*****

My project isn't going very well since Pike's too smart to be tricked into giving away his family's address, not when he knows what I want it for. He knows me so well.... I love how smart he is, but I know I won't get it out of him if I just asked him, and what I want to do is really for his own good.

Oregon's a big fucking state, you know?

What I want to do wouldn't even be that much trouble. I could just light out one day with rope, matches, a big can of gasoline, and a few knives. Driving there would be the toughest part and take the longest, I think.

And I would *enjoy* doing it.

But Pike would get upset for the same reason he won't give me their address to begin with, and I hate getting him upset. I love him. Poor guy's just been brainwashed by society into thinking that killing is always wrong, even when it's really, really right.

So that brainwashing thing got me thinking. You hear about it happening to hostages all the time. If I could figure out how to do it without all the torture.... I know Pike would be happier afterward. He'd understand and approve and know how much I love him.

That got me to thinking that maybe I could brainwash him *before* I went after his parents. That way he'd just tell me where they are, and we could kill the bastards together. Fuck, yeah. It would be one of those things you do with your loved one that brings you closer together. Romantic. And the thought of Pike with blood on his hands and a knife makes me so hard.

But I don't know how to brainwash people at all. Besides, maybe that sadness and twitchiness, those moral values, make Pike Pike, and he wouldn't be the person I love without them. Which is fucking tragic, but who said life's perfect? I don't want to lose my Pike, no matter how much and how prettily the thought of what he could be shines. So I don't act on any of it.

I don't tell Pike that I think about this stuff.

But I kind of think he knows....

***THE END***