#october you really know how to break a woman down to her bare essentials

[avengersassemble-fics]

But Not Us

part 03/?? “an agent of shield”

previous part // next part

word count 4k

an: there’s a lot of background info in this one, with only a couple mentions of steve. so sorry for that but :3

May 2014

What should have been the greatest experience for a newly assigned SHIELD agent turned into the world’s first global (known) alien invasion. A select few were stationed at the Joint Dark Energy Mission Facility in the Mojave Desert in New Mexico, where the only information the average agent had was to protect the scientist, and any and all information at all costs. Serving alongside Hawkeye, Phil Coulson, and seeing Director Fury almost up close and personal would have made your friends still awaiting assignment at the Academy jealous.

But when an Asguardian almost single-handedly leveled the facility, some not making it out or even barely, those who risked their lives demanded an answer. It was one of your golden experiences at SHIELD, and what may have gained you notice from the Phil Coulson. So they revealed the truth: known as Project PEGASUS, SHIELD had been in possession of an otherworldly power source, and was analyzing (and eventually) weaponizing the power it emitted. You, along with the other six agents who had demanded answers, were brought along for the next wild ride. A helicarrier awaited and there was an elite team being brought in.

The Avengers Initiative had been a ghost story at the Academy. Theories of who was being scouted, where the idea had come from, who was behind it.. During your years every theory had been tossed around it seemed.

I heard Fury created it because some alien invasion inspired him in the 90’s.

What? That’s not true! We would’ve heard about an alien.

That’s literally the point of SHIELD. Secrets. We hide ‘em.

They had a point now that you thought back on it. SHIELD was all about hiding knowledge and keeping people safe from the knowledge. How else were they going to explain that JFK was actually assassinated by a ghost story named the Winter Soldier?

Forget you just read that. That’s classified.

Regardless, seeing the likes of legendary Natasha Romanoff, the brilliant Bruce Banner, and chivalrous Steve Rogers aboard that helicarrier that day should have been momentous. But from the moment they stepped on board things had taken a turn for the worse. Hours were spent trying to locate the Asguardian who you heard was named Loki, but when he finally popped up in Germany, none other than Steve Rogers was sent in to apprehend the God. Did anyone expect Tony Stark to swoop in? Or Thor, the God of Thunder? Loki’s “adopted brother” as others heard him say.

As you did your sweeps that day, it honestly felt a little too easy.

You had only met Steve Rogers on one occasion, and that was on this day, right before Barton’s attack on the Helicarrier. You were doing a sweep on one of the lower levels, when you passed by a hallway that led down to a door that from the corner of your eye looked.. Open? Other agents passed you without even a glance to what you were seeing, so with a deep breath you walked down the white hall, and examined the door. You could hear the quiet sound of someone inside and knew what needed to be done. The door was pried open just enough for someone bigger than yourself to enter, so you managed to slide through the door and into the holding compartment.

Crates among crates were stacked on top of one another, almost every single one had the PEGASUS logo next to the SHIELD logo. The closer you got to the sounds of shuffling, you undid your holster on your leg, resting your hand firmly on the hilt of the standard SHIELD icer given to every agent. When you rounded the corner and were met with the back of Captain America himself (who wouldn’t know that iconic blue-starred uniform?) you weren’t sure what to do. You didn’t even know what overcame you to speak to him.

“Didn’t have to break the door y’know,” you said to him. You remember his shoulders tensing, setting something down in a crate he had opened and slowly turning to face you. Your hand still rested on your icer, while your other motioned back from where you both had come from. “It’s gonna take them a couple days to fix that.”

“I’ll send my apologies,” Steve said back to you. He glanced you over, not without noticing your loose grip on the weapon at your side. His eyes hovered there before he spoke again, and his piercing blue eyes met yours once more. “Are you going to turn me in?”

“No,” you didn’t hesitate in answering. His shoulders relaxed, but it looked like confusion was replaced in his scowl. You relatched your holster, and took a couple steps back with some final words. “I just hope you found what you were looking for.”

October 2013

You had come a long way since that first assignment.

You never saw Steve Rogers again, or any Avenger for that matter. Your encounter with the super soldier was soon cached as a one off meeting. He was a hero, you were an agent. And as before, you were following a lead on a secret the world wasn’t ready for yet.

For several months there have been missing person cases worldwide, but there was a catch. They soon turned up found, but encased in rock. SHIELD was called in immediately, and you were assigned to a task force to investigate. Research showed that after time the rock began to crumble, and the person was gone, dust if you will. There was nothing that could be done to save them, no matter what was attempted on the rock formations.

Your task force was a shadow team similar to Phil Coulson (who was alive, but that’s classified. Only a select few know, his team, and now the one you served on). Communication was erratic between his team and yours, but his scientist couldn’t find anything different than yours could.. This was the mission that changed your life.

Locals had come across a set of crystals during an excavation of a nearby temple. The report had said that one of the explorers touched the crystal, and was petrified within seconds. Luckily, for the first time ever, SHIELD was able to finally see what was causing these unnatural phenomenons. You remember it was hot, and being lowered by a rope into the hole the locals had cut out. When you removed yourself from the harness holding you, you examined the explorer before looking to the crystal formation in the middle of the room. It was unlike anything you had ever seen.. It was beautiful. And to this day you swore it had whispered in your ear.

You weren’t sure who knocked the crystals to the ground. Everything had happened so quickly. A blueish-grey mist evaporated into the air, and every agent, you and three others, were frozen in place. Something began to cover your body, unlike the rock that you had seen it didn’t feel rough, or scary. As the solidifying cocoon enveloped you it was as if a voice rang in your ears that you’d be fine.

And a month later, you were. Or at least you thought you were.

You don’t remember falling out of the enclosure, but they told you you did. You remember waking up in a medical room, the sound of different beeps monitoring different things in your body was evident. The first face you saw when you came to was actually Maria Hill. You should’ve known her presence was going to be followed by Director Fury, but you chalked it all up to formalities. Every test the ran on you pointed to you being fine, but you didn’t feel fine the more time that progressed.

It was January 2014 when you got into your altercation. Being back in the field was hard, you were struggling to handle your anger when someone on your team merely bumped into you. But that was it, you remembering blacking out and suddenly being on top of them, their blood covering your knuckles. An hour later, Director Fury himself was signing your suspended leave papers.

You were even more pissed off, upset that SHIELD essentially told you to handle your issues on your own. Ever since that damn mission you didn’t feel the same, something just didn’t feel right to you. You were angry, skittish, and it began to take its toll on you and your family. They didn’t know how to help you, and neither did you in all honesty. One night after having a shouting match with your father, you packed a bag and took the next plane out of there. And it didn’t matter where it went.

There’s a blank between that and when you met Gordon. You could blame it on the transition, or really just blame it on the way you took to bar hopping to mash that anger down to something else. You had managed to piss off a small group of motorcycle men (you didn’t mean to knock their bikes over, it just kind of happened), and when backed into a corner a blue field appeared before you. It shocked not only your pursuers, but you thought you were dreaming. Gordon offered you his hand, and you took it with no hesitation.

