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Pain.

Terrible, horrible, debilitating pain. That was how Ari awoke. Unlike other mornings, what woke her wasn't something that could be ignored. There was no hiding under blankets from sunlight, or rolling over and ignoring the sound of people rushing about getting ready for work. This was in her head, pounding, like a chisel on the inside of her temples.

She refused to open her eyes. In face, her hands rose up to clench over them, knees rising up as well til she was almost fetal in position. A low whine escaped her throat - a mistake, as it immediately raked through her head like nails on a blackboard.

This wasn't her bedroom, she knew. Even without opening her eyes, she knew these weren't her sheets, the scent on the pillows wasn't her own. Besides, there was a warm body next to her, and she wasn't about to mistake it for either of her parents when she was clearly naked under the sheets.

Last night... Ari searched her aching mind but drew a blank. Ah s**t. Drunken stupor achieved, as desired. Now to just hope her stupidity hadn't reached astranomical levels. Reaching out, she poked at the person by her side. Here was hoping the increased headache caused by any speech would be overlaid with the voice of her boyfriend, and not a total stranger.

Too much noise! After recognising Tom's voice, Ari buried her head under a pillow. It didn't help. Tom kept talking and moving and... clanking?... and it wasn't helping Ari's head at all. If she wasn't feeling so sorry for herself, she might have suspected that Tom was doing it on purpose.

"How's the head, princess?"

Ari let out a cross between a whine and a growl. There were no words for how bad her head was feeling right now.

Tom was making a terrible clanking noise. Despite her better judgement, she brought her head out from under the pillow to hear, "...you tossed the key somewhere toward the window."

What. THe. Hell?

That made her pry an eye open. With a hoarse yelp, she squeezed it closed again. Oh god, light was the enemy. And yet, it seemed she had to be the one to get up. Had that really been a pair of handcuffs encircling Tom's wrists and the headboard? Ari felt a little sorry that she couldn't remember what happened last night. It must have been fun.

And she wouldn't have felt nearly this bad, oh god. Okay, right, key near the window. Ari hoped to god the window had been closed, or that her aim had been terrible. One hand grabbed a sheet and clutched it around her, the other clutched at her head and she slowly clambered off the bed. Stumbling, she made her way over in the direction of the window. Nothing jumped out at her. Groaning, she lowered herself to the floor, searching with hands and bloodshot eyes for a tiny handcuff key.

"Next time I'm drunk, please hide the toys that cause problems in the morning," she begged softly, wincing as she spoke. Even a whisper was too loud.

Finally her hands closed over cold metal, the tiny key half hidden behind wooden furniture. She returned to the bed and proffered the object to Tom.

"Please tell me you can undo them?" Ari didn't want to think about the effort involved in straining to fit a tiny, thin key into a tiny, thin hole. Neither her heads nor her brain were up for those kind of hand-eye coordination.

Ari gently lowered herself back onto the bed, cocooning herself in the stolen sheet. What she wouldn't give to just be able to shut out everything right now. She suspected that even white noise would be too loud.

Her stomach heaved at the mention of raw eggs and she made a gagging noise - not on purpose. She glared blearily at Tom from under very mussed up hair. "Are you trying to make me hurl?" she croaked. Her face pale at the thought of being sick and she hurridly tried to think of other things.

She should have tried to find her own underwear, but, well, effort. And migraine. Nudity really seemed the lesser of rampaging evils here.

Burying her head under the sheets, she groaned out, "Never let me do this again."

Ari made the sound of a dying animal as Tom flicked her hair. Too close to the migraine, go away! She worked one hand free and batted at him, but he was already moving out of the room by that stage.

To shower or not to shower? Ari wondered to herself. She felt awful. It was possible a shower would help with that. On the other hand, shower meant moving. More noise. Ari had made up her mind to stay where she was, not moving and hoping someone would take pity on her and just kill her now, when Tom began moving around in the kitchen. Doors banged - slamming to her poor skull - and pots and pans were shuffled around - worse than two year old drumming them together. Clearly, there was no way she was not being disturbed this morning.

Ari grumbled (ever so softly) as she worked her way out of bed. It seemed the universe had decided she would be showering this morning. The bathroom was too bright. The water pounding down on her just as deafening and painful as she'd fear. But in the end, it was a much cleaner Ari that wandered her way out to the kitchen, wrapped in the fuzzy black bathrobe.

