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hargrove-mayfields · 4 years

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this was requested by @deardmvz ! based off of this lovely post!!

Billy is released from the hospital a few months after he’s out of that place, having been dragged back to his own world a bloody mess by a group of government men in hazmat suits.

They said he was lucky to have spent as long as he did in a toxic environment and come out of it only needing a weekly breath treatment and a couple of bandages. But he knows it wasn’t luck.

Because if there was such a thing as lucky, Billy Hargrove was not it.

Rather, it was because he’d learned how to give the monsters over there what for. Didn’t hide and come whimpering at the first signs of rescue, begging for their protection like everyone was expecting him to after dealing with monsters and breathing polluted air for six months.

Six months. He couldn’t believe that. To him, on the other side, it had felt more like years.

But he’d stumbled out of that place all the same, dripping axe still gripped tight in hand, in case this was his mind giving up, in case his hell wasn’t really coming to an end after all, and in the end, he was tougher, more resilient, unafraid.

But the doctors didn’t really believe that, did they?

As soon as he was given the clear in the emergency room, onced over for physical injuries he’d thankfully avoided and the doctors having given him something that made him cough up most of the gross stuff that’d been collecting in his lungs, he was sent straight to the psych ward.

Because he could kill as many monsters as he wanted, and he could spend months as a survivor, doing what nobody before him had been able to without super powers, but he was never going to be able to shake the isolation, the uncertainty of everyday he spent over there. Not without help.

The upside down was a no man’s land, he didn’t have the time of day to think about what he’d done, who he’d lost, what had happened to him. But the moment he’s free of it, he’s back to reality.

Back to being the kid down on Cherry, with years of baggage to carry even before all this interdimensional bull that he’d never worked through. With a sister who thought he was dead, and a father who probably wouldn’t care less whether or not he was.

They see all of that, so he pushes them away, refusing every attempt the nurses make at helping him. He doesn’t want their help anyways, he doesn’t want to be in the hospital anymore, and he sure as all hell doesn’t want to be a part of some government conspiracy.

But with enough personal questions and screenings, they’re able to, a couple of weeks into the program, coax it out of him, working him up to the breaking point and the following outpouring of guilt.

Pushing him to admit things about himself he’d never had to look in the face until that hard shell he’d had to build up to protect himself from monsters of all kinds since he was just a kid dissolved away, and he was left a sobbing mess in a support group, going on and on about having chased his mother away, how he was working on chasing his little sister away.

About the way he treated his peers and the way he let others treat him. About Heather Holloway and everyone else and how he’d killed them.

Straight away they get him in to see somebody, something he doesn’t really like the sound of at first, but they say they’re willing to release him from the psych ward if he agrees to go regularly, so it’s worth a shot.

That is, until he realizes he has nowhere to go except back to his house. 5280 Cherry Lane, where Neil Hargrove, the very first monster he’d ever had to fight, would be waiting for him.

He tries to get out of it, to go back to who he was before he’d let all this stuff get to him, but it doesn’t last. He’ll bark out nasty things at the nurses and refuse to cooperate when they get to trying to evaluate his head again, but there’s no bite behind it, and he can’t keep it up.

That seemingly infinite well of hatred and pain had been drained by his time on the other side, until he just didn’t have it in him to be angry all the time anymore.

Billy tucks his tail and goes to the shrink, signs the release papers at the hospital and goes straight to that first appointment like he isn’t terrified of what will happen the minute they let him go home for the first time in forever.

Some part of him knows it’s no different than what he’d already been dealing with in intensive care, but there’s still something about being out there on his own, shooed away from what had become his sanctuary after escaping just to have some government approved doctor tell him he’s mentally unwell, that doesn’t sit right with him, and he walks out of that office even more nervous, more jittery to return than before, but he can’t avoid it forever.

The house isn’t too far from downtown where the office is, so he just walks home. He thinks of stopping at a payphone and call ahead, to let them know he’ll be coming home, but he hasn’t exactly been carrying pocket change with him, and he thinks it might be better if they’re not expecting him anyways.

It’s bitter cold outside, a dusting of snow on the ground making him walk slow over slippery sidewalks, unused to the conditions, but it’s the most fresh air he’s gotten in a long time, out in the kind of cold he can appreciate.

Over there, it was a clammy kind of cold, the type that clung to his skin and seeped into his bone, like he was under water. But this is different, the sun shining overhead taking off some of the bite, a cross wind that blew his hair back in his face and made the tip of his nose go numb.

By the time he reaches the door, he still doesn’t know exactly what he’ll say. How does one go about breaking the news to their family that they aren’t really dead?

The general idea is this: ring the doorbell, hope against hope that Neil isn’t afraid of zombies, appeal to his inner anti-government conspiracy theorist, and pray that he’ll buy it for long enough not to shoot him dead and maybe let him inside.

First step goes smoothly, and he’s ready to move on to blocking punches in the case of a kinemortophobic, but when the door is yanked open, it’s not his dad, and the rest of the plan goes out the window. It’s Max that answers, and before he has time to even process that, she wraps her arms around his torso in a hug tight enough to knock the wind out of him.

He doesn’t know what to do, this wasn’t what he’d been anticipating, so he kind of just, awkwardly pats her back and tries to ask her if he can come in, but all she does is squeeze him tighter.

Susan peers around a corner in the house, “Max, who was at the…” They lock eyes, and she trails off, a mix of relief and apprehension and maybe something like fear on her face. “Bring him inside, dear.”

Max pulls away and lets him in, wiping at stray tears with her sleeve pulled up over her hand. She waits for Billy to sit on the couch, and sits down right next to him, pressing into his side. “Where were you? We watched you die.“

“Wasn't me.” He eyes Susan, trying to communicate to Max that this was top secret, don’t tell your step-mom immediately after leaving a government facility information, but Susan chimes in.

“She told me everything. After what happened she was too upset to remember her agreement. We both signed the NDA.”

And for a second that pisses him off. Not at Max and Susan, but the agents who knew what was happening and still had the nerve to bring them in to threaten them without even bothering to mention he was still alive.

Right now that’s the part he tries to focus on. That he was still alive, and had better things to worry about than what he couldn’t change. “It was a clone. A fail safe made by the shadow in case your merry band killed me. When he died, I was trapped.”

“In the upside down?” Max’s eyes were wide as could be, the color drained from her cheeks. “But-but that almost killed Will and he was only there for like, a week.”

“Do I look like a scrawny twelve year old kid?”

“Muscles can’t protect you from toxic air, jerk.”

Susan’s looks frantic in that way she used to around Billy’s dad, who is notably not present, as she scolds, “That’s enough, Max. He’s been through a lot to get here, let’s let him ask some questions.”

It wasn’t like Billy really minded Max’s questions, he was sure he’d have quite a few himself if it was Max who had come back from the presumed grave, but he did have one of his own sitting heavy at the front of his mind. “Where’s Neil? He get his work schedule changed or something?”

“He’s gone.” Max deadpans.

At her tone, Billy feels his stomach drop, his heart stutter. “He died?”

“Heavens no. We got a divorce three months after we buried you, or what we thought was you.” Susan looks at Max tired, remorseful. “He was never the same without you.”

Things had been close to boiling over even before everything, he worried who had filled his shoes. He nods towards Max. “How bad was he?”

“Better and worse. He never laid a finger on us, but he was…”

An overdramatized shiver runs through Max as she finished her mother’s sentence, “Creepy.”

Susan nodded in agreement and explained, “So nice, so reserved, it was like we were constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“And he’s not coming back?”

“Why should he? He didn’t even tell us where he was going.” Max scoffs, missing the implication of what he asked. Seeing her still be so clueless made Billy infinitely grateful that Susan had finally given his old man the boot, even if that meant he was somewhere in the middle now.

He figures that was something he was willing to deal with if it meant Max was okay, and Neil wasn’t anywhere near her. Now he just needed to know if Susan would be expecting him to go find his dad on his own and move in with him.

He doesn’t mean to let as much tension into his voice as he does when he asks, “So what’s all this mean for me?”

“What else? You are never leaving me again, asshole.”

So it was settled, and judging from the look Susan gave him, she agreed with Max’s answer. Which was, overwhelming, to say the least.

Not that Neil had exactly been a family man, but the fact that they were willing to accept him back into their home without him around was more than Billy knew how to process just yet.

His room had already been converted into a storage space as Neil had been moving out, dragging everything that had never been unpacked in the first place out into the one space he viewed as disposable.

They thought he was dead, he couldn’t have expected them to keep his room the way he left it, and though it did sting a little when he found out half of his stuff was missing, either taken by Neil or thrown out in the process, it was soothed by Max giving him a box of all the things she knew were the most important to him, having snuck in and gone through his belongings herself.

Billy decides to let Susan keep her little storage room, it had been too drafty in there to make for a decent bedroom anyhow, so he moves into the carpeted corner of the basement, which he notices is finished now.

Before, the ceiling had been wide open, half built wooden slats coated in years of dust and cobwebs, a single exposed light bulb offering the only source of light. Now it looked like an actual room, and it made him feel something tight in his chest.

Because Neil had retiled and painted the upstairs bathroom when his first wife left him, and he had finished the basement when he thought his son had too.

Billy doesn’t know how he’s supposed to feel about his dad anymore. He’d been dreading the moment he would have to walk through the doors of his own house out of fear and hatred of that man, but learning he wasn’t even there, he almost missed him.

Almost. But then he thought about the way Susan and Max were now, so distinctly different in the comfort they exhibited in their own space, no longer having to constantly cower in fear of the overbearing head of the house, the person he’s free to be now that Neil isn’t around, and suddenly he’s not so remorseful.

Though he does catch Susan once, standing in the kitchen one morning and crying over an old photo of her and Neil.

He’s pretty sure, from the glimpse that he gets, that it’s from the first church registry photoshoot they did as the Hargrove-Mayfields, when the photographer had mindlessly said something like “now just mom and dad,” making both him and Max gag, which made Susan cry after it was over.

That night had been her first taste of the real Neil Hargrove when Billy got a beating in the parking lot. He still remembers the horrified look on her pale face as she told him it was alright when he apologized, snotty nose and bruises on his skin.

He knew the feeling was the same for her, torn between the man they needed Neil to be and the man he had actually been to them, so he pretended not to see her tears. Silently, she agreed to do the same, and ignore the way he sometimes sat in Neil’s chair with a glazed over look in his eye, or sighed and trained his gaze to the floor when he passed the family photos still hanging in the hallway.

It takes a long while for the three of them to settle. Max is a constant ball of excitement, reminding Billy so many times a day that she’s happy to have her brother back that he might just cry about it once he’s alone, and Susan and him are nervous 24/7, pinballing off one another as they try and fail to forget the ghosts of the house.

He thinks about leaving for a while, moving in somewhere all on his own, but his therapist tells him it’d only make things worse now, to lose his support system. Besides, he didn’t have a penny to his name, so it wasn’t like he had much of a choice but to just suck it up and stay with the Mayfields.

In the meantime, he gets himself a job working stock at Melvald’s. They had an open position after Mrs. Byers skipped town, and he thinks they would’ve hired just about anybody to try to get back on their feet after the now demolished mall almost put them out of business, even zombie boy 2.0. His boss is understanding enough, doesn’t say a word when he has to go into the back and have a panic attack when a grieving family member comes in.

They tell him that’s what’s best for him, getting out there and doing something, even if it’s not the something he would ideally be doing at this point in his life. It had never been his intention to stay in Hawkins after graduating, he wanted to go to college back in his home town, but he had to admit it was growing on him some, and setting up roots there was supposed to be good. Maybe that was just the fact he wasn’t allowed to leave talking though.

The guy they’re sending him to, he thinks is somewhat of a quack. His advice is shaky at best, and he treats Billy like some kid, giving him tasks and a reward system more fit for Holly Wheeler than an eighteen year old with enough trauma for the whole town.

So even though he does cooperate, does everything last thing the guy asks of him, he doesn’t particularly feel the need to go beyond that, face the deeper set issues his therapist doesn’t even know about.

Billy’s lack of cooperation makes the whole thing more complicated, gives him less that his therapist can tell him to work on, so he asks him just to talk to Susan.

They’re closer now than ever before, far beyond all the tension and avoidance and misplaced resentment, but they still don’t really talk about any more than what’s necessary. Things like, how was your day, could you help me with this, are you okay, but nothing substantial.

It should be easy, they’d been living under the same roof since he was twelve, so they should have plenty to talk about, it just never seems like the right time, though he has been thinking about it a lot, the way he treats her despite how much she’s done for him.

He doesn’t really have a plan to bring it up, he’s fully prepared to go back to another appointment the next week reporting no dice, but there’s one morning where the clock keeps ticking and the both of them are still wide awake in the living room, like a stalemate of who’ll give in to sleep first.

They both look like they need it, Susan’s hair is frazzled, the bags under her eyes as dark as the coffee she drinks. Billy knows he’s not looking so hot either. He doesn’t remember the last time he could go to sleep without his subconscious taking him back to that place, so he doesn’t even try anymore, just waits until he gets so exhausted he’ll pass out into a dreamless sleep.

He doesn’t know what it is that compels him to say anything, because it’s not awkward or even tense silence really, but he does, his tired voice cutting into the quiet.

“I dunno how to make it up to you.” He’s looking down at his hands, at the barely there scars that still litter the skin there. He thinks for a moment about how much worse it could’ve been, before looking to her. “I mean, I’d get it, if you didn’t want me around.”

Susan looks back at him, not having expected him to say anything really, let alone something so heavy. “What’s this about, Billy?”

“M’not even your kid, Sus. I just- I dunno. Why’d you let me back in?”

She looks baffled. “Should I not have?”

“I’m an adult. don’t need to be moochin’ off my ex-stepmom.” He feels like he had the very first time he ever met her, scared to look her in the eyes, only this time for an entirely different reason. “M’not your burden to carry.”

“Honey, you’re not mooching. You go to work, you help around the house, you help me with Max. That’s more than I could ask for.” She hesitates, unsure of how wide his boundaries are, then adds, “And, maybe you aren’t my son by any stretch of the imagination, but you will always be Max’s brother.”

He had been expecting something about his dad, always had some suspicion that he’d forced a dependent on Susan after he left, but the total opposite seems to be true, and that makes a lump rise in his throat.

In the absence of a response, Susan continues, “If there was one thing you could do for me though, I know you lie to your therapist. Don’t.”

He doesn’t have it in him to fight it, has enough sense about him to know she’s right. All he can manage is a breathless, “Okay.”

She pats him on the shoulder gentle as can be, and stands up from the couch. He doesn’t look up as she retreats to her bedroom, afraid the tears that had welled up in his eyes would spill over if he did.

When he hears her door close softly is when he lets the tears fall. It’s still a lot for him, to have someone be so casual in looking out for him in that way he still hadn’t quite grasped was possible.

The very next day Billy fesses up, and to his surprise, they don’t immediately cart him off when they hear he’s been faking. That had been his biggest fear, with the power that these people held. They’d threatened to lock him up if he ever ran his mouth, so he didn’t know what to expect.

He did feel stupid though, opening the damn for the same guy who gave him stickers for taking his meds about all the things he’d bottled up. But it works to get him into a better program than what they had him doing before, and he realized he’d had it backwards.

The fear of what they were going to do to him kept them from doing anything at all, and it gave Billy a deep sense of relief, that he’d finally broken free of that.

So instead of being assigned things like brushing his teeth or going outside for five minutes a day, which was decent advice, but completely irrelevant to what he needed, now his therapist had started telling him things like throwing out the razor blade he’d been saving for a rainy day, dumping the last of the nonprescription pills he kept in his night stand.

The more he did, the more complicated they got, until he was told that, in exchange for completing his tasks, he would only have to visit the office once or twice a week instead of every day. His last assignment before that could happen was to make amends with his past.

The most obvious thing the doc wanted him to do was forgive his parents, but Billy didn’t know where to even begin on that one, or really, if he had or hadn’t already done as much, so he went with the other way first, apologizing to everyone he had, or felt he had hurt.

He started at the cemetery. Max came with him and held his hand as he broke down graveside, begging his repentance for all the people who’d died last July. Talking to their survivors was strictly out of the question, they still thought he was the hero that tried to save as many as he could and was killed in action, not the one responsible.

That had been the story spread it the public by the people who had known all along he wasn’t really dead, monitoring his activity on the other side while they turned murderer into martyr. The more time he spent in the shrink's office, the less sure he was that even he knew what side he was on.

Apologizing to the living proves to be easier. He starts with the Sinclair kid at one of the weekly nerd meetings Max holds at their house, now that it’s safe, pulling him aside for a few to say his piece, which, judging from his reaction, Max had already done most of the heavy lifting for him.

When they came back he got fixed with a glare from the unfamiliar little girl that was always around these days, and he realized he and Lucas had that in common, a weapon of a little sister.

Next came minor inconveniences, people like Tommy who he used as a punching bag just because they were friends. Most of them blew the whole thing off, they were in high school when it happened, didn’t understand the moral dilemma of it all, and everyone but maybe one kid who he might’ve punched a little too hard when a fight broke out after football practice forgave him.

Last on his list, the one person standing in the way of what was supposedly the next step of his healing process, was Harrington.

Steve’d had his own fall from grace, and Billy fell much, much harder than he had, so it could be the easiest apology he has to do, but there were reasons it might be the hardest too. He didn’t think he deserved forgiveness for the way he’d treated Steve, which he’d never even apologized for in the first place, and it seemed like a cheap shot to be doing it now, more than a whole year after beating his face in.

He tracks him down at work, rifling through shelves lined with tapes he wasn’t interested in until he had the guts to approach the counter and ask Steve to follow him outside. The bastard doesn’t even look suspicious, doesn’t hesitate in giving him his warmest smile and inviting him behind the counter instead with a, “What’s on your mind, man?

It should be awkward, uncomfortable at the very least, they're having a conversation that should be happening anywhere but in two folding chairs behind the counter at Family Video, and yet, Billy feels none of that unpleasantry, just a conviviality he’d never expect to have with Steve Harrington, of all people. T the one apology he’d expected to be turned down is accepted with a simple, “It’s okay, Billy.”

That’s what made him different. He wasn’t like Tommy, who’d told him to forget anything ever happened, or Susan, who was adamant that it wasn’t his fault; Steve actually forgave him without ignoring what he did, and that, that was what this was about.

He finds himself frequenting the video store on his off days, trying to make friends with the one person other than Max he felt like he could trust, who trusted him, and from there it turned to swinging by Steve’s place after work, going out on the weekends together, falling head over heels in love.

That last part Billy tries to deny, tries to rationalize that maybe he’s just clinging to something constant after so long in isolation, but the longer he spends around Steve, the more he knows there’s no way around it. Billy was so gone for him and his stupid hair and his stupid laugh and his stupid little family video vest.

