geometricalien · 1 year ago
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thinking about horrific akafuri >>> putting words together to describe horrific akafuri
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ceoofyearning · 5 months ago
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I only pray, don’t fall away from me
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Pairing: Azriel x Reader
Summary: The world feels like it’s falling apart around you, but Azriel finally comes home and helps you hold all the pieces together.
Tags/Warnings: Hurt and Comfort, depressive themes & thoughts, anxiety, nightmares, mentions of a minor character death (not the mc/reader) || please mind the tags.
Word Count: 3.5k
A/N: this week was though so here’s a bit of a hurt & comfort fic; hope your days are kind to you guys xoxo
Links: Fic Masterlist | My Art
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You’re so damn tired.
The last few weeks have been difficult, to say the least. The healing house has been filled to the brim with the wounded and sick. Altercations with Beron’s soldiers by the border have been increasing at an alarming rate, while countless spies from the continent have been winnowed in after being caught by Koschei’s contingent forces. You can’t even begin to imagine the state of the civilians that might’ve been caught in the crossfire. 
There is tension in the air with the threat of the inevitable war looming on the horizon. It doesn’t help that the winter chill, in all of its foreboding fury, has come to ravage the lands and its people. You love your work as a healer, you really do. Some days, the thought of the good you do, the people you help, is enough to keep you going. But too often, it feels like a thankless job that leaves you drained to the core. 
In your free time, you’ve been parsing through ancient texts in search of information on Death Gods and anything that could be used against Koschei. His looming threat is a cloud of dread that hangs over everyone, especially Rhys. The least you could do is to help carry the burden. It’s not like you could sleep, anyway. These days it is as though your mind adamantly refuses to let you rest. At the very least, the task keeps you distracted when you’re stuck alone in your apartment. 
Ever since Azriel had been sent to the continent for a reconnaissance mission nearly a month ago, the apartment you share has started to feel a little too big, too desolate. Before you knew it, the white walls had been transmuted from your home into what felt like the bars of a cage. 
The two of you haven't been apart for so long since the mating bond snapped. You didn’t think you'd feel his absence as acutely as you did, but it felt like the loss of a limb where the wound refused to heal and you were already bleeding out. His part of the bond is blacked out completely, a devouring void where Azriel’s comforting presence should have been. It’s for your own safety, he said. But you can’t help it. You’re plagued with worry, with imagined hurts and tragedies, amplifying the brewing conflict in your mind. 
It is easier to catch yourself when Azriel is near. When the thoughts begin to swirl like a hurricane around you - winds whipping, oceans rising - it feels like Azriel’s arms are the only safe harbor you can rely on. But Azriel isn’t here now. 
What frustrates you most is that you’ve been better recently. You’ve been good. You ate your meals, slept reasonably, even had a goddamned routine set up. You guzzled down your tonics in hopes of smoothing out the edges of your frayed mind, that perhaps it could lend you some semblance of normalcy. But no. Weeks of being haunted by nightmares, of overextending yourself, of loss and suffering seeping under your skin day by day have taken its toll. 
You are just too damn tired. 
A child died, barely over thirteen years old. She was bastard-born, which meant she had nothing to her name other than the rags on her back and her birthright to suffer generational oppression and cruelty. This is the worst winter the Night Court has had in centuries, and she didn’t even have a decent roof over her head. Needless to say, she hadn’t been in the best health. But despite that, the moment her cycle had come, the men forced her to go through the clipping. In her struggle, the imbeciles accidentally nicked a vital artery. Normally, her Illyrian healing would’ve granted her a strong chance for survival, but she had been so sick, her body weakened by hours spent in the frigid cold. 
By the time you had been summoned to heal her, she no longer had the strength to recover. Numbness washed over you at the image of her unseeing eyes, the same shade as Azriel’s in the right light, trained toward the vast empty sky. You have a feeling it isn’t a sight you’d forget any time soon. 
You don’t know how long it’s been. The room is shrouded with a thick blanket of darkness, the only respite coming from the dwindling candlelight by your bedside. Only silence exists within these four walls, interrupted by the occasional patter of water leaking from the kitchen sink. You burrow deeper into the sheets, inhaling the trace of Azriel’s scent that still lingered like it would somehow quell this ache inside you. 
Despite spending most of the day bedbound, you’ve barely had any sleep. There is no respite to be found in the dreaming, only nightmares lying in wait. It seems your mind has a knack of bringing your worst fears. Azriel bruised, bloodied and utterly alone, lost, somewhere in the vastness of the continent, hazel eyes - his, then hers, then his again - glazing over, crimson seeping into the arid ground below. 
For the last few weeks, you’ve gathered your grief and worry like rocks to wear around your neck. Your body is heavy, the phantom weight sinking and settling within the marrow of your bones, refusing to leave. It feels like you could stay in this bed forever until you dissipate into nothing but sand, smoke and thought.
You managed to send out a request for the texts Rhys needed translated, but not much else. You’re thankful he directly portalled them on your worktable because you don’t think you could brave the journey to the library today. You don’t think you could do much of anything today, in all honesty. 
So there you lay, bundled up in a collection of blankets, at least three inches of cotton and down that never seem enough to warm you. A book rests in your hands, yet your eyes remain unfocused, not truly seeing the words.
You run your thumb over the crisp paper, knowledge older than you, older than this city and yet you couldn't even bring yourself to focus long enough to dissect their true meaning. Your will is liquid in your hands, slipping through the cracks in between your fingers. Accidentally, you tug too hard on a page and it tears easily beneath your touch. If you had your wits about you, you would’ve been horrified by what you’ve just done. But as you are now, it is difficult to care. 
That’s what you feel like at this moment, you realize. These past few weeks have left you feeling spent, worn out, paper thin. Absently, you stretch out your hand towards the candlelight, close enough to feel the warmth lick against your cool skin. The flame casts a brilliant silhouette around your shadowed hand. It’s a wonder why golden light doesn’t seep right through. 
That’s how Azriel finds you.
The front door of your apartment creeks open, letting in a flood of muted morning light. Your first instinct is to retreat beneath the covers to shield yourself. Azriel calls your name in the silence, worry permeating each syllable. No doubt, he is cataloging the mess your shared space had become in your unintentional neglect. 
You say nothing, wondering if you could just close your eyes and pretend to be asleep, anything to escape his scrutiny. A breath of relief escapes him when he finds you in bed. The mattress dips beneath his weight as he sits beside you. 
The urge to curl tighter around yourself is strong. But he repeats your name and, as though he had cast a spell, you unspool before him, your muscles unwinding, one fiber at a time. 
“Can I touch you?” He asks, voice painfully soft.
“Okay,” you croak out from beneath the blankets. 
Azriel gradually draws the sheets away from your body, giving you ample time to protest if you’d like. Then, he rests his hand on your shoulder. Unbidden, a shiver runs down your spine, followed by a stuttered breath. You don’t realize how much you missed his touch until his textured hand begins its soothing path up and down your back, his heat sinking into your skin. 
Shame washes over you despite the bone-deep comfort you find upon his gentle ministrations. You don’t want him to see you this way. Azriel deserves better, the voices in your head insist. He deserves a mate whose mind does not devour itself at every given opportunity, a mate who does not quake beneath the weight of the world and the idea of their own immortal existence.
As though detecting your train of thought, his shadows leave their preferred perch on his shoulders to pool around you instead. Tendrils of darkness brush away the tears on your face, while some thread through your hair like a gentle breeze. 
On the other hand, Azriel urges you to rest your head on his lap. He begins to run his hand through your hair, uncaring of how greasy and tangled it has become. Eventually, his voice pierces the silence, injecting warmth into the distance between you. He hums a tune you do not recognize, but you can't help but cling to each winding note like a lifeline. Azriel has always had a beautiful voice - depthless, silken and soothing. It feels like a privilege to hear the song that he normally reserves for his shadows.
You must’ve been a pitiful sight to behold, and yet Azriel never looks at you like you are. He always treats you like something to cherish, something to love, like you’re someone he’s spent lifetimes desperately waiting for and you’ve been entirely worth the wait. A traitorous part of you feels like you’ll never deserve it, this love.
Azriel must sense the hurricane of emotions waging a one-sided war in your head, despite the mental shields you adamantly keep up. But he doesn’t tell you to stop, doesn’t brush off your worry with empty words and false promises. Instead, he simply says, “I love you.” 
He speaks it as though it is a fact like one would say that the sky is blue, and the grass is green, and the world would keep on turning in peteruity, orbiting the sun the same way you’ll continue to orbit around each other. His chapped lips ghost over your temple, murmuring your name like a plea, a prayer. 
“More than anything in this world,” he adds as he pulls you into his embrace. 
Your body is pliant for him, arms winding around his neck like that is where they’re meant to be. His arms wrap around your waist to hold you impossibly closer. Webbed wings stretch to curl around the two of you, creating a cocoon of darkness that keeps the rest of the world at bay. With your head resting on his chest, you could hear his heartbeat thudding in chorus with yours. 
“I love you too,” you reply after a long stretch of silence. “But sometimes I wish you could’ve had a better mate.” 
“There is no one better,” Azriel insists. “There is only you, my love; through light, through darkness, through whichever end. Only you.” And you feel the truth of his words as surely as the twinned beating of your hearts. Sometimes it’s hard to convince your traitorous mind that you could have this, that someone could love you so deeply despite having seen you at your worst. Azriel presses another kiss against your cheek, and despite yourself, you begin to believe his words.
You don’t know how long Azriel holds you like that, but it finally feels like a stretch of eternity you could bear.
“What can I do to help, love?” Azriel prompts, cupping your face in the cradle of his scarred palms - their texture, a familiar comfort. 
You turn over his question in your head for a few moments, savoring his scent, the sensation of his skin against your own. A part of you is tempted to ask him to lay beside you for the rest of the day, for a week, for an entire lifetime. You know Azriel would if you asked it of him. But beyond this room, the world continues its elliptical path around the sun and time still ticks on regardless of how disconnected you feel from your own reality. 
“A bath,” is all you manage to say.
Azriel nods, before reluctantly peeling himself from you. “Have you eaten?” 
“‘M not hungry,” you mumble as you sink back into the sheets, sighing as the comforter swallows you up. In truth, you can’t remember when your last meal had been. Hunger didn’t seem so pressing in the last few days.
“That’s not what I asked.” Azriel’s tone leaves no room for argument or negotiation. 
“No,” you finally answer, although with much trepidation. “Not yet.” 
He hums, clearly displeased, but says nothing else. You can already imagine the frown that must be stretching across his face. But it seems Azriel’s presence alone is enough to quieten your mind, at least for now. You must’ve been dead tired because it doesn’t take long for the rhythmic sound of Azriel's familiar footfalls to lull you into dreamless sleep.
"Love," Azriel whispers, his hand hovering over your shoulder, rousing you from your shallow slumber. You blink languidly until molten eyes come into focus. The candlelight flickers, and shadows dance across his face. Azriel’s normally sharp features are softened by the tenderness in his expression. You’ll never tire of waking to the sight of him. 
With a groan, you half-roll half-stumble out of bed. Azriel stays an arm’s length away in case you need him, but he’s careful not to crowd you. His shadows have no such reservations, however. The dark tendrils fretfully twine around your arms, making you smile. You thank them quietly, and for a moment, they seem to dance with delight. Regardless of your initial unsteadiness, you manage to pad all the way to the bathroom.
Upon crossing the threshold, the sweet scent of jasmine immediately overtakes your senses. The tub has already been filled up, steam rising from the sun-covered surface. You begin to unbutton your tunic, clumsy fingers tumbling through your first few attempts. Azriel steadies your hands with his firm grip, his shadows gently circling your wrists. 
“May I?” He asks, gesturing to your tunic, and you nod, not wanting to think anymore. His movements are precise, almost clinical, while he undoes the first five buttons, before bunching the garment in his hands and pulling it over your head entirely. Your skin breaks out in gooseflesh once exposed to the cold air. Azriel is careful to keep his gaze on your face, even as you step out of your undergarments. 
Azriel only betrays his composure when he traces your cheekbone, like he can’t quite help himself. From this distance, you have to crane your neck to look up at him. For a moment, the two of you only stare at each other. The bond glows bright between you, the golden thread gleaming as though it hadn't spent the last few weeks completely stretched thin. 
But then, Azriel withdraws, tilting his head to the steaming tub. Obediently, you step into the water’s warm embrace, the heat nearly stinging your skin. Logically, however, you know it’s only because you’ve allowed yourself to stay in the cold for too long. 
A relieved sigh escapes you as you sink further into the tub. One of his shadows rushes to pillow your heavy head as it rests on the tub’s rim. You thank the sweet little thing, and swirls of black sway back and forth like a dog wagging its tail. Meanwhile, Azriel takes his place by the head of the tub, sitting back on his heels. 
“I’d like to wash your hair,” he says and you're touched by the earnest quality his voice takes. 
“Okay,” you breathe. You’ve never been good at denying Azriel anything, nor did you want to. The more the ice beneath your skin thaws, the more you find that you want him near. 
Azriel begins by running his fingers through your hair, massaging your scalp as he pours warm water over your head. With a pop of a bottle, the floral scent of shampoo fills the air. He lathers the substance on your head, his touch tender even as his fingers work through the knots in the strands, untangling them with care. 
