A Second Chance

Seeing as he wasn't going to get any response from Mist, he instead just went about his business. He set about boiling the kettle, putting bread in the toaster, all the normal morning things to do. "You're pretty antisocial." He said absently, not really sure whether he should pity him or hate hhim. Firefly was still mulling over the events of yesterday, and hadn't yet come to a conclusion over whether or not he ought to try and combat this apparent psychosis from which he suffered. Well, it was more likely that others would suffer thanks to him, but that was beside the point.
 
"Pot calling the kettle black," Mist mumbled, looking down at his glass of water. It was half-empty already, and that made him sigh. At least there was more where that came from. Lots more. Not that he was really interested in it. He was just trying to make himself feel better.

He gave Firefly a wary look, hoping the man wasn't going to bring up the nightmare. Mist didn't want to talk about it. Or what had caused his nightmares.
 
Unfortunately, Firefly had different ideas. He was actually being relatively sensible for once, not that Mist was going to be terribly happy about this. "You've got to face whatever shit you've got going on." He meant it, and it made sense too. "You know it'll eat you up if you let it." He couldn't say why he was being so kind and generally rational. It didn't matter though, this was happening, even if it was entirely uncomfortable for both of them.
 
Mist looked shocked at Firefly's words. His shock gave way quickly to resentment, though, and he asked, "What does it matter to you?" He didn't want to talk about it. It was bad enough that Firefly had put some of the pieces together, though Mist didn't know exactly how much the man had figured out.

He strode past Firefly, heading into the living room to sit down on the couch. His burn was hurting him, but he didn't mention it to Firefly. He was trying to avoid more attention from the man.
 
He didn't immediately follow. Instead, Firefly made his breakfast, blandly topped toast, that was it. He then made his way into the living room, where he stood against the wall, not feeling too comfortable sitting down. He was worried about talking to Mist, he'd never done anything like this before, and really had no desire to start now.

"If you're screwed in the head, you're a liability. Either unfuck yourself up or go back to prison." He probably could be sent back to jail if his psychological profile was bad enough. It was unlikely that it would go this far, bbut it was silly to underestimate the power of the fearful.
 
That got to Mist more severely than Firefly seemed to have anticipated. Mist snapped at him, very angry. "I can't fucking go back there! Don't you understand? Don't you fucking understand?!" He didn't know whether or not Firefly had figured out just how badly damaged Mist was. And prison was the problem. It was definitely the problem.
 
Firefly just scowled at him, not sure what else he could do right now. He was angry, but also aware that forcing the issue too much might just make Mist shut himself away even more than he already had. "You're not functioning. You think if you get through this thing you'll live?" He growled, taking a bite out of his toast to punctuate the point. "You want to be free, face up to your fears and fucking crush them." He'd done that...and look how wonderfully he'd turned out! Firefly was a prime example of someone who had let his fear own him, though instead of shying away from the world, he had bludgeoned through it in the most violent manner possible.
 
"You have no fucking idea what I've been through," Mist seethed, glaring at Firefly. "You have no idea what it was like! So shut the fuck up and stop talking about it like you know. You don't!" He stood and retreated to his room, trying to avoid the topic they were gradually approaching. Of course, even his room didn't provide much privacy. The door had been burned to bits, after all. If Firefly came up, he'd see Mist pacing the room.
 
Someone had a bee in their bonnet. Firefly didn't immediately challenge Mist, but he fully intended to do so. He had always been a determined man, not to mention stubborn, and now he was focused on getting Mist to face his demons, he was bloody well going to succeed in that goal. He did give the young man a few minutes to cool off again, using the time to finish his breakfast, not that this took long. Far too soon after Mist had retreated back upstairs, Firefly was on his case again.

"You're going to face it. I don't care how traumatised you are, you're not a fucking flower, you're not going to break." He was actually trying to be kind as he growled through what was left of the door. It was quite an aggressive strategy, but he was honestly trying his best. "Either talk about it or think about it, just stop running. I hate cowards." He was one himself, of course, not that he would admit that.
 
"Just leave me alone, asshole!" Mist snapped back through the door. He wasn't going to deal with this. Thinking or talking about what he'd gone through would do him no good. It would only send him into a state he didn't want to be in. He'd much rather ignore it. He'd much rather pretend that he was fine. It was delaying the inevitable breakdown, but Mist couldn't deal with that stuff right now.
 
What to do, what to do. It was unfortunate that Firefly only had one move available to him. It had always worked for him up until now, and he didn't see why it wouldn't work, so long as he was persistent enough. It wasn't necessarily the best thing for Mist, but with any luck in the long term he'd thank him for it. Or not. "Stop making excuses and be a fucking man." He snapped, stepping through the charred remains of what had once been a fairly solid door. "I'm not bluffing here, you are going to do this." Mist had no choice, as far as Firefly was concerned. He was going to undergo some kind of twisted therapy today, whether he liked it or not.
 