There’s a while where he tries to distance himself a little, feeling guilty about crushing on the only person to extend the olive branch back after he got out, but then Steve starts showing up at his door, and Max would hide a guilty smile behind her hand.

Once summer hits, just a few short weeks shy of the anniversary of when the shadow got Billy, Susan and Max get more and more careful around him, like they don’t want to set him off, and he gets that. Sometimes Max or one of her little friends would mention something that had happened last July, a sort of ‘hey, remember when we,’ and he would get a little, off.

Never violent, never cruel, never the Billy he had been before, just, reserved.

He thinks they’re afraid he’s going to snap. That they’ve gotten the wrong impression from all this recovery stuff. The very last thing he wants is for Max to think just he’s a shmooze, faking being better to get on her good side.

But they’re not. They’re just want to give him his space, after everything, and he knows he’s got to get out of his head about it.

For now though, when he’s afraid he might break his promise, he takes off, but it depends on what kind of day it is where he’ll go. Sometimes it’s the pool, at the picnic table on the other side of the fence, or to the cemetery again, making the rounds between all of the markers, the ones he put there, or even to visit the totaled Camaro, sold to a junker and kept in the corner of some private property, his blood still on the seats.

Once, he’d made the mistake of going to the steelworks, just to sit on a railroad tie outside of the place for hours, having a panic attack alone as he tried and failed to forget bad memories, bruised ribs, falling fast, losing control.

None of those were particularly healthy places for him to be spending his free time, so per therapist recommendation, he starts finding better spots to hang out, places that weren’t just a way to retraumatize himself.

The problem is that in Hawkins, there isn’t anywhere really to go unless he wanted to spend all day in a dingy old diner or in half abandoned shops downtown. He liked taking Max to the drive-in on the outskirts, but the point is he needs somewhere to go away from his step-family.

When Steve finds out about his new assignment, the rides to and from work and quick drop ins just to say hello turn into days off spent at the quarry together, nights spent in front of Steve’s huge TV set.

One day after a double shift at Melvald’s, they end up out back by the pool. The air conditioning in Steve’s old house was not the best when it came to humidity, and Billy doesn’t like to be too hot. Something about the feeling is too familiar, too much like being on the floor of the sauna, sweating bullets and pleading for his life.

Heat is also one of the many things that triggers coughing fits, making him hack up his lungs from the months he spent without clean air to breath, so Steve’s ushering him outside to dip their feet in the pool and get out of the stuffy old house before he gets sick.

The smell of chlorine wading off of the pool isn’t all that much better. The strong chemicals make his nose and his throat and his whole chest burn like fire. Just the smell of it is enough that he has to try to remember that that hasn't been his reality for almost a year now, that he isn’t in the storage room at the pool downing bottles of poison.

It doesn’t bother him so much though, because the bad stuff, that’s all in the past now, isn’t it?

He tries instead to focus on the good things, on the breeze that they do get in the beating down sun and the way it carries cool air off the surface of the pool, offering more relief from the heat than they could get inside Steve’s inferno of a mansion, and on feeling the sunshine warming his skin again, the cold water and the smooth liner against his calves submerged in the pool. He even tries to focus on Steve, leaning all his weight back on his hands outstretched behind him, sitting so close to Billy their knees bump in the water every time Steve kicks his legs out.

And quite frankly, it’s not particularly hard, paying attention Steve with the way he’s practically glowing in the summer sun. As much as winter was his season, his forever pale skin and how he could rock a sweater didn’t even hold a candle to the way he looks now.

Maybe he is wearing preppy khaki shorts and a sun visor, but the way his back freckles in the summer, the skin on his cheeks and his shoulders flushing from the heat, his long hair sticking to the back of his neck with sweat, it’s a sight that makes Billy's heart pitta-pat.

Still, as nice of a view as Steve makes for, nothing can distract him from the nagging feeling that has Billy on edge. That sense that his flesh will start burning if he stays out here too long, that he’ll lose control of his body. That he’ll hurt Steve.

If Steve’s old nail bat propped against the pool shed, or their newer method of self defense, a machete from the hardware store purchased after Billy's last panic attack, hidden underneath of the chairs, offer any indication, the feeling may be mutual.

Despite the aviators perched on Billy’s nose, Steve must notice that distant look in his eye, because he offers Billy a quaint smile and, using one hand to stand up, he announces, “Be right back, gonna go get us some stuff.”

Billy nods and vaguely wonders what ‘some stuff’ means before turning his attention back to his surroundings. Back to following his therapists advice and watching the ripples in the pristinely kept water, listening to the rustle of untrimmed grass when a breeze comes through, bumble bees in the neighbors yard, anything at all that might stop his mind from wandering.

He’s almost feeling grounded again when he feels a chill run down the back of his neck. Goose pimples fan out across his skin, a deep seated cold to contrast the heat. He knows the feeling well, he’d gone through six grueling months using it as his only advantage over the monsters out to get him.

Some rational part of his mind tells him it’s just a bead of sweat rolling down his back, a loose strand of hair from the messy bun Max had put in his hair that morning brushing against his skin, the fact that his legs are still submerged in the 70 degree water, but he isn’t feeling rational after that, and he feels panic setting in again.

He wants to go run and tell Steve, wants to grab something to defend himself, but he can’t, he’s just, frozen to the spot.

The feeling is gone as quickly as it came, but everything else feels different now.

The pool water feels sticky and warm, almost like it’s sucking him in. The cement surrounding it feels rougher against his palms, and so hot to the touch. He’s scared to even blink, afraid that on the other side of that calm darkness, he’s in that hell again, and this has all been some delusion.

There’s a bang from behind him, and he’s on his feet, heart racing a thousand miles a minute. He’s just short of reaching for the machete under the chair when he notices it’s just Steve.

He’s standing by the sliding door, having pushed it open with his knee so far that the glass hit off the other door, and balancing way too much. Feeling like his legs are going to give out from under him and bringing one hand absently to his chest, Billy breathes out, “Damn it, Harrington.”

“Sorry.” There's a sheepish smile on his face, which has gone pinker than even the sunburn with a hint of embarrassment. He has a bulky radio balanced on his hip, a glass of something in each hand, and a deck of cards tucked under his chin. “A little help?”

Hurrying up the steps, Billy takes the radio before Steve can drop it and smash it to bits on the concrete. Steve takes the opportunity to explain himself, “I made lemonade, my gramma's recipe, and I thought we could use something to do.”

Maybe it’s reckless, maybe it’s the exact opposite of what he should do, but he puts the radio on the table and lets Steve distract him from that creeping feeling with mundanities.

It’s almost funny, how getting out of the house for him used to mean partying and sneaking out to wreak drunken havoc on the town. Now it meant sipping lemonade and playing double solitaire and go-fish with the fallen King poolside, like he was in some retirement community or something.

The only thing that kept him from feeling too ridiculous was the radio, which was playing a decent selection of rock music, not too much of the glitzy stuff he pretended not to like or the poppy stuff Steve definitely did.

Once the sun went down, the smallest bit of orange and pink sky disappearing behind the thick trees, and all the breeze had died out, they moved away from the pool's edge to the plastic chairs, pushing two together and sitting cross legged so they were facing one another. The night air was thick with the smell of a burning citronella candle and chlorine.

The cards had been long ago abandoned, both of them favoring just being in each other’s company, swapping stories of how bad work had sucked that day, and things like plans for the week. Billy sort of just likes having an excuse to look at Steve all night.

It’s more calm than Billy’s had in a long while since coming back, and he almost get to appreciate it before the chill comes back, this time accompanied by the distant rustling of leaves.

He could’ve pretended it was just a critter moving around or the trees settling, but then they hear the unmistakable sound of a monster's trill further out in the woods, and there’s no longer any doubt about it.

Steve freezes, looks to Billy with eyes as wide as saucers and, slowly as can be, reaches blindly behind himself until his hand closes around the base of the wooden bat, which had been moved closer as night fell.

He rises to his feet, stopping cold when the chair creaks as his weight lifts off it, trying to make as little noise as possible, an action mostly pointless with the radio still on. It’s too late anyways, they’d already been seen. Billy could feel it.

“Stay here. I’m just going to check it out.”

“No way, out of the two of us, I’m the only one who’s ever killed one of those things.” Steve looks like he wants to argue, wants to be noble and brave like he has to be for everyone else, so Billy tells him sternly, “I’m coming with you.”

And maybe Steve doesn’t refuse his help, but he isn’t looking at Billy either. His gaze, empty and exhausted, is trained on the trees, searching for signs of the monsters they’re both used to handling on their own. He leans into Billy’s side as they start into the woods, and he can feel him shaking.

The leaves and twigs all along the ground that crunch under their tennis shoes as they move deeper into the woods sound impossibly loud, drawing enough attention to their location that this was guaranteed not to be a surprise attack.

Billy would’ve preferred it that way, they were easier to kill if they weren’t expecting a fight, but he supposed he should just be grateful that they’d found them before they could make their way into Steve’s backyard and take them by surprise.

They reach a clearing and he gets a dreadful feeling like his entire body has been dipped in ice water, and he knows they're right in the middle of a swarm. Instinctively, he puts his arm out across Steve’s chest. “Stop.”

“What?” Billy doesn’t respond, but as Steve’s eyes adjust, he notices them too. About six or seven demodogs, behind trees and bushes, hiding from their prey. He whispers harshly right into Billy’s ear, “Do you think they see us?”

“No shit.”

“Then what the hell are they doing?”

“Waiting for their chance. But we’re not gonna give it to them.” He digs the heels of his Chuck’s into the dirt, grip tightening on the machete. He glances over at Steve and tries not to think too hard about the apprehension written across his features, “You ready for a fight?”

Steve pales, like he was never expecting it to get that far, but they were about thirty feet, maybe further, into the woods already, they wouldn’t be able to book it back to Steve’s house in enough time. The damn things were much too fast. He swallows hard, whispers, “How do I kill one?”

“Aim for the base of its skull. Never let it get your weapon in its mouth. Always pay attention to your surroundings.” His voice is quiet, but stern, trying not to let any fear slip into his tone that might make the other boy more afraid. He was the experienced one, if he were to let it show that he was scared, Steve might go running for the hills. “And Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“Plant your goddamned feet.” Steve nods, furrows his brows and tries to force a breathy chuckle at the call back, but he barely manages a huff, and Billy can tell he’s terrified.

They don’t have time to think about it though, in the middle of a swarm he can’t let him dwell on it for too long, so he turns his attention off of Steve, and whistles, shouts “Hey, assholes! Come and get us!”

There’s a breathless second where the dogs don’t move an inch, he can tell Steve is about to say something that could’ve gotten the both of them killed so he cuts him off, “Get ready, Harrington.” One of the demodogs, he’s guessing the leader of the freakish pack based on the sheer size of it, shrieks, the cue for the others to start charging them.

These ones are fast, probably faster than even he’s used to, and he doesn’t like how close the first one gets to Steve before he brings his bat down it, so he pulls him closer by the back of his shirt, presses their backs together so there’s less room for a surprise.

The big one comes after Billy, the bigger threat of the two. The sense works as a two way street, if he can tell where they are, they can tell where he is, and they don’t like that.

It only takes him a few swings to get it stumbling, two more to finish it off, but in the time it takes him to kill the one, he loses track of where Steve is. Frantically he looks around, taking note of the location of the dogs, until he finds him in the dark a few feet off from where he is, swinging his bat at the runt over and over, making sure it was good and dead.

And Billy would be impressed, except for there was another dog charging him, just a few seconds off from closing its teeth around Steve’s arm on the backswing. It’s too close for him to try to kill it, so he kicks it, making it hiss and tumble across the muddy ground.

Steve looks over at him, blood spattered on his face and fear in his eyes. Billy wishes he could stop and appreciate the close call, but it’ll come back, and there’s another charging from the other side, so he settles for shouting, “Just remember what I told you and you’ll be alright!”

With the biggest out of the way it’s easy pickings, Billy takes out the next one that tries him quick, but another catches him off guard, clamps it’s teeth down hard on the machete, lodging it in its mouth. It gets cut bad, but not enough to really do much damage to it. If he lets go, he’s defenseless, if he doesn’t, he’s going to lose his arm.

That’s a call he’s almost willing to make, wrenching his weapon free at the risk of getting himself bit, but he doesn’t have to, because Steve takes it for him, running over from somewhere and bringing the bat down hard on the back of its head.

It would be too distracting to thank him, so he just nods his way and turns back to the last two dogs still alive, Steve taking the one that was still hiding and leaving the other for him.

At this point, he’s feeling pretty confident, one dog on its own is nothing much to worry about, and it seems it knows it too, because it stops a few feet off, daring him to come at it first. He takes his own advice and plants his feet in the dirt, daring it right back.

It charges him, and he stabs it straight through its head. It was a weak one, a last line of defense they didn’t expect to need, and it hisses out it’s final breath after only one go.

Billy hears the one Steve went after scampering off too, judging from the uneven drag of its weight across the forest floor, hurt badly enough it won’t last long.

He tries to feel for any others, but they don’t travel in packs that big, not without an order to follow. He rolls his shoulders and relaxes his stance, but he doesn’t dare dream of letting go of the machete yet. Even as it drips sticky slime and gore in thick drops onto the ground, even if it feels so heavy in his hands, also splattered with gooey blood.

There’s a moment of disturbing calm, the bodies of maimed demodogs scattered all around them as Billy tries to remind himself that they’re in his world this time, instead of him in theirs. He closes his eyes to shut out the panic and just listens.

Listens for gentle reminders that he’s in the real world. The sound of the katydids in the trees. A stray breeze rustling the leaves, dry from the relentless heat. The distant scratch of tires on pavement. Softly bubbling water from the jets in Steve’s pool.

He notices that the radio is still going, making the whole thing feel somehow more eerie, as if interdimensional monsters lurking in the neighborhood wasn’t bad enough on its own. Like when a car goes off the road, still playing a reckless teenager's final anthem. Billy wonders what song he’d like to be playing when he died. Maybe some Misfits.

But he isn’t dead, not yet anyhow, and that’s not the music that’s drifting out to where he’s still standing stock still in the woods, waiting for reality to hit him.

REO Speedwagon with Can’t Fight This Feeling carries softly out to their location, probably one of the lamest songs to fight monsters to if you were to ask Billy.

I can't fight this feeling any longer

And yet I'm still afraid to let it flow

What started out as friendship has grown stronger

I only wish I had the strength to let it show

Though he’s got to admit, it’s not a horrible song for this thing he has going with Steve. After that close call of the dogs stalking so close to his house, Billy doesn’t think he has it in him to let the chance to bring it up with Steve slide through his fingers again. He’d never forgive himself.

I tell myself that I can't hold out forever

I said there is no reason for my fear

“Harrington.” When he opens his eyes again Steve isn’t there, and for a second he’s got to fear the worst. To wonder, if the dogs aren’t the only thing he’ll find dead. “Steve?”

'Cause I feel so secure when we're together

You give my life direction, you make everything so clear

“M’here, Bill.” He's leaning against a tree, his bat still held close at his side, looking winded, but alright, from what Billy can tell at least. “Just needed to, to catch my breath.”

And even as I wander, I'm keeping you in sight

You're a candle in the window on a cold, dark winter's night

And I'm getting closer than I ever thought I might

“You scared me, asshole.” Billy gathers his courage, rides the wave of adrenaline to take a step closer, until he’s hovering right in front of him, dangerously close, to say, “Listen Steve, there's something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and after this I just, I can't fight it anymore.”

He gets the memo, half-lidded eyes focusing on Billys lips, making him flick his tongue across them on instinct, tasting remnants of strawberry chapstick and lemonade dulled by the scent of copper. “Then don't fight it.”

And I can't fight this feeling anymore

I've forgotten what I started fighting for

It's time to bring this ship into the shore

And throw away the oars, forever

Their weapons are tossed to the ground before Billy closes the small gap that was left between them, ignoring all the muck and goo and blood splattered on their clothes and their skin to cup the side of Steve’s face, kiss him as soft and as sweet as he knows how after a fight like that.

'Cause I can't fight this feeling anymore

I've forgotten what I started fighting for

And if I have to crawl upon the floor, come crashing through your door

Baby, I can't fight this feeling anymore

Steve pulls away too soon, a soft gasp escaping his lips as he leans forward, forcing his weight onto Billy. The magic of the moment comes crashing down, when he notices how dreadfully pale Steve is, even in the darkness of the woods, untouched by street lamps or moon light.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Through gritted teeth, he mumbles into Billy’s shirt, “I think one got me.”

“Jesus, you're telling me this now?” He helps him lean back against the tree again, feeling he has the right to fret over him after a first kiss. “Where at?”

“My leg.” He says it so casual, Billy’s expecting nothing more than a nick, a last attempt at a scratch from a dying dog, but it’s bad.

Skin and muscle are torn through in a gash probably five inches long on Steve’s leg, deep enough he swears he can almost see bone. It’s already bruised dark, deep purple and black under all the blood, and bent just a little, like the bone had been cracked, but not quite broken.

Billy has to fight the urge to wince, to gag, to let any sort of panic over the severity of the bite show, because he knows Steve hasn’t seen it yet, that he’s maybe even in shock right now. The moment he let it show how bad he thought it was, Steve could pass out on him. Or worse.

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“Thought we were having a moment.”

“Well I’d like to have at least a few more, if you wouldn’t mind.” He sighs, but he drops the attitude. Stressed as he may be, Steve needs him level headed right now. “Can you walk?”

“Sure, yeah.” Something about the way his voice sounds like he’s struggling for air makes Billy not believe him, but he offers him his arm to let him test his weight anyways. It doesn’t go well, “Son of a mother bitch!”

“Yeah, I’m gonna take that as a no.” Billy figures it’d be better just to come back for their weapons later than to wait around for a second attack with an injured Steve, or to get sliced to ribbons carrying them and Steve back to the house. Because that’s what he’s going to have to do, from the looks of it.

He bends down and lets Steve wrap his arms loosely around the back of his neck, and hooks his hands under his knees to lift him. With his leg off the ground, he’s guessing Steve must catch a glimpse of how badly it’s torn up, because he throws his head back and mutters an “Oh shit.” to the stars.

Billy wishes his voice sounded more certain when he assures him, “You’ll be alright, just don’t look at it.”

There’s blood dripping from Steve’s leg on the grass, all on the concrete steps from the backyard that lead into Steve’s house and then the hardwood floors. Billy tries not to think about how they’re leaving behind a trail that would lead the monster straight to them.

They’d killed the dogs though, so he tries his damndest to believe that his biggest worry right now would be not being able to get the stains out before Mr. and Mrs. Harrington got back.

“Where do you keep the first aid around here?”

“Upstairs bathroom, third door on the right.”

Billy frowns. Trying to get him up the stairs was going to be awkward, the space between the wall and the banister so narrow, and Steve’s legs so long. The only way he can keep from dragging his wound against anything, which he’s almost positive would kill Steve at this point, is to turn sideways.