After a while, he rinses off the suds and coats his hands with oil. He begins combing his fingers through your hair, starting from the ends and working his way up. The rhythmic motion of his fingers is calming as he draws circles against your scalp. You find yourself melting into the moment, feeling utterly content for the first time in what feels like a very long time. 
Once done, Azriel grabs a small towel and asks, “Do you want help washing?”
You shake your head, wanting to do this for yourself, at least. Understanding flashes in his eyes, and he spares you a soft smile. With that, Azriel leaves the towel by the tub and politely excuses himself from the room. With the door left slightly ajar, you could still hear him move around the apartment followed by the lyrical clinking of silverware against ceramic.
It takes you a few minutes to gather the energy to lather yourself with soap, and a few more to finally rise from the bath. But once the grime is off your skin, you feel a bit of the weight wash off with it too. You feel a bit more like yourself.
After drying off, you tug on the silk robe Azriel has left for you, securing it loosely around your waist. Upon exiting, you spy him by the dining table, scooping a generous serving of soup into a bowl. The mouthwatering aroma of rich broth wafts through the room, and you realize just how hungry you are when your stomach growls in protest. You approach him from behind, making sure that each step is audible.
Azriel continues to set up the table, but you can tell he’s aware of your presence from the way his shoulders seem to relax. The sudden urge to have him close is palpable, an instinct so deeply ingrained into your being. So,  gradually, you wrap your arms around his waist, burying your face on his back. You take a deep inhale, breathing him in - a lungful of moontime mist and cedarwood smoke. 
“I’m glad you’re home,” you murmur against Azriel’s back, your voice muffled by his shirt. 
“I’m glad to be home,” he whispers. His hands abandon their task in favor of twining his fingers with your own. 
Azriel turns to face you and holds your face in his hands. Beneath the swathes of sunlight, his eyes are alight with golden flame, flecks of green scattered over his irises like an afterthought. There is nothing but love in his gaze, nothing but acceptance. 
“Thank you,” you say, tilting your head so the words could kiss his lips, not quite touching but close. “For being here, for loving me, for choosing me, everyday.” 
“I will always choose you,” he vows, before planting a kiss on your forehead.
“Today,” another peck on the tip of your nose; “Tomorrow,” one more on your cheek; “And all the days after,” he finishes with a chaste caress on your lips.
Then, he rests his forehead on yours, your bodies slotted against each other like a lock and its predestined key. In Azriel’s presence, you find it easier to breathe, easier to simply be. For the first time in a long time, your mind is clear and your heart beats in a calm, languid pace that matches his own.
“I’d like to kiss you,” you request, looking up at him from beneath your lashes. Azriel’s gaze is searching, scouring for any hint of anything short of absolute certainty. Perhaps you should tell him that in this world of constant change and chaos, he’s the only one you’re certain of.
Azriel must be satisfied with what he finds written across your features because he replies, “So kiss me then,” the ghost of a smirk playing across his lips.
You’re surprised to find that it’s easy to return the playful expression. Your rise to the tips of your toes while your fingers thread through his raven black hair. When your lips touch, it is as though the world breathes a sigh of relief. Reality realigns and everything outside the two of you and your shared breaths turns inconsequential. He moves against you with practiced ease, like the natural ebb and flow of the tide.
An eternity of this, you think, doesn’t seem so daunting after all. 
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AN: i’m not sure if that was too much but thank you for reading 💙 As always, i’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts
English isn’t my first language, so if you see any mistakes, please lmk thru dm! 💙
Also, I just wanted to yap about the Az fics im in the process of writing:
1. Vampire!Azriel x Reader (Working tittle: Ashes in my wake)
I just love the idea of cannibalism (or yk, blood drinking) as a metaphor for love in literature so here we are. ( @/annikin-im-panicin this is ur influence) This one is a bit of a dark fic (nothing too crazy tho, I think), so i’m not sure how it’ll be received. But the idea has been haunting me for yonks so I just had to write it.
2. Tattoo Artist!Azriel x Lucien’s Best Friend!Reader (Working tittle: Drink dry the river Lethe)
This one is a multichapter fic (maybe 4-7 chapters, we’ll see) so it might take me a while before I start posting, but i’ve mostly finished writing the first (very smutty) and second (very angsty) chapter. I ‘m not entirely sure what direction to bring this yet but maybe you guys can help me decide?
Unrelated to Az, but i’ve been brainworming a poly dark-ish innocent!reader x Feysand fic, and a slightly less dark and more sappy(?) poly warrior!reader x royal!nessian fic. I’m so excited to start these but my pile of wips is giving me the stink eye 😂
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luvrodite · 3 months ago
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lover, be good to me. jason todd [3.4k]
synopsis. in the third summer of your love, you get sick.
cw. gn!reader, sickfic, mental health issues, descriptions of weight fluctuation, angst, hurt/comfort. medication. this one is a bit heavy so please exercise discretion. written from the perspective of chronic illness but nothing is specified beyond discussion of mental health symptoms.
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There’s a ghost that lives in your home.
This thing lives between you and Jason, a haunting in every room, a presence you can’t not feel. You feel its baleful eyes on you in dreams and upon waking, strongest in the winter, when the East Coast chill sinks its teeth into your arms hard enough to reach bone. 
It goes like this: sometime in the third summer of your love, you get sick. There isn’t anything to point to what it is exactly, only that one June morning you don’t get out of bed. It’s nothing until it is, the next several weeks spent making a home in the four walls of your shared bedroom. 
A flip switches seemingly overnight, and you’re further from your lover than you’ve ever been. 
Jason - and the part of you that knows better, dormant now, buried beneath the rubble - watches in mute horror as you bring yourself to ruin. The desire to be good, the control you’ve held over yourself, slips free of your grasp in seconds. Invisible threads are picked at until you’re frayed at the ends and your beloved home, this reprieve the two of you had as good as built from the ground up, falls victim to it. 
You pick fights. You slam doors and hide in the bathroom for hours on end. You want to scream yourself hoarse, your fingers itching for violence, longing to shatter something if only to give life to this sickness that lives in you, as if by breaking, you’ll cast it out. The exorcism does not come, but a cloying feeling sits beneath your skin, strangling, blood sitting stagnant in your veins and rotting. 
There are moments of clarity, when you lift your head from the haze and the gravity of all you’ve done barrels into you like a freight train. Those do not last long, invisible hands pulling you back under before you can correct your course. It's as though you take the backseat, replaced by something entirely that takes the controls, watching in mute horror as you destroy everything around you.
Jason gives it back just as good but even then, even in the anger, there’s something else in his eyes. You catalogue it, feeling as though your very soul has split – it’s the you from before that weeps at this, reaching out for your lover in prostration, begging for forgiveness. The being that lives in you now, volatile, ever shifting like a burning flame, burns too bright to feel shame. He is there, and he loves you – enough to bear the brunt of your pain, apparently. Shards of shrapnel, your anger is explosive and shatters everything in its wake. It cares not for sentiment, for history and love. You hurt, and it is blinding. 
The doctor’s appointment is booked far later than it ought to be, after weeks of tumultuousness that have left a dour cover over your home, seeping through the cracks in the walls and into the surrounding apartments. Your neighbours must loathe you. You’re too detached, too selfish to care.
The night before is the most clear headed you’ve felt all month, haze lifting as if to show you – look what you’ve done, look at all you’ve wrought. The devastation floors you, the grief you’ve caused to the one you love most curdles your blood and you weep in Jason’s arms. Knelt before him, you press your wet face into his lap. 
I’ll be good. I promise, I’ll try to be better, I’m sorry. 
You can barely breathe through your tears, broken hearted, sure you must be dying. Has anyone ever felt such grief, you wonder, and the thought is immediately followed by a tidal wave of self loathing. Selfish, so focused on your own misgivings. This is no way to live.
He tells you he loves you and it feels like a kindness you don’t deserve. Too good a man for you, an exhaustion from the last month lines his features. The thought terrifies you, that you’ve veered too close to the precipice of forever splintering him, that under your hand he knows other, less gentle things. Yours has not been a peaceful love as of late, and you wonder if this will be the straw that breaks his back.
In the waiting room, his hand finds yours. A good man, one you do not deserve. He doesn’t let go. Not when your name is called, not when you tell your doctor what’s been happening.
You hope, foolish, desperate thing that you are, that they’ll offer a quick fix. It’s laughable, but the soft turn of the doctor’s gaze makes your stomach twist. So begins the year of doctor’s visits.
You become very familiar with waiting rooms, sterile rooms and the low buzz of the news channel playing on TVs, pale walls and water coolers, paper cups shredded in your lap. 
The first shrink you talk to is, at first, the answer to all your problems – Jason balks at it, in the beginning, and you hear him muttering to his brother on the phone but he doesn’t breathe a word of it to you. If it helps you, that’s all that matters. The man listens. He understands how hard things are and how your hurt is poisoning you. He makes the right noises and his cardigan lends him an air of sincerity, brown eyes framed by thick glasses that in the glare of the light feel kind, almost like kinship.
You’re desperate for a solution, even if it means taking the prescription pills that after about a week, leave you with hands that shake violently anytime you raise them, shedding too much weight, way too fast. The insomnia comes next, and then the pills that are meant to fix that. Orange, smaller than the nail on your little finger. The tremors do not go away, but in settles a new drowsiness, bringing with it vivid dreams that feel terrifyingly lifelike. You wake in a sheen of sweat to the already awake gaze of your boyfriend, eyes wide and wary, hands finding yours in the dark, whispering reassurances when you cry again. 
How many tears have you spent this year, and how many have you subjected him to?
His kindness feels like a balm over your jagged edges, and you shake your head when he first tentatively suggests that the medicine isn’t working. You’re determined to stick to your vow. You love him, you need to get better. You can’t keep living like this, can’t do the fits of rage, can’t do the mood changes. You can’t keep hurting the both of you.
Still, sleep evades you, a cruel thing dancing out of reach even when you’re told to double down on the dose. The dreams only worsen, virulent hues of fluorescent greens and red, blood and viscera on your hands. 
It feels like a condemnation when Jason mutters one night, after you’ve woken from yet another dream, body stiff with fright and reaching out for him, less hesitant now in the face of your tears, “This isn’t working.”
Bitterly, you find you can’t argue with him. Worse, you’ve shelled out a horrifying amount of money simply to vent to a yes-man. The pills are disposed of in the morning and another appointment scheduled.
Back in the waiting rooms, back to discussing other, not-shrink options, Jason’s hand finds yours once more. You watch the news, watch tired parents wrangle their sick children, watch the colourful plastic toys. 
“I hate this,” you whisper, leaning into his side. 
You’ve been unwell for a month and then some, by now. The waiting room feels like a taunt – you are sick, you are suffering. The sickness festering in you, the rot you can’t explain, makes you feel smaller than ever, frail in a way you haven’t known before. 
Before, you used to like that Jason was so much bigger than you, that he could protect you. This, though, he cannot save you from, a fact you’re sure frustrates him just as much as your weakness does you. There is the anger, of course, but there is also fear. What is to become of you now? Your life, through your failing health, has been torn from you. You feel robbed, feel a distinctly you-shaped loss in your frame that leaves you teetering on a precipice. How quickly things had taken a turn, and there was nothing you could do about it.
Jason sighs, turning to press his mouth against your hairline. “I know. I know, baby.”
You’re sent off with forms for another blood test. Maybe it’s something different, and there burns a beacon of hope. It is also entirely possible you’ll spend another six months on medication that doesn’t work. 
You don’t care for this. There is a hopelessness and vulnerability to feeling sick that you do not care for, catching sight of yourself in the bathroom mirror and doctor’s office scales and fluctuating weight – you begin to turn your head away from the numbers at this point like you're being stuck by a needle, meeting your lover’s eye while the doctor takes his notes and finding comfort in teal irises, in the small grin he gives you when you’ve done something he thinks to be brave. You don’t care for any of it, but you must. For him. 
He hasn’t breathed a word of contention to you – a good man – but you know it weighs on him. You’ve woken once or twice in the night to find him watching over you, something in his eyes like he fears you’ll slip away, a hand always in yours, or holding you close to him. 
Guilt, ever-cutting, roils in your stomach. The anger cedes these days to make way for it, and your eyes burn, shame becoming a familiar friend.
“I’ve put you through the wringer, haven’t I?” you whisper on one of these nights. He blinks, unaware you’ve woken, and it speaks to how tired he must be that he’d not noticed, too lost in his thoughts to feel your eyes on him.
He cradles your jaw tenderly with one hand, kissing your temple. “No more than I’ve worried you.”
It’s true that you’ve faced your own set of troubles with him. Still, it feels distinctly different – his anger had been the product of fear, a genuine terror at the thought of letting you get too close. There’s decay in you, one you aren’t sure has entirely left, despite your placidity these days. 
“I’m sorry.” You apologise and he narrows his eyes, but you reach for his hand, intertwining your fingers. “You’re a good man.”
“Don’t be stupid,” he grumbles. “Obviously I’m going to fuckin’ look after you.”
Do I deserve it? You think.
“Wish you’d let me do the same for you,” you whisper, instead. It’s a truth you’ve often spoken, but feels like a lie in this moment, a deflection of your feelings. Guilt, once more, settles on your tongue, cloying against your tastebuds.
He kisses you sweetly, and you wonder if he can taste it. Something in the slant of his lips tells you he knows. How could he not? Once, twice, he brushes his mouth over yours. Chaste, loving. “Just get better. Then, maybe. I’ll consider it.”