Inhuman. That’s what they said you were. A race of altered human beings that were the result of experiments on ancient humans by an extraterrestrial race who embedded their genetic code the potential to transform and/or acquire superhuman abilities through a process known as Terrigenesis.

In all honesty it was a mouthful, and a lot to accept all at once. But it.. Made sense in a way. The woman in charge, Jiaying, asked you if you had ever come in contact with a crystal, which she showed you rolled up in a small handkerchief. You recited your story, a bit modified, about coming across crystals in an old temple, and someone knocked them over by accident. You lost two months, and haven’t felt the same since. She told you that you would be taken care of, and you were safe now.

You met Lincoln a couple days later. He told you that acupuncture was supposed to help your body adapt to the Terrigenesis, but because you were going on three months since your transformation, it was going to take time. You warned him you weren’t an overly patient person, and he laughed and said he wouldn’t be going anywhere. After your first session, you didn’t feel much of a change besides the pain your neck disappeared, but the anger lingered.

You went weeks without knowing what your “superhuman ability” was, and everyday you got more and more irritable.

“Why am I even here,” you expressed to Lincoln and Jiaying one day. You clenched your fist as you paced before them, and motioned towards them. “All I feel is just pissed off because I don’t know what I’m even doing.”

“We just haven’t had a breakthrough yet,” Jiaying explained. “Everyone is different when it comes to this process.”

You couldn’t accept that. You didn’t show up for your next acupuncture appointment with Lincoln, and within 10 minutes he was knocking on your door. You tossed your pillow back to your bed, and stared at the door. Maybe if you were silent--

“I know you’re in there,” Lincoln said to you. You narrowed your eyes at the door when he spoke again. “I’m opening the door.”

“No you aren’t,” you told him through clenched teeth. When you saw the door slowly inch forward you exploded. “I said no you aren’t!”

The room shook, the door reclosing in a loud smack. You weren’t sure what had happened but saw the lingering blue ripples of energy that danced over the walls. You huffed and looked down at your hands, which were enveloped by the same blue energy. The door flew open and you looked up to see the shocked look of Lincoln. He later told you your eyes looked like they were glowing blue, but after you took him in it all disappeared.

You hadn’t gotten far on controlling your powers (you could turn invisible too, how cool was that?) when Jiaying and Gordon found out who you worked for. Lincoln was the only one who fought for you to stay at Afterlife, he said your ties with the organization didn’t mean you’d turn them in. You were one of them now. And he was right, it hadn’t even crossed your mind of turning these people over to SHIELD.. They were there for you when SHIELD wasn’t. But it didn’t matter. You suddenly shunned from this new community with the promise you’d never return, and never expose their secrets. Those last few weeks were.. They weren’t the best. Your only solace was found in Lincoln, growing closer to one another with every moment you spent together, but before anything could happen you got the phone call that changed your life. Again.

July 2014

It rained that day. The ground was soft and still had little specks of water on them. You only remembered that because your sister pointed out that everyone’s shoes were dirty. You also remembered that she tucked away one of her blankets with your mother, because she didn’t want her to be afraid. She was more wise than you were. You remembered the soft and grainy feel of the dirt you tossed onto both caskets, and when you placed your clean hand on your sister's shoulder you hadn’t noticed Lincoln step to your other side. Not until he grabbed a hold of your damp hand. The light electricity that spread over your palm was welcomed, enlightening warmth in you for the first time in days.

You didn’t see Phil Coulson and Melinda May had been in attendance in the back.

The wake after wasn’t your idea, it was your grandmother's (paternal, ever the doting family figure, god rest her soul) and that was when Coulson approached you. He was more stoic, even had a bit of stubble on his face, and asked you to speak privately. When you were able to slip away and talk outside on the porch of your family home, he offered his condolences. You remember he kept glancing May’s way, hesitant on what he was going to say, but he was very careful. Calculated you could say.

That same year Steve Rogers had exposed Hydra for having deep roots within SHIELD, and Coulson was the new Director. All he offered was that Fury was indisposed at the moment, and he offered you your position back. You wondered now if he knew what you were, what had happened. If Lincoln had any intelligence with SHIELD it had to be someone on Coulson’s team. But you were getting ahead of yourself. He said to take some time to think about it, to process your loss, and told you that you’d know where to find him. With a final goodbye, the two agents left.

Lincoln went back to Afterlife. You took full custody of your sister, and though she didn’t know why you disappeared, your grandmother did. The three of you lived comfortably in your family home (to not disrupt your sister’s life) and when you had to be off on a mission, your sister was always taken care of. Four years of never missing her softball games, listening to her awful Clarinet playing (it wasn’t bad, you just liked to tease her), and being there for any of her questions. Life was good. It wasn’t too hard to balance your work life and personal life.

Two years after accepting Coulson’s offer, you were forced to resign indefinitely. The Sokovia Accords were wanting any and all SHIELD agents who were Inhuman (thanks to the database SHIELD had collected) to sign and continue to serve, or face time in The Raft. Neither was an option you were going to accept, so a compromise was offered to those who refused. The Accords and world nations would keep their own database of Inhumans, or any enhanced individuals, with the notion that if these persons were found to be using their powers, it would be a charge of criminal negligence. And if you were assigned to any government agency (SHIELD, the FBI, anything) you were to resign immediately. All on the down low of course. Reluctantly, you agreed, along with anyone else who didn’t want to be used as an on call superhuman soldier.

It was freedom at a price. But you weren’t leaving your family. Not again.

May 2018

Your sister shut the door to your car abruptly. You remembered how she nearly raced to the bag to grab her gear from your trunk while you shut the engine off. She was eager to get inside and shower after her teams win for the week, even racing past your grandmother who sat on the swing on the porch. You remember feeling your phone vibrating in your pocket, news of Tony Stark’s disappearance was everywhere. Being out of the game for two years now made you feel out of touch, only getting the same information as everyone else. But you tried your best not to stress about it too much, for your sister’s sake. You remembered your grandmother offering to make a roast that night, but you thought it would be more fun to have your sibling choose - a post game tradition and an excuse not to do dishes that night. You nearly tripped over her duffel bag while trying to set your bag down and sighed.

“I thought we had an agreement about putting this away!” You called out.

“Sorry! I needed to get some water, it’s too hot,” she replied. You pushed her bag out of the way (the last thing you needed was your grandmother taking a fall like last time) and walked further into the house. “(Y/N)-”

“You’re lucky it was me and not--”

You stopped mid sentence when your gaze landed on her. She was terrified, and you felt like you had no time to process what was going on. It started from her feet, inching upwards in a dim cloud and she was evaporating before your eyes. You rushed over, but by the time you got there your fingers only barely touched the dust. You were sick, falling to your knees as the sounds from the outside world flooded your home. Your eyes never left the spot where the dust collected, not when far away booms were heard, voices yelling into the air, and you looked back to the open door.

“Nana?” You called out. You stood and rushed over to the door, rounding the archway abruptly. You saw her standing and looking back out to the road, and wanted to cry out.