It feels like it takes forever to get up the steps and walk down the upstairs hallway, dodging side tables and potted plants until they reach the bathroom.

Even once they get there, Billy winces, taking in the tall, but thin door frame. “M’not fitting through here with you, Stevie. Gonna have to let you down.”

“Okay.” His jaw tightens, like he knows it’s gonna be hell to put pressure back on his leg, and Billy thinks about how he’d rather knock out the entire wall than have to watch Steve hurt himself.

But slowly, with Billy’s help, he gets his good foot back on the ground, and his arms unwrap themselves from the back of his neck. Billy keeps one hand holding tight on his hip, to keep him from toppling over while standing on one leg.

“Let me go in first, okay?” Turning around so they’re facing each other, he gives Steve both of his hands and kicks the half opened door the rest of they way open to reveal the dark bathroom behind him. He gets Steve to use the doorframe as a brace long enough that he can turn the light on, then gives him his hand again.

Steve takes the first step, hopping on one foot and making barely any progress. A steely look crosses his face, like he’s already decided what he’s about to do, and he lets his other foot down to the ground.

“That’s it, Stevie, just like that,” Billy mutters little encouragements under his breath, tries anything to keep Steve from thinking about walking on a broken leg. “Keep it coming, baby, just a few more steps.”

The closest thing to the door is a double tiered wooden shelf with magazines and towels on it, so Billy pushes the towels onto the floor with one hand and helps Steve sit down on it with the other.

Maybe it’s the wallpaper, but his complexion looks ghastly, all green and grey where he should be flushed and lively. Before he starts getting everything together, Billy puts his hand on Steve’s shoulder. “You good?”

It was a stupid question, Steve scoffs and says, his voice strained, “No.”

“At least you’re honest.”

Steve groans and stares up at the ceiling, ignoring his leg and the puddle of blood spreading on the tiled floor. “Shouldn’t I be at the hospital right now?”

“Normally, I would say yes,” Billy crouches down by the sink, digging in the cabinets underneath it for the first aid and a rag, “But closest hospital to us is the general hospital, and they’re not going to be thinking about demodog infections. They’ll put a cast on this thing and kill you.”

“Oh.” A poor choice of words, because Steve whispers, “I’m not gonna die, am I?”

“Not if you let me take care of you.”

He soaks through three wash rags with blood before the bleeding slows down enough that Billy can clean it, and slowly the shocked state of mind he was in starts to wear off. At least, judging from the way he’s gripping the edge of the shelf he’s sitting on so hard his knuckles turn white, it’s starting to hurt him pretty bad.

But Steve stays agonizingly quiet as Billy works anyways, hardly even wincing, despite the obvious amount of pain he’s in. Billy clicks his tongue, “I know you’re holding back on me, Steve.”

“You’re one to talk.” He’s defensive, borderline hysterical. “Mister pretending to be tough just because you’ve been through this once.”

“Next time I’ll just let the dogs get you, then.”

Ignoring Billy's rudeness, Steve mutters, “It just hurts so fucking bad.” A tear he’d been trying to hold back slips past, running a track through the dirt and blood that had gotten on his face.

“I’ll get some pain meds in you in a minute, just need you to be alert for this.”

He swallows thickly, like he’s scared. “Ready for what?”

“Well, you’re gonna need stitches.”

“Do you even know how?”

He didn’t. The most he’d ever sewn was a tiny hole in a jacket sleeve, but he didn’t feel it wise to tell him that. “I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.”

“No way. Absolutely not.” Steve grabs his hand tight to emphasize his point. “You are not coming anywhere near me with a needle.”

“Look, the alternative is it gets infected and you lose the leg. Or, you know, since nobody has ever survived a bite, your life.” He’s not trying to be snappy, but the more blood Steve loses, the more nervous he’s getting about wasting time arguing.

“Man, could you cut back on being an asshole for like, five minutes.” Billy rolls his eyes and tries to reach for Steve’s leg again, but he pulls away from his touch, blinking real slow like he made himself dizzy or he’s getting sick, before he tacks onto the end, “I’m wounded.”

“I know, I'm just trying to help you, Stevie. Please.”

Sighing and running his fingers through his hair, he puffs his cheeks out with a sigh and gives in with Billy’s pleading. “Whatever, just, get it over with quick.”

He goes back to not saying anything, biting his tongue while Billy tries to do a decent patch up. It looks somehow even gnarlier than before, with crooked and sloppy sutures, but it stops the bleeding for long enough that Billy can wrap it as tight as he can with some gauze and an ace bandage.

He sits back on the balls of his feet, and takes note of how they were definitely going to have to go to the government hospital where he’d been treated in the morning. Steve’s quiet so he asks, “Steve?”

“M’good.” He assures halfheartedly, leaning forward to hold his head in his hands. “Doin’ just peachy fucking keen.”

They stay upstairs, Billy completely unwilling to try to get Steve back down to the main living room on a busted leg. He'd have to worry about showering and getting the stains that’re all over the Harrington’s floors off later, right now he was just worried about making sure Steve made it through.

There’s a second living room, a foyer, Steve calls it, at the end of the hall, so he takes him in there, lets him sprawl out on the couch while he goes to get a phone and something for Steve to take from the first floor.

He snatches up the rotary off the coffee table, and goes digging in the medicine cabinet for pain killers. Near the back is a bottle of Vicodin, thank god for Mrs. Harrington’s many ailments and her equally surplus supply of pain pills.

Before making his way back up to Steve, he remembers to make sure to lock the sliding doors. Not that it would do much to really stop a demodog, but it’s the thought that counts. He decides to tack a blanket up to block the glass too, in hopes that it might make their scent at least a little harder to track.

Steve is hesitant to take his mother’s prescription, afraid of the side effects, but then he tries to drag his leg up from the floor to prop it on the coffee table so he can get more comfortable, and his mind changes right quick. He almost convinces Billy to let him take more.

Next is letting somebody know. Part of him wishes they could just sweep this whole thing under the rug and forget it, but this was a small town. The woods behind Steve’s house stretched all the way to the now empty Byers’ residence, to the Wheeler's, and from there to Hop’s cabin.

Keeping this a secret would cost lives, that he could be sure of. One measly pack of demodogs weak enough to be taken out by the two of them was guaranteed not to be the last. This was the start of another battle, and they needed as many people as possible to be ready for it.

He sits down with the phone next to Steve on his own cushion, careful not to jostle the couch too much. “Do you know Hop’s number?”

“Just give it here.”

Billy watches Steve dial the number, not a fan of how instinctual an action it seems to be, and as he barely gets a word in edgewise over Hopper on the other end of the line. When he get the chance to breaks the news, the call is over almost immediately, Hop getting ready to warn everyone else. He hangs up with tears in his eyes and a defeated posture.

The instant the phone is discarded on the side table, Steve tells him, his voice thick with tears and exhaustion and pain, “I don’t wanna do this again, Bill.” He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and shakes his head. “Just, last time, we were so close to losing Hopper, losing you, and I just- I can’t do it.”

“Hey. Look at me, Steve. It's not gonna be like last time. You got me now.” Steve does look over at him, his eyes wide, but he only cries harder.

Not knowing what else to do, Billy tosses an arm over his shoulder and pulls him close, and Steve leans into his touch, but there’s a deep frown on his face. Billy thinks his heart breaks clean in two as he insists, in a voice so worn, so dejected, “That’s just one more thing for me to lose.”

“I say it’s one more person looking out for you.” His heart fluttering in his chest, he prays the kiss in the woods wasn’t a heat of the moment thing, and presses another to the side of Steve’s head.

As best he can with his leg up on the coffee table, Steve settles up against Billy's side, sighing heavy through his nose.

Long enough passes that he thinks Steve’s fallen asleep, the pain meds would hopefully knock him out soon, but then he breaks the silence with a quiet, so gentle Billy almost doesn’t hear it, “Will you?”

“Will I what?”

“Look out for me?” The way he says it, it’s almost like he’s embarrassed to ask, so unable to believe that somebody would care about him instead of the other way around.

“‘Course.” Billy smiles despite the way seeing Steve so broken makes him feel, lets the fingers on one hand trail lazily up and down Steve’s arm in a way he hopes is comforting. “Even as I wander, I'm keeping you in sight, remember?”

Steve rolls his eyes, but he presses himself somehow even closer to Billy and sighs a little laugh, sniffling. “God, you're never gonna let that go, are you?”

“Hey, I’d rather remember our first kiss as being to REO Speedwagon, which is super lame by the way, than with you bleeding out in the woods, so.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Steve sits up a little straighter so he can look him in the face. There’s still some sadness in his expression, but there’s a hint of a smile too, and Billy will take that as a win any day. Teasingly, Steve says, “Maybe you’ll like the second one better.”

“We’ll just have to see won’t we?” He leans in, but it’s Steve who initiates the kiss this time, leading with more heat behind it than before. He tangles his hands in Billy's hair, deepening the kiss with the press of his tongue against Billy’s.

The angle isn’t very comfortable, a crook forming in Steve’s neck to reach Billy, and they pull apart for a breath. Face flushed beet red, Steve whispers, “Hey, Billy?”

Billy hums in response, too flustered to get his words in order, “Hm?”

“REO Speedwagon isn’t that bad.”

#harringrove #billy x steve #billy hargrove #steve harrington #susan hargrove #max mayfield #ej writer #story by ej!#tw blood #tw injury #how did this end up at over 10k words #i hope i didnt go too far off track with this #my brain just could not stop #I tried to post this two days ago but couldn’t because of the text block limit on mobile so I’m sorry this took so long #hope it was worth the wait but I’m very self conscious about posting this one #I’m really hoping this makes some sense because I can’t read all the way through it again whoops

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cheri-translates · 4 years

Text

[CN] Gavin’s Misunderstandings Date (Eng Translation)

🍒 Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for a date which has not been released in English servers! 🍒

Edit: It has been released in EN as of 13 October!

This is only the second time since they reunited that Gavin and MC are meeting for non-work purposes.

While MC is on her way to meet Gavin at the park, she notes how scorching the heat is, and that if she had known that the weather would be this hot, she would have picked an indoor activity instead.

However, since they’re already at the park and there are periodic gusts of wind, she feels it’s a suitable day for boat rowing. At the same time, she’s worried that Gavin wouldn't find boat rowing interesting.

She sees Gavin in the distance and hurries over to him:

Before she says anything:

Gavin: You want to do that? We can do it together.

Even though the intimidating aura around him has lessened, I’m still at a loss and don’t know how to get close to him.

I want to try understanding what interests him, but he doesn’t speak much.

Seeing that I haven’t given him an answer, he repeats the question, once again leaving the choice to me.

Gavin: Do you want to do this, or look around?

MC: It just brings back a sense of nostalgia. When I was young, I would do this with my father. I think I haven’t done it ever since I got older.

Looking towards the little boats, Gavin hesitates for a moment. It’s clear that he is about to say something, but he swallows it, shutting his lips.

If it wasn’t for his odd behaviour, I wouldn’t have realized that the topic I brought up had struck a nerve…

Gavin seems to have a tense relationship with his family, and I rarely hear him bring them up.

I hurriedly rack my brains, thinking of ways to salvage the situation. Surprisingly, Gavin is the one who breaks the silence.

Gavin: You have such a good relationship with your family. My family usually doesn’t go out, maybe once a year to the park.

MC: I see… Then again, it’s rare to bring boys out for such activities.

Gavin: Really? I’m not so sure. I just wanted to try doing it with you.

Hearing this and thinking about how I’ve never seen him react to trying something completely new, I start to feel excited. I begin imagining his reaction to stepping on a boat for the first time – would he still remain as stoic as usual?

MC agrees, but the queue for the tickets is incredibly long so tells her to find a place to sit while he gets the tickets. After a long wait, Gavin returns… with fishing equipment.

It turns out Gavin and MC had misunderstood each other:

Gavin: I misunderstood. I noticed you looking towards the lake, so I thought you were interested in fishing.

The laughter of the surroundings float towards us, a stark contrast to Gavin’s awkward solemnness. Tickled by the look of embarrassment on his face, I can’t help but let out a laugh. The more he confusedly asks me what happened, the more I laugh, to the point where I begin tearing up.

Gavin: What happened? Is it really that funny?

MC: No, nothing, haha. I just find this misunderstanding amusing.

With this, he lets out a breath, a smile in his eyes.

Gavin: While I was in the queue, I even pictured how you looked like fishing as a child.

MC: How can children have the patience to fish?

Gavin: If it were a normal child, that would be true. But you shouldn’t have a problem with it.

MC: Are you saying that I have the mentality of an old person?

Gavin: No, that’s not what I meant. In high school, you…

Upon bringing up high school, he immediately shuts his mouth, stiffly changing the topic.

Gavin: It’s fine, I’ll go back to get the correct tickets.

MC tells him that since the tickets have already been purchased, they should just try fishing. Since they rarely come here, they should create special memories:

Gavin: Even through fishing?

MC: Of course! This is the first time we’re both fishing, so it’s a worthwhile memory! Let’s set this day to be our “Fishing Anniversary” every year.

Gavin: Fishing Anniversary? Sounds good.

MC: I just spouted it randomly…

To hide the blush that is slowly creeping up my cheeks, I lower my face, snatching the fishing rod and bucket from him.

MC: All right all right, if we wait any longer, all the good spots near the lake would be taken!

Gavin: Okay. Give the things to me, you can pick the spot?

Out of nowhere, his fingertips brush the back of my hand. Warm, refreshing and dry, just like a summer wind. We both retract our hands at the same time, as though shocked by an electric current. After hesitating for a few seconds, he takes the fishing equipment from me.

Gavin: Oh right, the path to the lake is a little slippery, so hold onto me.

Looking at his outstretched palm, I nod my head and place my hand atop his. With my hand in his, he clasps our hands together a little tighter.

He follows my pace, and at certain points specially turns around to give me directions on which areas are safer to step on.

Since we’re at the lake and sheltered by shadows cast by the trees, logically speaking, the temperature here should be cooler than other places. Yet, I only feel my face heating up unnaturally, perhaps even hotter than being under the sun.

Although this is their first fishing experience, Gavin is surprisingly adept. He patiently shows MC what to do and warns her to be careful not to cut herself on the fishing line.

Without realizing it, I move closer and closer, until I hear a light cough from above my head.

Gavin: …If you can’t see it clearly, I can go even slower.

It is only now that I notice that I’m as good as glued to Gavin’s arm. Upon this realisation, the skin that made contact with his became even hotter than my head which has been under the blazing sun. Even my face starts to feel warm. My deafeningly loud heart beats block out all the sounds from my surroundings and even his voice.

Gavin: Are you feeling unwell? Your face is very red.

MC: No, not at all! The weather is just a little warm.

With exaggerated movements, I fan myself with my hand in an attempt to hide the redness of my face brought about by shyness.

Unexpectedly, he lifts the back of his hand to my face, checking if I am running a fever.

His drooping eyelashes soften his gaze, and his gentleness is comparable to the peaceful stirring of the lake, creating ripples on my heart. All hopes of calming down are gone, and I feel like I am going to explode amid the heat.

Gavin continues being blissfully unaware that he is the culprit of my plight.

He stretches out his palm in front of me. The originally stagnant air starts moving under his direction, brushing past the trees, brushing past his tidy short hair, and brushing past my crimson cheeks.

The heat is no longer unbearable.

Through this whole process, Gavin’s amber eyes remain fixed on my dazed face, his expression worried and serious.

Gavin: How is it? Feeling better?

MC: Much better. Thanks to that gust of wind!

Right after the words leave my mouth, the originally gentle wind suddenly shifts chaotically in all directions, like a beast with the lock of its cage removed. My hair ends up splayed all over my face. Through my messy hair, I can see Gavin looking frantic.

The chaotic wind stills, and he hurriedly and carefully helps me tidy my hair.

Gavin: I’m sorry, I lost control for a while.

MC: It’s not your fault, it was the wind after all.

Gavin: So… it is my fault.

They start picking up the fishing equipment that got splayed around, and Gavin seems to be searching for something in particular. Suddenly, they find themselves within nose-touching distance:

Our breaths are mixed together with the heat waves of summer, causing our faces to feel hot. I unconsciously shrink backwards, but his hand wraps around my back, holding me tightly in his arms.

Gavin: Wait, don’t move.

Nervous to the point where my eyes forgot how to blink, I watch as he moves forward.

He gazes at the side of my face, both hands hooking something onto my earlobe. I can feel his fingertips on my earlobe, and heart threatens to leap out of my chest.

The wind has become stagnant, the air completely still. His movements seem to be in slow motion and crystal clear.

After a relatively long time, he shifts some stray hair behind my ear, and opens the front camera of his phone towards me.

Gavin: It’s supposed to be worn like that, right?

MC: What is it?

Gavin: Ear cuffs. They were blown away just now.

Half of Gavin’s face appears in the phone screen, a serious expression on his face as he points to the ear cuff on my ear.

Clumsily, I accidentally pressed a button on his phone, and my dazed face is immediately saved in Gavin’s phone.

MC: Ah! Wait! Let me delete that photo!

Gavin: It’s fine to keep it. It’s cute. You look good with those ear cuffs.

Even though I can’t tell if he is complimenting the ear cuffs or me, it doesn’t stop my face from heating up several degrees.

They continue fishing, with him giving her tips on what to take note of. MC ends up catching three fishes while Gavin catches none. MC thinks that the fish can probably sense Gavin’s intimidating aura, which is why no fishes have come near.

After a while, MC can’t help but pat his shoulder and comfort him. Just as she finishes talking, Gavin’s fishing rod finally latches onto something heavy – a big tortoise. As he retrieves the tortoise from the hook, blood starts running onto Gavin’s arm.

While MC panics, Gavin calmly washes his hand in the lake.

Gavin: The one who got hurt isn’t me, it’s the tortoise.

I turn my attention to the tortoise which has hid inside its shell. Sure enough, its front leg has been cut.

MC: It looks like it’s in a lot of pain…

Gavin: I’m not sure how to stop the bleeding. Let’s bring it to the park helpers.

While he speaks, he takes off his white jacket without a moment’s hesitation and wraps the tortoise in it.

MC: Your jacket! Wouldn’t using a towel be enough?

Gavin: It’s all right, let’s bring it to the park helpers quickly.

His tenderness is so selfless, whether towards humans or animals.

They bring the tortoise to the park helpers, who assure them that it would be fine. They head to the washroom to clean up, and MC sees Gavin at the water cooler:

The crystal-like column of water sprays onto his lips, and the sweat dripping off the side of his neck shines in the sunlight. In a moment, his clean and cool breath is carried by the breeze into my heart.

There is a small patch of mud on his face, but he doesn’t seem to notice. I straighten my hand to wipe the stain off him. He immediately turns around, eyes filled with consternation.

Perhaps it is just the red flowers of the trees above, but I think I see a crimson flash on his face. I feel slightly embarrassed.