Your eyes burn, fear like the tide, washing in once more. “What if–” your breath hitches, a lump forming in your throat.
“What?” His voice is soft, encouraging.
“What if it isn’t–if I don’t–” you can’t make out the words. The pad of his fingers brush over your lips.
“You will,” Jason whispers, voice thick. His eyes are bright in the dark, you realise, horrifyingly, sapphires covered in a sheen of liquid. “You will, ‘cause you promised me. And I’m holding you to it.”
You hear it for what it is – I’m here. I’m here and I’m not letting go of you. Don’t let go of me.
He’s asked for so little. Good men are rare to find in Gotham and you’ve got the best of them. You reach up and clutch his wrist, hands turning until your fingers slot comfortably between each other. 
“Okay,” you tell him, and you know he knows. I’m going to get better. 
The diagnosis comes eventually. In your relief, there is also bitterness. Another step forward, it still feels entirely too late. It should have come before, you think. Before you’d taken a sledgehammer to your love, before you’d fractured yourself and Jason from the inside out, before you’d put scars where there had been none, invisible lacerations lining the walls of your chest.
The medication – pills, pills, always pills – is difficult to adjust to at first. It leaves you short of breath, and more anxious, reaching for Jason to ground you. You cry a lot and though it isn’t anything new, there’s a misery in Jason’s eyes that only makes you weep more. You want to be okay again. You want to smile at him without the weight of all you’ve done, without knowing you’ve made him cry when he thinks you’re asleep, tears bleeding silently into the space of the pillowcase above your head. You want to go back so bad it makes your hands shake.
You lie awake, staring at the ceiling. Jason, on his side, brushes a finger over the swell of your cheek.
“Can I say something.”
You hum, sliding your eyes over to him. He gives you a tentative smile - the barest quirk of his lips. 
“Maybe I’m being hopeful, I don’t know,” he mutters, eyes tracing the slope of your nose. “Tell me to shut up if I start talking too much.”
This bashfulness makes you laugh a little. It’s so much like before, and you ache for it. For a moment, you can pretend nothing bad has happened, that the two of you are just in love and home. 
(You wonder if you will always be reaching for before. If you’ll ever get it back, if you’ll always long for it. You wonder if Jason does too.)
“What?” you breathe out.
“Think the meds are working.”
Your breathing shallows and you blink at Jason. Hope is a fickle thing, and it feels tremulous, dancing just before your fingers, as if coaxing you to reach out. You trust him more than anyone in the world, but you’re scared to hope. “What?”
His knuckle brushes over your cheek. “You don’t look as tired.”
You avert your eyes. “Maybe I’m just sleeping better.” Tell me. I’m selfish, I know, but tell me I’m doing better. I need to hear it from you.
He shakes his head, and you quietly marvel at the bloom of pleasure in his face, a contentment you haven’t seen in months in the crease around his eyes. “It’s not that.”
The doctor confirms this when you go back a few weeks later and Jason, so like himself for a brief moment, meets your eyes over the man’s head and mouths, I told you. You bite back a grin, still wary, barely out of the woods. 
“You’ve gained weight,” the doctor says when he gets you on the scale, and he sounds so pleased the sound shoots straight through to your heart, flintstone striking a light, kindling hope for the first time in months. You look down to the numbers flashing back at you, to your lover – but he’s already watching you, eyes creased in silent pleasure. 
You are the last to accept this tentative beginning to peace, to healing, but he waits for you at the threshold, hand outstretched. 
There is no tangible evidence of the destruction you’ve wrought in your home but it lingers, even as you begin the slow crawl out of the woods. You see it in the lines of your lover’s face. There are corners of the room you cannot bear to look at for the first few months following your appointment, too reminiscent of words you’d bellowed in a rage induced haze, captive to your own body. 
This history is one too fresh, too tender to accept just yet, wounds still pink and raw. You cannot face yourself yet. There is too much to do, too much work to do, too much at stake to jeapordise if you slip and fall now.
But Jason is a good man. Much better than you think you deserve – but he’s said the same about you, so perhaps…just maybe…you think it might even out. 
He doesn’t shy away from the worst bits of you, the ugliness you’ve bared to him does not run him off, not like how you flinch from it. You made a promise. I’m holding you to it. He’s hard to shake off, but you don’t want him to. You’re thankful, even, for the dog teeth he’s sunken into your forearm, bound together in blood.
There is grief in beginning to heal. 
Perhaps heal is not the right word, and yet there is no other for this, overcoming the last few months feels like it ought to be called healing. But this is a forever thing. You will know this deficiency for the rest of your life, will know doctor’s appointments and bloodwork – strictly cautionary, we need to make sure the dose is right so we can adjust it accordingly. 
There is grief in finding your footing. It lingers, the horror of falling victim to a biological response – that your mind should so easily be lost, it feels indicative of something greater, a weakness you need to cut out at the root. Jason shakes his head when you voice this one night – you are only ever honest like this under the cover of darkness, sleep softened and gentle enough to be frank with him. 
“You’re not weak.” He says this with love in his voice, but a thread of steel weaves through his words. “Don’t fucking say that. You’re here. That counts for a fucking lot.”
He tugs you closer and you feel it again, that fear that grips his heart. Like you might dissolve in his arms in the middle of the night. 
“I feel better–than before,” you tell him, peering up at him, eyes burning. You press a hand to your heart. “But I still feel it. It’s still here.”
He presses his forehead against yours. “I know.”
And you suppose he would know. “Is it gonna be like this forever?”
He takes a moment to think, and you have to tuck yourself into his neck to hide your tears. Raw – this year has left you raw. You’ve spent a fountain of tears, but they’re yet to run out. You find solace in the hollow of his throat; if you could, you think you would attach yourself there permanently.
“Yes, but no.” You make a questioning noise and he smooths a hand down your back. “‘S gonna be different, now. Not always going to be bad, or good, just – different.”
“Different.” The word fits oddly in your mouth, and whether it’s the late hour or your grief, you can’t make sense of it. He shudders out a breath, weary, and you press closer.
“Yeah,” he whispers into your hair. 
“I just–” you swallow with some difficulty, a lump in your throat. What is there to say that you haven’t already? “I hate this.”
His lips twitch into a tired, sympathetic grin. “I know, baby.”
Silence follows his words, where you mull over all that there is to say, sorting through the jumble of words in your head. You shift until there’s a little room between the two of you, looking up at him.
“Hey.”
He hums, and you feel his hand raise from your back to cup the back of your neck, thumb sweeping over your nape gently. 
“I’m gonna –” your breath hitches, stumbling over the words. “I’m gonna be good, I’ll – I’ll be better. I promise.”
And he knows you’re not talking about your health. This is a forever thing, after all. Your words point to the hidden cracks in the walls, the foundation of your home and heart – I’ll be better. 
Tourmaline eyes crack open a little wider to look at you, tired, but hopeful. “I know, baby. We’ll be alright.”
Ah. Of course he knows. You grin tremulously up at him and press forward to smudge a kiss against his jaw, breathing your promise once more against his skin, hoping it takes root. 
Jason waits at the threshold of your new normal, arm outstretched, knowing you’d join him eventually. He’d known, of course he had – every inch of your soul was his. He holds his hand out. 
Out of the woods, you take it.
fin.
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this fic has been in my drafts since 2022 and it always felt too vulnerable to write and finish. like there needed to be a big ceremony about it. this fic is incredibly personal to me, and i always thought i had to be 'ready' to finally finish it, whatever 'ready' means. but it's a sunday night and the semester begins tomorrow, and i'm writing this in bed listening to whatever my spotify plays for me. i'm not sure if this will make sense to anyone but i hope it makes you feel something regardless.
this is a love letter to myself first and foremost, because i'm no longer afraid of reopening an old wound!! i carry her with me always and i love her and i'm taking care of her. i love her and i love you.
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yeyinde · 9 months ago
Text
fever in a shockwave
pt., iii | stagnant on my betterment
“I don't want to lose you,” he's saying, and it's odd because he never really had you to begin with.
WARNINGS: angst, pining, yearning; eventual smut; trauma; grief and the existentialism of moving on; recovery; poor/unhealthy coping methods; codependency; reference to drug use (but it's just weed); reader has a backstory; spoilers for the series
WORD COUNT: 14,7k
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an update; this isn't the final part lmao dangerous words coming from someone like me oops. there's probably going to be three more parts after this.
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There is no sense of closure when you watch the jagged pieces of a broken man fall to the floor by your feet. The splintered edges offer no succour, no victory, when they come to rest along the scattered ruins of a delusional love affair: alcohol bottles—Kraken, Captain Morgan—and grease-stained boxes of takeaway, most unfinished in favour of satiating yourselves on flesh, sex. 
(Booze, more often than not.)
Seeing him struggle to find meaning in what you say—watching that ethanol-soaked resignation filter through hazy, electric blue—brings a fresh pain instead, taking space in the hollow gaps where you expected vindication and self-worth to bleed through. 
You're doing the right thing, after all. Aren't you? 
Aren't you? (please, someone, anyone, say yes—)
Uncertainty is an uneasy, nauseating feeling inside your guts. Much like a broken bone, it emanates a visceral sense of perturbation through your body. Every synapse fires in protest; every nerve screaming out. They bellow one thing in unison: something is wrong and not quite right. 
You feel their cries deep in your being. Each muscle twitch and frayed thought that passes carries the echo of it. 
This pain, it seems, is cracking your ribs apart and exposing the rotting marrow to the open air. Slurping from the putrefying sludge, satiating itself on the sickness eroding you from within. 
It's all wrong. It feels wrong. 
Bear swallows. You watch the way his throat works around the bitterness that lashes across the cut of his brow; gyres darkening in his eyes. Storms on the horizon. 
(You think you'd welcome the squall. Might embrace anything to get out of this place—)
“That's what you want?” He rasps, thick and gritty, and you think about the last time he sounded like that—all torn up, and broken. Words mangled in his throat. Husked out when he told you about Rip, about the boy, his daughter, and—
No. No.
None of this is what you want, and it pains you that he can't see that. 
(Such a selfish, broken man.)
Inside the festering slurry of your marrow, an urge wells up. Bubbles in the putrid pools until it's frothing, raging against the walls keeping it trapped until it seeps through the cracks, leaking into your muscles, your tissue, your bloodstream. 
This silly little body of yours carries it up to your heart where it sinks talons into your pericardium, subsumes the serous in this terrible essence, this idea, this whim—
(“what?” the scoff he lets out trails on the coattails of what might have been a laugh in another life. if he was another man, maybe. you, more honest with yourself. but you are just two broken people in a run-down bar. humour exists somewhere in the muzzle of a loaded pistol. “got a saviour complex or something?”
or something. or something—)
Because the thing is: you do. 
You spend most weekends wandering around antique stores because you're convinced that everything deserves a home. A place of its own. You find the unwanted, the unsellable, and you let it take space in your lonely, cramped apartment. 
And why not? No one else will buy it. You're, technically, helping the environment. It's a win-win. 
(and more lies you tell yourself.)
These false promises are always made that one day, one of these days, you'll find something to do with it all—maybe you could learn how to make something out of it; stitch all the unuseable parts, the unwanted pieces, and create something that everyone will want—but so far, none of your rescues has ever been finished. Saved. They sit in a corner taking up space. Untouched. Unused. Collecting dust. 
That insidious whim curls inside of your heart, and whispers: 
it's never too late to try again. maybe this time, it'll work out for you—
It's the same one that lures you in, making you purchase a complete set of ugly-looking dolls because some ladies were recoiling at the sight of their lumpy, antediluvian faces, and you felt bad thinking that they were doomed to end up sitting on the shelf until they were unceremoniously tossed into the bin with all the other things that won't sell. 
And the one, now, that stares at the terse set to Bear's shoulders, the lines rucked across his broad, the helplessness etched into ashlar, and considers that maybe all he needs is someone. A friend, maybe. 
(And maybe, maybe, that it could be you—)
“Bear—” it would be so easy to swallow the words back down until you choke on them. 
You breathe in. Taste nicotine in your throat; the phantom burn of a memory from long ago: one once buried under the rubble of your crumbling foundations, now rearing into this yawning abyss as you waver on the precipice. This vacuum that syphons you dry. Leaves you empty, gaping. 
It’s your mum leaning over the railing of a mezzanine as she smokes a cigarette—the eighth in the last three hours, pack near gone—and tries (and fails; always, always, always) to find some temporal kinship with a higher power as you sit on the porch swing and drink in the scraps she tosses your way. 
(Today, it’s the way the smoke curls in the periwinkle sky like a naked gospel; grand televangelist to a crowd of one.)
She scrambles within the ruins of her own making to seek answers to compensate for the lack of worth that slips from the cracks. Left behind again. Again, but it’s not her fault. It’s never her fault. 
(You should know best, she tells you—you suckled from the shattered parts of herself before you broke away from the cradle of her arms. Genetics leaves you wrecked for company, for permanence.
It’s just not made for us, baby. We’re unloveable only because we love too much—)
An epiphany comes in the middle of her eighth cigarette, and she divines enough wisdom to come to the succinct conclusion that those broken pieces are not the cause of her misery. 
(How could they be when they’re a part of her and she’s a part of everything?)
