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ilovemygaydad · 5 years

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Friends in Dark Places [remastered; ch 10]

pairing: moxiety and logince (later on), background eventual remile, background eventual remy/emile/deceit

WARNINGS: food mentions, eating, sex mentions, affair mentions, crude language, swearing, panic attacks, graphic depictions of self harm, suicidal ideation, abusive family members, yelling, fighting, blood, self hatred, self disgust, hurtful conversations, fear, anxiety, anger, homophobia, possibly something else

tag list: @hufflepuffgirl01 @cocobearthe4th @cas-is-a-hunter @band-be-boss-blog @theunoriginaldaisy

a/n: this chapter is SUPER intense, so please heed the warnings! as always, you’re free to ask for a modified chapter if you need it, but please be extra careful because none of those warnings are taken lightly!!!!

a/n 2: jsyk, it’s totally okay to ask for a modified chapter if you need it! i get it, and it’s no problem for me to quick edit a chapter or whatever :) also, feel free to send requests or questions that you have!

chapter 1 - chapter 2 - chapter 3 - chapter 4 - chapter 5 - chapter 6 - chapter 7 - chapter 8 - chapter 9 - chapter 11 - chapter 12

companion fics: exes and ‘oh’s

consider buying me a coffee

It had taken a while, but the idea of going and conversing with the others started to warm up to Virgil. Patton had wrapped his arm around Virgil’s waist and held him close, grounding the anxious teen and giving him small bits of courage. Soon, they stood up and and ventured to the main pavilion to introduce Virgil to the other people he hadn’t met yet. There was Jo, who had a really cool cut down the middle makeup look on his face, and Joan, who did the most ridiculous impressions, and Terrence, who was the biggest ball of energy in such a small body.

For once, it was actually enjoyable for Virgil to meet new people. Years of being almost completely alone--save for a few friends here and there and his shitty ex-boyfriend--had turned him almost completely solitary. At the party, he still clung to Patton like a scared five-year-old, but he felt a little more included in the group. When Virgil began to tense up, Patton would place his hand gently on his back to provide a tether to cling on.

After two hours of eating and chatting, the party was over. Patton, Logan, and Roman offered to stay after and help clean up, but Talyn shooed the boys away, saying something about how they didn’t need any help. Virgil knew it was because they wanted him home ASAP after his panic attack, but he couldn’t bring himself mind. He was tired, and all he wanted to do was wash all of this makeup off and hopefully get most of the glitter off of his body. One day, Roman would pay for this pink glitter catastrophe, but that was a whole other train of thought.

Patton and Virgil were dropped off at their house just before midnight. Both of the boys got ready for bed, and Virgil was just this close to falling asleep when Patton softly knocked on his door.

Virgil groaned and rolled over. “Yeah, Pat? What’s up?”

The door softly clicked open, and the soft hall lights filtered in, giving Patton a light yellow glow. He entered quietly and sat on the desk chair, just barely visible in the low light.

“I, uh, just wanted to say thank you for coming to the party tonight. And also to apologize for your panic attack. I shouldn’t have let myself get swept away when you obviously needed some extra support.” Although his tone was sweet and kind, there was deep regret laced in his words.

“Oh, Pat. It’s okay. It wasn’t even your fault that we got separated.” Virgil assured, propping himself onto his elbows.

There was a beat of silence before Patton hesitantly whispered, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Virgil smiled even though it probably couldn’t be seen by Pat. “I’m sure.”

Patton nodded quickly and left, but not before giving Virgil a small thumbs up. Soon, both of the boys were asleep and the rough day was far behind them.

---

The next week passed by smoothly. Virgil had a grand total of just three panic attacks (and Patton had come to help with each one) and hadn’t relapsed a single time. He was really proud of himself, as was Patton, and he just felt better about himself. It was liberating to have actual friends to talk to and hang out with. He’d even persuaded Logan to join crew!

And then on that fateful Monday--May first, to be exact--everything came crumbling down. It seemed as if everything bad in the word just happened to fall on a Monday. That just made Mondays even more dreadful.

Virgil’s day had started off like normal. He’d woken up, gotten ready, eaten breakfast with Patton, and went off to school. It was almost ridiculously mundane. It was in second block, however, when the not-so-normal things began to happen.