MC: Erm… Your face is dirty, let me help you wipe it off.

Gavin: Oh, so that’s what you were doing… Thank you.

MC: It feels like we keep misunderstanding each other today…

Gavin: Yeah. I’ll do my best to prevent it as much as possible next time.

MC: Huh?

Gavin: Although I don’t really understand the hearts of women, yours is the only one I don’t want to get wrong. So give me some time to figure it out, is that okay?

Even though it is meant to be a question, he says it with complete resolution, accompanied with a tone and gaze that cannot be denied.

It is so endearing that it stirs one’s heart.

MC: Of course you can!

No matter how much time you take, it’s fine with me.

No matter how long you need, I am willing...

[Note] In Chinese it‘s phrased like she’s accepting a marriage proposal

The date concludes with Gavin and MC back at the park after a year. Gavin notices that MC is deep in thought.

Gavin: Seeing that you’ve been trying to suppress a smile… Are you thinking of something happy?

MC: Yes, it’s something that makes me incredibly, incredibly happy. It is the thing that makes me happiest on earth.

🐟

Calls: First // Second

#mlqc #mlqc gavin #love and producer #mlqc cn #mlqc spoilers

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poetryofyouth · 4 years

Text

I did it, I finally quit psychiatry

(I wrote this for r/antipsychiatry, but I thought I might as well post it here too. don't read if you're easily triggered)

It's been a long journey through hell, but I've had enough. I'm not taking any more shit from incompetent, clueless doctors who think they know me better than I do myself. Who do not listen to me when I beg them to change the medication and instead just give me more of the stuff that is making me worse. I'll finally be free.

I doubt anyone cares, but I'll just tell you my story from the beginning. This is going to be a very long story. Basically, I became depressed at 14 or 15, I'm a 22 year old woman now. The reason was mainly that I couldn't handle the pressure from school. I am a very ambitious, perfectionist but also extremely lazy person. I was constantly beating myself up for not achieving what I wanted to achieve but also unable to fix my behavior. I did also have some slight, not even that serious trauma from a emotionally neglectful childhood and my parents telling me I was a failure every time I would get a grade that wasn't an A. At some point it all became too much and I started self-harming. Then I got worse and worse, self harming occasionally but severely, until I finally attempted suicide at 17.

I was locked into a youth psychiatry institution against my. will. I had my rights, my freedom taken away and was forced to take heavy medications. The very first evening I asked the psychiatrist at the hospital about the side effects of the medications, but he refused to tell me anything and instead just said I should trust his professional judgement. Unfortunately I was too tired and unwell to keep asking so I just accepted not knowing what would happen to me.

They gave me very high doses of Seroquel (Quetiapine), SSRIs and other stuff that I don't even know because they didn't even tell me the names of what they made me take. I just know the names of the medications I was supposed to continue to take after the hospital stay because they were in the papers they gave me. Then after a few days I begged the doctor to take me off the meds because I was so tired I could barely move. I had never felt worse in my life. she refused and instead upped my dose further.

I got worse and worse until I managed to get access to a razor blade I injured myself with on purpose. When my roommate told the nurses what I had done, I was forcefully, against my will restrained onto a bed. Yes, they actually tied me to a bed. And then pushed the bed into a small room where I was alone, and tied to the bed, unable to move. Of course I had a severe panic attack. The room had video surveillance, but it took them quite some time to notice that I was having a panic attack. they finally came and gave me something to breathe into and I calmed down more or less, but they didn't untie me. I later had to pee, and they didn't even untie me for that. I had to pee into a bedpan while tied to the bed, with a nurse watching me. it was incredibly humiliating. I was not untied the entire night. I was restrained until the next morning. When they finally untied me, I had quite seriously injured myself from fighting against the restraints. I had basically torn the skin off my ankles, the scars are faded now but they were visible for many years. It was quite painful. I do consider this incident of being restrained against my will psychiatric abuse, especially because I was restrained for so long. In total probably 10 hours, maybe even more.

Then the hospital didn't really know what to do with myself. I had of course lost any trust I had into the nurses and doctors and shut myself off from them. So they transferred me to a different institution, a more high-security one. Of course I wasn't asked if that was okay, I had to comply. I had began to form relationships with some of the girls, so being taken away from the small support system I had was very stresssful, especially considering how fragile I was at that time.

The other institution wasn't much different, but it was good for me to be taken away from the people who had abused me. I got a tiny bit better. I started to trust the nurses there a little bit. I got along with the other patients and over all liked the hospital better for maby reasons. And then they noticed I was a little better. And then they decided I was well enough to go back to the other hospital. Of course I wasn't asked this time either. But I had made more progress there in two weeks than in the other hospital in a month. I had again started building a little support system. But worst of all, I was forced to go back to the place where I had been abused, and at the time I was still very affected by the experience. I felt incredibly powerless and betrayed, but I didn't have a choice.

Then back at the first hospital I decided I would get better, for no other reason than to finally be able to leave that horrible place.

Then two things were getting severly uncomfortable. I was weighed every week and started noticing significant weight gain. At the same time, I was hungry all the time. painfully hungry, ravenous, even. I basically felt like I was starving all the time but still put on weight. Of course that was because of the high doses of Seroquel, but no one told me. I told nurses, doctors and therapists about the hunger and weight gain, but they simply didn't tell me that was a side effect, they told me an increased appetite was a sign i was getting better. I legit thought I was losing my mind.I have struggled with weight all my life and putting weight on like that made me feel horrible.

Then the doctor decided I was well enough to start taking up school work again. I begged him not to force me to, I told them the pressure of school was the reason I was sick in the first place. Of course no one listened to me. I was forced to do school work even if I knew it wasn't good for me. they didn't care.

Then, after three months of hell, I was finally released. And only because it was Christmas, and my parents refused to leave me there over Christmas. I got a therapist and medication for home.

Then after the Christmas holidays I, against my will, started going to school again. And after about two weeks, my new therapist told me that I had to choose between dropping out of school or going back to the hospital, because school was already making me severely suicidal again. And that was one of the few good things a mental health professional had said to me. I dropped out of school and actually started getting better for real. I sometimes forgot to take my medication, and every time I did, I instanty felt better. I suddenly didn't feel like a tired zombie anymore, I actually had emotions, I felt... alive. So I begged my psychiatrist to let me stop taking medications, and a few months after being released from the hospital, I was free of them.

And everything was great. I got a job, then I volunteered in New Zealand, then, when I was in a more stable place than at 17, I took up school again and graduated with flying colors. I was doing incredibly well.

And then I started university. The first semester went okay, but my mental health quickly started deteriorating. It was the academic pressure again. That's simply something I cannot handle. Soon I started self harming again, and it became more frequent than ever before. I also got into a bad, one might even say toxic, relationship. My girlfriend had issues on her own, but her behavior towards me was often extremely triggering and I very frequently self harmed because of something to do with our relationship. I do not want to blame her for my behavior, but she often made feel worthless, like I was not good enough for her. She would frequently cancel our dates at the last minute, and when she didn't, she would be half an hour late, and when we were together, she didn't make me feel very appreciated either. I was very much in love with her and always blamed myself for everything she did. She once even talked me into having sex with her, when I had said no repeatedly. She did not accept no for an answer and kept pushing until I slept with her to make her shut up. I felt like I didn't have a choice. She didn't force me to, but she simply did not accept my "no". Anyways, it was not her who took the knife to my skin, but she was a big factor in why I did it. I never told her she was a reason for my severe self harm, I didn't want her to feel bad. I didn't hide my wounds fro. her, I mean we did see each other naked and I always had at least four or five big bandages. We just kinda... ignored that.

So then I was getting desperate and decided to get professional help once again. I went to a free psychiatrist from the student councellors and she prescribed me Seroquel once again. I told her I didn't want to take it because it had made me gain a lot of weight and made me very tired. She laughed in my face and told me Seroquel doesn't do that. I don't know if she was just incompetent or lied to me on purpose, because these side effects are experienced by pretty much every single person who takes Seroquel, they are listed in the information leaflet, and I know many people who have taken this medication, all of them had them. During the appointment, she did not even ask me how I was feeling. She prescribed me 200 mg of Seroquel XR. Now, the recommended starting dosage is 50 mg. She prescribed me a starting dosage of four times the recommended amount. Unfortunately, I did not know that back then, I didn't expect a doctor to be that negligent. I took the first 200 mg pill that very evening before going to listen to a debate. Seroquel XR takes a while to kick in, but oh boy did it kick in. I didn't even notice the tiredness that much because I was having severe heart palpitations. My vision was going from normal to black and to normal again all the time. I was dizzy and desoriented and felt my heart was about to jump out of my chest, and sometimes it stopped beating for several seconds. I legit thought I might die in the audience of a debate on ethical farming.

Of course I didn't take the pills the next day and started looking for another psychiatrist. I got an appointment relatively quickly at a private one, it was relatively hopeless to get an appointment with one my insurance would pay, but I thought if she could help me, money wouldn't matter. She prescribed me some stuff that didn't do much harm but also didn't do much good. basically, i was a little tired but that was it. i got a therapist.

About 9 months passed, I had several psychiatrist appointments where I told her the meds didn't do much good, but she never really changed anything. She also insisted that I would get tested for Borderline personality disorder and the psychologist she told me to go to diagnosed me with it. My therapist at the time agreed with me that there was no way in hell that I have BPD, but she also said that when psychiatrists see an adult who self harms, BPD is the only thing that can explain that for them.

Then fall came and a new uni semester started. I had been alright over summer, I had broken up with my girlfriend, but of course with the start of the semester, everything came crashing down.

I lasted a month in university until i impulsively took the whole pack of Seroquel I still had laying around and went to the hospital telling them i was suicidal and also told them what i had done.

Now, I have to say that the nurses in this hospital were absolute angels. They treated my with respect, I almost felt mothered. I was given a lot of activated charcoal and basically had a good night in the hospital. I also got stitches for my freshest self harm injuries, but I had several ones that were too old to be treated that way.

The next morning I was transferred. Can you guess where to? The mental hospital i had been to as a teen. Again, I didn't have a choice.

But overall, the experience at the emergency ward was not as horrible as the first time. I was an adult now and actually treated like a human person. it says a lot about my first experience that I was very surprised by that.

I felt better rather quickly, mostly because the stress factory university was eliminated. The doctor there again insisted that I had BPD even when I said that was ridiculous. They evalued me again and the psychologist came to the conclusion that I had a borderline accentuation, basically borderline borderline.

The emergency ward doctor talked me into treatment at the psychotherapy ward, so I did that for 8 weeks. it was okay, again I was treated way better than as a teen. I was allowed to have an opinion about the medication, I was even allowed to read the little side effect pamphlets. But overall it didn't really do it, I self harmed less but I still self harmed.

During that stay I decided to drop out of university and start an apprenticeship as a baker. I found a company to work for, I loved work, then Corona happened. The company had to shut down. They laid me off after I had only worked there for three weeks. Basically I fell into a hole again, became a depressive husk again.

Then some time passes and a new therapist asked me why I didn't want to go to university anymore, she basically thought i was too intelligent not to. I told her how I could never focus, how I struggled with procrastination, how I couldn't handle the pressure and she recommended that I get assessed for ADHD. Now, I had suspended I had ADHD for years, but I didn't want to bring it up myself. I didn't want to seem like hypochondriac, or an attention whore, and after all, I had told so many people about my struggles and they never suspended ADHD. But I was relieved she brought it up and I had an "excuse" to get assessed. I was professionally diagnosed with ADHD soon after and happily went to my psychiatrist with my brand new diagnosis, I was full of hope that I would finally be "fixed". She basically told me she couldn't help me because she didn't know a lot about adhd. She prescribed me a very low dosage of Strattera (10 mg) and recommend me a specialist. I called the specialist, but they told me they couldn't give me an appointment and I should call in a few months, maybe it would be possible then.

It was july, and over the course of summer I decided I would try university again. Maybe if I was medicated for ADHD, I would actually be able to study. In fall of 2020, I started a brand new program, something very different from what I had done before.

I realized pretty quickly that the Strattera wasn't helping so I found a private ADHD specialist. I was extremely excited for the appointment. Again I thought "I only have to get through these few weeks, then I will finally get proper treatment" I didn't get proper treatment. He prescribed me more Strattera, which didn't help. The next appointment was a month after the first and again, I was excited. I was sure thia time he would fix me. I was sure after that appointment I wouldn't have to suffer anymore. But again, despite me saying I wanted to try something different, and that Strattera was not helping at all, he prescribed more Strattera.

Then university was getting really stressful, I had exams before Christmas, I was frustrated about him not listening to me. I started having suicidal thoughts again, I even relapsed with self harm, it had been months since the last time. But I more or less got through it in a piece, I even passed the exams (surprisingly), and was again looking forward to the next psychiatrist appointment after the Christmas vacation.

Strattera wasn't doing nothing, but it was not doing anything helpful. Basically, it made me feel quite relaxed, chill, less stressed. Which sounds good at first. But in order to get anything done, I rely on negative motivation. Basically, if I'm not panicking over possibly failing an exam, I'm just simply not going to study. So Strattera took the tiny bit of self-discipline and motivation that I had away and replaced it with a "idgaf"-attitude.Of course I told the psychiatrist. But can you guess what he did? Bingo, he upped the Strattera dosage. Again.

Then I had a second appointment with a new therapist, an ADHD specialist for adults. I told her how he did not care what I told him about Strattera and she was extremely upset and said that I can't let myself be treated like that. I needed to call him immediately and yell at him until he does something actually useful. I was baffled. I am not a confrontational person at all and I had never even considered actually arguing with a doctor. Yes I know, it sounds stupid in hindsight, but even after all that I had experienced, I still naively thought the professionals know best.

Okay so I called him. unsuccessful. I texted him. he ignored me. He had ignored my texts telling him that I was actually worse even before that last appointment, even though he told me to contact him with any concerns, and said that he prefered texts best, I thought he was maybe busy or something and didn't think much of it, but then he was ignoring my calls and texts. I was basically ghosted by a s

psychiatrist.

Okay I thought, then I'll simply go to someone else. To my suprise I got an appointment really quickly. I knew this wasn't a good sign, because good psychiatrists, if there even are any, don't have appointments free that soon.

But still, I had hope. And was of course disappointed again. I went to her with a professional ADHD diagnosis, but for her, that wasn't good enough. She had the audacity to tell me I needed another diagnosis from her psychologist friend who, by the way, has his office in a town over an hour away. She refused to treat me at all until I got that second diagnosis. Now,. I went to her out of pure desperation, out of knowing I simply could not go on like this any longer. Because I needed treatment quickly. And she told me she wouldn't give me that. I couldn't keep a few tears from escaping my eyea, she noticed and said very condescendingly "you don't have to cry, that's normal procedure". I tried my best to fight the tears, but as soon as I left her office, I started bawling my eyes out in the middle of town

And then I knew I was done. I had tried and tried again to get help, and I had not gotten it, I had not been listened to. Something in me snapped right in front of that office building.

I went home and threw my medication in the trash. Sure, it's bad to quit cold turkey like that, but honestly I don't care. I'm done. I'm done with psychiatry, I'm done with doctors. I have had the patience of a saint, but enough is enough. That was yesterday. And today I flipped a coin, twice, once for the psychiatrist and once for the new therapist. It told me to quit both of them, so I did.

I'm done with the mental health industrial complex. It has not helped me in all those years. I have only been sedated. Fuck psychiatry, fuck psychiatrists. Maybe I am simply meant to be miserable. I'll probably drop out of uni again, I thought I would be able to do it with treatment, but I did not get treatment, and I simply cannot do it this way. I've already attempted suicide because of academic pressure twice. Maybe I'll just have to live a miserable life working a low-paying job until I'm sad enough to finally actually kill myself. I'll probably always be a wreck, but at least I won't be a sedated wreck any longer. I'll be free, until I will be free for real.

Thank you for reading all this. I know it was a lot, but I needed to get it off my chest. Thank you.

#anti psychiatry #anti psych #antipsych #mental health industrial complex #long post #tw #cw

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toosicktoocare · 4 years

Text

Let me preface this by saying I’m only in season 1 of The Magnus Archives, and I’m just now getting, I think, legit introduced to Martin. But, I’m lowkey obsessing over it, and I’ve been reading fics for it. So, I just wanted to write this little drabble with Jon and Martin.

tl;dr: i don’t know what I’m doing, but I want to write this anyway

Martin’s lost in his work, gnawing absently on his lower lip. He’s spent the better half of an hour working through mental scenarios on how to approach a rather complicated statement follow-up, with each idea yielding the same, unfortunate result of a definite “no.”

He’s mentally working around the kinks, staring blankly at the biography, the adjectives and facts building within the introductory speech he’s writing word for word in his mind, when Tim slips in and slams a folder on his desk, startling him into a jump and a yelp.

“Tim, what-”

“Take this to Jon, will you?”

Though a question, Martin can hear the finality coating Tim’s tone, leaving little to no room for question or argument. He glances down at the file, flipping through the documents before bringing a puzzled look toward Tim.

“This is the research he asked you for. How come-”

“He’s in a mood,” Tim sighs, waving one hand about. “I don’t feel up to dealing with it today.” Tim starts toward the door, turning to offer Martin a quick “thanks” before disappearing around the corner.

Martin stares blankly at the empty doorway for a long moment, thoughts lost among erupting emotions: nerves, fear, a loud hint of excitement. But then he smooths his hand over the file, recalling the muted sense of urgency in Jon’s tone when he asked Tim for the research yesterday.

He grabs the folder, clutching it close to his chest for reasons he can’t quite pinpoint, and starts toward the archives, the walk long since easy muscle memory for him.

The door’s, unsurprisingly, closed when he reaches the archives, and he can hear Jon’s deep vibrato echoing from the gap at the bottom of the door. Martin reaches for the doorknob, hand freezing just before it, hovering in the air.

Though he would never admit it, Martin’s frequently been hesitating outside of the archives, taking just a few moments to just listen to Jon’s voice, to the way it takes to different timbres as he reads through statements, truly capturing the fear colored behind each word. It’s such a drastic contrast from Jon’s normal, dark, sharp tone, and Martin can’t help but take a few moments to get lost within himself when he listens to Jon read, even if it often results in Jon chastising him for his slow work ethic.

He’s quite aware at how creepy that makes him seem, but, today, he’s glad he’s taken to the rather odd habit, as he’s quick to pick up on the exhaustion laced in Jon’s tone. Frowning, Martin can almost pick apart each crack of Jon’s voice, and he rubs at his own neck with a frown when Jon stops more than once to clear his throat.

Jon sounds, Martin thinks, rough, the edge of his voice sounds frayed thin, tired, and he’s suddenly moving far too quick when he drops his hand to the doorknob and throws the door open.