Can't fix a broken man, she murmurs into the midmorning fog, blood-red mouth splitting into a sneer. There was beauty, you thought, to be found in the pale yellow of her teeth against the pastel dusting of dawn. Rapturous, almost. You couldn't look away even as the words snaked through the underdeveloped fibres of your mind. They're like someone who's drowning, you know? They'll grab on to anyone that gets too close and try to pull them under, too. Maybe because they want to save themselves, or maybe because they don't want to die alone. Better to leave them behind. 
Can't fix a broken man, (but maybe—)
Your dad tried to fix me, she adds, and it comes in the same cadence of an afterthought, blase; but the thinness in her voice, the reedy pitch of barely veiled urgency, all feigned indifference to the topic, all give her away. She's been waiting for this, you know. Gearing up in steady increments so that the blow lands harder when it's thrown. 
Isn't that stupid? And he couldn't even bother to stick around. What a joke… But I guess some people are like that, huh? Couldn't be me, she scoffed, jabbing her finger in your direction. You could see the yellow of her nails beneath the pock marks in her chopped, blue nail polish. And don't let it be you, either. The best thing you could ever do for yourself and someone else is leave. Don't cheat. Don't be the other woman. Just fucking—
The bubble bursts, and in that breaking, a truth is revealed to you in some strange, hangover-induced epiphany brought on by dehydration, malnutrition, and the terrific idea of going home with a man who has never once talked to you while being completely sober. It screams—first and foremost—you are an idiot, but beyond that, you really are your father's child, aren't you? 
Lost amid your memory, the emergence of a forgotten fallow, it’s Bear who shakes you awake when he reaches for you after the silence sat for too long. Fingers touching, too tender and too rough at the same time, and the juxtaposition makes you quiver as it ploughs disquiet into your being. 
Tears pebble in your lash line, threatening to spill over. You haven't cried in a long time and yet, yet—
His hand folds over your wrist, tight and unrelenting. Shackles against your bones. Grinding them into soft, fine powder. 
“C’mon,” he slurs, pleads; tugging you closer as if distance is what makes you say these things to him and not the heavy, overwhelming scent of alcohol wafting off of his numb tongue. “You don't know what you're saying right now—”
His fingers tighten. The midnight scabs on his knuckles tear from the strain, the stretch. Blood wells under the slit that lifts from his broken, battered skin. Pebbles like a tear-drop on the wrinkle of his bruised knuckle, and then sheds itself free. Running down the yellow mess of moulted flesh until it meets the cliff edge of where his palm rests against yours. 
“You don’t mean it. You can’t mean that. Stay with me, stay—”
The alcohol makes him sway where he sits, eyes upturned but focused inward, lost to thoughts and feelings and places unreachable to you. Ephemeral lines in jaded, blue sands. It slips, too, from between his fingers. Uncatchable to anyone but the flush under his skin, the slur in his words. 
Can’t fix a broken man. 
The motion dislodges the droplet and it waterfalls over his palm until his blood kisses the clean, unmarred skin of your hand. 
He doesn’t notice the way he bleeds on you (through you, in you; drowns you in it, in him—): outside of a thready determination built on drunk devotion, he doesn’t seem to see much at all. Clouded. Overcast. Those hazy eyes regard you with a thin, untouchable distance. Filmed over and too far gone for you to pull him back—
(and you can’t help but wonder if he even notices you or if, in those unending crevasses, an icy, broken bergschrunds, the misshapen silhouette of you strikes a different chord to him; if these slurred hymnals are just a hollow orison for someone else in your stead.)
—so you stop trying. Let it sit, let it rot. Smell the infection in the air as the wound splits apart. Gangrenous and beyond palliative help. 
Something must flicker across your face sharp enough to cut through the fog he drowns himself inside because his eyes widen slightly, and his hand tenses around your wrist. Tight. Unyielding. 
As his fingers dig in over your pisiform, deep enough to bruise—to mark you once more with his stain, his touch—you’re struck by the sudden thought of brittleness. It’s not something you’d ever considered yourself as—delicate, fragile—but with the way he holds you now, not at all dissimilar to the way he held on last night, fingers loosely wrapped around your wrist as he used your joints as a stress ball to calm himself down, you feel vulnerable. Swallowed whole, caught. 
What once felt like a comfort, a sense of security as you moulded yourself into an anchor point, a lighthouse on the sandy, dark shore, for him to find, to swim for amid the roaring waves dragging him down, now feels like dead weight. 
For the first time since you've met him, you taste chlorine in the back of your throat. Feel the pull of the currents dragging you down. 
You know all too well what it feels like to drown. 
You pull away. He clings tighter. 
“Bear, please—”
Please, you think. Please, please, please—
(If you keep stripping yourself bare, you'll be nothing but bones—)
He doesn't even notice. Nothing, it seems, will pull his fixed attention from every minuscule expression that flickers across your face as if the mere notion of weakness, of hesitancy, will give him reason to hold on just that much harder. 
“Can't just give up on this—” the words are tangled in his throat, caught on the end of a snarl, and vicious. He tugs on you, pulling you closer. “On us.”
“There's no us, Bear.” 
And it isn't a lie. Of course, it isn't. 
There's an empty chasm between you both, void of any tangible substance. Whatever he thinks this is, it can't work. Won't. Not in the real world. Not outside of the bottom of a bottle. 
You won't be his crutch. His bad habit. His midlife crisis amid a downward spiral. 
You can't be.
Won't be. 
(you will not be the other woman. you will not be your father's child.)
And it isn't remotely the same, you know. Bear's wife is—
Dead. Gone. 
—and yet, this whole situation still makes you feel like a homewrecker even though the home you demand he returns to is empty. 
Selfish, you think, but you can't even begin to know who you're referring to in this beautifully devastating moment. Bear, for chasing ghosts, drowning them in alcohol and bad choices and vices that end with bringing strange women back to his lonely hotel room just to feel more than the vicious bite of grief in his chest.
Or you, for pulling away from this drowning man because you're not strong enough to save him and yourself at the same time. 
(or—something sneers—you just hate the idea of being like either of your parents, but what can you do when you've stolen all of their bad parts for your own?) 
You think of the man in the bar. One hundred dollars to send him back home. Where he belongs. 
(...he can't destroy himself like this. You'd know that, though, as his friend.
send him home, alright?)
“Go home,” you say, harsh and severe. All the things that your mother wished she said to him. Regurgitated words spat out by his feet because borrowed doctrines are you've ever known. 
A fissure crackles across his expression, cutting through the fog. It's anger, bitterness, pain—some strange, fantastical amalgamation of the three—and it coalesces into broken defiance where it sits, clinging to the glossy grease around his brow, his nose. 
It makes your fingers itch with the urge to soothe—to unfurl the wrinkles in his brow, to tuck this grown man close to your chest until the tension in the thick set of his shoulders liquifies in your hands, and he melts into malleable putty. 
(Another trinket to collect dust on your mantle.)
You swallow it down—the salt and blood, and the pathetic pulse of your heart, and all. Hurt him, you think. Hurt him deeply. Deeper, still. Push him away and run. Run. Keep running until your legs give out, until your lungs collapse because if you don’t, if you don’t, you know you’ll stay with him until he throws you to wayside, until he wakes up one morning and decides that you are not enough compared to the big, wide world just outside his door; that your walls and your roof are not big enough for him—
“Please. Go home. Go home, Bear—”
Your words land like you knew they would, and he reels back for a moment, as if struck, but the anger, the twisted pain etched in the lines of his unkempt beard, his greasy brow, make stand firm. Unmoving. 
You catch the acrid scent of gasoline on his skin when he leans forward, forcing himself back into your space with his chin dipped low, eyes blazing with a defiant inferno. His scarred, battle-battered hands drop to his splayed knees, gripping tight. Holding firm. 
(Or holding himself back—)
His voice is a matchstick when he speaks. Smouldering embers sparking to life. Renewed with a sense of purpose you can't make sense of. What set him off? What made him flip—
(You're not worth it. You're not worth it—)
“M’not giving up on this.” 
His jaw is slack. Laxed. The words slip out slow, languid. Curling with a touch of humid derision, mordant humour, at the idea that after all of this, everything (nothing, you think—nothing, nothing, nothing), you could just walk away unscathed. 
If I burn, the crackle in his throat says, promises: then you're burning with me. 
“Bear—”
“I'm not giving up on us.” 
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He leaves, and takes another part of you with him. 
(You sever a part of yourself and leave it in the mouldering hotel room that still reeks of stale sweat, cheap whisky, and sex.)
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The aftermath goes like this: 
A tsunami of regret and indecision dredges up terrible, awful things—phantom memories and stains in the shape of fingerprints that pollute the inside of your psyche—ones that should have been left to rot at the bottom of your buried trenches. It makes leaving harder than it should have been considering the abrupt nature of this—whatever it is. 
(Untitled. Unnameable. Unknowable.)
There's betting on losing dogs, and then there's this: 
Pacing all your cards, all your coins, on one that wasn't even in the race. 
One foot in, one foot out doesn't apply when Bear has never even stepped over the threshold. That notion roots itself in the scorched fibres of your chest, knotweed in your alveoli, as you scent liquor on his breath when he speaks. A cavernous distance grows between want and reality. 
You thought you knew him. Learned and memorised all his hard lines, his soft valleys, the thick thatches of hair that dust his body like the dark depths of a riverbed; a nebula of loosely connected scar tissue—Orion's belt made of fine, silvery lines—and pock marks from blemishes and bumps born from the rich, enigmatic tapestry of his life beyond the mere sliver of you. Crows' feet in the corner of his eyes, but only when they're crested in pleasure, twisted in that tender sort of humour only comfort brings. 
It takes you a weekend to map out the burly topography of a man, and only seconds to realise you know nothing about him outside of this rapacious intimacy. 
And even though you want to feel like this was the right choice—because it is, it was—you can't seem to stem the sheer brutality in which regret tears through you as you stand alone in a desolate parking lot under the waning sun. A whimpering ending to a desolate beginning. 
Was it loneliness that brought you here, or just the mundanity of fearing failure? It's these unanswerable questions, these skewed thoughts, that tumble over themselves, struggling to stay buoyant in the molasses of your sicky grey matter. 
(Let them sink. Let them drown.)
These distant sentiments barely echo in the gaping vacuum of that is your mind. Untethered, whispering by as you stare, transfixed, at the broad strokes of pretty pastels in periwinkle, tangerine, and bluebonnet are rapidly consumed by the darkening sky that opens like a chasm above your head. The sight of it a little too close to the colours that danced in the aether when you both broke, finally, meeting somewhere in the middle, tangled webs. Broken people coming together in a cataclysm that was always, always, headed down a single path to devastation. 
(The perfect conclusion to a story without a beginning.)
It's something you shouldn't think about. Let them sink. Let them drown—
This looping, knotted thread is a dangerous one to follow—the agony of watching Bear storm off (even after asking, demanding, that you let him drive you home; an offer you quickly refused) is still raw and gaping; a pulsating wound in the back of your throat—but you're brittle enough to want it to hurt, maybe. Chasing that unequivocal high only self-flagellation brings. 
Masochism in failure. In heartbreak by your own design. 
And it should hurt, right? This lonely climax (not with a bang, but a fizzle) should devastate you. Cut you to the core. Leave false starts on your bones. Scars on your ribcage. A meteor shower in milky white. Something tangible. Permanent. 
But instead, it feels unfinished. More of a sudden paroxysm than a defining choice you've made. Concretely. Absolutely. It's a hollow win for your bruised ego. Your battered pride. It slinks, somewhere, in the depths of this renewed pain, and licks at the tender wound made when you pierced your chest and ripped your heart cleanout. 
Threw it at the floor by his feet. 
Quid pro quo, maybe. Or a desperate bid to rid yourself of the Bear-shaped hole now taking residence inside. 
(It's fine, though. That pesky thing, all wrapped up tight in thick layers of duct tape, has never really felt like it belonged to you, anyway—)
It's all such a beautifully horrific panoply, you find. Paradoxical. Oxymoronic. Smothering and somehow claustrophobic at the same time. Being burnt alive and dying from hypothermia. 
The cudgel of pain to your chest is white-hot and vicious, but there's a seismic polynya in the lavascape of sadness that drapes through the topography of your being like a sluice, and in that little island of ice sits the unrelenting sense of flat resignation. 
You left Bear of your own free will, but in the jaded fibres of your being, you know it was all—
Inevitable. 
And fuck—
(fuck, fuck, fuck—)
Was it? Was it all inexorable or are you just making up flimsy excuses for yourself? 
Yes, you think. And then: no. Maybe. Maybe. 
(you are your father's child—
and your mother's broken daughter.)
You want to cry, and scream, and break the pain against something willing to fight back, to cut you just as deeply as you hack at it, but all you have are fragmented memories swarming you in this vacant parking lot on the wrong side of Virginia Beach, and—
(don't let it in, don't—)
—you chase it, lure it all in as you compare the blue in the sleepy gloam to the colour of his eyes, and then—
Your back against a brick wall, his knuckles sticky with blood closing around the nape of your neck, pulling you closer. Closer. The wide expanse of his palm swallowing your wrist as he led you to his truck; then, heavy on your thigh the entire—ill-advised—drive to the Motel 6 down the road where you stand now, fragile, raw, and all alone. 