“Virgil Thomas to Office A, please,” the voice on the speaker crackled.

Shit, Virgil thought. What the fuck did I do this time?

His teacher gestured at him to leave, so he did. The walk from his math classroom to the office was basically a joke, so he made his way as slowly as possible, going so far as to dawdle by the bubbler for a minute.

As he walked up to the office, he saw his dad’s “secretary” standing at the doors. “Secretary” being used loosely, since she was, in reality, nothing more than the girl his dad had chosen to have an affair with this month.

“Hey, Virgil,” Nathalie cooed in her irritating voice. It sounded like sandpaper on ceramic plates. “Your dad is back in town and wanted me to let you know.”

“Why didn’t he just text me? He knows that I keep my phone on me at all times.” Virgil knew that he sounded bitter, but he didn’t care when his father was involved.

“He’s been very busy lately.” Yeah, probably doing you. “He hasn’t been able to find a time to take a break from work to text you.”

Work! Who knew that Nathalie could be so funny.

“Right. Well, I’m going to go back to class now, Nat. Bye!” He spun around on his heel and started to walk away when she cut him off.

“Oh, and your father wants you to have dinner with him tonight.”

Fucking great.

“Um, I actually had plans with a friend tonight,” Virgil rushed, dancing carefully around his current living arrangements and schedule.

“Why don’t you invite them over? I’m sure your father would love to meet them!”

Sure he would! Just like he was so fucking excited to meet Virgil’s boyfriend or any of his other friends when he’d brought them over.

“Sure. I’ll ask him.” He was never going to be able to get out of it, so he might as well try to get Patton to come along and soften the blow. Virgil walked to the bathroom instead of to his classroom, sitting in the nearest stall with his head in his hands until the bell rang.

---

“How do I look, Virge?” Patton modeled the black dress pants and blue polo get up he had on. His grey cardigan was actually on him, instead of hanging off of his shoulders or waist.

“Great! I don’t think Dad’ll have anything bad to say about that.” Virgil was ridiculously worried about his dad ripping the happy-go-lucky boy to absolute shreds. Mr. Thomas wasn’t the nicest or most accepting person on a good day, and any way that Virgil could protect his friend, he would.

“Awesome. Now, what are you wearing?” Patton’s question was innocent, but sent a small wave of anxiety through Virgil’s body.

“Uh, black jeans, some dress shoes, and a black jumper.” He’d worn this many times in front of his dad, and he hadn’t yet been ridiculed by his father for it. Unlike all of his other clothing.

Already, Virgil had wiped off all of his makeup and styled his hair out of its floppy fringe into a clean-cut look in preparation for the visit to see his dad. Any bandages that might have disrupted his appearance were removed, all scars were covered with foundation, and his whole personality purged of substance. Even his phone case had been switched out from the pretty galaxy case with the halloween Popsockets to the all black case with as much personality as a stick in the mud. It was absolutely dreadful.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll look fantastic, kiddo!”

Yeah. Sure.

---

“Alright, guys, have a good time! Just text me when you need to be picked up, Pat,” Mrs. Shea said before driving off, leaving Virgil and Patton stranded at the Thomas residence.

For once, the lights were on inside, giving the house the tiniest sense that it wasn’t vacant. Virgil couldn’t help but wonder which of his father’s chefs was cooking their meal. He hoped that it was Mei, whose food was both fancy enough to meet Mr. Thomas’ high expectations but held a sense of casualness that appealed to Virgil.

The pair walked up to the front door and rang the bell, sending a custom chime echoing through the house. Almost instantly, a mildly-disheveled Nathalie opened the door, grinning ridiculously widely.

“Virgil! Who’s your friend, here?” She greeted with faux cheeriness.

“Uh, this is Patton. He’s a friend from school,” Virgil paused, unable to focus when he could see a white stain on Nat’s mouth. He motioned up to his lips with a small grimace. “You’ve got a little… something… on your mouth, Nathalie.”

Gross. He didn’t even want to think about what had been happening just moments before.

Nathalie wiped gently at her mouth with the back of her hand, being extra careful not to smudge her pristine red lipstick. Opening the door wider, she motioned the boys inside. Virgil led the way to the dining room, not even bothering to wait for Nathalie.