She made a pained greeting noise at Tom before collapsing into a seat, laying her head against the cool tabletop. "Kill me now," she begged.

Without raising her head, Ari gave Tom the finger. He really was making so much noise on purpose. And there was no way she'd be learning to love pain. There was only one masochist in this kitchen and it sure as hell wasn't her.

She only raised her head when food was placed in front of her. About to tell Tom to take it away before she threw up, she paused with her mouth open as the smell of the eggs hit her. Salty... just the slightest tang of greasy food... Ari closed her mouth and drew the plate closer.

The lack of bacon had her frowning, but Ari pulled a face at the mention of Canadian bacon. "That's not bacon," she muttered, before digging into the eggs. Her eyes closed briefly, scowl clearing. A hum escaped and she tucked back in.

"Ketchup? Aspirin? New Head?" Tom asked.

Ari gave him a cross between a scowl and a pout. She croaked out, "The last two, please?"

Ari eagerly abandoned the eggs to take the painkillers and juice. She whimpered as she realised it would be a while before they kicked in, and turned her attention back to the eggs. What she wouldn't give for a greasy McDonalds breakfast right now... Tom's cooking tasted better, naturally, but the extra grease might have settled her stomach a little more.

A grimace appeared on her face as Tom asked about the reason for her quest to get completely plastered. "Just... trying to forget stuff," she hedged.

A few moments later and she was putting down her cutlery and pushing the plate of eggs back a ways. Her elbows went up onto the table, her head into her hands, hanging low. "No, you deserve more than that," came the quiet self-recrimination. Tom had been the one who had to deal with her drunken behaviour, who'd taken care of her and made sure she didn't do anything even more stupid. And it wasn't like trying to repress what she'd done was working very well. She snorted a laugh, then winced at what it did to her head.

Uncovering her face, Ari dropped her chin into her hands instead. Though she was looking up, she didn't meet Tom's eyes. "Did you ever realise that you were actually a really horrible person? Like... really, really bad."

She stared at her hands, as though she could still see blood on them... or a small, thin knife.

Ari followed Tom with her eyes as he moved. Her lips pressed together, whitening before she turned her attention back to her food. "Yeah, maybe you're right," she mumbled. "Don't wanna put you off your food."

It wasn't the same.

No matter what Tom said about being 'damned' - there was a difference between not being a good person, and actively being a terrible person. Ari doubted that Tom, for all his faults and addictions, had ever stopped to kidnapping and torture. She doubted he'd ever threatened a boy with losing his remaining sight, and been disappointed when the kid caughed up enough information to save his eye.

If she ever saw Wolframite again... she couldn't say she wouldn't feel exactly the same way again. That she wouldn't do the same thing if faced with him tied down to a chair again.

Tom may be the only masochist here... "But I'm the only monster."

Ari deliberated for a moment before nodding. Best to get this out, she decided, while she could, before she thought too much about Tom's possible reactions and got too scared to say anything more.

"You know the senshi group I'm part of, right?" Ari said, pretty sure she'd had to explain the red crescent brand on her thigh before. If not, this explanation was about to get even more complicated. "One of our girls was... killed. A while back. So, we hatched up a revenge plot."

Nothing too bad so far, right? Sounded like a teen girly movie, revenge against the guy who cheated on you. Well, not if you knew Ares and the other BMC members - including Ari.

Violet eyes focused on a spot over Tom's shoulder, looking at something not there as she spoke. It made it a little easier, to think she was speaking aloud to an empty room, that no one was actually hearing her recount their actions.

"We kidnapped five Negaverse officers, a few Lieutenants, a few Captains, one General. We... tortured them. For a week or so. Badly... really badly." Ari's voice was barely more than a whisper at that part. "Ares' cat worked out how to hide our energy signatures, so no one could find us. So the Negaverse couldn't find them. It didn't... Well, it failed towards the end. A rescue party came. They killed more of our girls. And they- they stole Lyra."

There'd been more. The giant battle, the fact that Tanzanite had gone General-Queen. Those things weren't what drove Ari to drink, though. It was the week before things went official wrong that haunted her. Those cells, where Ari became a monster. Where she smiled every time Wolframite jumped. Where she preened every time Ares told her what a good job she was doing. Where she'd held that knife and stared a small, frightened teenager in his one remaining eye and gleefully planned the slowest, most painful way she could of ripping it from his head...

Ari broke off with a shudder. "I could do it again," she said, voice scarily empty. "It would be so easy. It was easy. And I- I..."