He expects a yell, a curse even, as he’s heard so many times before, but Jon only briefly closes his eyes and sighs softly to himself. Martin takes that silent moment free of a verbal reprimand to study Jon’s drawn, sunken face with pink tinged cheeks and a red-rimmed nose. He moves his gaze further to Jon’s rumpled clothes that he knows, for a fact, Jon wore yesterday.

“Martin,” Jon draws out at the same time Martin sputters, “did you go home last night?”

“Excuse me?”

Jon’s eyes are open now, and behind the abundantly clear exhaustion, they are narrow, borderline dangerous, and Martin swallows thickly and absently clutches the folder tighter to his chest.

“I just mean,” Martin stammers, “your clothes. You wore those yesterday.” His voices trails off at the end, and he finds a stack of folders on the ground to train his eyes to, unwilling to meet Jon’s pointed gaze.

“Did you interrupt me to judge my attire, or did you-” Jon pauses to cough lightly into the back of his wrist, “-excuse me, or did you come to give me something?”

Martin drags his gaze up to see Jon gesturing toward the folder he’s got practically stapled to his chest, and he shakes his head quickly.

“No, sorry, of course,” he sputters around each letter as he hands Jon the file folder. “Tim asked me to bring this to you.”

“And he didn’t bring this himself because?”

“He’s busy,” Martin lies quickly, offering brief, made up details about research regarding a rather complex statement Jon read through yesterday.

“Right,” Jon mutters, already turning back to his tape recorder, eyes flicking briefly through the file, and Martin knows that’s his cue to leave, and he should leave because clearly Jon’s unwell, but it’s that notion alone that has Martin’s feet unable to move away from his spot.

He stares, instead, at Jon, at the barely visible tremor jerking over the curves of Jon’s shoulders, or the way Jon absently brings the sleeve of his sweater up to his nose, sniffling quietly. His heart lurches and twists, and he’s so lost in the mere thought that Jon is very much unwell that he doesn’t hear Jon call his name more than once.

“Martin, is that all?”

Shaking his head clear of loud thoughts, Martin cocks his head to the side slightly, brows furrowed. “Are you alright?” He knows the answer, and he also knows the predictable, clipped reply that’s to come, but he asks anyway because he’s worried.

“Of course I’m alright,” Jon snaps. “Close the door on your way out.”

Martin does so despite the pit pushing in his stomach, and he starts quickly to Tim, finding him half-reading through something on his computer while Sasha chats idly with him.

“Jon is sick.” He says, the words spilling quickly off his tongue.

“I know,” Tim answers, arching one brow that Martin shakes his head at.

“You said he was in a mood.”

“He is,” Tim responds easily, eyes falling back to the computer screen. “He’s always in a mood when he’s sick.”

“Shouldn’t we try to send him home?”

“Wouldn’t do any good,” Sasha says. “Jon will-

“-only leave in a casket,” Tim finishes for her, and Martin can only huff, frustrated, as he slips back to his small office.

He tries to get lost within his work, tries to chase the need to impress Jon, but worry is consuming him, twisting within the pit of his stomach, and he can’t keep his mind from drifting back to how poorly Jon looked. He wants badly to help, but he’s treading on thin ice as it is, and, as Tim said, Jon’s in quite the mood.

Still, Martin can’t shake the need to do something. He leaves to the break room to make tea, Jon’s favorite tea, but he only knows that by pure coincidence. At least, that’s what he always tells himself. He avoids Tim and Sasha as he makes his way back to the archives, waiting patiently outside the door until he hears the familiar “Recording End.”

He knocks this time, already wishing to make up for his abrupt entrance earlier, and he takes the distracted hum as an all clear to enter, pushing the door open slowly, frowning as he listens to the rather rough bout of coughing Jon’s struggling through.

“Martin, how many times do you plan on interrupting me today?” Jon chokes out around a few ragged breaths, and Martin holds up the mug as a silent peace offering.

“I made tea and accidentally grabbed the wrong tea bag,” he lies, setting the mug down on Jon’s desk. “Figured you might want it.”

Jon only mutters a distracted “thanks” as he brings his attention to his next statement, but Martin doesn’t miss the way Jon’s hand smooths around the mug as if seeking warmth.

Martin slips silently from the room, leaving his back pressed against the door as he listens to Jon roughly clear his throat before beginning his next recording. His head thumps softly against the door, eyes tipped up to the dusty ceiling light above him. He listens to the pained voice on the other side of the door, and though he knows he’s bound to bear witness to Jon’s wrath, he makes a silent vow to check on Jon once more before he leaves.

Somehow, he manages to get work done, albeit very little work. It takes him twice as long to conduct his follow-up research, stopping twice when he spots Jon shuffle by, once headed to the break room with a familiar, empty mug. Martin couldn’t help but smile at that, though, he wished it were under better circumstances.

Once it’s time to leave for the day, he practically leaps from his desk chair, only just remembering to lock his computer as he gathers his coat and heads toward the archives. He pauses before the door, only knocking when he’s sure by the silence on the other end that Jon’s not recording.

He gives a courtesy knock, and the weak, muffled “come in” that comes after has Martin all but ripping the door open out of concern alone.

Jon’s got his head resting atop his folded arms, his glasses resting on the table beside him. Martin can see him shaking, and when Jon finally lifts his head, as if the small movement is one of the hardest things he’s done, Martin can’t help but suck in a sharp breath. He’s got an entire speech about self-care curling to the tip of his tongue, mind only halting when Jon holds up a single hand.

“Don’t,” Jon mutters, and Martin frowns, sympathy coloring his eyes.

He opts for a softer approach. “I know I asked earlier, but are you alright, Jon? You really don’t look well.”

Jon tilts back in his chair and presses the back of his hand to his cheek. Martin can only imagine the fever heat, and he has to bite back the urge to feel for himself.

“I...” Jon sighs around a few coughs. “I will be,” he opts for, and if Martin wasn’t so worried for Jon, he would fall flat on his ass at the sheer transparency of Jon’s tone, at the admittance, the lack of heated argument.

“Elias has already graced me with quite the lecture,” he adds, voice thick with congestion, sounding impossibly deep, something Martin takes quick note of. “I’m to leave on time and rest until I’m well enough to return.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Martin mutters quietly, feeling almost relieved at the sharp glare shot toward him.

The two fall into an awkward silence, one Martin usually flees from for his own heart’s sake, but he can’t, once again, quite get his muscles to move. He clears his throat, stumbles over a few words. “I should... I’ll be going now. Please let me know if you need anything.” He didn’t plan on adding that last bit, it just slipped off his tongue, almost naturally, and he swallows harshly, biting back his nerves as Jon bids him a quaint “bye” as if he hadn’t heard anything Martin said.

Martin forces himself to turn and leave, pausing for a moment, eyes casting down to his coat folded in his arms. He turns back quietly, ignoring the studying gaze locked to his every move as drapes his coat over the back of the chair before wordlessly leaving the archives and starting the trek home, feeling cold in the chilly wind, but cold without regret.

He’s surprised when he wakes the next morning to an email on his phone from Elias stating that Jon will be out sick for the next few days and no one is to bother him for any reason. Yet, he’s even more surprised when he arrives to work an hour later to see that Jon is, in fact, not in, being as he’s notable for bypassing Elias’s orders on more than one occasion.

He greets Tim and Sasha as he starts toward his office, brows furrowing as both point out the absence of his coat with questionable smiles. Shaking his head, he ignores them, only shrugging at them as he enters his office, dropping his bag to the floor and sinking in his chair. He goes to shake his computer mouse, hand freezing as his eyes catch sight of a sticky note stuck to his monitor.

“Thank you for the coat. It’s... very warm. I will have it dry cleaned before I return it-- Jon.”

Martin’s cheeks flush a faint pink as his eyes follow the curve of each letter, and he smooths his hand over the sticky note before plucking it off his monitor and slipping it into a desk drawer, happy that, though not a lot, he was able to help Jon in some way.

#the magnus archives #tma #martin blackwood #jonathan sims #jonmartin #sickfic #whump #whumpfic #my writing #my tma writing #i'm sorry if this is super ooc #again i'm only literally just now getting to martin and the worms #but like i had a want to write #and it's been a minute since i've genuinely wanted to write #so here we are

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natrashafierce · 4 years

Text

The author of that terrible Your Fave is Problematic Tumblr has grown up and written a great piece for The New York Times expressing regret about picking people apart and talking about how (surprise, surprise) it was really just that she was young and poorly adjusted and had gone through some stuff.

I hope more people can be honest with themselves that most of us are susceptible to weird, spurious extremist stuff online if we’re in a bad enough mood, and you can always just, like, stop and change course and be someone who tries to spread forgiveness and humility instead of accruing points for tiresome, punitive, identity-obsessed nitpicking. I completely forgive the author of the blog and applaud her for this extra step that will surely expose her to the same sort of poorly adjusted person she used to be.

I also hope more people come to understand that they shouldn’t signal boost people articulating extremist things, because all it does it create a contagion of poor mental health and social behaviors that are counterproductive to achieving anything positive. It’s normal for people to get angry, and everyone has every right to rant in their own online space, and you don’t have to invalidate anyone’s moment of anger. But you can comfort them without reblogging or retweeting them. You don’t have to enable their descent into binary thinking by rewarding them with a ton of attention and influence.

It may be “tone policing” to try to tell any one individual how to express themselves, but it is not “tone policing” to suggest that society should not take our cues and policy ideas from people who are hysterical. Almost no one is good at formulating solutions to social problems, and angry people least of all. Every marginalized group has at least SOME people who are capable of remaining fair, nuanced, and rational despite what they’ve gone through, and those are the people to signal boost if you take societal problems seriously. They tend to have a much more complete perspective on an issue than someone who has barely read or experienced anything outside themselves except for the dozens of aggro internet posts that end up in their bubble.

Chronically angry people see everything through the lens of their anger and their ego, do not seek perspectives or explanations that would defuse them, and their ideas for solutions will tend to be unfair and dehumanzing. Now the internet pays people for that, and people psychologically stagnate because their newfound career depends on it and their reputation seems locked in by the long memory of the internet. Grounded people have learned to control their egos, seek genuine understanding of those who disagree with them, and are capable of finding uplifting solutions, but those people are getting drowned out and harassed offline nowadays.

It used to be that people would have their big moments of anger and, lacking any audience except for a few people they knew, had to learn to introspect, calm themselves down, and approach problems effectively. They would often get gently challenged by the people around them and pulled back into a healthy mindset. They would confront interpersonal problems privately instead of trying to tear people down publicly, and extremism only arose in bad social circles or with especially recalcitrant people. But now that everyone gets their basest impulses rewarded by strangers as poorly adjusted as they are, there is little incentive for introspection or growth. This got worse for a lot of us during the Trump years, I think, because the shock of his incivility made it seem like civility had been a losing tactic. I know I felt like that for a few years until I realized how easily I could be manipulated into believing the worst about someone if it played to my biases. Unfettered mass venting just contributed to a bad cycle.

One of the worst things is how the crazed brigades accrue well-intentioned allies who enforce their insane, unpopular ideas and, together, tank public support for what were once important political objectives. SO MANY people were into the Your Fave is Problematic blog and would troll tags for the celebrities mentioned just to harass and intimidate people who were fans, and they were all indoctrinated into a disordered, shallow worldview were they derived their worth from tearing people down instead of cultivating their own talents. Your Fave is Problematic was by no means the first or only vector for leftist identitarian brain worms, but it was an influential one. There’s a whole lot of obnoxious Tumblr stuff that leaks out into the larger world now.

Back then I thought people would grow out of it, but either a ton of them didn’t, or else those who did just got replaced by new people. I thought right-wingers were catastrophizing and exaggerating when they fixated on it because a lot of the time they were, and too many of them couldn’t criticize it without being dehumanizing themselves. But sure enough, it got worse. I realize now that regardless of ideology, extremism always gets worse if there are incentives for it to grow, and the internet supplies those incentives in spades. This stuff didn’t stay on Tumblr; it didn’t stay on some stray college campuses. They said it wouldn’t, and they were right.

And now it has infected more mainstream, influential spheres of life with infantilizing and dehumanizing ideas that train people to perceive everyone as an aggressor or a pinata they can beat up for clout. It’s increasingly ruined more innocent lives, all while people who are ideologically captured keep insisting it’s no big deal because that’s the line in their social circle. The goalposts move every week to provide more targets, and even left-leaning media has quit thoroughly investigating a lot of things in its rush to cash in on whatever social media controvery has been ginned up by unwell people. The corrections, when they come out, are almost never widely circulated.

It’s been surreal and disheartening to watch. People I used to consider reasonable and compassionate just gradually morphed into aggrieved, insecure pod people who can’t handle the slightest challenges of evidence against their worldview. They can’t accept that their insecurities and peeves are frivolous distractions that actually do materially harm efforts to fix serious problems, whether by beclowning entire political parties or candidates, or diverting resources to organizations that aren’t changing anything significant or are making things worse. They all even say the same tired phrases. It’s such a shitshow, but public opinion polling on this stuff has remained mostly sane. A lot of people are snapping out of it like the author of YFIP, so I can only hope that more people feel comfortable to finally push back against it.

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velvetv0nblack · 4 years

Text

An open letter;

(Possible trigger warning)

I’m not even sure why I’m writing this, maybe because this theme of abuse has be something I’ve been experiencing as a third party, the person removing the victim this time, you know the role many of my friends filled within our tumultuous relationship... maybe it’s because my friends abuser is now threatening and harassing me for helpingher leave... maybe it’s because I’ve finally found my therapeutic dosage of lithium, am in a clear mind and are therefore able to reflect properly for the first time in my life... or maybe it’s because this is not an apology, I mean maybe it is if you had only been a serial cheat, but the truth is you fractured my skull and cut me open with a knife, so this is not a fucking apology. Also I’d rather rip my own eyes out of my skull, smash them with a hammer, and then inject the liquid into my ass than actually engage you in any kind of conversation, so knowing that this is the one platform you can still check for me on, I’m going to post this here... Its about time I had my say without putting myself in physical danger.

You would think I wouldn’t have an essay to correct your 3 lines of a nothing apology, but here we are I guess.

This kind of self deprecating “I wasn’t good enough for you” narrative is truly infuriating, and not because you were actually good enough for me but because of the very reasons you proved yourself not be “not good enough”. You weren’t undeserving of me because you didn’t work, I am physically incapable of doing so myself and I didn’t fall in love with you because you came across mad motivated. You weren’t undeserving of me because you took drugs, drank like a fish or smoked like a chimney, we were both purposefully killing our selves in the same way. You weren’t undeserving of me at all, until you fucked my best friend in the bathroom and collectively gaslit me into wondering if I was imagining the whole thing, and slowly but systematically broke down my confidence and support network away from me. I want this to be very clear; the reason you do not deserve me or any other decent human being is because, you are an abuser, you abuse people.

I was barely a whole person when I met you. I was barely an adult. I had lived through so much already, and had been abused in every area of my existence. I was easy pickings to you. The issue was you were not a pawn to me, a player in any game, or any of that. To me you were this fascinating, beautiful soul, to me you were someone who needed my love who needed someone to support you and I couldn’t believe that you chose me to fill that role. I was freshly 18 that month, and I had just had a flat mate steal £3k and kill my kitten.

I weighed all of 63lbs that night you lost the plot on me because I didn’t want to go to Big Red to watch that actual cunt of a waitress smile at me as she gave you lap dances, it’s not even a dance joint it was a fucking bar. You allowed other people to emotionally abuse me with you for months up until this point and I just didn’t want to go, all I wanted was the keys and I would of gone home alone and gone to bed. Why you feel the need to publicly humiliate me again instead of just leaving it? You couldn’t just go be adulterous without me watching and hurting, so you followed me home, screaming at me the whole time. You told me I was pathetic, you hated me, I should just kill myself- on a bus on a Saturday night, from the bar I worked in, in soho, back to our place near Caledonian Road. I was so unstable anyway, undiagnosed autism, misdiagnosed mental health issues, on the wrong if any medication, deep within the throws of an addiction and eating disorder... you. I couldn’t take you verbally ripping my heart out anymore when I decided that throwing myself from our 3rd story window would hurt less. The fact I could of died isn’t what made you grab me and stop me jumping, no in fact you told me you don’t care if I kill my self as long as it’s not in the flat, you were much more concerned with the amount of drugs in the flat and the prison opposite our window. At that point you threw me full pelt across the other side of the room, all 63lbs of me flew through the air like a paper aeroplane and smashed directly into your guitar. You know your beloved custom Les Paul? The headstock came off, and at that very moment despite the fact you were the one who threw me, my life was the one in danger. You started strangling me and threatening to have men come down to London to gang rape my then 14 year old sister. It gets a little fuzzy, that’s what your brain does when you experience potentially life ending trauma. I do know I ended up with stitches in my lips and hands, that you fractured my right eye socket- that I still suffer issues with to this day- and had black bruising covering my entire body like a bus had hit me.

For a couple of years there my brain completely blocked out important details of that night, and a lot of our relationship. Don’t worry though periodically I have the real type of flashback where I relive these events and I come back to reality remembering more than I ever wanted to. I’m yet to even touch on the fact that whilst I may of been able to escape you in waking life, my dreams are perpetually stuck in this horrific PTSD dream land, a town that is a mash up of all the places I’ve been traumatised in my life, the place you eternally reside inside my head to traumatise me whilst I desperately need to rest. You haven’t really left my life despite the efforts I have made to avoid you (I think I’ve seen you once, from a distance once at Download 2 years ago, my heart fell out my ass, and I dragged Camilla in another direction) I have only 2 dreams in 6 years that haven’t included you chasing me down to finish what you started and kill me or keep me captive. But that’s what trauma does, and oh how you traumatised me.

I really loved you though, that’s why I stayed, and those couple times I tried to leave before I came back. I loved you so unconditionally that it took me realising that everyone else around us was so complicit that they’d help you hide by body. To this very day I cannot believe a man, a male roommate, walked in on you pinning me into a sofa by my neck, with both your planted knees on top of my chest, full weight suffocating me, biting the end of my nose until it was blackened and he had the audacity me I needed to calm down. I have to label the guy the world biggest pussy in my head so I don’t get wound up about it.

I wasn’t perfect, I can never be perfect, I have more imperfections than most. I am severely mentally and physically unwell- I sure as hell am a pain in the ass to love- however I cannot actually think of a damn thing I did to deserve constant unending emotional abuse, threatens and follow through of physical abuse and then after I left stalking and harassment. I am difficult but I am not deserving of abuse and that’s all you gave me in the end... unless of course you “needed your baby girl to suck your dick” - that was the only time you were ever nice to me, and I know because I recently read back a bunch of our texts and you flipped between “I hate you, I’m gonna kill you/kill your self” to “I need my beautiful girl to come and suck my dick I love you so much” is actually fucking insane. - Should I bring up the fact you would bang pathetic girls on the scene and then dicknotise them into stalking and harassing me with you? Because... what I had the audacity to leave a man, of over 6ft tall, who would become violent to my 5ft 63lbs self?

