down. They don't care about me or you, or anyone. No one cares about anyone. And I can ******** feel it and it's horrendous. I don't want to let down my walls around them. They take and take and take and when you hurt they take more, they can't ******** tell when you are suffering. And if they could they wouldn't care. You aren't telling me I can be what I want around the people on this ******** island, they are worse than the people outside." He let go of Tracey, leaving him stuck in the sand as he loosely hugged himself.

He flinched at the other man's words. "You are ******** wrong. I do want to be likeable. I want people to respect me, like they do with you, with Ace. But I have to settle for fear and hate instead because there is nothing in me worth ******** liking."

Seeking for any sign of falsity, he found himself oddly surprised that Jordan asserted he was fine with that blue self. "I thought you'd hate him. You say you hate the person you were. He was no better." He wilted, letting his hands drop to his sides. "You are gay, you like men. Sometimes I worry that straying from that, you might not ******** like me anymore."

"Don't apologize. If you were a real ******** man, you'd hate me too."

"That's the problem. I'm not allowed my walls. I'm not allowed to deny, to keep things to myself, so they can hurt me and they can dig. I want to say no, I'm not, no I don't like it. It'd be easier. I'm not able to pretend they don't get to me when they do, and i can't take it lying down, that never worked as a kid, it won't work now."

Rep didn't know how to feel, how to react at the comments that it didn't matter what he did, that it wouldn't change the core state of what he was. He wanted to believe it, but it was really hard to do. "I just..It will be hard." It would be a fight to be who he wanted to, with snide comments and resistance every step of the way, especially from people he'd already rendered his enemies. "To just..be who I was would be easier."

fight William?>

<>

As Ferros was hefted he eyed him, always in awe of the enormous hammer. He didn't want to fight, he didn't feel like he could really fight anything right now but Tracey needed it, the addiction almost painful, like sharp drug withdrawals, the weapon equivalent of the shakes.

Picking up the axe, he swung again.

DMG: 3
Charge: 2/3

"Who I was was normal." he said, but seemed to wilt under the pleading look Jordan gave him, he could almost feel the weariness in the fear he siphoned from the other man and it was somehow contagious. But for Tracey it was a lifeline, like cool clean air to a man who was slowly suffocating. He demanded more so strongly Rep couldn't stop himself from swinging again - he didn't get a say in whether they did so or not.

He lashed out with the massive blade, muscles feeling as if the rust was shaken off just by doing it, as if the anger and pain were redirected outwards and no longer festering in him. "I don't think I have the strength to be Blue."

The fear was enough though and Tracey simultaneously darkened and brightened, runes blazing to life, surface sinking into blackness, charge coursing in his veins like adrenaline. It was like he could breathe again and he didn't realise what a relief it was till he felt it. He'd been strangling half to death in Tracey's clutches and had no idea.

DMG: 5
Charge - 3/3

"Maybe. But it's ******** easy. I'd rather have an easy life, but apparently there is no ******** path of least resistance, just a rock and a hard place." He sighed and shook his head. "We'll see. I don't know if I can do it. They are going to ******** laugh and remind me how right they all ******** were."

Tracey's voice was sultry and heavy with the delight of the charge, purring.

The delighted sensations spilled over like a drug and pulled him up and up to the dizzy heights the weapon was experiencing. It reminded him of hugging people you didn't know at a club because everyone was just high as ******** and love overflowed in abundance. It was a relief after the crushing grinding weight of hatred and self loathing.

"If you say so." he said, pushing aside the hesitation and fear, every time he used Problems it caused them, even when people seemed to be fine. But he'd told Jordan once he trusted him, and he hadn't been lying. Taking a deep breath, he held the axe out by his side and closed his eyes.

It was always like opening a floodgate as he prepared for it, the fear flooding his system. It was painful in it's own way - after all didn't prolonged fear exposure kill humans eventually? Maybe he wasn't fully human any more.

He charged, one step, two, and then leapt and it was like there was no upped limit, Tracey's momentum pulling him higher and higher until gravity stepped in like a parody of all the authority in his life, and slapped him back to earth. He swung the axe over his shoulder with a wrench of pain plummeted down and down, fast and accurate.

Crashing into Jordan's shield was like hitting a brick wall, and mercifully it didn't give under the blow, but his muscles all but screamed in pain at the backlash from hitting such a stern block, the pain was good though, it was fine, it was relief.

He didn't even try and land on his feet as he let the axe haul him to the sand.

HP: 42
DMG: 24