She died six months later. You boarded up the house and all the memories it held and headed back to New York City. You haven’t been back since. You were able to get a small place in the city, and isolated yourself from the world. That was until Lincoln came knocking on your door. You weren’t sure how he found you, but it didn’t matter in the end, or really that moment. You didn’t feel so alone anymore.

Dancing on the edge of friendship and something more, Lincoln became an integral part of your life. So when people began to go missing, and you both quickly realized they were Inhumans, it felt as if that responsibility fell on your shoulders now. You had a purpose again: helping people.

You know the rest. You began to go to Steve Rogers meetings, and when he didn’t recognize you you were in the clear it felt. He wasn’t overly nosy, didn’t push you to reveal much, really he let you do things at your own pace. You told yourself you went to his meetings to see if you could slyly get information out of him, but really you did enjoy them. They often made you feel better. Not much, but enough to where you didn’t want to disappear yourself.

The fogginess in your mind was replaced with something else. You didn’t know if it was fear (probably) or not, but your exhausted body wasn’t prepared for this fight. You had been followed for a half an hour now when you were on your way to the community center. You tried to shake them, but it wasn’t working. They knew where you were headed and when you lost a pair, two more took their place. You weren’t making it to Steve’s meeting that morning.

Adrenaline laced with fear coursed through you as you rounded a corner. It took all the concentration in you to mask yourself with your abilities. Out of sight you quickly slid your way into the opening of an alleyway and watched as the two men on your tail walked by without even a glance your way. You should’ve known it was too easy, you shouldn’t have let your guard down so fast. Maybe it was the exhaustion gnawing at you, but you took careful steps back towards the other end. If you could get there then you could see about making it to the center.

You were still invisible when a shock was sent through your body. Little jolts of electricity worked its way through you and the sudden attack made you reappear as you fell to your knees. The smell of burning rubber filled your senses first, followed by the sound of boots on the ground. You forced yourself to look up, only to find yourself surrounded by figures behind dark grey skull masks. You grimaced as one lowered themselves to look you in the eye, though you were only met with your reflection.

“Too easy,” the voice said. You took a shaky breath, the electricity not making anything easier for you, and clenched your hands at your side.

“I’m not done fighting yet,” you warned.

With a thrust of your arms, a shield like barrier exploded out from around you. Those closest to you were sent the furthest away, except for the one who spoke to you. Whatever was shot into your side evaporated, and you stood freely bracing yourself against those who were able to get back on their feet quickly. You dodged and countered punches until one grabbed the bag on your back, pulling you towards them. You spun out from the straps and with your hands enveloped their feet with your powers, throwing them away from you. Two more came from your side and you grabbed the arm of one burrowing for your body and shoved them back into another foe.

There were too many, but you couldn’t give up.

The bigger one who spoke to you managed to push their way through the group, facing you head on. You were breathing heavy, you didn’t know how much longer you could fight them off. Maybe if you could hold them off a little longer, Steve normally passed this way, just a few more minutes.

“You’re surrounded,” the deep voice said. You didn’t know if it was their real voice or something modulated, but they began to circle you. “Stop fighting, and we won’t make this hurt.”

“Yeah I don’t think so,” you replied. You cemented your feet into the ground, and it took all the energy in you to produce the blue energy around your hands. In this state your eyes turned the same blue, but it didn’t seem to stop them from coming at you quickly. You redirected their moves, one arm one way, the other in a whole other direction. There was a click too fast for you to catch, they fought your manipulation and grabbed you from behind, arm trapping you around your neck and it made you gasp. All at once your powers disappeared as you grabbed at their arm. There was no way they did that.. Something disrupted your energy.

The sting of a needle into your neck made you push against them. Their stance didn’t falter, and an overwhelming pain began to spread through you. All you could seem to manage was gasp for short breaths as the person eased you down to the ground. You watched the sky grow bleeker, and the last words before you were met with darkness was an order to get you into the truck.

[mamacleo]

There is a Queendom. There is a Queen.

I want to say something important. It explains things. It explains my intensity. This has nothing to do with the day to day rollercoasters. This is the big pattern. I don't think anyone else out there goes through this. Honestly, truly, I think i am alone. My situation is unique. It's so sweet and so tart. It's bitter, too.

Summer is ascendant at the same time the progesterone effect has grown to an astounding warmth. (I also have the blessing of cannabis. Essential to know.) At the same time the summer mood is ascendant, I have at last become in my heart the woman I am. I have learned to say "for now," but I hope it sticks around. I really do.

Because I now believe I am tied in with the seasons in a much deeper, much more intricate way. I am being shaped by the spirits and goddesses, and at this moment, everything is--my favorite word--consonant.

Everything agrees. I would think of myself at the same time as the word "woman," and feel a pang of doubt. Even though I have felt gender euphoria, it hits you. Now, I think of myself, an image of myself, and I think the word "woman," and my heart feels something new. It's a yearning. It's a love. It's a wholeness. It has a name, and that name is Claochlú Ruby Nich Murchadh (as of the handfasting). Everything is finally right.

For now.

Because two things. Because seasons. Because memory.

Because I am trapped in an annual cycle that seems beyond my capacity to break. Because the summer brings joy and bliss and comfort and relief and content. And the fall brings the winter terrors. I changed the name. That's what they are. They're terrors. Every year is new.

And, see, I see it coming. I can't not see it. It's in my nature. Please, no advice. I have worked at this with power and diligence for all my adult life without being able to break it. All I can do is endure it. I can't avoid it. All I can do is warn people.

Funny this now comes to me, but in barbecue terms, it's the silverskin. It's the connective tissue, that thin membrane of tough silvery stuff that turns leathery if it's not removed. Except this girl has been barbecued for forty years and that silverskin was never removed. It's there for good. Bolted down for life.

But for now, the days are long. The leaves are out. The sun comes out enough for the moment to give us the promise of a sweet season. My nature turns sweeter, more stable, more joyous, more adoring, more enthusiastic, more generous, more devoted, more energetic. Happier. And I get to have this beautiful, wonderful state until October. Every moment I live in this state, I want to capture forever. I get to be the best of who I am almost all the time. This time is so special, I try to let every moment take my breath away.

Because here's what makes this really ironic. Mom can't remember things.

Decades had to pass before I learned that the reasons I have a severely crappy memory aren't because of what I figured they were, but are a result of severe trauma. I didn't know how severe until my wife saw it. Knowing that doesn't help me recover the memories. I've tried every trick I can imagine. They're either buried or obliterated. I brainwashed myself so I wouldn't have to cope with them.

(FICKLE FINGER OF FATE MOMENT: at this moment, my music service has chosen to play Billy Joel's "Pressure.")

And that means I don't have continuous memories of anything. I can't remember conversations. I can't remember events on any scale. I have a good visual memory. I have a weird head for trivia. I have a good memory of things as they occur on a wide scale, but not personally. I remember emotions and the things attached that caused them. All my personal memories are snapshots, sound clips. Animated GIFs. All my memories are like that. It's the only way I remember now.

And that means that no matter how blessed this coming summer is, I won't remember it.