“Oh, Virgil,” Mr. Thomas said as they walked into the dining room. “I didn’t realize you’d brought someone along.” Shocking. “Is this another one of your ‘boyfriends?’”

A pinched smile spread across Virgil’s face. “No, dad. I’m not dating anyone. This is my school friend, Patton Shea.”

“Hey, Mr. Thomas. It’s a pleasure to meet you!” Patton’s happy voice lightened up the room’s atmosphere just the slightest amount, which all but astounded Virgil.

“Virgil could take some fashion notes from you, Patton. He’s always wearing those stupid looking skinny jeans and t-shirts. You look quite impressive and professional for a teenager,” Mr. Thomas commented, adjusting his glasses in a Logan-like manner. That was apparently all he had to say as he took a bite of the food in front of him.

Much to Virgil’s disappointment, it wasn’t Chinese. Apparently, the first dinner you’d have with your son in literal months wouldn’t be complete without a giant French buffet--complete with dessert.

“I--Thanks?” Pat stuttered, confused by the backhanded compliment. Virgil disregarded the comment, instead choosing to lead his friend to the table. They sat close enough to his dad to be considered polite, but it was definitely farther than an appropriate familial distance.

The three ate in silence for a few minutes before Mr. Thomas spoke again. “So, Patton, what are you planning on doing after high school? Virgil said he wanted to be a graphic designer, but he’s probably going to take up the family business. Arts degrees are just a waste of time and money; better to strive to be successful on the first try and not have to go back.”

Patton stiffened almost imperceptibly. “I was planning on going to school to be a therapist, but being a stay-at-home dad seems like a pretty nice idea, too.”

“Psychology is an interesting subject; I’d have to agree.” Mr. Thomas shifted his focus to his son. “Now, Virgil, what did you say you wanted to focus on in school? Something with video making?”

“It was video game design, but I’m not going after that, anymore. It was a stupid fever dream.” None of the food on Virgil’s plate was making it to his mouth; it had merely been stirred into a gloopy mess. He already felt like shit about himself, but leave it to his dad to be make him feel even worse.

“I’m going to go to the bathroom. Excuse me.” Virgil all but jumped up and sprinted from the room.

Within a few seconds, he locked the door to the upstairs bathroom behind him. Virgil turned his head and stared at the reflection in the mirror. It looked nothing like him. The Virgil in the mirror was normal; he had no flaws, and he was the perfect son. His goals were steep but attainable, and he never said anything out of line. The real Virgil was anything but.

The real Virgil was a gigantic disappointment. He wanted to go into the arts, not business management. He had an attitude problem and a “screw The Man” ideology that ended up getting him into more trouble that necessary, yet he never changed his ways. The real Virgil was an emotional mess, not knowing how to properly express himself except through suicide or self harm. He was pathetic and stupid and, quite frankly, “too gay to function,” as his dad would say. There was no place in this world for the real him. Every single fucking time that his father was around, the façade was put up in some wimpy attempt to deflect some of the hateful words that would always be thrown his way.

And that’s when he broke. Tears streamed down his face, and choked sobs ran through his body. He thought he’d been getting better, but who was he kidding? This was the same old Virgil who’d attempted suicide not once--not twice. No, he’d attempted to fucking kill himself four times. But thank god that he’d survived! The world obviously needed Virgil Thomas’ fucking presence to keep it spinning.

Virgil gripped at his hair. He’d left his phone at the table, but he needed an escape from the emotions berating him.

Think, Virgil! There’s gotta be something that can help you.

His blurry eyes scanned the counter before landing on a familiar piece of metal.

Yes.

Virgil reached out and grabbed the blade, flipping it open with ease. Memories of the past flitted through his mind. Ones where he’d said “just one last time” with false hopes that it’d be true, but the very next day, he’d be back in this bathroom, washing blood out of the tub. Weakness. Had he included that on his list? Because Virgil Thomas was weak.

“Just one last time,” he mocked as the blade sliced the skin of his forearm.

Pathetic. What kind of fucking child do you have to be to continually come back to a blade to solve your problems?