So yeah, you didn’t deserve me, but not because of any self deprecating attention seeking reason but because you’re a sociopath, who seems to take pleasure in fucking with vulnerable women.

Am I happy? Now that’s a fucking difficult one to answer.

I ended up homeless on and off for a year. Despite the homelessness I had suffered before this was worse because of the place I was in mentally.

You caused me to develop complex PTSD.

You caused me to have a 3 year long psychotic break.

You caused me to live in secure supported housing, where I was prayed upon by other residents.

You caused me to fall victim to abuse within the system

Not sure if you know this but our mental health services sucks ass, after leaving you I had a delightful therapist that would text me telling to kill my self and would tell me you were right to abuse me.

But I got one thing from our relationship, I fine tuned my “four Fs” ...I no longer freeze or fight in the face of difficulty... I developed an ability to fawn.

Dead ends are no longer in my eyeline, I will metaphorically straight on walk through someone else’s house to get where I need to be, I will jump the fence, break the locks and out run any guard dog. I may fall down but I’m never out.

When I was diagnosed with multiple chronic illnesses and essentially lived in hospital for 3 years, even when I thought to end my life it was weighed out by the thought of “how do I get to a place we’re I can do even 5% of what I want? What do I have to change, manifest?”.

You see if you could only temporarily break me but not stop me then why the hell would I let my own mind and body do that? That ability to fawn came with an ability to find a middle path, to be diplomatic. That ability to fawn gave me the patience to understand medical text and use that to access the right care. ~ I am actually thinking of starting a medical degree just to prove I can ~ I am now 98lbs and healthy for my size and stature, I now have a home with a housing association who like me so much they have me a lifetime partner agreement, meaning I will never be homeless again. I have been clean 7 whole goddamn years and 2 months. I have the most beautiful empathic cat, 2 foster dogs and an incredibly patient partner, who has known me before you had ever entered my life. I am as healthy as someone in my position can be, I still struggle with the anorexic thoughts but I eat everyday of the fucking week now.

I am not “happy” as happy is an emotion and emotions are fleeting but I am content in living for the simple life I have fought ever so hard for. I am strong, and determined and constantly fucking working on making more for myself. I’m proud of myself.

All I have to say is get therapy. If you’re really sorry work on yourself enough to be able to apologise properly before you fuck my day up by rising your head again for this weakness. I can’t say I don’t have morbid curiosity, because that’s me all over, however I’m much more determined to keep all that I have work for mentally, emotionally, and physically safe. For that reason I would never in my right medicated mind talk it out with you, email you back or seek you out. I’m sorry, it is what it is.

You can not damage someone irreparably both mentally and physically and think “I’m sorry for being a cunt” even close to cuts it. You are mentally unbalanced, in a way not even I can relate to.

#what was the point #open letter to my abuser #its not 2014 anymore buddy

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kittyotakunoir666 · 5 years

Text

2WAYMIRROR: Medicate

This is a continuation of Butterflies

Broken girls Butterflies Perfect day

Goodbye Medicate Pillowcase

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Medicate by Gabbie Hanna

I'm unwell, thanks for asking

Don't mind me 'cause I'm just passing by

In this life, been a while

Thought that you forgot, but that's alright

How've you been? Glad to hear it

Just one question if you can bear it

Do you ever miss me, too?

'Cause I spend my days still thinking of you

I never thought I would run into Adrien again, not for a long time. Not after we broke up and I became Neti and made my own fashion line. Not after all these years of me being free from him and my first album being about him and his lying and cheating. God did I hope that my luck would continue but unfortunately, I was not that lucky nor was I lucky enough for him to forget me like I hoped he would.

We ran into each other after I bought some more materials for my personal designs I was doing for myself as Neti. I, of course, thought of Adrien often and how it was he who made me feel uneasy entering into another relationship with anyone. How my mentality isn’t completely good anymore but at least it wasn’t like it was back to when we first broke up. I, out of curiosity, did ask him if he ever missed me after the break-up.

He didn’t answer me but that was answer enough.

Should I take a pill to numb the pain?

Change the chemicals inside my brain

I worry I won't be the same

But I guess that that's the point

I left him standing there after that and went straight home. It was around the time for me to take my antidepressants and honestly, it helped me calm down my anxiety that was rising. After releasing my album about him I went to the doctor and he prescribed me my medication and I have been doing better. It helped that I was away from him and wasn’t around anyone toxic in my life thanks to all of them taking his side. Good riddance I say after all I did for them; I supported them, I cared for them, I encouraged them, I did as they asked for those years, and what do I get for it, a backstabbing.

Can you medicate a broken heart?

Make your tragedies a work of art

Medicate a broken heart

Build your walls up just to rip them apart

Is this the way to fix this or is this a quick fix?

I really couldn't say

Can you medicate, medicate, medicate it away?

(FLASHBACK)

I had gone to the doctors and they told me I had depression and all I can think of is. ‘Of course, I do I was in a manipulative relationship where my boyfriend cheated on me multiple times.’ But things are, I still felt bad, I still wasn’t feeling like I did before and I keep asking myself ‘Can a broken heart be healed with medication, or does it take time but how much time?’

But the medicine did help relieve the hurt of my broken heart. I was able to heal when I kept writing my songs and kept designing. I basically threw myself into my work and accidentally became a workaholic but oh well better this than the alternatives.

(END OF FLASHBACK)

Doctor Smile, kill me with kindness

And don't ask about the side effects

Swallow hard, kill sadness with science

But the aftermath might make you sick

I thought I was doing better but then this happened. I ran into him and of course, my depression would act up again like when I was first diagnosed. But my heart began to hurt again so I decided to head into my room, locked myself in there, and cry my eyes out because it is sometimes therapeutic.

Should I take a pill to numb the pain?

Change the chemicals inside my brain

I worry I won't be the same

But I guess that that's the point

I cried and cried but right after, I felt so much better. The medication was able to activate and began to help me. It was around the afternoon but I felt like taking a nap so I did. As I began to fall asleep I kept wondering if I would run into him again and if so how would I react. But I hope that I won’t react like this again since I can be a bit more prepared now that I know he’s in Paris again.

Can you medicate a broken heart?

Make your tragedies a work of art

Medicate a broken heart

Build your walls up just to rip them apart

Is this the way to fix this or is this a quick fix?

I really couldn't say

Can you medicate, medicate, medicate it away?

After my nap, I woke up to my phone vibrating with the number of messages I was getting so I decided to check on what was up. It was a group chat with my new friends made blasting my phone asking if I was ok since one of them ran into Adrien and how they were worried that I ran into him. They are wonderful friends for trying to be there for me and by the looks of it, I will be expecting company soon.

QUANTIC DISASTERS

Ice king❄: Marinette I just saw Adrien. Are you ok? Did you run into him? I’m coming over

Melodie🩰: Wait, Adrien the cheater is in Paris right now?

Ice king❄: Yes

Kid-mime🐶: Fuck. Mari are you ok?

Sandman💤: What, are we going to do about Adrien?

Melodie🩰: Should we go visit her?

Kid-mime🐶: Mari are you there?

Sandman💤: Maybe she’s taking a breather and need time?

Kid-mime🐶: I’m getting worried guys

Melodie🩰: WAIT

Melodie🩰: We need to know first and foremost if she saw him or not or else we will put her in a bad mental state.

Kid-mime🐶: Hey, Ice King, What should we do.

Sandman💤: Should we be worried about Adrien’s presence in Paris or is it possible that we can avoid him.

Kid-mime🐶: Felix

Kid-mime🐶: Ffffffeeeeelllliiixxxxx

Kid-mime🐶: Dude answer

Kid-mime🐶: Hey, Felix answer or I’ll spam you

Kid-mime🐶: Alright you asked for this.

Kid-mime🐶: Guys brb

Sandman💤: We should head to Mari’s place she could need us.

Melodie🩰: Especially since she’s not answering us so I’ll see you guys over there

Whoa, whoa

Oh, medicate it away

Whoa, whoa

Oh, medicate it away

There was a knock at my door and I knew it had to be them. I smiled and I went to let them in and as I did so I remember the first time I broke down in front of them.

They say give yourself a break

They tell me to medicate

I don't wanna medicate

(FLASHBACK)

“Enough!!” I yelled at my new friends, “Don’t ask me about him anymore”

They stood their eyes widened as they stared at me. We were at my apartment and we were hanging out before they began to ask me about my relationship with Adrien and if I saw the break-up coming, and how I felt about his cheating when I snapped. Felix was the one to make the first move by getting angry at me.

“You don’t have to yell at us, you know, all you had to do was tell us you didn’t want us asking about the situation,” He said with a glare and that is what ticked me off.

“Well maybe they saw my interviews with the many people who kept asking me about it they would know the answers,” I hissed at him as I began to raise my voice and address the others, “Is this the reason your friends with me, all you care about is my old relationship with famous model Agreste. Am I not good enough like I was to him, Why did you become friends with me anyway, Why are you betraying me, Why can’t you understand me, Why are you being like this, am I really not good enough, Why… WHY WAS I NEVER GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU, ADRIEN”

After that, I began to cry and I fell to the ground crying my eyes out looking at the floor. Asking over and over again why I’m never good enough. I then felt arms go around me and I looked up from the floor. I saw Allegra, Claude, Allan, and Felix hugging me and trying to calm me down and they were saying comforting words and saying sorry for asking when they should have realized that it was a sensitive subject.

(END OF FLASHBACK)

Oh, can you medicate a broken heart?

Make your tragedies a work of art

Medicate a broken heart

Build your walls up just to rip them apart

Is this the way to fix this or is this a quick fix?

I really couldn't say

Can you medicate, medicate, medicate it away?

“Hey guys,” I greeted them

“Hey Marinette” Allegra greeted giving me a hug

“Hey Mari,” Claude said in a soothing tone

“It’s good to see your okay, Mari,” Allan said with quiet empathy

“Have you seen Felix?” Claude asked looking around, “He hasn’t answered any messages even when I spammed him with a lot of messages”

Whoa, whoa

Oh, medicate it away

Whoa, whoa (Whoa)

Oh, medicate it away

We hung out in my apartment when a knock came from the door. I went to see who it was and standing there was Felix with bags from the grocery store. I let him in and helped him with the bags and I saw that there was chocolate, ice cream, rom-coms, and a cake. I thanked him and hugged him for being there for me and doing this for me along with the others. We decided to have a sleepover so I don’t feel alone.

So maybe medication doesn’t heal a broken heart but time can. Especially, when you have friends who care about you and want to be there for you.

Oh, medicate it away

#2WAYMIRROR #Adrinette angst #quantic kids #moving on #marinette dupain cheng #a bit of depression

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chiropteran-hellfire · 6 years

Text

A Reply

Alright. I was not planning on originally doing this, simply because to respond to such pettiness I see as beneath me, but the line of tolerance no matter how far it may be to reach, still exists, and if one crosses it I will not be able to ignore such a gesture.

I have been sent ten messages of hateful provocation under a new empty blog to hide their identity, this is my answer to that person.

First thing's first, some context. I am otherkin, and I have a history within the community. About a month ago now Grey, the owner of the largest otherkin Discord chat, of which I was a moderator in for roughly two years, decided to not only abandon it; casting everyone within it into a state of confusion, but to also clearly state, "You can all go to hell." This was done while also assigning ownership to the dead account of a person whom I do not have kind memories of. I took this as not only a despicably irresponsible action to abandon a large scale community without properly assigning a new owner, but to make it as a personal final 'fuck you' to not only all of the members, but myself personally due to the choice of account she assigned it to.

Grey was not unaware of my history with that account/individual, and she was also not unaware of my BPD, something that if triggered will cause me to act irrationally and extravagantly. The result was uncontrollable on my part. My home had turned against me, so I turned against it in turn. I broke down many of the channels yet still fought myself to leave the ones that held the most important information - the otherkin and fictionkin channels. Were my actions the best thing to do? No. Were they personally unjustified? Well, that's the argument isn't it? One that's unfortunately tainted with having an Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder.

However, the result of this was that I was finally shown who would offer me understanding, listen to my side, and give me the time to not harass me at the first chance they got. My enemies and friends became clearer than ever to me. Not only this, but the resulting fall out has caused the community to break free from Grey's dying chat; a chat that was often neglected by it's owner. It has allowed the community to turn over a new page within our history books. One person described my actions as a mercy killing, for Grey locked it into a stagnant slow death, while I pushed everyone to make a move that was needed, but no one wanted to make.

I do not expect you to see it this way however, and you are free to see my actions as immoral, unjust and anything else you wish.

That all being said, no matter how much you might not agree with a person's actions, the answer is not to go and send that person continuous spite and try to prey on my mental issues to torment me with as a result. I never intentionally wanted to hurt anyone. You, on the other hand, do wish for such. This is why I am making this reply, because I know who you are Tama, and everyone needs to know just how cruel you really are.

No I'm afraid I can't take credit for such a thing, though after all you've now sent to me I rather wish I could. You are clearly in ignorance to the pain I was experiencing at the moment. What Grey did sent me so far over the edge it's honestly impossible to put into words in any way that'd give it the amount of meaning I'd wish to convey.

The amount of harassment I have received afterwards only shows I had not 'run away' in full, or I wouldn't have been able to receive these messages of abuse in the first place. Just like yours being sent to me now... weeks after the event. So here's your response, I'm not running away, lets continue.

You were doing well with your opener, but now we see your true colours don't we? One of an underhanded opponent who knows not how to make an actual argument, but resort to insults that may just rival that of a 6 year old's if I'm being generous.

I do worry for you though, are you implying there are 'real vampires' out there? Undead creatures that rise from the graves of humans possessing immortality and all manner of other abilities? I think you should see someone about such beliefs, one might start to think you're a little unhinged.

After I had received the first two messages, I informed my friends and one of them contacted you. Such a threatening action to your previously held notion of anonymity seemed to have knocked some sense into you as you start to talk more sensibly now. If only you could talk to me like this personally, maybe we could get somewhere, but you speak through the gritted teeth of hypocrisy.

You talk of owning up to one's actions while you hide behind a false identity. The irony would be laughable if not so pitiful. I am not the one hiding here, I am responding, I am wishing to speak with you properly. You however, are not.

I am honest. If you had simply come to me to ask my views I would have told you, but you decided not to do that, and to simply demean and berile me from behind a wall. Do come out when you're feeling braver.

I'm not running. My honour is that my actions are stained to my name, good or bad, I take it all as under my life's banner. What are you doing?

Many people turned on me, I have not 'gotten away with it' as you wish to phrase it. The result of my actions was cast unto me regardless. But you're quite right, people shouldn't have their actions not held to their name, which is why I'm holding yours to your name, now isn't it?

If you stoop much lower I'm afraid you will become subterranean. You also appear to be projecting.

How so? Do elaborate. If someone sees my actions as wrong I'd hope they would tell me forthright and I can help us both come to an understanding.

Letting all this bullying get to your head now are we? Yes, I will enjoy my small circle of friends, because that's honestly all I have left in life, the few people who take the time to understand me and not judge me without listening to me. I value each and every one of the people who have stuck with me thus far, because I understand I am not a usual personality, and I am at times hard to understand.

I require a level of patience that is beyond most people, and I recognise this, which is why I do not think ill of the vast majority who look at me unkindly. But those who go out of their way to make my already pathetic life even more painful, I have no remorse for. You are cruel, short sighted and disillusioned to believe you are doing a good deed through attacking another.

I have to protect myself. You prey on my paranoia to try and force me into a panicked state where I trust no one, and lose everything I have in life. You wish for my death, because I don't think you truly understand just how close I am to the edge, and how hard I try in life to cling on despite the cruelty of people like you. I have never gone out of my way to hurt anyone unless they push me to such a point I snap, which is very rare. I am mentally unwell, as you also clearly are, but I try my best to still always do the right thing amidst my turbulent mental seas. If I do something wrong, I hope people would take the time to treat me as an equal, and talk to me honestly about their emotions, as I will speak honestly of my own.

Tama, you deserve this response. Learn from it. Because even while you press knives into me I will not fall to the same level of insult that you have so easily that it has occurred weeks after the incident.

Get help, and either talk to me properly, or leave me alone.

#Text #Long Post #Otherkin Drama

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sambart93 · 6 years

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2018.11.28 BACK COAT〜裏裁判 UraSaiban / Backdoor Trial [Review]

Official Site here Official Twitter here Press Coverage 1, 2

Synopsis: After investigation, witnesses to a murder decide that the perpetrator is Innocent. Because of this, the witnesses are left once again to go back and recount their version of what happened and what of the victim. There are only 3 rules in this scenario: The real perpetrator is within their group; you must choose Guilty or Innocent; you must decide there and then even if it’s not the real perp. What happens next?

CAST and CHARACTERS

Kuranuki Masahiro as Utsunomiya Saku Domoto Shouhei as Tominaga Tatsuya Terumi as Nakano Shouta Arima Ayaka as Hanamura Kasumi Kuramichi Sena as Utsunomiya Ruin Yashima Yakuma as Nikaido Kouki Haneshima Shouta as Ketsushiro Toshiya Hatsuki Nozomi as Endo Kiriko Okabe Naoya as Ichijyo Hikari Nakajima Kazuhiro as Kisu Makoto Chatani Yuho as Terajima Kae Nakagawa Emi as Enjyouji Aya Saikatsu as Koinuma Shun

* Non-Spoiler Overall: This was great! It’s the style and theme of story and stage that I love. I absolutely love; people forced in a room that they can’t escape and they suspect each other and there’s no trust and there’s underlying secrets and motives and people turn on each other and people die - everything I love in my dark, messy stories! And they executed it so well! I enjoyed it so much! I loved the story, the mystery, the twist parts, the punch ending. It was all so good! And at the peak / climax of the play, the acting from all of them was phenomenal. It was so well done. The only thing that stopped me from being so invested and so emotionally into it was the fact that the guy next to me was snorting and sniffing up his snot every 10 seconds throughout the entire play and drove me absolutely mental. Rating: 7/10. If that dick hadn’t been there to ruin my experience, this could’ve easily been a 8 - 9 rating I think.

Spoiler Review

Main Plot - 12 people (9 witnesses, 1 accused and 2 court staff) have been gathered to decide whether the accused, Enjyouji Aya, should be found guilty or innocent of killing Saku’s sister Ruin. However, when the final judgement is made, only 7 people find her guilty, while the actual brother and his childhood friend Tatsuya rule her innocent. Saku pleads for them all to go back to the beginning and to recount everything they witnessed. Because there is non consensus the court staff lock them inside the room and have to start all over again. No one can leave until everyone agrees on one judgement. And there are three guidelines to the lock down which are:

1. The perpetrator IS within their group. 2. You must choose (one) Guilty or Innocent. 3. You must decide there and then even if it’s not the real perp.