Not all of it. I'll remember it in snapshots. There'll be markers, points in time to remember. Some things burn into your memory forever. But no matter how I try, no matter how hard I look at that sunset, I won't remember it. The wind will bring me warm joy, and I'll remember how it felt, but never the moment. I'll know that moment existed because I remember the emotion from it, but the memory itself is gone.

Every moment, then, I am aware of those two things. They are the silverskin that stayed on while I walked through fire. I am aware that no matter how hard I want it not to be, I won't remember things no matter what they meant. I won't remember my hand on her cheek. I won't remember sitting under dappled skies. I won't remember the moments my bare feet were in the puddle. I'll remember the sensation. I'll remember that it happened. Maybe I'll remember other senses. But the moment itself is gone.

No matter how beautiful the moment is, I can't guarantee I'll remember it. Some I will. Maybe ten percent. Ten patchy percent. The rest is gone. Just gone. And that is what I have to clutch to so I can endure the coming winter.

There is never a waking moment I do not know this.

("Time in a Bottle.")

And that is why I am the way I am.

Alone.

[ajokeformur-ray]

What’s going on with me.

I feel very whiny and like maybe there’s... not actually anything to be feeling so heavy about but I’m pushing past that and posting it anyway. I’ve got nothing to lose. It’s under a cut; there’s no obligation to read this if you don’t want to. The part where it does get emotionally heavy is very clearly marked.

Word count so you know what you’re in for: 1, 577.

I’m terrified. Of everything. All of the time. It feels like I’m stuck in my own skin and like I can’t breathe and I’ve been watching so much horror over the last few weeks just to feel a different kind of fear, just to feel something else which I know I can turn off when I’ve had enough. Even when I turn off the horror, I’m still so scared and it’s quickly becoming a new normal. I’m scared and angry and upset and I feel so heavy and even when I’m just sat down on my bed, my heart is pounding and it’s just really hard to sit still. But at the same time all I want to do is just sit on my bed and let myself waste away. Yesterday was the most emotional I’ve been for the last few weeks; I kept crying and the slightest thing would set me off; a message from someone on here was the most common thing to make me cry because it meant they were okay, at least in the time they had sent the message.

Dad got sick with a stomach virus from work, which I just found out he still has over a week later, and due to a traumatic time in my life I now have a very embarrassing (but still valid) fear which is closely linked to dad’s sickness. I am deeply troubled by the idea that I or someone else will get sick in the same way and to balance this, I haven’t been eating as much because if I avoid food, then I won’t need to use the bathroom so often. Plus, gluten free food is expensive and the less I eat, the less my parents have to go shopping and this reduces their exposure to the virus. None of this is logical and it’s definitely detrimental to my own health, but fear is never rational. To be clear, I am eating... just enough to keep my parents off my back about how little I’m eating; which is usually two meals a day. I rarely eat more than that, even if I’m physically cramping from hunger. My parents have called me up about it a few times but I just... don’t want to eat. I’m so, so scared of people getting sick or dying. I don’t care so much about what happens to me, but my loved ones...I’m terrified.

 I keep having nightmares of people dying. I had a nightmare a few weeks back in which someone on here died and I woke up in a cold sweat to message them and to just... make sure they were okay. They were definitely okay and if they’re reading this, then they know who they are. Not last night but the night before, I had a horrible dream in which I was outside and people’s masks were just dropping off their faces without anyone touching them, or they would move so the mask would slip off their nose and only cover their mouth, and my mum in the dream said, “you may as well take your mask off, you’ve probably got it by now” but it wasn’t the mask which slid off my face; my entire face melted away and dropped off and I woke up crying. I was also kind of impressed by my imagination; it was gory and it actually hurt; my dreams are so vivid it takes me like an hour to realise i'm actually Awake and everyone's okay and i'm so scared that people are gonna get Covid and die and i'll never hear from them and just wonder what happened to them. I’ve had an internet friend die in real life and I never found out what happened to her; I don’t even know if she is dead but one of her last messages was harrowing and no one’s heard from her since. This was two years ago so I can only draw my own conclusions and they’re heartbreaking. 

I lay awake at night unable to sleep, or if I can sleep, I don’t want to, because what if one of you dies in the night and I missed your last message? Tumblr is my sanity right now; I’m furloughed from my job (and I don’t even know if I still have a job, that’s up in the air as well because I work at a small cafe) and I’m graduated from university so all I have right now is my writing and the lovely people on here. This is my biggest coping mechanism and by now it’s probably tipped into the unhealthy region but I don’t care, not right now. The world’s crumbling around us and any coping mechanism, especially if it involves the imagination, at least to my thinking, is essential for survival right now so I’m letting it happen. If I'm not writing, I’m not being productive, which means I’m wasting my day and if I’m wasting my day, why am I here?

Aaand, speaking of... (this is where it gets emotionally heavy so feel free to tap out if you’re reading this! Fair warning 🥰)

I just... want to fade out and not exist anymore. I'm so fucking tired and I've had enough. I'm just so scared it's like I can't even breathe. I don’t even know if my thoughts are mine anymore; on the one hand I feel whiny and like I’m making up things to be scared about but on the other hand I know that I’m valid in my emotions. I feel like I should just shut up and deal with it and focus as much as I can on others because the trap of thinking that suffering is a competition is easy to fall into, and every time I think I can handle the fear it just gets stronger and I’m just.... I wanna get out. Of everything. I’m so tired. I also keep losing time... I'll stare at the window and when I look back at the clock it’s been like twenty minutes and I didn’t even notice. 

I just want to sit on my bed and let myself rot; I don’t want to eat, I don’t want to sleep. I just want to... fade out and away; to lay down and go to sleep and not wake up again. My mum keeps asking me what I’m going to do with my future now that I’m graduated (the career questions started three days after I graduated, I? Give me a breaaaaak), and I can barely see past today, what makes you think I’m thinking of a future I no longer believe in? I already said to her that I was taking a year out, a gap between graduation and deciding on a career, because a) I genuinely need and want a break and b) what’s the rush? I’m only 23; life doesn’t stop at 25. I still have lots of time to figure myself out. But my mum says that I’m not getting any younger, either - and that’s true. She wants me to go into teaching and that’s... not what I want to do. “Oh, but you can be a professor - “ Mum, that’s still teaching and I don’t want to do that but then she accuses me of not caring and... honestly, she’s right but I can’t tell her that. She cares, she does, and I know that she loves me, but shit. Can’t a woman breathe?

I did know what I wanted to do in my life... and then just at the point where my dreams were becoming a reality, I found out that the savings I’d been working so hard to save up for during the three years I was in university weren’t enough even with how hard I’d worked, and then the pandemic happened.... I had Real Plans to fly out to my dream on the fifteenth October this year and I feel like I’ve wasted my life, to boil it right down. I am twenty three. I have plenty of time but I also feel like I’ve ruined and wasted my life. In many ways, I feel like a ghost. I feel like I’ve literally died and I just haven’t noticed yet. I am a shell of myself due to unhealed traumas, I am a ghost of the Erika I once knew... she’s in there somewhere, I just have to coax her out. I am so, so scared that I’ll be forty and nothing’s changed and then the next thing I know, I’ll be dead and... all I can feel is fear.