Another cut. And another. It was so calming--so ridiculously relaxing to watch the red blood splatter on the perfectly white floor where it mixed with his tears to make a watercolor painting.

Faggot. Nobody will love someone who’s gay, loser! Think of Jason. He ruined you.

A knock on the door jerked Virgil out of his daze, making him drop the knife in the process.

“Hey, Virgil? Are you okay? I can hear you crying, kiddo,” Patton worried; his words filtered through the door with a slight resonance.

“I’m fine, Patton. Don’t worry.” Yeah fucking right.

“Virge, please just let me in.” There was no way that Patton would take no for an answer.

“Okay.” Virgil pulled his sleeves down harshly, smearing a bit of blood onto his hands. He stepped in front of the blade and blood, trying to hide it from Pat’s prying eyes as he opened the door. A fake smile was plastered onto Virgil’s face. “See--”

“Is that blood?” Patton gasped and snatched Virgil’s wrists up. With an unprecedented gentleness, he rolled up the jumper sleeves that had started to plaster themselves to his arms. The look of worry on Pat’s face soon turned to one of pure anger.

He’s mad. You’ve upset him, and he’s going to kick you out. Maybe he’s finally realized what a mistake it was to save you--

“How dare your dad think he can say things like that to his own son! You deserve so fucking much, Virgil--in fact, you deserve the world. Yet here’s this asshole who won’t give you a god damn break, bringing you to hurt yourself because he can’t keep his idiocy to himself! Grab that towel; we’re going downstairs.” Patton stormed out the room and down the stairs. Virgil followed a few paces behind, terrified out of his mind.

“Mr. Thomas! With all due respect--which is none, by the way--who the absolute fuck do you think you are to think that it’s okay to ridicule your own child like that?” Virgil’s dad opened his mouth to speak, but Pat cut him off. “No! You fucking listen to me; you’re a terrible father! Your child should never be brought to self harm as a coping mechanism--especially not by his own fucking father. Are you fucking kidding? Who gave you the right to do this? First, you spend all of your time away from Virgil, and then you go about barely ever talking to him, and to top it all off, you give him shit for everything that he has a fucking passion for!”

Both Virgil and his father were completely silent. Neither had expected such an outburst from the docile kid between them.

After a long few moments, Virgil said, “Let’s go, Pat.”

Virgil and Patton quickly left the house, not stopping until they were a street away. Patton called his mom to tell her to pick them up, and they sat on the curb to wait.

“Thank you, Patton. For standing up to me. Nobody’s ever done that before.” Virgil’s voice was soft and genuine. A little fluttering sensation rose in Pat’s stomach as he leaned towards his friend.

“It’s no problem, Virge.”

chapter 11

#sanders sides fic #m writes things #moxiety #logince #virgil sanders #patton sanders

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jewish-privilege · 7 years

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During the course of psychotherapy, a man reports fragments of dreams: “I am hiding in the cellar from soldiers who are searching for me. Overwhelmed by anxiety, I know that if they find me they will kill me on the spot… Then, I am standing in line for selection; the smell of burning flesh is in the air and I can hear shots fired. Faceless and undernourished people with striped uniforms march away to the crematoriums. Then, I am in a pit full of dead, skeletal bodies. I struggle desperately to bury the cadavers in the mud, but limbs keep sticking up from the wet soil and keep floating up to the surface. I feel guilty for what has happened, though I do not know why. I wake up in a sweat and immediately remember that these were the kinds of nightmares I had ever since I was a child. During a lifelong journey of mourning, I have been travelling back to the dead; to the corpses and graveyards of the Second World War with a prevailing sense of numb grief for all those anonymously gone.”

From the content of this dream, the man could have been a Holocaust survivor. But he was not. He was the child of a survivor. His mother had survived the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. But he, himself, was born long after the war had ended in a country far removed from the horrors of the Holocaust. Why was he dreaming such dreams about half a century after the war? Why are children of Holocaust survivors still experiencing the effects of the Holocaust as if they themselves had actually been there? How do we explain that the so-called “second generation” seems to share the grief and terror of their traumatized parents? Was the trauma of the parents somehow transmitted to them?

