Six months of living Hell and it had only taken eleven days for his entire world to implode. Jeremiah was bitten. Charlie was knocked up. His best friends were held captive at the hands of the woman he called mother. And now he was left with no one but himself to rely on. Somehow an even scarier thought. He could count on less than one hand those who'd seen this side of him. However, the depth to which he could fall had always been his and his alone. No one had been blessed with the opportunity to see John-Paul truly at his worst.
There was no need for him to hide the beast within anymore. No reason to fight back against the control it had always wanted. If he wanted to survive - if he could even call it that anymore - he no longer had a choice but to shut everything down and succumb to the numbness. He'd worked so fucking hard to keep his demons at bay and away from those he loved, but now....well, now, what difference would it make to keep playing nice? His anger had been quelled long enough and would now be set free. The monster everyone seem to believe he was would soon be unleashed upon the world within the Wexley. He just wished it had been under different circumstances with different people - his hurt never ending despite his acceptance of thier fates.
His grip on the tray of food shifted as he prepared himself to come face-to-face with Ashton. The one person, aside from Charlie, he always thought was the light at the end of the Rose's very long and dark tunnel. Especially Jeremiah's. The man who, until recently, he thought he could tell anything to. One of his most trusted confidantes. An outsider to the family whose own mother had been the one, true piece of normal he'd ever felt. The Ryders had given him hope by making him a part of such unconditional love.
It was just too bad he'd been wrong. About everything. This life was his normal. It always had been. If he had just accepted long ago that he was rotten to the core instead of trying to be the good person he wanted to be, then he could have avoided the shattering devastation his heart sustained when everyone's lies came to light and opened his eyes to the reality of who he really was.
Hector unlocked the door for John-Paul and stepped aside to let him through. The usual chaotic and bubbling energy that usually followed the middle Rose had become nothing more than a memory of his old self. The John-Paul that stood in front of Ashton was cold and unmoving - his presence alone seeming to suck the air from the room. The tension of his unpredictability that now followed him couldn't have been thicker. And while hurt could still be seen in his gaze, if one looked hard enough they could see the emptiness behind his eyes as it swallowed it, leaving behind a void filled with only empty darkness.
"Lunch," he said flatly as he made his way inside Ash's room cell to set the tray down on the bed. "Don't look too far into it, but I managed to get you a Milky Way," he told him, the unspoken apology loud and clear. "It's the only one you'll get so make sure to savor it," he added, the warning just as silent as his apology - John-Paul sorry for his past, but not his future nor what he would do from here on out.