When this all started, when you finally had the cobbled remains of Bear’s lucidity in your arms, the flat press of his attention against your jugular, you considered it to be a victory—
(a victory in amber)
—but hindsight is a cruel, mocking laugh in the back of your head. Twisting the knife deeper, severing the fraying threads that anchor you to yourself. With a sadistic glee it tells you that while you might have won the battle over the bottle, you lost the war (—abysmally, and without even the haze of a fever in your veins to numb the hollowness of your loss). 
You just can’t fix a broken man, and you certainly can’t keep him afloat all on your own when you’re too busy trying not to drown yourself. 
It's just that the weight of your shared brokenness was incompatible and insurmountable to the grief in Bear’s heart, but really. You just wonder if it was inevitable that everything you offered would be passed over in favour of numbed indifference at the bottom of a bottle. For someone, something, else. And while you might have been the one to leave first, but somewhere in the misplaced hurt inside of your chest threatening to collapse in on itself, folding into a black hole that devours all of your messy, ugly parts, you know that Bear was never really there, anyway.
That thought stings more than it should because you know, you know—
It’s just not made for us, baby.
—and maybe it’s all your fault for forgetting that inevitability in the first place. 
(shame on me—)
The thread you warned yourself not to chase gets tangled around your throat, choking you with the very same line you should have stayed far away from. It feels like hollow cyclicity—a gluttonous ouroboros gorging on itself—when it all, eventually, leads back to the beginning. 
Your fault, again, for trusting broken guidelines in the dark. For betting on losing dogs. For picking up another stray who already had a home. Another trinket to gawk at that ended up being chock full of arsenic, killing you with every touch. 
But He's gone, now, despite the fire that raged in his eyes, he still left you here to burn on your own. 
(inevitable—)
You should learn when to let go, you suppose, and fight the urge to bite your nails down to the wick just to taste blood in your mouth that isn't his. 
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For the most part, though, you’re fine.
You’ve always been a good liar (“terrible, actually,” Bear snorts, and it’s the closest you’ve ever come to seeing him roll his eyes. “Jesus, never play poker if I'm not around—”), and especially to yourself, so after a moment of self-reflection in the form of a scalding bath and a purging cry in your car as you shoddily cut the Joe Graves-shaped cancer from your aching heart before it can metastasise and infect you further, you come out of it all standing, somehow. 
It might be the pastiche of indifference you slip into; a facsimile of the one, jaded and so bone achingly tired, that fell over you when you stumbled out of the bathroom, ready for something more only to find a man half-gone already to a bottle in the span of a few moments alone with his thoughts. 
Regardless of what it is, it works (—in shades, and only as long as you cling so tightly to anger that your fingers bleed and your joints ache—), and you let the familiarity of your unpractised trot to some gnarled finish line lead you forward.  
A clean break, you think (—hope: plead, bargain; wishing so hard on every eyelash that falls, every eleven you come across so that something, someone, listening might cradle the delicate splinters in their arms and nurse this whim, this want, into fruition), and you'll be fine. Fine. 
You have to be. 
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But the thing is this:
Despite your best efforts to put some sense of distance between you and the heartache that must be, at least a little bit, on par with being gutted, a clean break is never clean, is it?
Case in point—
Thinking about him makes you bleed, and you think about him constantly. 
(Regret, then, is a wellspring in which the pain drinks and you didn't know a body could thirst this much.)
And it's made even worse when you realise just how bullish a man like Joe Graves can be. 
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Maybe it's the thought of everything that had built up between you shattering into pieces that awakens this sense of urgency within him. Clinging, perhaps, to the only form of comfort he knows. The only one who toughed it out—in part, due to your employment obligation; the rest? an unresolved saviour complex when it comes to the people even a contrarian wouldn't place a bet on. Maybe. 
(Probably. Undoubtedly. 
You stopped trying to find the reason why you kept picking up the strays who always bite you in the end.) 
Whatever the reason, Bear is persistent. Relentless. 
He makes it Wednesday (you'd left him behind Sunday evening—day of the Sabbath, you learn; how fucking ironic) before his campaign starts. 
It's forty-six missed calls, half a dozen texts (because he doesn't like texting—he likes talking. Face to face. No fallacies, no bullshit), and thirty voicemails (twenty-seven of which are drunken ramblings you don't even bother to listen to, and the rest—
Pick up. We need to talk. 
Listen, I—
I fucked up. I fucked everything up—
Delete. Delete. Delete. 
What are you supposed to do with any of that, anyway?) 
The crux of the issue that Bear seems to miss swims in ethanol and leaves behind a five-minute voicemail filled with slurred I miss you's amid a background chorus of a rowdy bar. Then, a woman's voice—a woman who isn’t you—urging him back for more shots. 
You can imagine how the rest of that night unfolded. 
(You wonder if the word meant for you—I miss you—was still on his tongue when he followed her back.)
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It's your fault (again; always) in the end because while you don't answer him—neither text, nor call; all voicemails deleted—you can't bring yourself to block him, either. 
You let it sit somewhere in the murky middle. Untouched but looked at. Longed for. 
It would be so easy to just give in. To let Bear back into your life—properly this time, maybe—and to take him up on those slurred promises made at two in the morning about coffee shops on the boardwalk, and breakfast at the Gulfstream, and movies and dinner, and talking until three in the morning, fucking in the back seat of his pick-up truck—
But that's the thing about yearning, isn't it?
Everything seems sweeter when you want it bad enough. 
So, you drown yourself in him. Stand as close to the fire as you can without burning alive.
Dousing yourself in the scent of ethanol cleaner. Clinging to broken pinky promises. Thinking about peanut butter and bacon staining your fingers. Prying information from rotting timber, and keeping the saprophyte that falls off the wood in your pocket for safekeeping. Filling space on a drumroll because you talk too much, anyone ever tell you that? 
(ad infinitum.)
Taping the ugliest bible verses to the back of your eyelids just to get closer, to feel closer, only to come to the realisation that you have no stake in religion to care about the deeper meaning behind it all. Metaphors and imagery are hollow when they mean nothing at all. 
There's no comfort, no succour, to be found in the thin pages. 
(You roll them up and smoke them instead. Easier to digest that way, you find.
Bear would probably hate it, and that alone balms the hurt some. Marginally, infinitesimally, because nothing can cauterise this gaping hole in your chest so you might as well fill it up with paper mache instead. Origami cranes with how much you hate him miss him need him want him written on the inside.)
You ache. Moulder. But you let it all rot inside of you until it's a congealed mess of putrefying memories and the moulted remains of the yearning you kept locked in shackles; the one that keeps biting, gnawing at the limbs of its cage to free. 
It's easier to let it all decay together in a controlled space so that you can bisect the necrosed mass in a single go. Sever the limb to save the body. It's a mantra you repeat as you call in sick to work over and over again. 
The flu, you say, and if the sniffle you give is from crying, and the cough from the weed you've been smoking all morning (blue dream, the shaggy-haired kid tells you with a nod; adds: the good shit), well. No one—especially your shitty boss and his shitty work ethic—has to know. You balm the hurt in a way that makes you feel good, smoothing it all over with trashy reality television (though, the Japanese dating show you end up dozing off to is pretty good, admittedly), and junk food. 
Moving on—even some sad, pathetic facsimile of it—helps. Routines forged in wilful avoidance take the edge off of the livewires inside of your body, nerves overstimulated and burning up with a fever much too hot, too vicious, for you to palliate with home remedies. 
And so, you throw yourself into it. Become a human battering ram against the ghosts in your head. 
Things quickly become more of a coping mechanism than a potential, but that's fine. It's all fine. It'll work in the long run until the bruises that line your flesh fade along with the want and the hope, and the terrible memories, too. 
(Terrible, in the way only a desperate, all-consuming one-sided love can be.)
All of it up in flames, in smoke. 
You burn through an ounce in retaliation while watching his name flicker across your screen, and then spend an hour googling whether or not weed is really addictive (it isn't, but the routine, the habit, can be), before deciding that this whole affair is stupid, anyway. 
It's a carousel of self-pity, spite, and masochism that feels like it might never end. Your efforts to palliate the sickness amount to a week of paid sick time spent watching a slew of old romantic dramas on repeat, and ignoring the string of texts that pour through (talk to me, let me fix this, let me—). All voicemails are immediately deleted before you can even hear the hitch in his voice. 
It's duct tape over a gaping wound. Drifting aimlessly along Lethe, careless and indifferent, but all the while, desperately reaching down and cupping water into your palm for a sip that never seems to quench the thirst in the back of your throat.
You think you could drink until you're just standing in a dry riverbed and still feel parched. Effloresced by your own hand. 
(as usual. as always—)
But this wound is still raw, still tender, even beneath the tape. 
Ignore it. Ignore it—
(—before the edges begin to tear. Cloved down the middle.)
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Another buffer is born when you get a text message from your boss—u comin in tmrrw?—and realise you can't avoid it, work, forever. 
The prospect of going back on Friday evening—tomorrow, you suppose (the days have been slipping like molasses through your spread fingers)—makes you nervous. 
You're not ready to see Bear. 
But more than that (deeper than it, too), you’re not ready to see Bear unaffected by all of this. Sitting in his usual spot, in their chair he barely fits in, ordering the same drink over and over and over again. 
Moving on, too—in his own way. Meeting someone else.
(His horoscope holds no punches when it tells you a past relationship may re-enter your life, which may open your eyes to a world of new experiences—)
It isn't as if he usually pairs celibacy with his whisky, and with the plethora of ignored messages (read receipt turned off), unanswered phone calls, and deleted voicemails, you know it's inevitable for him to give up. To get the hint—whatever that might be. Move on, maybe? 
(get your shit together and chase this properly, Bear, jesus christ—)
You consider calling in again, but without any paid sick days left at your disposal, you know you can't afford to. So, you swallow it. 
(And if it takes a little longer than usual to get ready for work, then so be it.) 
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Even with all of the false bravado you can scrape together come Friday, your nerves are frayed. Raw. The anxiety rolls off of you in waves, noticeable enough that even the regulars loitering outside (the ones who usually try and bum smokes off of any passersby, yourself included) offer you a cigarette. 
(Politely turned down, but fuck—fuck—you wish you took it.)
The first hour into your shift is spent trying to pretend you're not aware of the way your roaming eyes skirt to the door in thirty-second intervals. Traitors. Or the involuntary flinch each time the door opens. 
It would be easier to get lost in the familiarity of this desolate dive bar on the fringes of town, and so, you do. 
(Try to, anyway.)
Immersing yourself in the routine of it all—the motions of pouring drinks, sizing the newcomers up (profiling their personage down to a drink and a random idiosyncrasy); the astringent scent of alcohol, the mild barley and hops; the noise of hushed conversations lulling between the static rumble of the television (sports, per usual). 
The clock ticks down the seconds, the minutes, hours. You pour drinks. Clock the local gossip. Listen to the patter of condensation dripping into the tin bucket beneath the hole in the roof. In between the threadbare stirrings of routine, you find yourself waiting with dread gnawing at your insides until they're shredded and raw, pulsing ligaments burning with the fever of infection. 
But it's moot. All of it. 
He doesn't come back to the bar. 
Where you expect to see his broad shoulders slouched over the counter, head hanging low over his steady accumulation of shot glasses (a drinking challenge with only one participant; his demons the spectators), the seat he usually occupies remains empty. 
And maybe you're idealistic and stupid and wet behind the ears, but a part of you expected him to. To wander up to the counter with roses and chocolate and sobriety etched into the Neptune blue glow of his eyes, and to pick you, to choose you, but—
A fairytale. 
The box on the counter—complaints—$5—is picked up by some wayward frat boy, and the mocking laughter that follows makes you think of cobalt blue, and peanut butter and bacon burgers in the empty parking lot near the beach, watching the endless midnight black ocean rock against the sandy shore. Talking. Talking. Talking. 
Everything. Nothing. All the things in between. 
You told him about college—failed the first semester, and then my dad… well. Anyway, had to drop out for a bit. But. I went back. Stupid, I know, and it doesn't matter but—
His hand falls on your arm, fingers a little greasy from the sweet potato fries, the ones he kept sneaking from your pile when he thinks you aren't looking, and he says:
It matters to you. 
And it did, but only because it was something your dad mentioned a long time ago—I'd be proud if you followed in my footsteps—and despite everything he'd ever done, his attention, his affection, was all you'd ever wanted. 
Yeah, you'd said, and stared out at the vat of blue until your eyes burned. Yeah, I guess so. 
Well, he had peanut butter staining the corner of his mouth when you blinked the sting from your eyes, and turned to him. What do you wanna do?
Nothing. Everything. 
Your dad once picked you up from practice, hands tight around the steering wheel. He filled you in about his day (stupid fuckin' guy from upstate came down and bought all the houses we were fixing to sell), complained about your mother (god, you know, that woman didn't even tell me what school to pick you up from? Said I should know where my daughter goes to school, as if I'm not working all damn day to keep you fed, and—), and gave you the biggest piece of advice you'd ever get:
"Look, no job is better than real estate. All that crap you think you want to do? Not important. All you need is four walls and a roof, and that's it. The rest is secondary."
(If that was true, why weren't you enough for him? Why weren't your four walls and roof enough to keep him?)
A shrug. I don't know. I've never been good at anything. You think of bruised knees. Scraped skin. Chasing a car, a dream, that never once slowed down. Can't even run right, it seems. 
