greed: anger of the gentle man
Being two people at once has more than fucked with your life, but you suppose it's no different than any other aspect of your life. Hell, most of your life now is a disaster, one that is causing you to drink over and over and over. Of course, denial is strong with you, and the bickering in your head and the heavy feeling on your heart doesn't go away. Because it seems like everywhere you look, you're reminded of your status, you're reminded of place holders and never being the right and correct choice, the person people step all over until they find something better. The person that people promise the world to, promise to always be there, and when you need them the most, when you're suffering through a huge change, they don't show any care. When you get into a car accident, drunk off your ass from poor decisions caused by their decision, you don't even get a letter or notice asking if you're okay. The ones who do ask, they wave it over if you say you're okay, then you're okay and immediately go back to focusing on themselves Has it always been this way? Have you always surrounded yourself with people who walk all over you, using you? It looks like now most of your exes are exactly the same, and it doesn't matter how in love you were, because in less than a month she'll be in love with someone else, completely making everything about you invalid. How is that fair? Why does this keep fucking happening to you?

If you weren't a better man, you'd get revenge. You'd get vindictive. But you can't. Because you're still a good man and you don't want to hurt others as you keep getting hurt. So it's easy to close off, it's easy to keep drinking and keep hiding, even if this other voice in your head is telling you to stop. But it's easy to play to that voice's insecurities, because he shouldn't even be alive, so why does it fucking matter if you drink away your brain cells? You can't leave the apartment without being slapped in the face with bullshit reminders and shirtless hotel photos on social media and bullshit poetry about love, the constant reminder of your status. Place holder. Because "there are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man." You were once considered a gentle man. You were once considered nice, and sweet, and lovely. Someone that she, they never wanted to hurt. And they, she, everyone swears that they're not like the others. Fool you once, shame on you. Fool you twice...shame on you. Fool you five times in one year, the last one with the promise of staying friends and being by your side and that you actually fell in love and you're treated like this? Thrown away! Like you are nothing. You wish you were vengeful. You wish that stupid fire bird came to you instead of her, so you could show her, show everyone how it feels. You want to just once, just once feel powerful. Feel like things are going your way.

But you can't. You're Thad Powers. You're Ted Kord. You're not superpowered. You're not special. You can't fly, you can't shoot ice, you can't shoot green flames. You're not born with powers and abilities, you're not playing off some underground cave. You're you. That's the worst of all. That you're forgetable, aren't you? Your birthday was five days ago, and it came and went without anyone noticing. So you drink. You drink more, and more, and more, and sure you have a problem but who really gives a fuck? And you get into an argument, because you just want an apology, you want your feelings validated, you want to be told that your feeling of love was good but instead it is shoved back into your face. That you didn't really know what you were loving, isn't that right? But you let everything about you be read like an open book. You were never going to know. You were never going to know anyone. And now, if you wanted to help during the shifts, you can't. if you want to get down to the science of things, you can't, because it's yet another fucking slap in the face. So you keep to yourself. Working in your own lab, making your own discoveries, not sharing it. What's the point? All the credit would be stolen from you anyway. The credit, the adoration, the girl, the love. Happens every fucking time.

So why is it you get to stand to the side, while everyone else gets what they fucking want? Why is it that you just get to watch everyone else take what you want from you? They take your inventions and they claim them as their own, they take your ideas and claim them as their own, they take your affection and throw it to the side, they take your kindness and love and claim that it's weakness. They take from you. Everyone fucking takes from you, and they don't give a shit what they do to you, they don't care about the consequences. So, why should you?

You take a swig of the bottle, and you get to the computer. You start hacking into banks, into computers across the city, you hack into businesses and you start to steal their money. You start to take back the inventions and ideas and blueprints that were stolen from you and you leave viruses in their computers as pay back. You tell people to fuck off and you keep things for yourself, and you drink more. This is yours. This bottle is yours. This company is yours. Everything is yours now. Nothing belongs to anyone else, it all belongs to you, and it's time.

Fuck everyone else, it's time to take what you deserve, what you want. If people get hurt in the process, so be it! No one cares about you anymore, right?

Greed is an ugly emotion, but that doesn't phase you now. "There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man." Oh, and you're angry, but after today, you're not sure you can be called gentle anymore.

You finish off the bottle and toss it in the trash. Time to go.