...A review of the literature suggests that there are a multitude of different terms that describe trauma transmission. Regarding the term “transmission,” Albeck (1993) suggested that we talk about "intergenerational aspects of trauma" instead of trauma "transmission” and the concept was changed accordingly within the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies in the early 1990's. Despite this, I feel “transmission” is a useful and adequate concept and I have therefore retained it here. In addition, concepts such as “secondary” and “vicarious” traumatization have been suggested in order to differentiate this phenomenon from the “primary” and “direct” traumatization of the first generation. But such transmission includes also the effect on spouses and caretakers. Emphasizing the generational interchange specifically from parent to child, the transmission process is delineated as either trans-generational (e.g. Felsen, 1998); inter-generational (e.g. Sigal & Weinfeld, 1987); multigenerational (e.g. Danieli, 1998); or cross-generational (e.g. Lowin, 1983). However, since the trauma was invariably passed on from one or both of the parents, “parental” transmission would perhaps be the most adequate term (Dasberg, 2000).

...In order to limit such ambiguity, I will differentiate between the process of transmission (how the trauma was carried over from one generation to the next), and the content of transmission (what was in fact transmitted) (Levine, 1982). The first would contain the assumed cause of transmission, in terms of what parents did to their children, and the second would contain the effect, in terms of the psychological responses of the child. While both perspectives apparently involve direct and indirect (as well as specific and general) aspects, the basic differentiation of parental influence and infant/child response is essential for making sense of the various theories and research findings within this field. The underlying model for the parental transmission of Holocaust trauma may thus be characterised as a functional relationship, in which the behavior of children of survivors (B) is a function (f) of Holocaust survivor parents' childrearing behavior (P), leading to the formula: B = f (P).

...In order to more fully describe this complex process, I will here describe some of the contents of that which was transmitted, present an overview of the prevalent theories of trauma transmission and discuss some of the “mitigating” factors that are assumed to decrease and increase the development of specific second-generation psychopathology.

What was passed on to the child? What are the manifestations of trauma, if any, that can be observed in children of survivors? While the content of transmission has been also described in positive terms as a “legacy” and/or as a capacity for resiliency, it has most often been negatively associated with some kind of psychopathology. Most frequently, the transmission has been assumed to contain some kind of secondary posttraumatic stress disorder, suggesting that since many Holocaust survivors suffer from PTSD, their offspring will also suffer from such a syndrome (Baranowsky, et al, 1998).

...At first glance, the concept of transmission is difficult to grasp. It is as if saying that someone’s headache is caused by the fact that his father was hit on his head by a stone some 50 years ago. Or, that a woman is afraid of becoming pregnant because her mother had lost a child during the war. Explanations like these, which connect past experiences of a parent with a present state of mind in a child, may be regarded as at least farfetched and at most ridiculous.

Most people, however, would agree with popular folk wisdom that “an apple does not fall far from the tree,” and with the notion of “like father, like son.” In addition, bacteria may be transferred from one person to another in the spreading of disease and various physical forms of passing something over from one body to another, or from one place to another, are parts of our daily experiences. The transmission of sound waves in telecommunications is a commonly accepted phenomenon and may serve as a suitable analogy that also illustrates the process of trauma transmission. Thus, in the same way as heat, light, sound and electricity can be invisibly carried from a transmitter to a receiver; it is possible that unconscious experiences can also be transmitted from parents to their children through some complex process of extra-sensory communication. In fact, such quasi-naturalistic terminology is frequently applied when describing how the “vibrations” within a Holocaust family “atmosphere” may affect the offspring in a variety of indirect and subtle ways.

Four major theoretical approaches to understanding trauma transmission have been suggested: (1) psychodynamic; (2) sociocultural; (3) family system; and (4) biological models of transmission.

1. Psychodynamic and relational models of transmission: (...) Transgenerational transmission is when an older person unconsciously externalizes his traumatized self onto a developing child’s personality. A child then becomes a reservoir for the unwanted, troublesome parts of an older generation. Because the elders have influence on a child, the child absorbs their wishes and expectations and is driven to act on them. It becomes the child’s task to mourn, to reverse the humiliation and feelings of helplessness pertaining to the trauma of his forebears (Volkan, 1997, p. 43).

