#jason stilinski hammond: pv

[rotturn]

@spiriitum, jonas: “You don’t have to be here. They’ll harass you, too.”

HE CAN’T HANDLE CROWDS. groups of people always overwhelm him, so many noises and voices and people, no space to himself, no idea who could be lurking in the sea of people. even with brenner gone and the lab burned to the ground he never feels like it’s over. even now that jonas has published his book and the world knows what was done to them, even when everyone would know who to blame if anything happened, jason is always ready for the worst. always ready to be taken back, to find himself back in those white tiled walls under the harsh light that hurts his eyes, to wake up and realise that it had all just been some kind of beautiful dream, that none of this was real and he was just making it up to cope with the daily pain. even when things are the best they’ve ever been, he can’t afford to feel safe.

but even if he doesn’t feel safe, he’ll always go with jonas. glued to his side, refusing to let him go through such an intense time alone. he knows what will come, has faced it a couple of times before. camera flashes that blind and disorient him, questions yelled that he doesn’t know how to answer, hands grabbing at him in a crowd. it’s intense and it’s scary, these people well aware of his biggest vulnerabilities. he’ll never forget the time someone in a crowd dumped water on him, just to see what it would do. it took days to recover from that, but no one’s dared to do it since. the way they reacted, the speed that they took off at, made it clear that it wouldn’t be tolerated.

he just squeezes jonas’s hand tighter, confirms his decision. he’ll always stand at jonas’s side, even with the risk that comes from publicity. being overwhelmed and scared is nothing new for him, truth be told he’d handle it all fine. he could keep it all bottled up until the events over and he can let it all out in the safety of their own home. they both know how catastrophic things could be if his emotions got the best of him in public, both well aware that too much fear could lead to burns and lawsuits. “’m okay. i wanna be here.” because it’s not just about HIS fear, not just about how he struggles. he knows jonas struggles with crowds too, that the vulnerability of his book and the intensity of people wanting to know more can be too much. neither of them deals well with people invading their space, neither deals well with being touched without being prepared. it’s not just for his own safety, but jonas’s too. he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if anything happened and he wasn’t there.

[rotturn]

@spiriitum, jonas: “I just need you to know that you’ve never been ‘nobody’ to me. you’ve never been nothing.”

HE DOESN’T THINK HE DESERVES IT. the constant love that jonas has afforded him, the way jonas is patient and caring and wants the best for him. he doesn’t understand it. so many years of being treated like shit, being nothing but a pawn to the plans of people more important to him. he’d always been more of an object to them than a person, they’d never cared about how he felt or what he was capable of. not the way jonas did. it never felt right, even if it was everything he wanted. jonas’s love and care for him had always felt like something that wasn’t supposed to happen, something that had to be hidden so that he wouldn’t get in trouble for it. but god, he loves every second of it. every touch, every kiss, every moment they’ve ever spent together has been crucial to jason, has been the only thing that held him together in that place. even now, when they’re free, he struggles to get by without the touch, without the gentle care.

eyebrows furrow, even if he had somewhat known as much. hearing the words just makes it feel more real, makes it hit harder. he’d been called plenty of horrible things in his life, failure often rewarded with pain, but jonas had never ever said a single bad thing about him. jonas had always supported him. yet, somehow, the idea that jonas never thought of him as NOTHING feels impossible. he’d heard it so many times that he’d assumed it to be the way things were for everyone, that it was a KNOWN FACT rather than the harsh words of a cruel man who held no love in his heart for jason. the confusion on his face never disappears, but it’s clear that he feels a little better from the words, clear that once again jonas makes him feel like he’s enough, like he’s really a person. even after so long outside of the lab it was something that took work, a feeling that always came back. it would linger for lifetimes, but jonas knows how to keep it at bay, is always there to make things better.

lips curve into a hint of a smile, but silence continues to linger. he hasn’t got anything to say on the matter, any words he managed to form would only be soft protestations. instead he just nudges his head into jonas’s shoulder, moves closer to bring in the physical contact that always seemed to fix things. or, if not fix them, at least make them disappear for a moment. when jonas was touching him he truly felt alive, truly felt worth something, and that would always be something that he had an insatiable craving for.

[rotturn]

@spiriitum, jonas: “do you think i deserved it?”

THE QUESTION COMES AS A SURPRISE, concern evident on his features as he looks up at jonas. brows furrowed, lips pursed, head tilting to the side as if he’d heard the question wrong. “no.” he doesn’t even have to think about the answer. jonas has never deserved any of the things he’d gone through. for as long as jason has known jonas, the redhead has been nothing short of perfect. he’s never done anything wrong, never hurt anyone, never done anything to deserve such horrible treatment. hand moves to take hold of jonas’s, head moving to try to force eye contact. his other hand gently moves into jonas’s feathers, careful and gentle, ready to pull away at any sign of discomfort. he has to work as hard as he can to keep some form of composure, to be comforting. it doesn’t matter that rage boils inside of him at the very idea of him deserving any of that, the rage is swallowed down. love is the focus here, love and care. like jonas always does for him. “you ‘serve… only good. you… YOU’RE GOOD. they bad.”

[rotturn]

03.5.