I can teach you. He clears his throat when you look at him, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand twice but somehow misses the dollop of peanut butter tangled in his beard. M’used to training men, I'm sure I can whip you into shape. Teach you how to run. Put you through the wringer until you come out sprinting on the other side. 
"Teach me how to swim instead." 
The bark of laughter he let out was cut off when you held your pinky up. 
His brows bounced, incredulous. "Really?"
"A Taurus always keeps their promise." 
"Christ's sake," he shakes his head, and you count the lines on his forehead when he turns, and rubs his fingers against his temple so hard, you wonder if he's trying to chisel through his skull to get at where it hurts the most. "I might not even be a Taurus."
"When were you born?" 
His tongue pokes out from between his teeth, chin dropping to his chest when he huffs. You watch the way his shoulders shake, the flesh softening around his neck when he dips it low, and wonder if this is what it was like to yearn. 
His eyes spark, Neptune blue, when he looks up. He says nothing, but holds his pinky up to yours, the digit swallowing yours whole. 
It's a promise. He squeezes your hand in three pulses. One. Two. Three. You think you might get lost in the canyons that keep dividing inside of his eyes. 
"Bet you were born in April." 
"Not even close." He grins, all teeth, and drops your hand. Motions to the fries spilling over your console with his chin. "Finish up."
"Oh, did you even leave any for me? Thought you ate them all."
"Watch it."
Your stomach churns at thoughts, the memories. Plagued by him, it seems. So tantalisingly out of reach, and yet—your phone vibrates in your pocket; another voicemail left for you to listen to in your car and pretend that this whole thing is fine—so close. 
He's everywhere, it seems. The scent of this place makes you think of him, and the stench of sickness—
Every square inch brings back some reminder of him. 
When he got too trashed the first few visits and stumbled into the washroom. His bulk falls into the cheap door frame, and sends the ugly photo of what might have been the boardwalk crashing the floor. His call of: take it outta my tab when it shattered into pieces. 
(You didn't. You hated that picture, anyway.)
When he knocked over his shot of tequila when you told him you thought he'd look really handsome in a beanie—a touch too bold, high off of the ethanol that leaked from his pores—and the rubescent smear over the bridge of his nose that followed. The ruddy stain on the counter—nail polish, you think, from that time a group of bridesmaids stumbled in after a wedding on the beach, and used the washroom to freshen up—matches the shade of his blush. 
You spend an hour before closing scrubbing the counter down until your fingers are cracked and dry and burning from the chemicals you douse on the cheap, aged wood. It doesn't come out. Nothing you do will ever make the table unsticky. It's too far gone. 
Like him. Like—
"Whisky," a man barks, slapping a dollar bill down on the stain. "Two shots." 
Four walls and a roof, right? Right. Right. Right. 
The walls here bleed condensation from the humidity outside, and the roof leaks when it rains. Always. It's patched up with duct tape and pipe dreams. 
(Like you—)
The box on the counter catches his attention, rheumy eyes skimming the words. He scoffs. "Funny. Make me a drink worth a tip, and maybe I'll—"
"You know what?" You snap, throwing the wet cloth down with a splat that sends droplets pelting across his abdomen. There's a vindictiveness in seeing the splatter on his smooth, unwrinkled shirt. 
Your eyes sting from the bleach, the lemon cleaner. Pebbled tears in your lash line threaten to spill over, but you swallow it all down. You won't cry. Not now. Not anymore. 
Your hands twitch, an aborted motion to scour the wetness from your lashes, but you stop it in time. Curl your fingers into fists instead. 
(And stupidly, nonsensically, you have the sudden, passing regret over washing your hands of the blood he'd spilled on your skin.)
"I don't work here."
"Since when?"
"Now. Get your own whisky, and take your shitty tip, and shove it up your ass—"
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Quitting your only source of income certainly isn't the wisest decision you've ever made—but you've never been wont to make good ones, anyway, and so, you think it's all perfectly fine, considering. 
Considering. 
If anything, it's better than waiting around for the inevitable collapse of this shaky, patchwork foundation of paper-mache you cobbled together (reinforced with pipe dreams) to come crumbling down around you when Bear wandered in.
(If he ever would—
Fuck. You hope he does. Hope he doesn't. 
Get better. Come back—)
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You sit in your car at the end of your shift—the very last one after several odd years of growing roots down into the worn floorboards, and keeping more secrets about the occupants in this town than you care to admit—and just—
Breathe. 
Sort of. 
It's twisted in a way that makes you entirely too aware of what everyone would think if they knew about it. So, you cup this little secret between the palms of your hands, and cradle it to your chest, only exposing it to the outside world when things become too much. It's easier to say you count to ten—in, out, in, out—than to admit that your methods of self-soothing, of quelling the visceral sense of anxiety from pinballing around inside your guts like a marble, is to lean back, close your eyes, and pretend that you're back in the deep end of the swimming at the local chapter of a YMCA. 
Drowning, of course. 
Or some fictive version of it. 
It comes to life in smeared yellow against hazy blue. A cacophony of muted sounds in the background—exultant shrieks of children, splashes in the distance, the low chatter of garbled conversation—is all you can hear in your underwater sanctuary, but only just. Noise is distorted and strange. A warbled mimicry of noise. 
Your world is pressed into a cerulean marble, untouchable and inescapable. You linger in the centre, floating aimlessly in stagnation. 
Down here, nothing matters. Everything is dissolved in the heavy chlorine that saturates the cold waters, and whatever resilient pieces remain sink low to the pool floor, scattered around the yellow goggles just within arm's reach. 
You sink with them. Your thoughts become liquid; mercury slinking around your head. Intangible. Nonsensical. And above all else—silent. 
Or they're supposed to be. 
But even down here where nothing can touch you, where no one noticed you haven't surfaced in ages, your thoughts are carried by the lulling currents. Saved from your murky grey matter, from the sap that traps them in the mouth of a pitcher plant, they buoy to the surface, unmoored now. Free to scream at you in whispers. 
You think of Bear.
Or rather, you think about not thinking about Bear. 
About other things. And nothing—forced white noise. Static. What you're going to do now that you don't have a job. The scabs on his bloodied knuckles. No. Work, maybe. Finishing up that degree you promised yourself you'd get, if only to fill some absent void in your chest—or a futile obligation to a man who forgot your birthdays. Who spelled your name wrong on holiday cards—on the rare occasions he ever bothered to send them. 
Other things. Other things—your faucet is leaking. You'll need to call the property manager to fix it. You need to get gas, too. Groceries. 
Faintly, you catch the musk of his cologne still clinging to your passenger seat when you breathe in. Hold it, count to ten. It makes you remember the warmth of his humid breath on your cheek when he leaned in close, tapping your console as he pointed out your CHECK ENGINE light was on. Had been, you confessed sheepishly, for a few weeks up to that point. 
Stupid pothole, you grumbled around the electricity running down your spine when his arm brushed yours as he leaned back with a derisive snort. 
You caught the headiness of white oak, musk, when he turned his face to you, decidedly unamused by your answer, and flatly told you that you were driving around in a death trap. 
Things not even on its last leg—it's in the damn grave. 
Whatever, you shrugged. I'll just hit another pothole on the way home and it'll turn off. 
Jesus Christ—
He didn't smell terrible. Faded cologne from a few days ago. Something woodsy. Cedar, maybe. Leather, smoke, pine. Sweat from the unrelenting humidity. Loam clinging to his skin. Spiced rum around his collar when he spilled his drink down his chin (you, eagerly, hungrily watching the amber droplet roll down the length of his neck—). He always seems to smell like he had been working in a thick, taiga forest in the dead of winter. Cindersap. Evergreen. Sweat-soaked leather. Chopped wood. 
It congeals in your senses. Glueing to soft tissue, embedding itself in your skin. Permanent, unshakeable. 
Unwashed sheets shouldn't be appealing. Motel shampoo. Cheap soap. The muted smell of old, stale cigarettes. 
And yet, in this marbleised world, you think of it. 
Of his skin, and the way it feels against yours. The slight sheen of grease along his nose when it nudges the soft slope of your neck. The rough drag of his beard over your pulse. Wry curls that end up on your tongue after he'd kiss you. 
Any plans on shaving?
He dragged his cheek over your collarbones, eyes lidded, heavy. None at all. That a deal breaker?
You hold your breath until your lungs start to quiver, to ache; until you're dangling precariously on the verge of hypoxia with ink blots splashing across your vision in a garish Rorschach (they're all butterflies. with knives. what does that say about me, doc?). Phosphenes scatter in a nebula of colour. Your throat constricts around nothing, empty. Empty. The urge to swallow follows on the coattails of a pitifully fleeting euphoria. Temporal and untouchable, but you still reach out, grabbing and grasping with straining fingers because you'll hate yourself forever if you don't try. Scrambling, desperately, to catch cosmic dust on the tips of your fingers. To imbue your disjointed cracks with the chemical makeup of a Magellanic cloud until your broken parts burn incandescent. Kintsugi in cuts, scraps, of Andromeda. 
But for as much as you want to shatter your lungs into infinitesimal pieces, and scatter them across the universe, your body has a failsafe against stupidity. 
It forces you to gasp, gulping down thin, crisp air until you feel the burn in your chest from overexertion. 
You open your eyes, and wish the world around you was still draped in teal and hazy yellow. That you could taste chlorine in the back of your throat. It's a brutal awakening to find a gossamer of silken midnight draped over the parking lot in the back of the dive bar. Empty, barren, save for yourself and the chef. A man you guess you'll never see again. 
Soft, crushed ochre smears a hazy ring in the east. The dawning sun of a new day. 
Leaning against the old leather of your car, your eyes cut to the console briefly. The CHECK ENGINE light is off. You made Bear groan, out loud, when you hit a pothole on the freeway and it flicked off, like you knew it was. Problem solved. More duct tape over what is probably something wrong with your engine (probably dented the filter in your catalytic converter, Bear grumbled, and you nodded along, pretending like you knew what that meant). 
A light catches your eye. Your phone buzzes on the dashboard, screen illuminated in the reflective surface of your window. 
You could pretend you were getting a call from RAEB if you tried hard enough. Answered it, maybe, and feigned ignorance while you chatted away to him like nothing happened. Like you sometimes don't try to drown yourself on land. 
You reach for it, fingers tingling at the last vibrations before the screen cuts out, and bring it close. 
It takes a second, but the voicemail icon pops up in the notification bar beside a text from your friend sent hours earlier begging you to come out next weekend (haven't seen you in forever okay?? come out w us!!). 
You don't know why he keeps trying. Why he's so persistent over something that is, quite decidedly, nothing. 
The icon taunts you. You hate seeing it—always have. It can't be swiped away. Can't be hidden. It irks you somewhat, seeing this little symbol. 
Make it go away—
You shouldn't. Not when your insides are this raw, this fractured. Broken. But you turn your phone over in your hands for a moment, mood mulish and itching for something. A fight, maybe. Something to be angry about, justifiably. To vent your frustrations. 
You tap it before you really think things through, watching as it dials VOICEMAIL and the automated message pops up after a ring. 
Please enter your password—
You have one new message. To play your messages, press one—
It starts shaky—like he's moving. You can hear the shuffle of his body, the rasp of his shirt. A door slams. He huffs. 
Look, uh. I'm not… I'm not good at this kind of thing. I was hoping—hoping we could talk… but. I guess I, uh. Anyway—
It goes quiet. You reach up to hit SEVEN on the keypad, delete the message like all the others, but a noise stops you. The screen hums under your finger. 
I've been thinking lately. About a lot of things. The team, myself. You. I made—some bad calls. Got some good men…uh, into some trouble. The kind of trouble you… don't walk away from. 
It made me think about Rip. I told you about him, right? In the—the motel. Rip is—Rip was… important to me. To us. Saved my life. In Iraq. Mosul. Bullet nearly hit me but somehow, he pulled me back just in time, took the bullet instead. Right in his stomach. And you know, he, uh—he huffs. It sounds like a laugh, but one he's choking on. He got right back up and took the bastard out. Just—wasted him. I owe him my life. Always have. It's muffled, as if he has his hand pressed to his mouth, keeping the words in. Should have saved him, but I couldn't. Couldn't do a damn thing to help him. I let him get that bad and I knew. I fucking—I knew. I saw it. Watched him spiral. And now—shit. Now I'm—uh, talking to your voicemail at four in the morning—
You think you catch what am I doing before the line cuts out. 
Fog settles in the midmorning dawn. You lean against the headrest, clutching your phone, and try not to think at all. 
(wash, rinse, repeat)
The hole in your chest, filled in with clay and papier-mache, crumbles under the seaspray.
What am I doing. It stays with you. 
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These flimsy excuses become a house of cards. 
It doesn't surprise you much at all when they wobble, falling on top of you.
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It's his name flashing across your screen—just Bear—as you lay in bed days later, pretending not to think about him that starts it all.
(again, again, again)
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This is all a cruel sort of timing, you think, and feel the harsh thud of your heart so strongly against your rib cage that you wonder if the silly thing might break through them yet. 
You shouldn't answer. Know, without any hint of uncertainty, that Bear has the potential to pull you back in—fish to a pretty, glimmering lure—and that the moment you acquiesce to one thing, others will immediately follow in rapid succession, much too quick for you to keep up with. 
There will be no stopping the deluge once it breaks. 
And yet—
What did you expect?
The words thrown back into your face echo in the small of your flat as the walls around you wobble, teetering on the edge of collapse. 
