Greed God chapter 230

April 14th 2016 Brightedge City, The Hall of Nevers, 3:00 AM EDT

I  headed home feeling...weirdly refreshed. Working off some of my stress  was definitely helpful and with the post nut clarity I was able to  really implement some of those emotional control techniques. Being able  to manage the mess in my brain finally was a huge relief, and the  combination of positive sensations had me feeling almost high. I felt  like I could fucking fly. I mean, I COULD fly, but I felt like I could  fly without my wings or magic.

The exercises Raven taught  me were...not what I was expecting. I'd figured it would be some method  of shoving my feelings in a box when they weren't useful. A way of  suppressing the inconvenient bullshit inside until I had time for it  later, but to my surprise, that couldn't be further from the truth.

My  first exercise was the ability to contextualize my emotions. It was a  method of organizing and sorting them so they would come more evenly,  rather than cresting and breaking over me like waves. It didn't make any  of my feelings less intense exactly, but more helped me balance them  with other similar but opposite emotions that could provide a bit of  relief from the worst of the peaks.

Secondly, Raven had  taught me a method of measured exposure. Using my ability to perfectly  recall anything to slowly acclimate myself to the sensations of some  emotions by basically subjecting myself to slowly increasing amounts of  them until I was so used to them further instances were blunted. Once  again, it was an imperfect method, but using them in conjunction was  enough to give me a modicum of control over myself, and I was relishing  the sensation.

As I entered the house though, and headed  up to my room, I noticed something odd. I was being followed. It wasn't  that I saw someone, or heard them. I could just FEEL it. The Brand made  it possible for me to connect with any of my people, and the one  following me was as familiar to me as my own breath.

I led  her to my room, leaving the door open behind me as I walked in and  started stripping off my shirt. "Come in Cherry." I tossed the shirt  onto the bed. I wasn't trying to get her hot and bothered or anything, I  just didn't feel like wearing my shirt to bed. Same with my pants,  though I left the silk boxers I was wearing on.

My phantom  stepped through the door, appearing from nothing, and  looking...uncertain. I frowned. That wasn't like her. Cherry was nothing  if not confident. She stared at me fretfully, and I cocked my head at  her quizzically, raising an eyebrow. My mask was off and on my bedside  table, taken off before the shirt, and I wasn't sure what she wanted.  She just...stared at me.

"You don't need me anymore." She  said flatly. I was taken aback by that. "You used me because I was like  you. Because I was broken. But now you're fixed, or at least getting  fixed. Dinah is protective and caring, Barbara is difficult but adoring,  Zatanna is driven and brilliant. You have uses for all of them. But not  me. Not anymore. Not really. Sure, my ghost powers are useful, but you  can make another spy. Nothing about me is important."

I  was shocked to see her eyes had begun to actually water. Because she was  right in a way. Not about me throwing her away, but about her being  broken. I hadn't known Cherry even COULD cry. "I'm not-"

"SHUT  UP!" She screamed. "Don't! Don't tell me you need me, or that I'm  special. You're going to leave me just like my family. I'm not crazy you  know." She said...pretty much completely incorrectly. "I know what I  was to you. I know you aren't a new dad for me. A new family. But now  you're fixed and you're just going to throw me away. That's why you've  been ignoring me lately. You weren't even there when I tracked down  Trevor." Her eyes overflowed. "YOu were supposed to be there."

I  felt...bad. Like I'd done something awful and I wanted to fix it. I  was...I was pretty sure this was what guilt felt like. It was new. I  didn't like it. I'd felt anger over my dad's death, sadness, excitement,  and a dozen other smaller emotions, but guilt wasn't something I'd  experienced.

Since I had no idea how to HANDLE guilt, I  defaulted to the old standard until I could redo my exercises to  acclimate myself to it. I got pissed off. I stalked across the room,  grabbed her, and pinned her against the wall. Leaning down I kissed the  platinum blonde roughly on the mouth, then pulled back and looked her in  the eye.

"How many times do I have to tell you  insufferable bitches how this works? You are MINE. I'm not throwing you  away. I'm not LETTING you go away. You think you're magically free now  because I can care about shit? You think I'm LESS possessive?" I spun  her around, pinning her stomach first to the wall, and slapped her ass  hard enough for her to yelp.

Not sexually. I wasn't  planning to fuck her. This was fucking discipline. She'd been bad. If  she wanted a daddy I'd fucking punish her like one. I slapped her ass  again, then a third time, spanking her mercilessly. I could sense from  her desires she didn't want me to stop. Again though, that wasn't  sexual. I barely had a handle on what she was feeling, but it was close  enough to a desire for me to pick it up. She was elated. I cared enough  to discipline her. Cherry was a pretty fucked up chick.

