Ahhh, another submission! You guys are amazing (and I really, really appreciate y'all keeping this blog populated with new material as I work my way through all the prompts that are still waiting in my ask).
"Duality" by helier-cross
Sometimes the weight of not being truthful made him cringe. He would be sitting with White, putting a cigarette to his lips and breathing in so deeply that he became light-headed, nodding at some joke or a callous remark that only his false identity would laugh at—when it hit him, that shock of guilt. His lips would tighten into a thin line, while his fingers clench. That metaphorical anvil flattened him, made his rib cage two-dimensional and his lungs unable to take in any more breath. The moment would leave him a shadow of himself for a second, maybe three at the most. Freddy’s eyes would cloud over, as if he were farther than this grime-covered section of Los Angeles. Sometimes, that momentary darkness would be noticeable to those closest to him; they passed it off as reticence, or a groggy remembrance of a foul dream. When it first happened, a few weeks before the heist, White nudged him with his elbow; a soft touch padded by cotton and the sleek fabric of a suit jacket. He knew what would accompany that quick jostle, the familiar “you okay" look none of the others could ever see.
That look jogged him back to “normal", away from guilt-ridden Freddy Newandyke and back to fresh-faced criminal Orange. With a grimace and a gesture towards his head, a “god-damn bruise from some cheap-ass headboard", he’d deny not only White the truth, but himself. He’d trick himself into feeling a soft-spot on his scalp, or a crick in the neck. Every bare-faced lie and every excuse that passed through his lips made him so damn scared; not just of breaking his cover, but of turning into Orange— of believing everything his cover whispered to him, laughed at and fucking beat off to. He wasn’t just Freddy any more, no; he was just like every superhero he had skimmed over; relying on two people inside of one. Using an alter-ego, a double life where both had their own thoughts and feelings. Freddy didn’t know how the hell those superheroes did it.