So in the story we go through every person’s account and experience that they had with Rui. At first everyone is very positive saying how much they enjoyed her company and how much of a joy she was to be around. But then they get to Aya and she breaks it down. She turns around to Saku in a half-evil-cackle and says ‘do you really think they’re telling the truth? Do you really think this is what they think of your sister? She was evil. She was horrid!’ and she cracks through the rest of the characters’ true personalities. It soon comes to light that she was physically and mentally abusive to everyone around her, and they say the only way she was acting such a way was because Saku himself was being to harsh on her. Apparently he was strict in that: she must go to school, she must eat properly, she mustn’t go and stay out late, she mustn’t have a boyfriend, and she felt that all her freedom had been taken away, and in turn that led her to take her anger out on the neighbours and everyone who cared for her. ‘And that’s why,’ Aya begins, ‘when she asked me to help her fake her suicide so she could shock and knock some sense into you (Saku), I just.... let her die.’ Saku begins to break down; he knows he was strict on her but that was because he didn’t want her to get hurt again, he wanted her to be safe so she didn’t end dying like their parents did. But obviously he was too strict and it made her go strange and mentally unwell. But towards the end of the stage, Ichijo Hikari speaks up ‘it was you that drove her to her death. She was being manipulated. I saw her... I saw her and Tatsuya talking,’ which brings Saku’s childhood friend underfire. Here, Tatsuya goes into manic laughter and completely cracks, he says he wanted to ruin what was left of Saku’s family because he was sick of seeing them (Saku & Rui) making fun of him (Tatsuya) and his situation (his family abandoned him and when he finally refound them, they acted like they didn’t know who he was). He said ‘I know you were laughing at me. Pitying me. There’s no way you were really being kind.’ When Tatsuya was left alone, Saku became his friend and he brought him home and let them have dinner together and everything. But Tatsuya, being hurt too much and too deeply, always thought Saku was just being malicious (which is completely wrong), so he wanted to get revenge: that was manipulating Rui and giving her the idea of ‘pretend to kill yourself. It’ll be the biggest surprise to Saku and it’ll make him stop being so strict on you’ so silly Rui goes through with it and that’s what led to her death. By this point, everyone is crying and emotionally ruined, and the staff of the court ask them to decide who should be held accountable for the death of Rui. Saku puts his hand up. Everyone protests that he’s innocent but he says ‘I found a letter from her. It came through the mail a year after her death. I did her wrong. I just want to go and see my sister.’ so he begs everyone to judge him ‘guilty’ so he can get the death penalty and join his sister. Of course, everyone doesn’t want to do this but it’s either this or they have to choose another among them to be found Guilty. And the stage ends with them judging him ‘guilty’, he gets on a wooden crate, puts the noose rope around his neck and lights out.

I am not giving the story justice. The intricacies and seeing them break down one by one, and seeing the scenes with Rui and the others. It was just phenomenal acting and the way things came to light and revealed were so well done and so great! I really wish I had been able to see this one or two more times. Because I was so invested and I found everyone’s acting to be top notch! There are some specific scenes and things I would like to talk about though:

☆ Domoto Shohei’s acting when he goes from ‘normal childhood friend’ to ‘batshit crazy’ to ‘realising what he’s done and just breaking down completely’ was so amazing to witness. He flowed so effortlessly between these stages and emotions! I was SO impressed! This was definitely his best acting I’ve seen of him so far! I cannot give enough praise to how well he did. I felt so sorry for him too! You should HATE HIM. You should HATE how he manipulated Saku’s sister, but then you learn that he just wasn’t loved and he was abandoned and his parents are more to blame for his messed-up-ness than him. And you pity him for assuming Saku’s actions were through malice rather than Saku genuinely wanted to look after him. And this huge misunderstanding led to him doing something so unforgivable. Yes you should hate him but the character’s story and Domoto’s acting just... you can’t hate him at all!

☆ I really enjoyed Arima Ayaka’s acting too. I love how Kasumi went from ‘oh yeah she was a darling and I loved spending time with her’ to (when everything gets revealed) ‘she was abusive! She found out that me and Toshiya were dating and she threatened to leak the information. She also hit my all the time! She fucking sucked!’ which was great acting. The scene where Rui is hitting Kasumi had some really good acting. The actors themselves would push each other and a lot of parts were physically real so I was impressed with the trust between the actors and such for those moments.

☆ Sena did a great job as the sister. She had very few scenes because she was only really in the flashbacks but she did a great job! She could switch her feelings and emotions very well which was great! I love how her outfit is a white dress which could mean so many things: innocent, death, ghost, haunting etc. Good choice in clothing!

☆ I was super surprised to see Yashima Yakuma in this! I didn’t know he was in the cast! I am bias. I really like his face and his acting and this role of ‘serious’ and part of the court team was great!

☆ I really liked Hikari as a character. At first he just seems like a hungover, irresponsible guy, but then we learn that he’s got the key information to unlocking the mystery of ‘what happened to Rui’. He’s a sweet guy the entire time. He tries to calm people down and tries to stay level-headed and he really is the only character out of them who’s guilty of NOTHING. Also I loved his hair, but that’s irrelevant to the story.

☆ Kudos to Emi who did this dramatic reveal right at the beginning. She’s the one that’s like ‘oh quit the act everyone! We all hated her! Admit it!!’ and her craziness lasts the entire performance. She really does not give a shit and she just lets all the secrets out! I really love how when she’s telling her stories of Rui, she did things like get on the table and prance around and such.

Like I said, I am not doing this story justice and I wish I’d seen it a few more times so I could get more information and find more scenes to love. And as mentioned above, I had the biggest sniffler and snorter next to me the entire time which that took me out of the story SO much. I literally had to watch the stage with one finger in my right ear so I could somewhat block out the idiot’s noises. But alas, I hope this short, short review will suffice.

And that’s all! I have a SHIT TON (I’m not joking) of reviews and reports I am behind on, dating back to like June I think which is BAD. I need to get this shit done asap seriously. I must! xD

#kuranuki masahiro #domoto shohei #terumi #arima ayaka #kuramichi sena #yashima yakuma #haneshima shouta #hatsuki nozomi #okabe naoya #nakajima kazuhiro #chatani yuho #nakagawa emi #saikatsu #review #stage #stage play

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pluckyredhead · 6 years

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Daredevil 101: Kingpin Murdock

Last time, Matt went out on a disastrous date with Milla Donovan and took out the Owl’s criminal organization. Things continue to go wrong personally and right criminally in this installment.

Content warning: harmful displays of mental illness, violence against women, domestic violence, some fairly sadistic violence from Matt, mention of suicide, threats against sex workers.

We begin with Fisk - out of the hospital and with his vision restored - putting his house back in order. For starters, he gives the FBI enough evidence to put the Owl away for a very long time:

FBI Man Whose Name I Forget isn’t thrilled to be working with Fisk, but he doesn’t have anything on him so he has to go along with it.

Fisk also finds Typhoid Mary. She has had extensive therapy, mostly hypnotism focused, that has helped her lock away her Typhoid personality and actually become a successful soap opera actress in her Mary personality. Fisk basically backhands her across the face, which undoes the hypnotism and turns her back into Typhoid. It’s pretty fucked up.

Meanwhile, Matt has asked Milla out again and despite the misgivings we saw last time she accepts. Once again, we don’t see the date itself, just see them returning home, accompanied by Jessica as Matt’s bodyguard...when Typhoid attacks and uses her pyrokinesis to set Matt on fire:

Luckily, Luke has just arrived on the scene to take Jessica to lunch, and between him and Jessica they manage to take Typhoid down:

Yeah, I’m pretty uncomfortable with two superpowered people beating up a deeply unwell woman while she screams. I think this scene is supposed to be funny? But it’s just disturbing.

The police take Mary away, Luke and Jessica go on their date, and Foggy puts Milla to bed (she’s very shaken) while Matt meditates in his underwear because, well, he’s Matt.

Once Milla wakes up, Matt climbs in bed with her. She starts feeling out the scars on his torso, but accidentally touches the wrong one:

Okay. So this scene is legitimately pretty hot - the low light and the intimacy and the fondling and the hey hey. I’m into it. It’s the first time we’ve been allowed to see real chemistry between Matt and Milla...

...and then he hits her.

It’s just a smack on the hand, and he doesn’t really hurt her, even if she is still rubbing her hand in the next panel. But. This is only the fourth time they’ve met, and their second date. Milla knows Matt’s a vigilante. She knows he’s a person of interest in a murder. She knows after their second date, he went and beat the Owl to a pulp. Their first date ended with a police investigation, and their second with Matt’s ex setting him on fire. And now he’s telling her that two women he loved were murdered. AND HE HIT HER. Surely this is where she walks out the door, right?

Again: we haven’t seen either of their dates. We have no idea why Milla is fond of Matt. And this is what frustrates me so much about how Bendis writes women who aren’t Jessica, because - okay, so I like to joke that Bendis has a crush on Matt, because every single other character he writes does. Every woman in the world falls in love with him. (At one point in her own series even Jessica thinks she’s in love with him.) None of them ever get over him. Natasha and Elektra are constantly trying to get into his pants no matter how married he is. There is an issue of Avengers written by Bendis that is almost entirely talking heads of all the Avengers talking about how wonderful Matt is, and in the next issue Squirrel Girl hits on him. As far as Bendis is concerned, Matt exists and that’s a good enough reason for Milla to want to stick around (and Milla’s feet smell like vanilla for some reason, which is apparently a good enough reason for Matt to want to subject her to the horror show that is his love life).

Every other love interest Matt has ever had up until now either fell for him as Matt Murdock and then had to deal with Daredevil, or was a ninja. But this comic has not shown us any reason Milla would want to be with Matt except hearsay about how nice his tushy is. AND HE HIT HER. ON THE SECOND DATE.

Note to all of my readers, especially the young ones: IF SOMEONE HITS YOU ON THE SECOND DATE (or ever), THAT IS A SCREAMINGLY HUGE RED FLAG AND YOU SHOULD LEAVE.

(And no, Matt is not habitually physically abusive, but MILLA DOESN’T KNOW THAT. What she does know is that Matt hits people until they’re unconscious every single night. And Matt was physically rough with Heather, and also emotionally abused her, so there’s precedent.)

So yeah, Bendis writes women to have no damn sense around Matt, and it pisses me way the hell off.

ANYWAY. Matt knows Fisk is behind Typhoid’s attack, so he heads off to deal with him and tells Milla that she’s welcome to stay, which she does. As soon as Matt leaves, Milla gets a visitor:

This is around the time that writers were not only fridging female characters left and right, they were really reveling in it by giving villains lots of creepy speeches about how much they loved hurting women. Milla isn’t fridged (...yet), but this is very, very on trend. And gross.

Also please note Bullseye’s new look to match the movie.

Luckily for Milla, Matt returns!

Yeah so I guess Bullseye’s real first name is Lester? We never find out his last name or any of the other stuff Matt’s talking about.

Then Matt, as he tends to do when Bullseye’s involved, kind of goes off the deep end:

I’m not going to transcribe all of that dialogue, but basically Matt is screaming at Bullseye that his tattoo is dumb and he should kill himself. Then he picks up a large, jagged rock (of which we have so very many on the streets of New York City) and carves a bullseye over the tattoo, screaming that the first circle is for Elektra and the second is for Karen.

Luckily for Bullseye, the FBI (who are constantly surveilling Matt anyway) show up at this point:

Despite all this secret identity stuff, Matt’s willing to unmask if he needs to to keep Bullseye in jail.

He leaves Bullseye with the FBI and heads back inside to Milla, who is hiding, terrified, in the closet, which: fair enough, God knows I would.

Milla, he CARVED OPEN A GUY’S FOREHEAD. Please think this through.

Despite the close call, Matt decides to leave Milla again, this time to deal with Fisk for realsies. But first, a very important cover:

YOU’RE WELCOME.

Anyway. Fisk is pleased to see Matt because it’s tauntin’ time:

They fight. Matt wins:

But dressing up like the devil and beating up a crime boss isn’t nearly Extra enough for Matt anymore, so he takes Fisk’s unconscious body, loads it onto the hood of a car, and drives it through the front window of Josie’s. And he doesn’t even have a license:

Matt, Josie didn’t do anything to you.

Anyway, you think Matt’s gone extra now? YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHING YET:

HE UNMASKS!!! AND TELLS THEM HE’S THE NEW KINGPIN!!! WHAT!!!!!!!

(Matt Hell’s Kitchen isn’t a city.)

(Matt leave the prostitutes alone, go after the pimps.)

(Milla please dump him.)

Next time: Matt’s the fucking kingpin you guys, I don’t even know.

#daredevil #daredevil 101

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icharchivist · 7 years

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I have trouble to breath lately and a burning pains in my lungs and synus (which gives me headaches), which never truly happened before - my parents think i caught a cold, but trust me, i have cold at every weather change, i would recognize it, those aren't the symptoms i get at all.

I've noticed especially that it makes me unable to stand the cigarette's scent, which i could up to that point. My parents smoke in the living room which is fairly away from my room, but i can smell it in my room lately, and well, when i'm around with them in the living room. But up to that point, it never actually bothered me that much unless i was right next to them when they were smoking, and it was definitly not such an extreme reaction.

In the meantime i think the cigarettes my mom usually buy changed their products a bit and it changes the smell a bit. My sister was home a few days ago and she has another brand of cigarettes, and the three brands mixing in the air made me very sick and it probably made all worse. However I had pains before she came by.

I tried to talk to my parents about it because it's getting worse everyday, but they think i just have a cold that weakened my lungs and that i'm just more sensitive to smoke than usual. They want me to go see a doctor for it and i seriously don't feel like spending hours in a waiting room (last time i went to get my mental health medication i came back home with a terrible cold i caught in the waiting room, i really don't want that again, esp if it's to waste hours of my day)

My step dad especially was really angry at me mentioning the possibility of it being because of their cigarettes because it /can't possibily be that/ that i should be used after so many years and that I don't actually breath enough smoke residual to get sick from it but w/e.

Anyway I was starting to think that as well but this morning i woke up before them, so there hadn't been any smoke in the living for a while, and i actually managed to breath fine until my mother woke up and started smoking in the living room and now i feel like suffocating again. (likewise yesterday i locked myself for over a hour in the bathroom to do some self care (which, with the length of my hair, take this much time), and i actually managed to breath fine in a humid-hot bathroom and started to feel unwell when i got out of it)

I don't know what it means and just because of that i should maybe indeed see a doctor about it (*groans*) but i'm starting to worry a bit. When the window in my room is opened it calm down a little bit, but it's getting cold lately, if i don't have a cold already i'm gonna get one at this rythm - and the street is busy and full of people screaming it's driving me nuts (and at worse the dog starts barking at the people yelling too soo that's double the anxiety)

guuuuuuh i suppose it just means i do indeed need to see the doctor about it, but if it's really because of my parents's smoking they're too stubborn to even consider it and that's been annoying me for a few days now.

They've been brushing away my complains for a while, ignored me when i mentioned my pain, changed subject if i brought it up, at some point i was requested to clean the table but they were both smoking near it so i told them to wait a bit and my step dad got annoyed because "no, it can be done right now, why wouldn't you do it?" and when i mentioned the smoke he just said i was "overdramatic" and i'm going to punch someone, i've been told enough i was overdramatic in situation i wasn't even nearly dramatic enough this is annoying me.

They're paying attention now because I don't bother faking a smile anymore and i spend my few moments in the living room wrapped in a blanket covering my mouth and nose, and i refuse to fake interest in what they say (which is more bc i'm upset at them and in a really depressed mood lately) so /now/ they're paying attention but even there I got lectured for a hour because i was being overdramatic and because "you complain all the time anyway so why are we supposed to think it's serious" (i never fucking complain you fucking asshole) or "if it's really bad you should have gone see a doctor already" and "it can't be the cigarettes that wouldn't make sense don't put the blame on us".

So fuck them i guess.

*groans*

#i hate my family so much #wow an actually coherent wording of this situation #they've been saying a lot of shitty things lately but i don't even care to talka bout it #this is my issue atm #(when last day i complained about them being annoying about my health this was more or less the topic)#bleh i should see a doctor #it's getting too late for that today but i guess tomorrow then #hhh #ichapersonal

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imagine-loki · 7 years

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Love is Healing

TITLE: Love Is Healing CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 11 AUTHOR:[email protected] ORIGINAL IMAGINE:Imagine Loki trying to convince you of his love for you for months after your constant disbelief. One day at the Avengers Tower he pushes you up against a wall, holding tightly as he kisses you, only to have you wildly fight back as you scream and cry begging him to let you go. As Steve helps your trembling form up from your spot now on the floor, your best friend Natasha explains to Loki that there was once a man who claimed to love you when you were a minor and said he would wait for you as long as it takes, only for him to turn around and molest you and eventually rape you, admitting that he never loved you all along. Ever since then you’ve never believed in love, but Loki promises you that he will spend every moment with you trying to convince you that his love for you is true. RATING: PG-15 NOTES/WARNINGS: Mentions of torture and depictions of torture in this chapter. Nothing too graphic, but if it bothers you, you can skip that part.

Arianna woke up in the backseat of a car. She was no longer in pain, but her body was sore. She felt as if she’d run a marathon and now her body didn’t want to cooperate. She was between her captors. Their masks were off. She would see their faces; they weren’t planning on her coming out of this alive. And … they weren’t professionals. They didn’t have guns trained on her, plus she could feel her phone in her back pocket.

Professionals would have removed it or destroyed it. GPS, hello. But this was good. Someone would report her missing, and Tony would find her. She hoped Happy and Loki were okay. She couldn’t remember much after the pain had started.

“We should search her,” the leader guy said. He had blond hair, ice blue eyes. She would henceforth call him Blondie.

“Now?” the other guy asked. “In the car?” This guy also had blond hair, but his eyes were brown. Maybe he could be Brown Eyes.

“Yes, in the car. She’s an Avenger, and she lives with Tony Stark. She could have some kind of toy on her that’ll lead to us.”

Arianna stiffened as Blondie turned to her. His eyes dared her to try something. She jerked away as he began feeling over her chest and stomach and then her sides. Blondie got joy out of her fear – and she was afraid.

“I don’t think she likes that,” Brown Eyes said. “Leave her alone. She’s clean.”

“She better be, or it’s on you.”

Blondie jerked her head back, and Arianna glared at him even as she flinched.

“You be good. Or I’ll shoot you again.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Tony’s head had just hit the desk he was falling asleep over when he saw Happy, Loki, and Natasha heading toward the door to the lab. He opened it for them so they wouldn’t have to use their prints to open it. None of them looked like they were having a good day, and Natasha looked downright worn out. She was also limping.

Why had he stayed up so long? He felt as if his eyelids were made of sand paper and whatever had happened, he wasn’t sure he was mentally capable of dealing with it.

