today i love the red metal crane in her long neck arching her body over the boston skyline, which means i am okay for a moment. when i am unwell, everything is a little ugly. i always tell myself look for the beauty but when it is bad, i will look at birds and sunsets and little ducklings and feel absolutely nothing.
when my brother got his puppy, i was in a deep depression. what kind of monster isn't affected by a puppy. i was gentle and kind to her - i just didn't have an emotional reaction. she's five now and i feel like i spend all of our interactions apologizing to her - i don't know why. i just didn't feel anything. how embarrassing. i feel like if i admit that, i'll seem cruel and jaded. it comes in waves. like, two months ago when i went out into the world - it was like that. life behind a pane of stormglass. a firework could go off over your head - nothing. like dead skin, no reaction. not to ice cream or rainbows or baby chickens. life foggy and uninteresting.
i love goslings again. i love their little webbed feet splayed over grass. i love good food and live music and long walks. i like puppies. i feel like some kind of my soul has been starved - i keep staring at everything with wide eyes, trying to burrow the sensation into my stomach. it's real. beauty is real. when it's bad again, remember this. i stop and smell the flowers, feeling cliche in the moment. i like the white-to-red ombre of my neighbor's roses. i like colorcoding and yoga and cold drinks. i try to pass my hands over every moment, feeling like i'm squeezing joy out of every instant. remember this. for the love of god, it's real - just remember this.
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Levi with an (Episodically) Depressed S/O
Tags: levi x reader, angst, hurt-comfort, gn!reader
Word count: 900
Levi invites you to shower with him, making the obstacle less daunting and much more attractive. In his black robe, leaning on your bedroom door, two towels slung over his arm indicate the knowledge that you will say yes and accompany him. The way that he looks, the low plea in his voice, how could you say no?
It would be more accurate to say that he was bathing you, but he does not phrase it that way. Instead, he is humble, letting his actions speak louder than words. He does not tell you that he will shampoo your matted hair, does not flaunt how deliberately he exfoliates your limbs, he just does them for you. Some days, even just tipping the bottle or pumping some soap into your hand can seem mountainous. On those days, he sees those activities not as tasks, but as privileges. It is his honor to be the one looking after you in your most dire time. He would always prefer someone to take care of rather than someone to miss.
Showering together not only ensures that you stay clean, but his company prevents you from those timeless sessions sat on the tile floor. At the moment you look refreshed but before you become sleepy, he jerks the handle to the left and halts the devastatingly relaxing rain.
Always, your clean clothes are already folded atop the bathroom counter, waiting for you. Some times, you fail to remember that you did not put them there. Other times, you notice the sign of his relentless consideration, but are artificially silenced from expressing your gratitude. No matter in his mind. You are clean, clothed, and out of bed, and that’s already better than you were before.
Without one complaint, Levi scoops your dampened towel and old clothes from the wet bathroom floor and drops them in the hamper for you. He has seen the piles that can amass, and if it were anyone else in any other circumstance, the clean freak would be quick to chastise, but any sight or thought of you disintegrates any instinct to discipline. You are sat in the living room, admiring the ivy that swirls around the balcony’s posts, thumbing the petals of the bouquet vased on the coffee table. White-gold rays move just a tad west to cast your figure in therapeutic light. You’re too tired to move away from the sun, and for once, Levi finds your fatigue favorable. As the morning temperature rises, he can see that your resting smile does as well.
While you are entranced with the scenes of summer, Levi swiftly searches for and alleviates the areas you have left neglected. He dumps your sock drawer upside down and mends the pairs that you have discarded as singles. In your closet, he finds the clean pile and dirty pile and either folds it or washes it accordingly. Under your bed, on your nightstand, in your bedside drawer, he discovers the dirty dishes that have been missing the sink and returns them to their proper place.