I’m doing what I can to focus on and to help others because I feel like that’s a better use of my time than sitting and letting myself rot (also a tempting thought...) and I find genuine joy in supporting people. Everyone is suffering and I so often end up just crying over my laptop because my heart’s breaking for everyone and I wish I could just give everyone here a hug, wipe their tears away and be there for them. But all I have to do that with is a laptop and it never feels like enough and I just... I feel very heavy and tired and scared and I don’t know what to do. I have no idea how to help myself. It’s an effort even to brush my hair - half an hour thinking about it while I mindlessly scroll tumblr, another twenty minutes to find something to watch on YouTube while I do it, and then maybe ten minutes to actually brush my hair. Everything’s a chore and an effort and I’m. So. Tired. I’ve had enough and I just want my Joker. I don’t even know what he’d think or do about all of this...

[jchall110]

So ordinarily I would put something like this on my Twitter, as that’s kind of turned into my personal vent/diary platform as of recent, but this is going to be much longer than Twitter can allow, and I need to write this all out without losing my train of thought. It’s gonna go behind a Read More, and I’d like to request that you only read it if we’ve been mutuals for a while, and only if you really want to. I’m not expecting any response, hell I don’t want any responses, I just need to put my thoughts down somewhere, and if I put it in a Google doc or something I’m gonna come back to it later and dwell on it, but if I just put it somewhere and immediately delete it, I’m not going to be able to talk to my therapist about it on Monday. Anyway, content warnings abound, as I’m gonna be talking about depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicide, covid-19, stalking, emotional abuse, and a pretty negative experience I had in a partial hospitalization program at a local mental institute. You’ve been warned. (Also for those of you who are new here, “ignore me” is my personal rant/vent tag, feel free to blacklist it to avoid seeing future posts like this)

