I hope you know that it's not always happy in my head. [Locked to agonybow]

[selfcensure]

[Joseph still woke most days, certain that his freedom was nothing but a hopeful dream. Surely this time he would wake from this fantasy -- wake back in that nightmare of a place where he wasn't even sure how much time had passed. Kidman had said something about how long it had been since that fateful day, when she'd brought him to this small town with her... how unlike him for it to have slipped his mind.

The days of his new life had occasionally seemed to blur into one another as well. He supposed that was to be expected, with the way he'd very nearly fully isolated himself from the others. Whenever he managed to sleep, the horrors of what he had done were there to greet him. The horrors he could still be capable of. Even though he had handed over anything that could easily be used as a weapon to Kidman at first -- and then... to Sebastian once she'd left... the shadow of feeling his hands closing around the man's throat haunted him.

And now there was Lily as well. His goddaughter... the only one who could draw him out of his self imposed isolation so far, and the one he was most concerned about hurting. Sebastian and Kidman could both defend themselves... but Lily was a child. After all the time he spent as an experiment, how could he trust himself?

If something was going to happen to any of them... he still wanted to be the one it happened to.

And that was why he'd willingly parted with the most dangerous items in the house. Even with all the time that had passed, his memory of putting that gun to his head was vivid. The way Sebastian had looked at him was practically burned into his memory.

The bite of cold water on his hands is enough to drag him back out of his head.

Right... he'd been washing some dishes after he'd retreated back into his home -- after seeing Lily off to school that morning. She'd taken to hugging both her father and him before she left each morning -- how happy she'd been to see him following the one day he hadn't had the presence of mind to step outside had been enough to ensure he never missed this particular morning routine going forward.

He's turned off the water and dried his hands before he really realizes it, each action feeling distant -- feeling as if he were a passenger in another person's mind and not his own. He wouldn't get anything done this way, not right now. So for the moment... all he could really do was drop himself heavily onto the couch, glasses slipped off for the ease of resting his forehead in his hands. Leaned forward over his knees, glasses dangling loosely from his fingers... he needed a moment.

He needed just a moment, before he could continue going through the motions.]