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Finney Blake was a loaded gun. With the safety off. Held securely in the hands of his closest friends. They knew, even if they didn't really know, that Finney was theirs just as much as they were his. They cupped his cheeks and squeezed his hands and kissed his shoulder; they brushed his hair and traced his lips, and each let their pointer fingers rest all delicate and gentle on his trigger. Tauntingly. Teasingly. Lovingly. Finney stayed, ready and waiting, at the pinnacle of their deadly command, as they unknowingly commandeered the untapped fury of Zeus himself. A writhing ball of white-hot, ice-cold, sharp, smooth, square, round, Rage. It flickered and seethed and brightened and boiled, coiling around itself, dripping like molten rock, growing larger; stronger, the longer it was left to fester inside him. Finney let it fester. Finney coddled it, he nurtured it, he kept it right where he knew it could be contained, and he breathed his encouragement into its very being. He mothered it until its shapeless essence turned tangible, fleshy and pulsing with a certainty that could only be described as life. He provided for it, like the soil provides for the flowers and the wolf provides for her cubs. He held it all within himself, allowing it to develop until it began tearing at the walls of his soul, clawing at the cracks in the silvery plaster, kicking and screaming and demanding to be released. Finney let it scream. He let it demand and whine and beg and cry, then scream and demand again. The torrent came in waves, intense; drowning waves. It would throw itself against the barriers of its confines, squirming and thrashing, crying out to Finney, begging for him to let it out. Eventually, it tired itself out as Finney lay in the darkness of his room, breathing in deep and exhaling slow. It settled in dormancy for a little while, before returning even stronger. Every time, Finney would sit with the core of the Earth, letting it burn him from the inside out. He welcomed the blinding anger like a muddy dog home from its walk, by hosing it off in the garden and leaving it to shake itself dry on the patio. His Rage would shake and splatter and plaster itself all over Finney's conscience, seeping deep into the cracks and crevices, mindlessly scrabbling at every possible exit point. "It hurts," Finney whispered into the thick, heavy darkness. The mattress dipped beside him and he was met with a gentle - not delicate - hand in his hair, petting, soothing him wordlessly. "It feels like it's eating me up inside." The blanketing silence stretched over him, quickly growing suffocating. "I hoped you'd understand, Vance," He confessed, turning to face his companion. There wasn't much he could see of the other boy, besides the shadow cast by his mess of blond curls and the outline of his bicep on the pillow next to him. "I do, sort of." Vance agreed with an air of uncertainty that Finney couldn't miss. "...But?" He prompted. "But... I've never let it build up like that, I suppose." Vance didn't elaborate, but Finney knew. Vance wore his Rage a the heart on one's sleeve. Like a badge of honour, like a peacock showing off its feathers. His anger was his protection, his status, Vance's Rage was intertwined with his very being. Quite unlike Finney, who kept his locked up in a cavern inside himself, sealed under his skin, so desperately contained, as if his very flesh and bone was attempting to rip its way out. Finney knew. "I’m not scared. Of hurting people, I mean. It's just..." He trailed off, uncertain. "No, I get it. It's the not-knowing. You're not sure what will happen after." "Yeah." Finney sighed. "What if... it never goes away?" "What if it does go away? What happens then?" Vance always had his way of reading Finney. Not better than Robin, no one could be better at knowing Finn than Robin was, but Vance came close. Maybe it was their similarities that made him an open-book to his friends. The way he crossed his fingers when he lied, or whispered the lyrics to himself while he listened to music. Maybe Finney was easy. "I don't know. Nothing, maybe?" He thought it over for a second. "I'll... I'll have nothing," Finney corrected. "Well, no. You'll have us." He didn't need to clarify which 'us' he's referring to. It was one of those things Finney just knows. "And, you'll have Gwen. You won't really be missing anything." "If I'm not angry, what am I? It feels like it's taking up a physical space inside my body; without it, I'll be hollow," Finney explained. "So, replace it with something better." Vance said it as if it was the simplest thing in the world. Like it was so glaringly obvious and Finney was silly for not thinking it himself. "What do you feel now?" Finney shrugged, jostling Vance's hand still carding through his hair. "Not much of anything, really." He paused. "Scared? Uh..." Vance's silence prompted Finney further. "Warm. Comfortable. And scared, but that's a given." "Not angry?" Vance asked. "No, it's... less of a feeling than it is, like, something that lives inside of me. I don't feel angry, I am anger. There's so much injustice in my life that there's nothing else I can be besides furious. And hopeless, and sad, and all of it just adds more fuel to the fire. The fire is Rage." Finney huffed. He supposed he should have gone to Robin, instead, or Bruce. Vance just didn't understand the way he wanted him to. Vance was quiet for a while. The moment extended on so long, Finney was almost convinced he'd fallen asleep, before finally, he spoke up again. "So, your options are to either ignore it; let it get worse and worse until it explodes," Finney flinched slightly. "Or," Vance continued, "You come to terms with the fear of not-knowing and you do something about it," He concluded. "What am I supposed to do?" Finney whispered. "That's up to you. Your fear is of losing control. You don't know what will happen, therefore, you can't control what will happen. But, the way I see it, letting your anger out is the best way for you to maintain control. There's nothing scarier than constantly feeling like a ticking time bomb." So, Finney was wrong. Vance did understand, perhaps better than any of his other friends would have. "Oh," He whispered. "Oh," Vance repeated.