So. Here’s a brief recap of the past year and a half in my life. Back in October of 2018, my best friend went through a very bad breakup with her emotionally abusive ex, while another of my friends was struggling very much with his mental health and attempted suicide. I was miserable working at Target and was gearing up to return to school in the Spring. I had also had feelings for the friend who went through the breakup, and she sort of had feelings for me, but she also had feelings for the other friend, and I had some vague kind-of feelings for the other friend as well, so in December we all decided “fuck it, let’s all date.” I won’t recap the full details of the relationship but it was a goddamn shitshow. His mental heath continued to deteriorate and he wasn’t seeking treatment for any of it, her mental health was extremely poor as well as a result of two years of emotional abuse and extreme codependency issues, and my mental health suffered greatly because of the expectations placed on me, as well as his frequent mood shifts where he would go from wanting to spend the rest of our lives together to, at one point, telling me things in an effort to get me to hurt or kill myself. Not a good situation by any measure. School was good, though, and the two classes I took last Spring were excellent, and I was ready to go back to school full-time in the Fall. Flash forward to September of 2019. My mental health is terrible, though my academics are very strong. I decide, after a few specific incidents, that I can’t be in the relationship with the both of them anymore and break up with him. A lot of bad things happened. She ended up leaving him as well. Then, about a month later, she left me as well and moved out of the state with someone she had met on OKCupid only a few weeks prior. At this point I need to take a medical leave of absence from school and move back in with my parents because I’m so depressed and traumatized that I can barely function. You see, since breaking up with him, he had been harassing me, even after I had attempted to get the police involved. He would call me, text me, make new Facebook accounts to send me message requests, anything to try to get in touch with me. So with all of this happening, and with me basically unable to do anything, I decide to look into a partial hospitalization program at a mental institution not far from where I live. Insurance covered most of it, my parents said they’d pay for the rest, so I started the program in early November. Ordinarily it’s only a three or four week program. I was there for at least 5. It was essentially a day program, so I would be there from 9 to 3 every day Monday to Friday. It was a really great program, except for a few things. Firstly, because it was a program both for mental health and addiction, a lot of the programming wasn’t really applicable to me, as the only thing that I’m addicted to is sugar, and I have no plans to break that habit. There’s a history of temporary psychosis caused by mind-altering substances in my family, and I don’t want to even find out if it applies to me as well. I barely even drink. So anyway, I was one of maybe three people who was there exclusively for mental health, so my options for programming were a bit limited, until a bunch of us complained about the repetitiveness of that aspect of the program and they switched things up a bit. Unfortunately it was at the tail end of my time in the program, so I didn’t exactly get much benefit from that. Secondly, and more importantly, close to the end of my time in the program, one of the mental health workers, a pre-doctoral intern who was running most of the “classes” that I was in, said a few things to me that were really frustrating and upsetting. Firstly she said that “ADHD doesn’t exist, it’s just a reaction to trauma. Too many kids are getting diagnosed with it when they just have regular attention issues, and in adults a diagnosis is almost always accompanied with trauma. And of course people are going to perform better when they’re on a stimulant.” Which. Is wrong on so many accounts. First of all, it’s overdiagnosed in the wrong people and massively underdiagnosed in the people who actually have it, especially young girls. And secondly, of course it’s paired with trauma when adults are diagnosed with it. They’ve had to deal with it for their entire lives up until then without knowing why they couldn’t do things the same way as everyone else, and there’s also a lot of trauma in general that comes with having ADHD considering how many people say “Oh, you’re just not trying hard enough” or “You’re just making excuses,” not to mention the self esteem issues that come with it. And thirdly, yeah people will perform better when on stimulants, but does taking a stimulant make everyone else tired? Cuz it does for me because it lets me slow down my brain enough to actually sleep. So yeah, that was fucked up. But the second thing she said was probably worse, and it didn’t actually occur to me how much this impacted me until earlier today when I realized something, but I’ll get to that realization soon. So it’s my second-to-last day in the program. I had gotten almost no sleep the previous night because I had a massive panic attack right before bed because my asswipe ex messaged me some really fucked up stuff. So I’m way out of it, and my ability to concentrate is pretty shit. I’m doing my best, though, and I’m paying attention to the discussion. We were talking about the parts of the brain and how they’re impacted by trauma. There were a few times during that day where I had forgotten words but still knew what I was talking about, and at least one of them had happened in front of this woman. So she asks “Does anybody know what the part of the brain is that connects the two hemispheres?” I say “Oh, I do” cuz I do know what it is, but for the life of me I can’t remember what the name is. (It’s the corpus callosum.) So she looks at me and says, out loud, in front of the entire group, “You know, it’s okay if we don’t know everything.” So I get all flustered and embarrassed and mad at myself because, in my ADHD people-pleaser brain, the teacher just failed me in front of the whole class and now they all hate me. So I don’t say a goddamn word for the rest of the day, and the next day I leave without saying goodbye to that one woman, after leaving a glowing review in the exit survey. So the thing about this that’s really fucked up is that like two days before, I sat down with her and told her how I have a lot of specific trauma around rejection and failure, especially relating to my dad and how he constantly asserts that I don’t try hard enough or that I need to do better, shit like that. Like, that was a major theme with me the whole time I was in the program. It was like, getting over the intense rejection of my best friend/girlfriend running away with a guy she just met, and my relationship with my dad. That was it. (Of the two, the one there that’s still a major thing in my life is my relationship with my dad. At this point, she can fuck off with whoever she wants. I’m more pissed at her than anything else now.) So for her to turn around and embarrass me in front of the entire group like that, when there was solid evidence that a) I did know what I was talking about and b) I was having a very off day was really messed up. In thinking about it, there was quite a few messed up things that she did in the last week or so that I was there. Probably more during the rest of my time there but I don’t actually remember most of it because working on your trauma can be traumatizing itself, go figure. Anyway, I had almost completely forgotten about that until earlier today when I was thinking about how I was getting much more sensitive to rejection and perceived failure recently than I was before all this had happened. Part of it is probably my increased estrogen dose fucking with my mood, but the majority of it, I think, stems from that one incident of her pretty much violating my trust and invalidating me in front of like twelve people that I really trusted and felt close with. Fucked me up, yo. Anyway, so I leave the program and start working for my dad at his machine shop. Things are going super well, I’m making a fair bit of money, keeping in touch with my friends as best I can, and doing my best to avoid my ex harassing me further. About midway through December I change my phone number so that he’ll stop calling me (he had several ways to get around me blocking his number), and in the middle of February I change my name on Facebook so he won’t be able to find me and send me more message requests, cuz there’s no way to stop that from happening either, and the police were useless because “I wasn’t in any physical danger.” At this point he had moved away from my town, presumably back with his parents but I don’t really know, and I really don’t care. So he messages my siblings on Facebook trying to get my phone number, and then somehow finds my Facebook again and sends me a picture of him cutting his wrist. So I get fed up, go to a local domestic violence prevention nonprofit, talk with one of their advocates, and file a restraining order against him. It gets approved, and the messages stop. A court date is set for us both to meet with a judge to discuss everything and see if it needs to stay in place or not or whatever, and for about 2 weeks everything is great. Then covid-19 starts hitting. I get what was probably just the flu or a cold or whatever a few days before the court date. Then the state that I live in announces that most court hearings are postponed until mid-April. I check on the website and find that stalking and domestic violence, among a few others, are exempt from this and will be going on as scheduled. Because I was recently sick, I call the courts the day before and ask if I can appear over the phone. They say yes, it’s all good, great. So the next morning I call in and things get moving. It turns out that my ex didn’t show up to the hearing, even though he definitely knew about it. So I talk with the judge for a few minutes and we decide that I don’t need the restraining order anymore because he’s not likely to start harassing me again, and if he does I can always get a new one or get the police involved. And so far I haven’t heard a peep from him so I’m assuming that chapter of my life is closed for good, which is excellent. But then more things start to close down, and my dad basically tells me that he doesn’t really need me at work and it’s best if I stay home. So since then I’ve been staying at home. It’s been 15 days total that I’ve been home, with only minimal trips to work for an hour here and there. And I really don’t do well with isolation. It’s not all bad, because I live with my parents, so I have some social contact, but as was mentioned above I don’t exactly get along with my dad, I don’t have a lot in common with my stepmom, and my grandmother is a grumpy old lady who isn’t very good for conversations about much else than knitting and Jeopardy. I’ve been doing my best to stay in touch with folks online, and it’s been decent, but it’s still pretty rough. And when Animal Crossing came out and all of my friends started playing it, I started feeling even worse because I’m poor as shit and don’t even have a Switch, and they’re fucking $400, which is a whole student loan payment for me. So I’ve been pretty miserable the past two weeks. To top it all off, I have to register for Fall classes next week, and I don’t think I can even imagine that far into the future right now. The world is supremely fucked, and there’s almost no way that I’ll even be able to afford to go back to school. I’ll probably have to drop out entirely. For at least a few years. And I’m really not ready to give up on school right now. Like I said above, I’m really sensitive to failure, and this is the third time I’ve tried, and failed, at college. And I’m getting real frustrated about it. The first time it was my ADHD, which at the time was undiagnosed. The second time it was mental health and my asshole ex harassing me. Now, when I finally have my ducks in a row, it’s money. The one thing that no amount of treatment or medication or court hearings will change. Plus there’s all the political bullshit going on still, and the impending collapse of society as we know it, and any number of other global crises (yes, that is the proper plural of crisis) going on. Oh, did I mention I’m an empath and the moods and emotions of the people around me, and of the world in general, pretty heavily impact me? I’ve been able to tell when some massive tragedy occurred even before the news story breaks. So yeah, all in all I’m doing about the worst I’ve been doing since high school before I was on antidepressants, and it’s really hard to see any end to this tunnel. I know I’m one in several hundred million people who are struggling right now, and I’m lucky that I’m at least moderately healthy with a steady place to stay and things to eat, but goddamn if things aren’t shit for me right now. Like I said, I’m not looking for any kind of response, and if you even read all of this I’m legitimately surprised. I just needed to put this all down somewhere because keeping it in is getting to be almost too much.

Don’t worry, friends. I promise you I’m safe. I’m just scared, lonely, and really lost right now.

I love you all.

[imaginedmelody]

It’s been a while since I’ve done a post purely powered by anxiety, so I apologize for being a bit stressful. But sometimes it helps to get it all out on the page and then share it, so I’m writing it out here.

I’ve spent the last several months really worried about my finances. Long-term substitute teaching didn’t exactly have me rolling in the cash, but this is the first time in almost five years that I’ve started the school year without a long-term placement (intentionally—I wasn’t looking this fall, partially because I’m considering a career change and partially for other reasons) and my finances have not recovered from the usual income drought over the summer. I mean that literally; they have not recovered at all. Usually there’s a rough period for me in September and early October as I wait for paychecks to accumulate, but now that I’m back to short-term substitute teaching, I’m finding it’s not as lucrative as it once was.

To break it down for you, I substitute teach in two different counties. Their pay schedules alternate (one pays approximately on the 15th and 30th of every month regardless of where that falls in the week; the other pays on Fridays that usually fall on the opposite weeks as county #1’s paychecks), so I am lucky in that I get a deposit pretty much every week instead of every fortnight. But I’ve worked a lot of partial-day jobs instead of full-day ones this year, and since I split my time between two counties, often I’ll work half the day in one and the rest in the other. So while I’m nominally getting paid for two weeks of work, not all of the work was done in the county that’s paying me that week. Which, ultimately, results in lower paychecks.

Put into perspective numbers-wise: each week I get, from one of these two counties, a paycheck that is about $500 if I’m lucky. I won’t put exact numbers, of course, but my highest paycheck so far this school year was somewhere around $675. The lowest was around $150 because I had worked a lot in the other county that pay period. The problem with this is that the money I earn never has a chance to accumulate, because the instant it’s deposited into my account, I have to use it to pay something that’s coming up due. My rent, for instance, is roughly one whole good-week’s paycheck (good week= $500). My car insurance is half a paycheck. My student loan bills, combined at the normal rate, are about 2/3 a paycheck. My health insurance is half to 60% of a paycheck (and premiums are likely to go up this year). What little remains is barely enough to cover gas and a few groceries. I would estimate that I need to make $1000 more per month than I’m making now just to be not at risk of going broke every month.