Like most things when it comes to him. 
After the second buzz, one that sends a thrill through your spine that you refuse to give attention to, you hesitantly press your finger against the green answer key and slowly bring the phone up to your face, inches away from your nose, before stopping. Abruptly. 
You can handle Bear at a distance, you think, and so, deciding better than to have him murmur directly into your ear, you quickly tap the speaker button, and stammer out a muzzy greeting. 
“...Bear?” 
There's a sharp inhale that threads through the speaker, and you know, all at once, that he hadn't expected you to pick up. Was, instead, ready to meet and reluctantly embrace the cool, blithe distance of your voicemail. 
“You answered,” he hedges, and you wonder if the wariness in his tone means anything deeper. “I didn't think you would.”
Despite his honesty, there are shades of derision tainting the gruff timbre. 
“I wasn't going to,” you volley back, matching the fickleness of his misplaced scorn with your own. 
“Then why did you?” 
“You know why,” you admit quietly. 
No one is around to see your boundaries crumble. To watch as the cards you kept so close to your chest dip once, quick enough for him to glimpse them, to see what is tucked in the palm of your hand. 
In that loneliness, you find a sense of freedom that you had been missing. One tinged in the bitter coat of nostalgia. 
It feels too much like those nights spent arguing about the meaning behind the perfect pour (and why yours would always be trash), and showing him abysmal creations on Instagram in a thinly veiled attempt to make him see that you weren't, objectively, the worst at it. 
Back when you held the patchwork remains of your bruised, duct tape heart out over the countertop that never seemed to ever be clean as an offering to a man who bluntly looked down into the nozzle of his bottle instead. 
He huffs a little, then. Put-off, maybe, by the distance you pitch when giving in is always just within reach. “I don't see the problem.” 
“Well, yeah…” you mutter, shuffling in bed to get comfortable. You drag your knee to your chest, as the other stretches out in the sheets, and lazily wrap your arm around your shin, fingers digging into your flesh. Bruising, biting. It centres you, this fleeting pain. “You wouldn't, but I'll have you know—”
It's comfortable. The thought is a battering ram, one that hits hard, vicious, and dredges up the realisation of just how much you missed this. And just how easy this all is with him, even know when your heart is in tatters and you can hear the slur in his words (though, that might be his usual mumble—the man is hard to understand on a sober day, what with his penchant to grit words out between his teeth, as if he needs to tear them to shreds, to chew on them, before forcing them out), the normalcy in all of this, or as normal as this abnormal situation can get, is a bludgeon to your resolve. 
“...what, huh? What'll you have me know?”
You'll get suckered back in again, but this time, all the way to the event horizon. Inescapable. 
“You know, Bear.”
It's flimsy when he huffs, and sounds too much like relief when he growls: “Then why fight it?”
“I don't want to talk about this right now.”
The line goes still, but you catch the hitch in his throat all the same. “We should. I can fix this. We can fix this. You can't just decide—”
You can, you think, and drop your forehead to your knee, letting the phone slide down the valley of thigh and stomach where it comes to rest on the clothed crease of your hip bone. A prison. Your body is the cage. 
Not being able to see him gives you some sense of power back, and you reach for it. Needing to wield something decisive and distant before the rough timbre of his voice, his desperation, scoured your resolve into thin powder. 
“ Just give up, Bear. It's over. There's nothing to fix because there was nothing there to begin with.”
“Nothing there, huh? Is that what you think?”
Overtaking the bitter resignation is anger. A bone-deep fury that simmers to the surface, dredged up from the bottom of the bottle you thought you lost him to. You can hear it in the sharp breath he takes, the little growl he lets out. 
“Fuck that,” his viciousness stabs into your defences like a battering ram. Unrelenting, dizzying. You make to step back, but he fights you on it. Keeping you close. Blazing anger so hot, it nearly burns you. “You waltz into my life, chasin’ after me and then, what? You just decide it's too much for you? I warned you. I fucking warned you, didn't I ?”
“I—I know. I just—”
What, you wonder. What? Because was it ever as simple as wanting a hurting man to be a little less lonely in an empty pub? 
It's moments like this that make you contend with your self-sabotage, the unmaking of yourself (morality, compassion, kindness) by your own hands. Your complicity in all of this is staggering, and suddenly the idea of a clean break feels vile. 
How could you drop a man you spent months pursuing, expecting him to change overnight? 
Your faults, and flaws, soften the part of you that wants to run, fleeting into the dark to avoid the consequences of your actions. 
It takes two to tango, and the idiom bludgeons through the headache like a battering ram. 
“I guess I just wanted to help, at first. To be your friend. You seemed so—” lonely. Sad. One bad day away from slipping too deep into the bottle that he couldn't climb out again. 
His laugh is ugly, biting. “What? Pathetic? A sorry fucking drunk—”
“Alone.” 
It quiets him, this soft confession. 
“Can't save everyone,” is what he says after an agonising beat, and you think of the priest he tore into viciously for uttering the same sentiment. Bruising with his words, his tone, instead of his fists. Creating walls from the craters it left behind. 
“Doesn't mean you can't try.” 
“Wasted your time, don't you think?”
“No.” The word is immediate. Forceful. “With you? For you? No. But Bear. The thing you don't get, what you don't understand, is that you can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped. And maybe it's selfish, and honestly, I know it is, but you always risk your own life whenever you try to save someone from drowning, and I know I'm not enough to help you.” 
He's quiet. “Reading up on being a lifeguard?”
“In my spare time.” 
A huff. It's barely a ghost of laughter. “Yeah. Yeah. Well. Hope it all works out for you.” 
You can imagine the grim twist of mouth as he says it. The downward pitch to his chin, dipping in his misery. 
“I hope the same for you.” You whisper, and it feels like finality. 
Moments ago, the thought might have brought a sense of bitter relief to you, but now it just feels sickeningly like loss all over again. 
“Shit,” Bear grouses suddenly, and then draws a sharp breath once more. “I miss you,” he rasps on the exhale. 
You don't know why he would, but you understand, maybe, because you do, too. 
(So much, so much, so much—)
“I miss you, too, Bear.”
The tentative words seem to shake him, and all at once, he's commandeering again. Authoritative, in that way only he can be. 
“I'm getting better,” he rumbles. “I gotta. For the—for the team—”
It's the wrong thing to say, though, and he seems to realise it midway through. A quick course correction comes with a rushed, and for me, too, that reminds you too much of all the times you heard this same thing from behind the counter as you topped up their third, fourth, fifth glass. 
You know better than to believe in this hollow gospel, this midnight epiphany, and for the most part, you don't. It's all empty words. False promises from a prophet, spoken as a defence mechanism against the ugly reality of what happens when people catch on to their bad habits. 
But it's Bear.
Out of everyone who murmured the same phrase in that exact tone, you believe in him just a little bit more than the rest. 
(Stupid, stupid, stupid—)
It's his intense tenacity. That gritty determination seems ingrained within his very being. Inseparable. 
You wonder when you started divining truths from its scripture. 
“I don't want to lose you,” he's saying, and it's odd because he never really had you to begin with. 
“Bear—” It's late, and your thoughts are just running themselves aground. Turning into a tangled, indecipherable mess. “I need to get some sleep. Can we—can we talk about this tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow? Will you answer?”
It's deserved, of course, but you know that particular knife twist hurts him just as much as it does yourself, and whatever little vindication he finds from it is swallowed, quickly, by regret. 
“I just…want to talk to you.”
You imagine that somewhere between the lines, the things unsaid, sits the glaring truth of his sudden devotion, his obsession: 
there's no one else. 
(never anyone's first choice—)
“Sure. Okay, yeah, we can. We can talk. You're—” you need distance. You need space. A minute, maybe, to sort through the ugly thoughts making webs in the back of your head. “You're my friend, Joe. We're… we can be friends, again.”
“Friends?” 
It's not what he wants. That much is clear by the threadiness in his tone, but at two in the morning and with your thoughts liquifying into syrup, it's all you can offer him, all you're willing to give. 
Friends. It makes you remember the limbo you sat in before, the murk and heartache of watching him ply himself with overpriced liquor and then stumble out the door, sometimes with company but most often, all alone and with just ten minutes to spare before closing. The yearning. The pining. The want that made you feel sick to your stomach with guilt for some unseen, unknown woman back home. 
(“Dead. She's dead—”)
It sickens you even more to think about that. The ring he kept, the sadness that draped over his shoulders in a swath of agony. The one he didn't take off, not even for you. The warning signs were there. 
You just ignored them all.
Friends, you murmur again, and wonder where, in all this, you went wrong. The beginning, maybe, when you looked at him and couldn't bring yourself to look away. Friends. We can be friends, Bear. 
“Oh, yeah?”
“Best friends,” you echo back, hollow and thin. “With matching bracelets and everything—”
“Thought it was a tattoo?” 
“That, too.” 
“Okay,” he acquiesces quietly, but you can hear the threads of obstinacy in his voice when he says it. The combativeness, the steadfast refusal to fully submit, rears in the things he doesn't say, pitching bivouacs in his tone. This isn't over, it says. You're not over. “Friends.”
It's scornful, and you hate the way it blisters under your skin. Burning hot, the same feverish delirium that turned you incandescent with just his touch. 
Everything about Bear tells you to relent. Submit. 
It would be so easy to just give in. 
And the thing is:
You want to. Desperately, achingly. 
His certainty, his acuity in all of this, has a way of dismantling your sense of reason. Or, at the very least, your rationale for why you're keeping him at a distance. It's not just being diametrically opposed, though; this is the unerring knowledge that your complicity needs to be curbed. That you are, in small parts, responsible for this barren husk of a man. For aiding and abetting in his spiral, sure, but mostly for expecting him to greet you with sobriety when he woke up, as if spending an entire weekend between your thighs was enough to negate all the demons clawing at the walls of his skull. Scarring bone. Chiselling into marrow. 
Simply put: you're not enough. You knew this, and yet—
Pursued, persisted. Laughably, even echoed the same words you repeat now to a man on the verge of going nuclear under the pressure of his rage, his grief. 
It's impossible to make a levee out of skin and bones, and no matter how much Bear might want to try—maybe has tried with his late wife, with a bottle, with vice, with bloodied, bruised knuckles and a chip on his shoulder deeper than a canyon—it's just not feasible. 
Too bad, you think, that this bone-weary epiphany didn't come sooner. That you didn't kick him out when you realised those beautiful valleys in his eyes were really just trenches. 
Hindsight, of course.
(How were you supposed to know that the rough growl in his timber wasn't a security blanket against the world but just the aftereffects of inhaling too much artillery fire?)
You should have, though. Your mum was a how-to manual on the things to avoid. She could channel wisdom directly from a man's marrow, and you—made in her spitting (vitriolic) image—seem to have learned nothing at all about divination. 
And you—forgotten ilk—can barely tell the difference between a portend and good fortune when you sift through clumps of barley tea at the bottom of your cup. 
For all of her stolen wisdom, you make a promise to yourself that you won't tear yourself into pieces just to make a safety net for him out of your flesh. Or set yourself on fire to keep him warm. 
(Not anymore, anyway—)
But then, cruelly, viciously, you wonder if you ever really helped him at all, or if this is just a manifestation to assuage your own guilt. Doubtless, you find. What have you done for him that wasn't, in some part, mutually beneficial? All this time, you've been gambling equivalence with a broken man, and then ran the moment those jagged pieces cut you. 
And maybe a little bit of this hesitancy is rooted in fear as well. A fickle thing you try to ignore in favour of something that makes you seem more altruistic than you really are, but still lurks in the shadows, in the words you, too, won't say. 
Things like: 
He's never met you sober. Not completely. And certainly not in a way that counts. 
Each interaction is marred with some form of a buffer between you both. Distance shaped in sips of his (fourth, fifth) beer; a shot of whisky. 
What if he doesn't like what he finds sober? 
You heard enough jokes at the bar about falling in love drunk and then waking up sober. If this is that, you don't know how you'd regain any sense of ground back. 
The precipice you clawed your way up to is endlessly steep, treacherous, and yet: you still let yourself fall. Still took the risk in opening your hand just to show him your still-beating heart. 
Return to the sender, you think a touch hysterically, deliriously. 
In the suffocating silence, his voice rings out. Quiet, rough, as if his vocal cords were made of charred wood, smouldering embers, and not warm, wet tissue. It's just your name, but the sound of it seems to drag you down to yourself, if only in increments.
“You good?” He asks when you hum noncommittally in response. 
With your forehead braced against the slope of your knee, it feels like bowing your head in a confessional when you whisper, paper soft, “I'm tired, Bear.”
It sounds like he is chewing on glass when he sighs. Throat torn, raw. The ghost of it whispers across your chin; fingerprints tapping over a tender bruise. 
“Haven’t been sleeping much these last few days. Been thinkin’ of us. Of you. And the team. All the people I let down—”
“Bear…” 
“And I—I want to see you soon. When you're ready. I'm not going to rush things this time. Not gonna mess it up again—”
He speaks like this is settled. Over. As if you've already climbed into the palm of his hand, and all he has to do is just close you up tight in his fist. A little flower he can carry around in his pocket. Kept safe. Kept close. 