...2. Sociocultural and socialization models of transmission: (...) In comparison with psychoanalytic theories that focus on unconscious and indirect influences, social learning theories emphasize conscious and direct effects of parents on their children. In much of this literature, Holocaust survivors have been described as inadequate parents. Their multiple losses were assumed to create childrearing problems around both attachment and detachment. For example, overt messages conveyed by Holocaust survivor parents, such as “Be careful” and “Don’t trust anybody!” were assumed to have left their indelible marks. The exaggerated worries of such anxious parents may have conveyed a sense of an impeding danger that the child may have absorbed. (...) “A middle-aged child of two Holocaust survivors with a very low tolerance for stress described her parents in the following manner: “My father used to scream during the night and my mother screamed during the day. Both were highly disturbed and could not tolerate anything that might upset them. I had to be careful always as a child not to come home late, not to be ill, not to show any signs of distress, and to be as quiet as I possibly could be.” Growing up with such tormented parents must in itself have been a kind of cumulative trauma for the woman, but some of her own anxious behavior was clearly learned through modeling.”

3. Family systems and communication models of transmission: Unconscious and conscious transmission of parental traumatization always takes place in a certain family environment, which is assumed to effect a major impact on the children. Though Holocaust survivor families certainly differ from one another in many ways (Danieli, 1981), the more pathological families are described as tight little islands in which children came into contact only with their own parents, with their siblings and with other survivors. In such highly closed systems parents are fully committed to their children and children are overly concerned with their parents' welfare, both trying to shield the other from painful experiences (Klein-Parker, 1988). Through mutual identifications, parents live vicariously through their children and children live vicariously in the horrific past of their parents. Considering such powerful family dynamics, it is not surprising that problems around individuation and separation (Klein, 1971; Barocas & Barocas, 1980; Freyberg, 1980) and attachment (Bar-On, Eland, Kleber et al (1998) were often observed.

(...) 4. Biological or genetic models of transmission: Biological models of trauma transmission are based on the assumption that there may be a genetic and/or a biochemical predisposition to the etiology of a person’s illness. Genes transmit constitutional elements from parent to child and some mental illnesses seem to have a clear hereditary etiology. For example, studies indicate that children of schizophrenic parents are much more likely to develop the disorder than the general population. Holocaust traumatization may be similarly passed on “almost as if psychological DNA were planted in the personality of the younger generation through its relationships with the previous one” (Volkan, 1997, p. 44). Memories of fear can thus be carried across generations through physiological processes and get “picked up“ by another mind and elements of the collective experience of the species are thus reflected in the genome (Perry, 1999). (...)

In an attempt to investigate such assumptions, Yehuda, et al (2000) found that low cortisol levels were significantly associated with both PTSD in parents and lifetime PTSD in offspring, whereas having a current psychiatric diagnosis other than PTSD was relatively, but non-significantly, associated with higher cortisol levels. Offspring with both parental PTSD and lifetime PTSD had the lowest cortisol levels of all study groups. They conclude: “Parental PTSD, a putative risk factor for PTSD, appears to be associated with low cortisol levels in offspring, even in the absence of lifetime PTSD in the offspring. The findings suggest that low cortisol levels in PTSD may constitute a vulnerability marker related to parental PTSD as well as a state-related characteristic associated with acute or chronic PTSD symptoms” (p. 1252).

#intergenerational trauma #parental trauma #transgenerational trauama #concentration camp syndrome #long post

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ilovemygaydad · 5 years

Text

Friends in Dark Places [ch 10

pairing: eventual moxiety, eventual logince, background eventual remile, background eventual remy/emile/deceit

WARNINGS: food mentions, eating, sex mentions, affair mentions, crude language, swearing, panic attacks, GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF SELF HARM, suicidal ideation, abusive family members, yelling, fighting, blood, self hatred, self disgust, hurtful conversations, fear, anxiety, anger, homophobia, possibly something else

tag list: @hufflepuffgirl01 @cocobearthe4th @cas-is-a-hunter @band-be-boss-blog @theunoriginaldaisy

a/n: so i have to repost all of these in a different format! yay fucking me!!!! please consider reblogging these if you’re a fan of this series because it’s all fucked up now

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