(A couple days ago, I went back in my online bank details to see when the last time was that I had a bank balance that actually covered everything I needed it to and that I was comfortable with. It was July 19. That was over four months ago.)

So I’m at a difficult point, because there’s no wiggle room for anything else right now. I can afford a couple things, like Christmas gifts, if they’re small and I manage my money well—but big things are an impossibility. If I get sick and need something that insurance doesn’t cover, I’m screwed. My car is old and making a weird sound and I need to take it in, but depending on what (if anything) is wrong, the servicing could cost $150, or it could cost $1500. And if it’s the latter, I can’t afford it. That’s an entire month’s worth of money or more, which is already designated since I’m operating on a paycheck-to-paycheck basis. Even the $150 is almost a quarter of a good paycheck. I can’t just pay it and recoup the loss with the next deposit, because there’s no extra money in my paychecks to catch it back up.

This is, obviously, not exactly helping my mental health. I probably wake up at least once a week in the middle of the night, and when I try to get back to sleep, I end up thinking about this and being awake for two hours turning it over in my head. I’ve thought and thought about what I can do about it, and there’s no option that’s particularly good. I adamantly refuse to ask my family for help: my sister is currently in a single-income household while her husband is in nursing school and she herself is considering a career change, so even if they offered, I would feel too terrible about taking anything from them. And my mom has severe issues with anxiety—this is the woman who gets so worked up by what she sees on the news that she heard there had been one single mugging in Dupont Circle and asked my dad how they were going to get to church from now on since it would obviously be too dangerous to walk there from the Metro anymore. The woman who, when I blew out a tire five years ago on the highway, was convinced I should stop driving on highways entirely. I would probably send her into an early grave if I talked to her about my financial issues, and I know she herself struggled with finances when I was a kid, so I don’t want to make her go through that again.

I’ve thought about getting a second job. But most part-time jobs either won’t hire me because I’m under-qualified (or, in the case of many retail/entry-level jobs, vastly over-qualified), or don’t pay enough to make the extra hours of work worth it. For example, I’ve long thought about getting a second job as a shelving assistant at the library. But they pay $11.50/hour and are hiring for 10-19 hours a week. That would give me an extra paycheck every 2 weeks, at about the size of one of my weekly paychecks now. That’s not really enough financial benefit to balance out the amount of additional time and work I’d be expending. I’d essentially be sacrificing a large chunk of my free time and getting pennies in return.

I’ve also considered the fact that in light of this, I might need to take another long-term subbing job soon if one becomes available. The problem with that is that historically, my track record with long-term teaching has been spotty. With my depression being what it is, I honestly find working full 7.5-8 hours days really difficult (even with subbing—that’s actually why, even though the partial-day jobs have been financially bad for me, they’ve been mentally really good). I have a hard time with the consistency that long-term teaching placements require, and they exhaust me and take a toll on my mental health, which creates a feedback loop of difficulty. So it’s hard to apply for those jobs knowing that they’ll tank my mental stability, which will make it hard to do what I need to do to keep that job or, in the case of long-term subbing jobs that are by nature temporary, get a better one. I’ve also applied for other types of jobs—media assistant, school secretary—hoping that I’ll get one of those and it will work out better. But none of those jobs have called me back so far.

The long and short of it is that there’s no solution right now that will be as quick or as effective as I need it to be. Longer-term work, or even a career change, will take time to achieve and even more time for the increase in pay to kick in. Plus, it could involve going back to school if I want to get qualified for a position that would really improve things for me, and obviously with things as they are, I can’t afford to go back to school. And it’s hard, honestly, to think of the long-range options when I need a short-range solution. I have student loan debt and car repair expenses and monthly payments to make now. I can worry about the five-year plan when I actually have money left after I pay my bills each month. Until then, I’m taking it day by day and hoping for a miracle.

(FYI, I did put a paypal link in the sidebar of this blog when I was struggling financially a few years ago, and I kind of never took it down even when I was doing OK. It’s still there, if the spirit moves you.)

[skam-season4]

Love Him Like a Son

Read on AO3 here

Summary: Eskild and Even meet. Eskild gives Even a talk.

Notes: Remember at the beginning of 5:10, after Even leaves, Eskild was like “That guy Even was cool. I met him in the bathroom this morning”? This is that. I think Eskild is a great friend and really underappreciated, because there is more to him than his loud personality. He has more quiet layers. I feel like Even and his mother are really close and she’s shameless, so look forwards to that. I tried to give this clip a good mix of it, and I tried to put the anon prompt and my own idea of how this went down in one. I hope it worked.

Sunday, October 30, 2016 at 7:23 am Even’s point of view Age 19

***

Even blinks awake groggily. He turns his head to his left and sees Isak resting on his arm, fast asleep and brow slightly furrowed. Even lies there for a moment, watching him sleep. Isak lets out soft breaths as his bare back gently rises and falls. It’s then that Even remembers that both of them are shirtless and in only boxers for pajamas.

Before he gets himself too riled up, he gently shoulders a sleeping Isak off of his chest before sliding out of bed, pulling on a nearby shirt. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and sees he has eight missed calls from Sonja, a string of text messages from her, and a new message from his mom.

He holds back a sigh, but doesn’t respond. He taps the back button and opens the message from his mother.

He blows out a breath before responding.

His mother knows. He doesn’t even need to talk to her face to face to know that she knows. Even thinks she probably knew from the first time he mentioned Isak to her. He puts down his phone with a small smile on his face before looking around Isak’s room.

This is the first time he really looks at it since he got here two days ago. Even likes to think he’s a fairly observant person with all the movies he’s seen, but he realizes he never really looked around the room he and Isak stumbled into, seeing as they were… occupied for most of his stay.

He leans over the bed, careful not to lose his balance and fall on the sleeping Isak.  The first thing he sees, and miraculously failed to notice, is the magazine cut out of a woman in a red swimsuit. He raises his eyebrows at this but chooses not to think too much of it. Even assumes Isak’s roommates don’t know about him based on how Isak has acted since Friday night.

There’s a plethora of troll memes, a few comic strips, and what looks like a photocopy of a foot, with a matching one on the other side of the wall, this one showing a head of curls and a forehead reading ‘basura’. He squints a little at the wall and sees a tiny black and white square taped near the bottom of the collage. It reads, “The Essential Simon and Garfunkel,” and seems to be a photo of Isak and his friend, Jonas, Even thinks his name is, with their faces edited onto the album cover. Even snorts a bit at this, and figures it must be some sort of inside joke, but it's funny regardless.

Human nature gets the better of him, so he trudges out of Isak’s room as quietly as possible. He shuts the door softly and steps out into the hallway before realizing he has no idea where the bathroom is. He thinks back to friday night and remembers Isak’s directions to Sonja, and starts heading in that direction. The memory of the two interacting leaves a bad taste in his mouth. He heads down the hall and to the left, opening the bathroom door and stepping in, still mindful to be quiet.