"It's not your choice!" Mist shot back, moving to the opposite side of the room. He was quickly getting cornered, though. "It's my choice, and I'm not going to do it. There is not a single fucking thing you can do to change that!" He wasn't going to back down, either. It was a case of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. At least, it looked that way on the surface. On the inside, Mist's resolve was crumbling. He was starting to get very, very afraid. Why couldn't Firefly just leave him alone?
 
Firefly would not leave him be, even though anyone with half a brain would have noticed that he was only making the situation worse. It didn't matter to him, he thought he was doing the right thing here, and so he continued to hammer away at the task, just as he always had done. "Just talk, and no one gets hurt." Andd now he was resorting to threats. He approached Mist, eyes hard and unforgiving. He didn't really want to know the details of what had happened, but he felt it was his duty to get it out in the open, so Mist wouldn't suddenly explode when the pressure finally got too much.
 
Mist scoffed at that. "You'd actually hurt me just to get me to talk about this?" he asked, not believing that for a moment. "That's the most idiotic thing I've ever heard." Firefly would have to be a complete moron to do that. Hurting someone to get them to talk about the abuse they'd suffered? Sure. Like that would ever work. If anything, it would make matters worse. Surely Firefly could see that. But then again, Mist had noticed the man wasn't exactly mentally stable. Maybe he actually thought this was a good idea, instead of actually sitting down with Mist and trying to talk to him like a real person.
 
"If you don't talk, you're a liability. Talk or die. It's simple." It was totally logical to him, despite how obviously insane this idea was. He continued to approach Mist until the smaller could move no further. For the time being he would not harm him, but by now it had become fairly clear that he wasn't bluffing. At least he was waiting relatively patiently for Mist to speak. His foot was tapping on the floor in a typically irritated manner, but that was as far as his impatience went. It was something of a miracle, all thins considered.
 
"You cruel bastard..." Mist said tightly, pressing himself back against the wall in an attempt to put some distance between him and Firefly. "Do you even realize what you're doing?" He was visibly shaking, clearly stressing out from what Firefly was trying to force him to do. His pupils were even dilating from his fear. Or, rather, one of them was. That one was his left, belonging to his blue-gray eye. The pupil of his red eye remained entirely motionless, making no adjustments whatsoever. It was almost like the eye wasn't real...
 
Needless to say, Firefly did not notice any of the goings on with Mist's eye. Why would he? He had his goal, he was taking the most direct route to it, which he supposed was also the most efficient. Apparently he didn't understand that sometimes approaching something sideways worked alot better. "I'm helping you. You should be bloody grateful." He really ought to be, considering that he hadn't been beaten to a pulp yet. "Are you going to talk, or am I going to have to make you?" His fists were beginning to clench now, though thankfully his hands were not gloved, and he did not intend to change that.
 
"You're not helping..." Mist said, his voice getting very quiet. "You're just making it worse..." He couldn't possibly back up any further, and Firefly had gotten so close to him. It was really freaking Mist out, and he covered his face with his hands as he slid down to the floor. He couldn't handle this. He needed Firefly to back off. Pressuring him like this wasn't going to do him any good, and resorting to violence would only do more damage to Mist's psyche.
 
This wasn't going well, and Firefly did eventually realise this. He punched the wall above Mist's head, hurting his hand pretty badly. Unfortunately, the house was pretty well built, and so was hardly forgiving when it came to human flesh. Even so, he barely winced at the pain, having long since learnt how to deal with far worse. "Fine. You have until tonight to get your shit together." Yes. He would give him a chance to do it on his own, and if not, he'd either kill him, or send him back to prison. He honestly meant it, although he wasn't sure which would be the better option.
 
"Why are you doing this?" Mist asked, forcing himself to look up at Firefly. "Forcing this isn't going to work." He didn't think that anything would work, honestly. He had no faith in psychiatrists, and it was extremely obvious that being pushed like this wouldn't help, either. What made matters even worse was that Firefly would either kill him or send him back to prison if he didn't sort everything out by that night.

The ridiculousness of that demand was not lost on Mist, and he said, "You can't rush this. Years of damage can't be repaired in one day..." He realized just how big of a hint he'd just given Firefly, and he immediately shut up. If Firefly had thought Mist's problem had just been a one-time thing, he was very, very wrong. This had gone on for a while, and it truly would take more time than a single day for Mist to get over it. If he ever did. Firefly really had no idea the hell Mist had been put through.
 
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