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He looks down at the tear on his thumb, little drop of water mixing with the water from the ice cold lake that washes some of Marlowe’s blood of his skin.“That’s new as well,” he mutters to himself, before he takes the sword in both hands and storms back to the shore, towards the hordes of demons rushing for him.Aberrant asked him to cover their retreat, and he is more than happy to oblige. At least the resistance of the flesh and bones he hacks through, the steaming hot or frozen cold or rotting blood splattering on him, the bodies hitting the ground, feel right, even though the sword is unfamiliar in his hands, the sword that has killed him sixty-seven times, and the wounds his enemies inflict on him for once isn’t the only pain he feels.Right now, as he decimates the attackers, Marlowe is escaping, and Dex with him. Away from this place. Away from him. To safety, if the god keeps its end of the bargain. The pain lying in that thought cuts deeper than any blade or magic attack. It’s a pain he hasn’t known in years. And he loves it.He loves the pain because it is the only thing he has left, the only thing that feels real. Because the wounds in his body remind him that he has a body, and the hole that seems to be torn from his heart reminds him that he still has a heart, as unlikely as it seems, and the tears in his eyes remind him that there might still be some shred of humanity left to him.But there isn’t, of course.The pain is fading. He knew that would happen. It always faded. Like when he feels the excitement drain from his body moments after a murder, until an hour later it is all gone, or when his wounds stop stinging until he barely notices them; when, gradually, the whole world seems to fade from his view again, moving away, leaving him just an empty husk again.He tries to cling on to it, tries to keep the worst of the pain in his mind and heart, like pushing a weapon deeper into a wound. He forces himself to remember, while the memories still mean something: The weight of Marlowe’s body as he carried him out to the water. Aberrant telling him to let go. How powerless he felt as he handed over Dex to it as well.Those memories hurt, but not enough.And he thinks of Dexter telling him to do the right thing before disappearing again. He thinks of Marlowe’s hands grasping for him as he sank into the waves. How much he wanted to pull him back up, drag him out of the water. The pain of letting go.The words “It can only get better from here, even if it’s just that you won’t be there”, which Marlowe didn’t mean like that, but maybe he did, but maybe he didn’t (but even if he didn’t, he was right).The enemies are thinning out, their corpses scattered across the shore, their blood dyeing the ground and the water a sick and beautiful color. He keeps swinging the sword at the remaining ones, desperately trying to get some last satisfaction out of the kills.And then he’s alone. Surrounded by corpses, he falls to his knees. The tears are gone. The pain is gone. He is empty. He is alone. He feels nothing.He lost the only two people he could feel something for. And now that they are gone, the world around him seems to move in, move closer, almost strangling him. In the material plane, the world he came from, he always felt like he was strangely removed from everything and everyone. Taking all his effort to even notice what was around him. Violence as the only way to connect to it.But this place is different. When he had Dex and Marlowe, he could ignore it, but now there is no way of denying it. That he is a part of this place, and that this place is just like him: bleak, and cold, and violent. There may be some signs that there once might have been something like life here, a long time ago, but not anymore.No wonder they wanted to get away from it. He’s wanted to get away from it for years.Maybe that’s how it was always supposed to go. Maybe he belongs here.He looks down at the sword.But that would be meaningless, wouldn’t it? Even if he didn’t just get brought back, like all the times before, what use would dying be while he has nothing but emptiness inside him? He always thought (or anticipated?) that he would die in battle, adrenaline in his blood and Dex in his hands. He doesn’t want to die like this.He gets up, walks out of the cavern, looking for something to kill. Another fight, another murder, another body hitting the floor in front of himHe fights until all his enemies lay dead before him on the ground, then goes out looking for another fight. Fights until he is covered in layer upon layer of blood. Whose, he can’t say. He fights until his body finally gives in and he falls to the ground, only to get up hours later, unable to tell if he was dead in the time between. Then looks for the next fight, his next assignment. His masters aren’t pleased with him, letting Marlowe get away, but what does he care, he just asks for his next assignment, another fight, another bloodbath, another fight…He can’t tell if he’s the Abyss’ most efficient hitman or most pathetic suicide commando. He knows there are orders, but they won’t stick to his mind. Nagging voices, but they don’t belong to Dex or Marlowe, so why should he care? All he cares about is finding new enemies to slay, new blood to spill, new bodies to mutilate, so maybe he can find even a fraction of an emotion in the broken parts he leaves behind. Just like in the old military days, huh?The emptiness around him is as cruel as the emptiness inside him.He wants to see Dexter again. For just a brief moment, Aberrant showed him to him again, like it did when he had entered its realm. His voice was too calm, too patient, too understanding for a dying man facing his murderer. Encouraging him to make the right choice.Why didn’t he touch him then, why didn’t he kiss him, why was his first instinct always to throw himself at him and hurt him? He knows the answer. It is the same reason he could never be with Marlowe for more than a day without hurting him.He wants Marlowe back. He wants him to take his sword back and impale him on it, and spew in his face that he hates him.He doesn’t regret his choice. He knows it was the right one. The only right decision he has made in years. He still wishes he could take it back. He wants to be with Marlowe, or Dexter, or both. He wants them to take him in their arms. He wants to cry while they hold him. But he knows that even if he could be with them, all he would be able to think about as they held him would be how much he wanted to hurt them. He can’t even cry. He wishes he could. He wishes he could feel all that despair and sorrow and anguish that he knows he should be feeling, that he knows are somewhere inside him, and he wishes he could cry all of that out.He doesn’t want to die like this, empty and emotionless and alone. He doesn’t want to be like this anymore.He wants to live, that’s what he always wanted, that is the reason he’s done horrible things, murdered countless innocent people. Because it makes him feel alive. And that is selfish, of course it is, but what has selflessness ever brought him?It was selfless to let go of Marlowe, his first selfless act in ages. It was selfless to give Dex away, a selfless promise to become better, fix at least some of this mess he has gotten himself into. But it was a stupid promise, one he could never keep, and everyone knows it.He wants to go back. Back to the man he used to be before he died and left any good things there ever were to him on the battlefield where his brains had spread on the ground. Or, if that’s too much to ask, he wants to go back to that night when he finally told Dexter what had happened to him. And instead of taking up the axe and killing him, he wants to let Dexter comfort him and tell him it’s all going to be alright, they are going to find a solution, and maybe they really will.He wants to go back, start again, undo his mistakes. He wants to be himself again.But that wouldn’t work, would it? If he has proven anything over the past years, then that the only thing he can do is make the same mistakes over and over again. Dexter was always going to die at his hands.Aberrant said Dexter would be proud of him. But he doubts it. There is nothing to be proud of. He made two selfless decisions that were just amends for his past mistakes, and already he wants to take them back. Already he can’t take it anymore. Already he has given in to his worst instincts. Deep down, in a place of his mind he doesn’t dare to admit exists, he knows Dexter – the real Dexter, not any of the images he might have of him – would hate him, like Marlowe hates him. They both have good reason to.So, what is another mistake in the tower he has built up over the years? Let’s face it, there’s no way he’ll ever be worthy of Dex, or get out of his deal here. So why should he try? Why shouldn’t he just get him back in his own way? It’s not like Dex is here to tell him that’s a bad idea.When he gets sent to his next assignment in the material plane, instead of following his orders and killing the people he is supposed to, he starts looking for a way back into the realm of Aberrant, to demand back what is his.There isn’t anyone who actually believed even for a second that he could be better, is there?