After taking a leak, he washes his hands, still taking in all of his surroundings. He sees the little cup full of everyone’s toothbrushes and vaguely wonders what it would feel like to add his own toothbrush to the cup.

Before the thought can wander too far, Even is interrupted by the bathroom door swinging open. A man who Even can only assume is Eskild walks in and jumps when he notices Even. “Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t, uh, ahem, didn’t realize that anyone was… in here. The lock is broken, so, uh… yeah.” Eskild trails off as his eyes sweep up and down Even’s body. “And… who are you? Are you… are you Noora’s new man? Did she finally get herself a Tinder account? Or… maybe… Linn’s guest?” Even shakes his head and sticks out a (clean) hand and offers it to Probably Eskild. “Even,” he offers, adding, “and no, not Noora or Linn. I’m Isak’s, uh,” he hesitates for a beat, trying to find the right word before just settling on, “guest.” Eskild raises his eyebrows at this and nods. “Oh, okay. Isak doesn’t usually have guests, so… yeah. I’m Eskild, by the way,” Eskild offers, confirming Even’s assumption. Even nods his head. The two stand there for a moment, letting the awkward conversation sink in. Eskild speaks up again after a long minute, “But, yeah, I didn’t hear you come in yesterday, I was home most of the day, unless you came in late, because I was out late with friends, we got drinks together last night.” Even shakes his head and figures it's just easier to tell the truth. “No, I, uh… I got here on Friday night. Isak and I pregamed together.” Eskild’s eyebrows shoot up in suspicion, this time even higher than the last. “Oh! You’ve… you’ve been here since Friday?” Even nods. “I see.” Eskild nods slowly. “And you.. You’ve just been holed up in Isak’s smelly room for the entire weekend.” It doesn’t come out as a question, but Even nods along anyways, trying to look casual and not suspicious at all. Eskild looks at him with an expression he can’t read, scanning every detail of his face. Eskild takes a step towards him as something in his expression hardens.

“So, Even. I know what’s going on here, don’t worry.” Even simultaneously tenses at the idea of outing Isak but relaxes at the idea of not having to sneak around.

“He hasn’t really said anything to me, or probably anyone yet about whatever is going on here,” Eskild gesticulates in the direction of Even, “but I live with him. I’m not stupid.” Eskild drops his voice in pitch and volume. You should know that Isak is my roommate, but I love that kid like a son. So if you, or anyone else comes rolling through my kollektiv and breaks that kid’s heart, I will come for you. Because that kid has been through too much already to add one more person fucking him over to his list. Because the only way I’ve see him open up and be vulnerable in front of anyone was when he was about to blackout from drinking his problems away. I don’t know if you’re just passing through. But if you do decide to stick around, you better make sure you give that boy every fibre of love and care you have in your body, because God knows it isn’t going to come from anywhere else. He seems grumpy on the outside, but he carries so much love inside that smelly teenage body of his. So when he’s ready to open up and let it all out, and if you’re the receiver, make sure that it’s reciprocated, or else end it before it’s too late. He is just starting to loosen up and be comfortable with himself for the first time in his life. I know him. And if this is ruined for him before he gets the chance to really tell people on his own terms and learn to love himself, he will never try again.” Eskild pauses and Even blinks at him, trying to absorb all this new information quickly. Eskild starts talking again, but this time, his tone is lighter. “But if you’re just a one night stand, or whatever, you can just forget I said all that.”

“Okay,” Even says meekly. He has no idea how he is supposed to react to that, but Eskild seems satisfied with the answer. Eskild’s eyes roam (a little longer than necessary) over Even’s cotton - covered chest before he looks back up. “Are you wearing my shirt?” Even gulps, still trying to comprehend Eskild’s monologue. He glances down at the shirt he threw on. It’s the same shirt he was wearing yesterday, with the big picture of Jesus on it. “Uh, yeah, it was just in Isak’s room, he lent it to me. I didn’t know it was yours.” Eskild hums and nods, eyes still on his chest, seemingly waiting for Even to say something else.

“Did you, uh, want it back?” Eskild’s eyes snap back up to Even’s as he opens his mouth. He takes a breath to say something, and then seems to reconsider his answer. “Uhm, yeah, actually, if you wouldn’t mind.” Even has been desperately looking for a way to make this situation less awkward, and suddenly sees one. He’s aware of the fact that Eskild likes men and has been checking him out for the past five minutes, so he grabs the neck of the t-shirt and yanks it off of his back. Suddenly he’s standing in only his boxers in the kollektivet bathroom, meeting Isak’s roommate for the first time. He hands the balled up shirt to an open - mouthed Eskild. Even shrugs his shoulders back and stands a little taller, regaining his cool. He flashes a big smile at Eskild and says, “It was really nice meeting you Eskild. I hope I’ll see you around again, yeah? If Isak has me back, that is.” Eskild nods vigorously as he breaks eye contact once more in favor of raking his eyes lower down Even’s body.

“Yeah, yeah, that would be… uh… nice,” Eskild says with glazed eyes. Even offers one last wide, shit - eating grin before sliding past Eskild back into the hallway and into Isak’s room.

His white t-shirt from Friday is still wet, so he finds the blue hoodie he was wearing yesterday and throws it on and zips it up without anything on underneath it. Isak probably won’t miss it, anyway.

He shuffles around Isak’s room for a few minutes until he finds a marker and a scrap of paper. He remembers how Isak thought the comics around his room were funny, and figures a drawing is more personal than shooting him a text, anyway.

He moves to sit in the chair in the corner of Isak’s bedroom, where he sinks down and crosses his ankle over his knee. He props the paper up on his lap, using a biology book that was on the floor as a hard surface. He taps the marker on the paper and chews his lip as he decides what to draw. He feels his subject of choice is appropriate. One panel, a drawing of Isak with a water drop in his throat, represents this universe. The second, another universe where Isak never had the water drop in his throat. If he never sucked at holding his breath, it wouldn’t have turned into a game. If it wasn’t a game, Even wouldn’t have kissed him. If Even didn’t kiss him, he wouldn’t be here, falling in love with a boy he’ll only end up hurting. That’s the better universe, Even thinks. The one where Isak doesn’t get hurt.

Even finishes the quick cartoon, scribbling some Nas lyrics on the top as a half - assed explanation for why he’s gone. He lays it on his Isak’s pillow, gathers his things, and leaves the kollektivet, thankfully without a second run - in with another one of Isak’s roommates. He doesn’t notice Noora sitting on the couch as he flies by her. Eskild’s words ring in his ears.

That kid has been through too much already to add one more person fucking him over to his list.

Notes: sooo basically the idea behind this was to give Even one more reason to pull away other than “I don’t want mentally ill people in my life”. I think that that was just the last straw, but it was things like this that were just making him feel guilty.  I think I did Eskild justice!? Also I want to explore Even’s relationship with his mom more because that’s something I think about on a daily basis.