Happy was there with Loki, who had been on a date with Arianna, and Natasha had been security detail. He wasn’t even sure Arianna and Loki had realized they’d had security detail.

Three of the four people that had gone to the café were in his lab looking unwell, so …

“Where’s our littlest Avenger?” He slipped a metal band on either wrist. “Please tell me you didn’t lose her.”

Nobody said anything and Tony felt his chest tighten because this was bad. No one was answering, so this had to be bad.

“She was taken,” Natasha said. “Whoever it was shot Loki and Happy with tranqs and took her. They shot her too, and me, but it was with something else.”

Loki stepped forward then. He held a dart carefully in his right hand.

“I don’t know what it is,” Loki said. “But it made her whole body flare up with pain.”

Some chemical that messed with pain receptors in the brain, Tony assumed.

“By the way, thanks for not answering your phone,” Happy said.

Tony rolled his eyes and gestured for the dart. Loki tried to hand it to him, but since Tony didn’t like being handed things, he told Loki to put it on the table.

“You were dosed with this too?” he asked Natasha. “Side effects?”

“Other than the pain? Exhausted. My muscles are sore and twitchy.”

“Hm. Trackers. I am making trackers for you guys so I’ll always know where you are.”

He began running tests on the dart – or more specifically the chemicals the dart would have held.

“Do you have her phone?”

“No, it –“ Natasha’s eyes widened. “It wasn’t there. It wasn’t removed at the scene, and even if it was removed later, we’ll at least have a direction to start in.”

“Definitely making trackers.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Arianna had arrived at a warehouse moments ago, and she was now tied to a chair. They hadn’t hurt her anymore, but she wasn’t letting her guard down. Not now that she knew what their darts could do.

Whatever had been in the darts had attacked her nervous system. She’d never felt that much pain before. What kind of monster would invent something like that?

“You have a lot of people scared,” Blondie said. “You have so much power, and you’re supposed to be on the good side, yet you side with a terrorist.”

Loki.

“There are extenuating circumstances there. He’s not … He was pushed into that.”

“Is that what he said? And you being a naive little girl believed him.”

She wasn’t going to go into how she’d seen why he’d been pushed into it. Besides … Loki wasn’t the problem here. If they’d wanted him, they would’ve taken him too. And yet …

Blondie’s fist connected with her cheek, and her head snapped to the side from the force of it. If she hadn’t been tied to the chair, she would’ve grabbed her face. It would bruise and there was a trickle of blood flowing down. The man must have been wearing a ring.

Blondie hit her twice more, seeming to get angrier every time he looked at her. Maybe he really believed she’d betrayed humanity by befriending Loki. She had pretty much been on Loki’s side since she’d seen the torture he’d been through; she’d even felt some of it.

Blondie pointed the gun at her again, the one with the dart that caused pain, and Arianna lost control. She didn’t want to feel that again. She couldn’t, not if it was going to affect her whole body.

The air in the place thickened and Blondie grabbed his throat. She realized then that he couldn’t breathe. She was suffocating him. She didn’t know how, but she was.

Something in Blondie snapped – a bone, that was what it sounded like – and he doubled over, dropping the dart gun. His ribs … She was crushing him. Crushing him like she’d done David.

She was smacked across the face again, and everything stopped. Brown Eyes was staring at her now, fear in his eyes. She was scaring him.

“I’m sorry,” she cried. “I can’t always control it. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to hurt anyone.”

“I believe you,” Brown Eyes said. “And I’m sorry too. But you can’t be allowed to concentrate.”

He grabbed the dart gun that Blondie had dropped. The dart he fired hit her in the chest, making pain flare from there.

She wanted to curl up in the fetal position and die. As it was, she could feel her heart acting erratically, and if the pain kept up it might actually give out on her.

She might even welcome death if it meant never feeling this pain again.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Tony crashed through the door of the warehouse he’d tracked Arianna to. He was surprised to find only two men, one of whom was pretty beat up.

Arianna was tied to a metal chair in the center of the room. She’d been interrogated – she’d been tortured, and she was still screaming. He quickly realized the reason was because of the dart thing in her chest.

Panic seized Tony’s own chest and his heart felt as if it were being squeezed. Not a good feeling.

“Aries,” he shouted, and landed by her. She wasn’t coherent enough to even realize he was there.

The two men had begun to run, but Tony took care of them with an energy blast to each of their backs. Neither was dead, but they would be locked up a long time once Tony made a call to Fury.

“Mm …” Arianna stopped screaming and was now only whimpering. “Tony?”

“Yeah.” He was relieved she was aware enough to notice him now, but he needed to be out of his suit right now.

“Next time you want coffee, you can just go to the kitchen. Or I can order it from anywhere you want it. Being Tony Stark has its perks, you know.”

Tony untied her from the chair and quickly, if not a little awkwardly, pulled the dart from her chest.

“Oh, I – I knew you’d come,” she said breathlessly, voice hoarse.

That was when Tony realized that Arianna had faith in him, and he really didn’t know what to do with that. Panic was high up on his list.

“Ready to get out of here?” he asked. All she did was grunt. “How do you feel about flying?”

“Mm … do you mind if I pass out?”

“Go ahead as long as you promise to wake back up. Though, you might have a concussion. Bruises on your face and all. What about your head?”

“They didn’t hit my head. I’m just woozy ‘cause –“ Her voice caught and she closed her eyes. This was the moment she was going to start crying, Tony just knew it.

Tears were indeed beginning to fall, and her body began to quiver, and this was so not Tony’s area. What was he supposed to do? Why hadn’t he brought someone with him? Clint or Steve, Natasha even? She couldn’t have fought, but she’d be able to help with this.

Not knowing what else to do, Tony suited up and drew her into his arms before taking off out of the building. This was as close to a hug as he could give her at the moment.

He hoped it was enough.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Loki was waiting outside on the balcony when Tony landed with Arianna in his arms. She appeared to be asleep. He hoped she was just asleep.

Steve was there, as were Bruce and Clint. Natasha had tried staying awake, but the trauma had finally caught up with her and she’d gone to bed.

Tony placed Arianna on the couch in the living room before stepping out of his suit.

“She’s wiped out,” he said.

Loki noticed the bruises on her face, the slice on her right cheek. Her wrists were damaged from having been bound, from struggling against whatever had been binding her.

“Her wounds need to be cleaned,” Loki said. “Warm water should do for now.”

“She’s gonna be down from the night,” Tony said. “They … dosed her again.”

Loki had no clue what to say or do. He knew what he would have done before, when he’d had his powers. He would’ve found those men, and he would have killed them for hurting her.

Now he didn’t have powers. The only thing he could do was clean her wounds and sit with her until she woke up, because she didn’t need to do that alone.

“Thank you for finding her, for bringing her back.”

Tony shrugged. “She’s … she’s a friend, and the Littlest Avenger. Can’t lose the baby in the family.”

Tony cared for her, Loki realized, and she was more than a friend. Tony had called her part of his family. Joking aside, the Avengers were a type of family, and Loki was a part of it. They had accepted his pursuing of Arianna, so he had a family in them.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

While Arianna slept Tony received a call from Fury. Tony had already gotten in touch with him on the flight back to the tower. Fury had already known that Aries had been taken. Tony had arrived before the SHIELD agents had gotten there.

“How did you know?” Tony asked. “You claim you’re not after her, so how did you know she was taken?”

“Because a few of my … scientists hired people outside of SHIELD to get her. The guys were obviously not professionals. It was very sloppy, the whole thing.

“I’m … cleaning house, and these guys will never work in the field of science again. The ones who took her have been dealt with. I can’t promise no one else will come after her.”

“I know that. What did they use on her? I’ve got tests I can run, but is this gonna cause her any lasting damage?”

“No. She’ll be sore for a few days, but other than that …”

“What exactly –“

“Our weapons department was working on a serum that could make someone feel as if they’d been shot without having been shot.”

“You were working on a torture device. Did you know Agent Romanoff was hit as well?”

“I did. I assume she’s fine.”

“Yeah. Sleeping it off.” Tony sighed. “Let me know if you need help cleaning house.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In the living room, Loki was cleaning Arianna’s face of the little blood that had dried there. Her muscles were twitching even though she was sleeping. He knew that was because of the exhaustion the pain must have caused her.

Tony had just gotten off his phone and was now watching them with an odd expression.

“What?”

Tony shook his head. “She did that for you once, when you first became mortal. You were unconscious too.”

“Hm.”

That had been before she’d even begun to care for him. Though to be completely honest, she’d always cared about him – not as an individual, not as Loki, but as someone she had to heal and protect, yes, she’d always cared for him. Like she cared for everyone.

“Where are the others?” Loki asked, suddenly realizing he’d been left alone with Arianna.

“Rogers and Barton are watching over Romanoff. Banner is in his room. We’ve got Aries. And her swelling is going down. It’ll be quite a shiner, though.”

Tony sat on an arm of the sofa and Loki noticed he allowed himself to touch her hair.

“The ones who did this are dead. The ones who hired them are not. I don’t know if she’d want any of them killed – it’s just not her.”

“Oh, I know,” Loki said. “I’m here and alive. Relatively free.”

He paused from washing her face and pulled the rag away.

“She was there because I wanted to go outside.”

“She was getting stir crazy herself. No one expected an attack in public and during the day. And I provided the transportation.”

Before either could say anything else Arianna began to stir. She groaned once and seemed to try to lift her arms. They didn’t get very far and a frown found a place on her mouth. She was waking up even though she should’ve been asleep for at least a few more hours.

She opened her eyes, green but glazed over from exhaustion. She looked around frantically, as if she didn’t know where she was, until her gaze fell on first Loki and then Tony.

She groaned again and tried to sit up, to which Tony stood up and basically pressed her back down.

“Hey, whoa. Easy. You’re not at a hundred percent.”

“Mm. Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

She had retained a sense of humor, Loki noticed. He also noticed how scratchy her voice was. Her throat had been made raw from screaming.

“She needs water.”

“Got it,” Tony said and went out of the room. He seemed happy to have an excuse, actually.

Arianna grabbed his hand then and Loki was grateful for the warmth of it. The proof it provided that she was in fact okay. Or would be.

“Did they hurt you?” she asked.

“No.” Loki swallowed down the emotion he felt because of her caring whether he’d been hurt or not. “They used the tranquilizer on me.”

“Hm. Good.”

Good? Warmth spread through him at that one word. Warmth and a small amount of panic because he knew he didn’t deserve her affection toward him, he didn’t really deserve any of the things the Avengers had given him. A home, friends, a family.

It was all he ever wanted, but he knew he didn’t deserve it

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After Tony came back with water for Arianna he slipped away to his workshop. He just needed to get away, to get his mind off things, and working was the best solution for him.

Besides, everyone would know where he was – no one would have been able to find him had he actually gone to bed like he knew he should have.

“Jarvis, keep an eye on Agents Romanoff and Grace. If anything changes for the worse, let me know immediately.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Other than that, no distractions.”

He had an immediate problem in that dart thing that had hit two of his team members, two of his friends. No one else could be allowed to be taken down by this new weapon.

Tony had been working on this new liquid body armor, planned on making a suit of it for each of his team members. It was flame resistant, bulletproof, and would have definitely kept Natasha and Arianna from getting hit with those darts.

He really needed to work on that now. He wouldn’t have his friends tortured, not when he could stop it. Sure, everyone was safe, and they had found Aries relatively easily, but what if it happened again?

They had to be ready.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After Arianna got her motor functioning skills back she decided to go to bed. She’d be more comfortable there, and she’d be able to sleep. She needed sleep. She was so exhausted and she didn’t think she could stay awake much longer.

“Loki, I just wanna sleep. Help me to my room?”

“Okay.”

Good. She still couldn’t move much on her own, and she still felt as if she had pushed her body to the max.

Loki helped her off the couch and, because she refused to be carried, helped her to walk the distance to their hallway.

“Uh … you might have to come in. The bed covers need to be folded back, and a lot of other things that you probably didn’t ever have to do as a prince.”

“Mm. And how shall I serve you tonight, Miss Grace?”

Her heart stopped – or stuttered – at the innuendo in Loki’s voice. This was the first time he’d ever used that voice on her, and if she hadn’t been hurt she’d have been even more affected.

As it was, she knew Loki was only messing with her, and he really meant he was going to do whatever she needed him to.

“I do need you to pull down the covers. I … I may need help changing. Okay?”

“I am centuries old. I promise not to lose control at what is probably a perfect body.”

“Don’t feel too perfect at the moment.”

Loki opened the door and helped her inside and onto the bed. He glanced at the dresser and then back at her.

Arianna realized then that this was the first time Loki had actually been in her room. She was glad she kept things relatively neat. The worst thing that she had out was a t-shirt draped over the edge of the bed. It was one of her sleep shirts, actually.

“This is okay,” she said, gesturing to the shirt. “I just need –“

She lifted her arms, winced, and Loki stepped forward. He grasped the edge of her shirt, brought it up and over her head.

She let her arms fall back to her sides, where they remained until one of Loki’s hands found its way to the cleavage of her breast that showed over her bra. She jerked away and ended up leaning back against her elbows and on her back.

“Don’t touch me!” she snapped, to which Loki’s eyes widened. He stepped back, hands fisted at his side. She could tell she had hurt his feelings. She immediately felt remorseful because she hadn’t meant to react that way.

“Oh, Loki, I’m sorry. I don’t – Sorry. I just …”

“I should have warned you. I saw – there’s something on your skin.”

“What?”

She glanced down only to notice that where the dart had struck her were now lines veining out from it. It looked like blood poisoning.

“Loki. My back, there’s one on my back. Is it the same?”

“Uh …”

“It’s okay to help me sit up. I won’t freak out. I just – I shouldn’t have before. I just – it surprised me.”

“Sorry.” He sat beside her and began helping her up. “Do you not like being touched in general?”

“I do like some warning. Sorry.”

Loki stroked the bare skin of her back and she flinched. She could tell the injection site was fevered. She was probably infected with something.

“It is the same – maybe worse.”

“Great. Makes sense, since that was where they original wound was.” Arianna groaned. “Jarvis? Will you alert the others that Natasha needs to be checked over, and we all need to meet in the lab. Get Bruce down there, and tell Tony we’re coming.”

“Yes, Miss Grace.” A pause and then, “Is this about your condition? Mr. Stark doesn’t wish to be disturbed. New project.”

“We need tests run. And yes, it’s about my condition.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Tony had finally lost himself in his work when everyone showed up outside his lab. Natasha was sandwiched between Steve and Clint, and Loki was helping Arianna along. Both women appeared to have been through a war.

Arianna was holding a shirt to her chest, but her back had no cover aside from the thin line of her bra. Tony didn’t even want to know why that was or how it had come about.

Tony didn’t want to deal with it.

Bruce came in behind the group and stopped right as he reached Arianna. Tony could tell he asked if she was okay and she nodded, though Tony could see that Arianna was nervous and just a little twitchy.

Of course, half-naked and surrounded by testosterone, she would be. She was a rape victim and she was getting a lot of male attention. Add in she’d recently been held hostage and tortured, she was probably flashing back to …

Yeah, he didn’t want to deal with that either.

Bruce let them all in and led the two women to a work station. Despite Bruce being able to turn into a green giant, he was best for this. He was kind and gentle, not abrasive, and he probably wouldn’t frighten Arianna. He would be careful with her even though he did not know her history.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“You should see this,” Bruce said. “Uh, we might have a problem.”

Tony stood from where he was working and went over to Bruce. When he noticed what exactly Bruce had been looking at he cringed. There, on Arianna’s back, near her spine was a small dot with lines of red around it. It reminded him of when his own body had been at war with him, when his blood toxicity levels had been off the charts.

“Is the other area the same way?” he asked, and she nodded. “Tash?”

The red-head shrugged. “I got shot in the leg.”

“Maybe you should check,” Steve said. “Then we’ll know whether or not she’s the only one it’s affecting this way.”

Without hesitating Natasha began taking her pants off. Tony rolled his eyes, Clint smirked, Bruce and Steven looked away, and Loki appeared as shocked as Loki could be. Tony figured most Asgardians didn’t ever strip in front of a group of people.

“Tash, I don’t think he meant for you to check in front of everyone!” Arianna said.

“Nope, definitely not!” Steve said.

“It’s just skin,” Natasha said, shrugging. “And it’s not like Aries.”

“Oh, great,” Arianna muttered. “I really am infected or something.”

“Blood tests,” Bruce said, “checking for infections or viruses. Keep a list of symptoms you start to experience. We’ll need antibiotics once we figure out what’s wrong. And keep an eye on your temperature.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As Bruce continued one a doctor spiel Arianna’s phone began vibrating in her back pocket. That was weird. Who would be calling her? Almost everyone she knew was in that room.

When she slipped her phone out she realized she wasn’t getting a call; she was getting an ongoing list of text messages. Picture messages, really, of the two men that had taken her. They were dead, both with bullets in their foreheads, right in the center. There were other pictures of the man she had hurt, the man she would have killed had the other not stopped her.

Who was sending this to her? Why? She already felt bad for losing control; she didn’t need this as a reminder.

“What’s that?” Steve asked.

“Nothing.”

“Aries,” Natasha said quietly. “Give me the phone. Whatever is on there doesn’t matter.”

“Yes. Yes, it does!” She tossed her phone to Natasha maybe a touch too hard, and her eyes began to bun with tears. “They were scared of me! They were scared of me; that’s why they shot me with that – that thing. They didn’t want me to be able to focus. They knew I had to focus!

“Blondie enjoyed hurting me. He’s the one that kept hitting me, and then when he stopped I hurt him like I –“

She clenched her jaw to keep from finishing her sentence. She would have hurt Blondie the way she had hurt David. She knew the guy hadn’t been a solid citizen, had actually been a grade-A jerk, but she had never meant to hurt anyone.

“Aries!” Natasha stepped in front of her and grabbed her shoulders. Arianna hated herself for flinching. “Stop! The pictures don’t matter. What you did doesn’t matter. They were hurting you. They were either going to kill you, or they were waiting for someone to come get you. You had every right to defend yourself in any way you could.”

She’d heard that in every therapy session she’d ever been through and in every self-help book she’d ever read. It didn’t help then and it wasn’t going to help now.

“I understand self-defense, Tash, but these men are dead now.”

“But you didn’t kill them.”

“I could have. If they hadn’t shot me the second time I would have.” She shrugged. “I would have, and there are others after me from SHIELD who are probably responsible for these two guys. What if more people die because of me?”

Loki stepped forward then. “We really need to run the blood tests for you, Arianna. But to be clear, if these others are out to harm you, I’ll be glad to see them meet the same fate as these two.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Tony said. “Now, how about those tests?”

#Loki #Angst #Submitted fic #submission #creativewoman88 #Love Is Healing #chapter 11 #avengers tower #kissing #screaming #Natasha Romanoff #Steve Rogers

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