But  I'd known that. She was a sick little bitch, but she was MY sick little  bitch. I leaned down to speak into her ear, pulling her back against me  in and over the shoulder hug, squeezing her as she cried. "I might have  kept you because having a pet psycho was useful, but I've grown  attached. You don't just belong to me. You belong WITH me. I may be a  person now, but I'm not a nice one. People will need killing. Houses  will need breaking into. Dirty jobs will need doing. And you're the one I  trust with that. I'm sorry I missed killing Trevor. I know I only said  I'd make sure you could kill him, but you're right. I should have been  there. I've been distracted and ignoring you and it stops now."

She  gave a wheezing sob. "So, I'm not useless? Because I've been so afraid  you won't put me to use anymore. Or any of the others. If you care you  might not exploit them like before. I loved watching you do that.  Watching you use them and twist them. Now you won't. Won't do it to me  either. I love the feeling of you making me yours, wrapping me around  your finger. My daddy is all gone."

I slapped her ass  again, getting another squeak. "Did I ask you to diagnose my mental  state, slut? I'm the same person as before. I'm sick of people assuming  having my humanity is going to turn me into a simpering do gooder. I'm  going to turn you inside out, twist your brain in knots, and use you to  the absolute fullest. You'll kill my enemies, handle my most terrible  business, and it'll be even worse because I'll ACTUALLY hate the people I  send you after."

She sniffed. "You promise?" The sound of  her girlish sulking over the idea that I might not corrupt her anymore  now that I gave a shit about things was adorable, and I pulled her  against me, laughing into her hair.

"I promise." I said  solemnly. "I need you to be just as emotionally damaged and crazy as I  did before, maybe worse. And don't think that just because I care about  things that there aren't still parts of me only you can understand. I'm  more brutal than most people will ever be, even with my emotions. You're  the only one who can understand that part of me."

I was  pretty sure losing what she felt was our biggest connection was what was  getting to her. Cherry had fucking snapped after what Trevor did to  her, and she'd projected that crazy as hate for a long time. When she  became mine she transferred all the emotional baggage of her lost family  onto me, and while I couldn't deal with bullshit feelings of most of my  girls yet and found myself out of my depth, Cherry was another story.

I  UNDERSTOOD my crazy ghost girl. I always had, because she was the one  the most like me. Even with my new improved humanity that didn't change.  I knew what she needed, and was even slightly more capable of giving it  to her. It was kind of a relief after dealing with the confusing  bullshit from all the others.

Beaming  with more happiness than I had ever seen from her, she grabbed my hand  and dragged me over to the bed, tossing me down and jumping in to curl  up next to me. Looking up, I saw that the door hadn't actually closed  behind her, and a familiar amethyst eye could be seen poking through the  gap. I raised an eye at my barely visible wife, but she shook her head,  holding a finger to what I could see of her lips and pulling it quietly  shut.

I  wondered if it had been Cherry's idea to come see me at all, or if Amy  had pushed her into it hoping for this exact outcome. Her occasional  sneakiness never ceased to amaze me. Still, I brushed that aside to  focus on the girl curled up against me. It struck me how tiny Cherry  felt to me, despite being one of the tallest of my girls. I was feeling  weirdly protective of the little nutcase right now, but it wasn't a bad  thing.

As she  snuggled up to me, I began to run through my exercises, evening out my  breathing and getting myself used to the new sensations she was bringing  me. It seemed like all my girls evoked different things in me so far,  which was weird because I'd have assumed it would all be a flavor of the  same thing, possessiveness. I supposed positive emotions came in more  flavors than 'MINE' even if they were ones I had no experience with.

"So."  I said to the top of her head. "I'm sorry I missed Trevor's death, but  I'm sure you made a big production out of it. Why don't you tell me what  you did to him so I can share the triumph. Spare no details. After what  he did to you he had any pain you inflicted coming and then some."

Her  head jerked up so fast she almost headbutted me in the nose. "Really?"  She said excitedly, eyes shimmering with joy. "I can tell you about it? I  thought the new you wouldn't want to know. I'm pretty proud of it, I  think I really outdid myself." She nuzzled back up to me. "Ok, the first  thing you need to know is that I came prepared. When I showed up at the  apartment he was hiding in I brought a car battery, ten feet of steel  wire, a bag of pennies, a bottle of bleach, a package of kebab skewers, a  bottle of honey and an ant farm full of fire ants..."

She  chattered on, proceeding to describe to me a series of acts so horrific  that I'm pretty sure most normal humans would have started screaming  halfway through. For my part though, all I could feel was...pride. I'd  made her happy, helped her kill her most hated enemy, and shown her she  had a place with me. I pulled her against me as I listened to her  describe the most excruciating torture she could conceive of and sighed  in contentment. I was totally nailing this human emotion thing.