Between those tasks, he rolls his shoulders back or rubs the side of his neck and allows himself to sigh. It is difficult - not to bandage these tiny wounds - but to see the harsh bruises left by the illness. Sure, you were forgetful, and not quite as tidy as he was, but still - the mounds of laundry, hidden dirty dishes - this wasn’t like you. Levi lives for your joy - not the superficial smile, your peace - not the misleading silence. He lives for you - in sickness and in health. The times you forget your worth, that is when he whispers it in your ear. When the world is overwhelming you, he lets his touch communicate it.
Once your space is in order, he can start to work on getting you to leave it. Rather than annoying reminders or obligations, he mindfully manipulates the steps of treatment into desirable invitations. Rather than Do you want to… or Would you like to…, his proposals are statements, taking the responsibility out of your hands. Concerts in the park this afternoon. Let’s go to the farmers market. Apple orchard just opened.
Or even less far away.
Plants look thirsty, water them with me? Rain just cleared, read on the porch with me? Full moon tonight, stargaze with me?
To you, with me frames the activities, frames your presence as favors for him, and even in your lowest state, you are always keen to help him with anything. To Levi, it is no framing, your relationship is the greatest gift that fate has bestowed on him, and he treats you as such. It is in his selfless actions and his careful words, but it is more than that, traits you can’t quite categorize. The near flat, subtle smile you wake up to in the morning. The tight yet painless combs through your hair that leave you feeling divine. The low, calming timbre of his voice, decorated with a tender tone that he reserves for you.
Even before the haze you’re in now, you’ve never been able to label those qualities of his, and instead settled: it’s just who he is.
Like the sentiment that motivates his care: it’s what you deserve.
// masterlist //
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i need to write the fic where it's a flashback of a time to when kristoph and apollo are investigating something and then in the blink of an eye, something happens that could put apollo in mortal danger, like something's about to fall on him or someone's about to attack him, and then kristoph just instinctually "takes the bullet" for him.
kristoph has big brother instincts that just kick in when he sees klavier or apollo (or trucy, in my mind) specifically in danger and he doesn't even realize he's DONE anything until it's already done, and now maybe HE'S injured or bleeding or whatever. it wasn't a conscious action, it was because he cares for them but doesn't even know that he cares THAT much, enough to go against his most basic paranoid self-preserving instincts (which are incredibly strong motivating forces in him specifically by the way, he always protects himself first) and take a self-sacrificial action.
apollo is just in awe of him after that. his boss is his absolutely his hero. and kristoph is just having a bit of an internal crisis because why did he do that. why put himself in danger like that. why. why. why. why. it disturbs him, deeply. does kristoph really know so little about himself?
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jason thinks he should be dead (sometimes he thinks he IS dead), he's just what crawled out of jason todd's grave but he IS jason todd why cant you see that im still the same person. but im not who i used to be and you have to accept i'm different now but i'm still the same bc i'm still your son and your brother and your friend but i'm not 15 anymore (but i am i never grew up i'm still stuck in that warehouse watching the seconds count down the joker is still laughing and i'm still in pain and broken and bloody and beaten and the warehouse is everything and i'm 15 i'm 15 i'm 15) i'm an adult now i'm not a sweet lil daddy's kid anymore i've grown up (i haven't. do you remember when i played with legoes? when we went to football matches togetehr? when you drove me to school and called me chum and smiled at me gently and put your hand around my shoulder and squeezed? i loved you.) when you look at me all you see is who i used to be, you don't see ME, you just see who i used to be and i can never measure up to that, i can never be as good or kind or gentle or loving as the ghost of me that lives in your brain, but when i look in the mirror my eyes are dead like a fish's and my corpse is still in the ground and i'm not breathing because my insides are decayed and gone but i'm still standing here like a zombie, like a bad dream, like a fraction of who i used to be because i'm dead and i'm 15 and i never grew up but i'm somehow still an adult and how dare you not see me for who i am because i'm still the same but i'm still different but aren't i your son? am i at least still your son? you took me in and you loved me and you cared for me and you were my father my god my everything? i'm still your son. i'm still your son. i'm still your son.
Do you love me? Can you prove you love me? Can you prove i meant anything and can you prove my death was real?
(I love you. Please say it back.)
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