It's—
A lot. Overwhelming. He sounds sober enough, and you know that he's not wholly dependent on drinking—it’s palliative; a coping mechanism to numb himself from the reality of everything else that happened to him—but there's a real crutch there that can't be erased by determination alone. But thinking about that—the future—makes your chest feel like it's going to cave in on itself; collapse and become another black hole in the Milky Way, swallowing everything down. 
You need to breathe. You need to think—
“You should get some sleep, Bear. And—”
Don't drink. Stop. Get help. Talk to someone. 
But the words are empty. Hollow vessels to placate your sense of responsibility. Your own guilt. 
Coward. You've always been so good at running—
“Take care of yourself.” 
“Yeah,” he rasps. The hushed timbre makes you tremble. “You too. Get some sleep. I'll talk to you in the morning.”
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And so, this delicate dance made of putting duct tape over fractured promises and palliating the sickness in patchwork hope begins again, working in pieces. 
There's a distance that lingers between the folds of you both, unspoken hurt and distrust—a lingering symptom of letting yourself get swept away by the idea of a man rather than the flesh and bone cut of one—but despite it all, each misgiving that passes your mind when you see Bear’s name flash across the cracked screen of your phone, it works. 
Somehow, somehow. 
It isn't as deep as missing puzzle pieces, because as much as you and Bear seem to connect on a level beyond sex, and booze, and fleeting highs to numb a phantom ache in the pit of your chest, the idea of soulmates seems to be frangible for your fractured selves; with all of your jagged, sharp edges, something so soft would break into pieces, shatter apart. But it is something. 
And that might just be enough. So, you let it root. Let it grow limbs, and leaves, and curl around you like gentle, strangling wisteria until it reaches up to your chest. 
This delicate, fragile thing makes a home, again, inside the empty landscape of your heart.
(shame on me, you think, but still pick up his call as this tender, soft thing you're nurturing snakes across your jugular where it's the warmest, leeching heat from the fever that thrums under your skin.)
Despite his bold declaration, though, he seems to waver on a full pursuit. Content, almost, to maintain this idea of closeness without shattering the bubble you've reconstructed. 
It's odd, though. 
Bear is a man who seeks logic out but always ends up relying on his hunches. Emotional in the sense that he places all confidence in himself beyond the scope of what he might be able to deliver. If his determination can't bring him across the finish line—well, then it was unwinnable from the start. 
For a man so tenacious, so driven, his hesitation in all of this surprises you. 
But something has to give eventually. 
It always does.
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Bear isn't terrible at texting, but he prefers phone calls. Something he admits has less to do with his occupation (no, I won't have to kill you for telling you this, you need to stop believing what you see on tv), and is more just a way of gleaning nuances he can't with written word. 
Though, not always. 
There's a softness when he speaks tonight, a quality you're unfamiliar with, as he confesses on a hushed memory, half musing aloud when the world is dead asleep and the sun is a distant idea in the back of your head, that he used to write letters to his wife whenever they weren't on the phone talking. Or Skyping each other. 
“Deployment with a group of guys doesn't leave much room for privacy,” he says, as if he hasn't just unravelled this hidden part of himself at three fifteen on what was meant to be a rather mundane ending to your Thursday. “They're not really, uh, sensitive to that. We're on top of each other for most of it, anyway. Asking a whole room to clear out just so I can talk isn't happening. So, uh, we—uh, me and Lena, we wrote letters.”
There's a stutter in his voice when he relays this to you, and you're struck numb by it all. Lena, you think, putting a name to a concept. 
“Oh,” you say, and you're not sure what to think about it. So, you don't. You tuck it aside, where all the other things you've learned about Bear go. The ones revealed to you in shambles. “That sounds— romantic. ”
It makes him scoff, and it's this terrible, broken thing. “Romantic, huh? Is that what you think?” 
You hum, taking it in. The grand reveal of his ex-wife (she… we, he corrects and clears his throat like it burns: we decided to separate. See, uh… see other people), and his marital problems, you connect the dots lingering in the foreground. 
You're not completely ignorant of his intentions. 
It's the first move on a fresh chessboard: a show of his commitment to this—whatever it might be—and how serious he's taking it all. Where you'd been the only one to dare pry open the rusted nails keeping your secrets at bay before, he's taking the initiative to do so now, to meet you somewhere in the middle where the olive branch still grows. Placing his bets before the race. Offering himself, and his secrets, up as collateral in this strange game you found yourself in. 
But does he know that you can still hear the slight slur in his voice when he speaks, or notice the way he seems to skirt around the conversation of his drinking habits on the days when it must be hitting him harder? Surely, he must. 
And yet, he still calls. Still decides to gamble with your devotion in maintaining a strange facsimile of friendship with whisky on his breath, slurring his words, and gives out the pretence of playing for keeps under the table. 
Maybe he knows you'll still give him the chance to keep playing no matter how many times his luck runs dry. It makes sense, considering. 
You'd always had a weakness for men like him. 
(Stupid—)
Outside of the tipsy phone calls, you've yet to hear him completely gone. A testament to his dedication, maybe, but you know the first week is always the easiest. When the high of the epiphany roars through their bloodstream, and the weight of the world doesn't feel as crushing as it once had, it's easy to make deals you don't have the means of keeping up with. But the debt is insurmountable to those who aren't fully invested, and the collectors are vicious. 
Still. Still. 
This is as close to sobriety as he's ever been, and you soak up his unbridled attention like you're starving for it. 
And in all honesty, you are. 
Bear is a strange, complex web of a man. Full of grit, anger. Misery curls in the corners of his eyes, hidden there amongst the powder keg of obsessive devotion just waiting to go off. You scented kerosene on his skin—napalm drenching his pores—when he'd lifted two fingers up and nearly snarled his order from across stained cedar wood. 
Having the brunt of his fire listing your way is a character study in restraint, in penance. It taps against the delicate binds holding everything back, and loosens the ties with every piece of him you're given. 
It's hard, you think, to stay so far away from someone when you're wobbling on the brink of devotion. Love, in shades of obsession. The taste of which settles in the back of your throat like a sickness, aching each time you swallow. 
You're not sure what it is about Bear, about this particular brand of miserable, angry man, but his very existence feels like it was constructed, handspun, to make you hunger for a taste. 
And then, you know. It's just that, isn't it? Miserable, angry man. 
(saviour complex, maybe. maybe, maybe, maybe—)
It feels deeper than that, though. It might have been the cause for this unravelling, this unmaking between you both, but the rest—the helplessness and the anger and the worry; answering his call even when you swore you wouldn't, leaving him in the motel room like a bad dream smeared across your pillow only to pick him up again, another bad habit in a sea of others—is than just a simple desire to fix problems that are not your own. 
(especially when they aren't your own.)
“Never really been the romance type,” he rumbles, shattering this strange, introspective reverie you've fallen into. 
“You seem to be doing okay for yourself, though,” you volley back, a touch too cautious compared to how it all was before. When you'd read him his horoscope, and pester him about trying your audacious food combinations he'd complain about, but eat, anyway. 
“Is that what you think?”
“It's what I know.”
You expect him to pick up your jab, turning it on you instead. Something caustic, something severe. Something equally mean and mordant in the way only Bear could be. But he doesn't. He lets it fall to the wayside instead, humming under his breath in something that might be acquiescence, or maybe avoidance of the topic entirely, and shifts back into neutral territory. 
How was your day? He asks, as if that wasn't one of the first things he'd said to you when you answered the call.
“Fine,” you hedge, breezing the word out between your teeth. “It was okay. Bear—”
“I, uh, have a meeting tomorrow,” he steamrolls through your concern like it's made of paper instead of the broken remnants of your heartache. “Another eval., to see if I'm fit to return to training. Make my way back to being an Officer.” 
More secrets are revealed to you in the slow dawn of his unfurling fist. Held out like a beacon, a piece of candy. Good job, it says when you reach for it like the good, obedient dog you are. 
Pavlov's finest. 
“That sounds…” You're not really sure what it means, in all honesty. Words coming together to form a sentence. The meaning is absent from between the lines. You could infer, but you've never been good at guessing. So, you stagnate. “Good. Um, really good, Bear.”
He huffs, and you take it as a laugh—or as close to one you'll get from him. “Gotta pass the eval first.”
“Should be easy for you.” 
“Should be,” he mumbles, and you catch the faint end of a muffled groan. “But I've been slacking. Put on extra weight. Need to burn it all off before I can really get into the old routine. Gonna fall behind worse than a newbie.”
Newbie being growled out in his flat intonation makes you snort. 
“You find something funny? ”
“Ha, no—” his words turn over in your head—put on extra weight—and, damningly, you remember what all that extra weight felt like, stretched out beneath you; arched over your body, heavy and suffocating, and—
Fuck. 
Bear catches the hitch in your breath, and makes a questioning noise in response. You can't let him ask. Can't let him know that you keep painting a picture of his hairy belly brushing against yours in the forefront of your mind. His biceps. Burly is what you'd thought of him before. Thick. Husky. A heavy man, in more ways than one. 
The softness around his waist belied the hard muscles below. You could feel it pressing firm against your palm when he rolled under you, bracing your hands over his chest as he let you ride him. 
That's it, sweetheart. Just like that—
“No,” you swallow around the desire welling up inside of your throat. “Nothing.”
He hums, and it's tainted in disbelief. Like he knows, somehow, what you were thinking of. What you keep thinking of—especially after these phone calls, his voicemails, when you're lying in bed with your fingers whispering between your thighs—and you almost expect him to call you out on it. To demand an answer. 
Instead, he offers a tender truth that nudges against the soft pulse in your throat. 
“...Not drinking as much helps.” 
You almost want to call him out on the as much he tacts on to the end of his confession, to question the logistics behind those two words. To quantify it in a number, in tangible data. Something concrete you can plinth your hope on. But the answer scares you. 
Too much and you'll fall all over again. Too little and you'll have no choice but to run. 
So, you retreat in the face of his truth. A coward. 
“That's—It's good. That's good, Bear—” and it is. Of course, it is. Great, even. He isn't even yours and this silly notion of pride staples itself to the front of your chest for the world to see. “I'm, um. I'm proud of you.”
It sounds hollow, pyrrhic, coming from you—repentant enabler—but the airiness in his voice strikes something deep inside. Pulses against a dormant place that comes alive, fecund with the bittersweet stirrings of hope germinating in the fibres. 
Skingraft over the wound. 
“Proud, huh?” 
And the sound of his voice cuts that thread as soon as it forms. 
His voice is pitched low, throaty. He draws the syllables out as he says, at length, “I, uh, keep thinking about you.” 
You should warn him away. Tap the impish fingers sneaking to the cookie jar—a thorough chastisement to keep wandering hands in check. Bad dog, is the passing thought, and you try to swallow down the hysterical giggle that bubbles in the back of your throat. 
You should.
But you don't. 
It comes out breathier than you intended when you say his name, and it sounds much too malleable in the face of this tactile man. 
“Been thinkin’ about you a lot.” 
“Yeah,” you whisper. Too much. Too much. “Same. Uh, me too.” 
“What are you doing tomorrow?”
“Going out with some friends. Probably going to get dinner. Watch that new movie that just came out. And, um, have a few drinks after.”
“How're you getting home?” 
“Taxi, most likely.”
He hums low, throaty. The sound seems to reverberate through the phone and tremble deliciously down the length of your spine. “That so?”
“I'm not going to be drinking much.” You weigh the ethics of discussing your intentions to drink, to get completely wasted, and maybe go home with someone who isn't Bear, who doesn't even so much as look like him, before waving the thought away before it can take shape. “It's just—social. Getting caught up. Haven't seen them in a while because of school and stuff.”
And because you've invested so much of your free time spinning in circles around a man who didn't even really seem to look at you (who insisted on calling you kid to force distance and indifference between you) until a few months ago, letting your social life dawdle on the wayside. 
Not that there was ever much one. It's easier, sometimes, to push people away than to explain the inner workings of your borrowed scar tissue. 
He hums again—and he really needs to fucking stop doing that before you do something stupid, something reckless, like remember the way he sounded when he lifted his head up after coming deep inside of you, panting in your ear from exertion, and groaned just like that when he shifted forward, inching his softening cock further you, seemingly content to stay like that as you melted into the mattress that reeked of stale sweat and sex.
“I'll drive you.”
Your breath catches. “You don't have to.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, but it's decidedly noncommittal and comes completely undone when you catch the crackle of iron in his mulish tone as he adds: “but I want to.”
And he will, is the underlying promise that brims to the surface, wrapped up neatly in a way that brokers no real room for a counterargument. Not that he'll give you the chance to make one. 
Still. You try, if only to snatch at some modicum of control that slips, gossamer thin, between your fingers.
“It's fine. Making you go out all that way is kinda…”
“Don't worry about it. Beats paying for a cab, anyway.”
“Bear…”
It's firm when he says: “let me drive you home. Make sure you get there safely.” Final. But to soften the blow, he adds, voice tender like a bruise: “Just let me do this for you.” 
And how are you supposed to stay no to that?
“Okay, Bear.”
(Answer: you don't.)
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eyesofshinigami · 9 months ago
Text
Brave
Rating: G
CW: None
Tags: Love confessions, fluff, so much schmoop
Prompt: From @sidekick-hero "Love is what makes you brave"
WC: 1812
Written for @steddielovemonth Day 7
Steve, admittedly, has done a lot of really stupid things in the name of love.
He hid so much of himself, what he liked, and who he wanted to be to make his parents love him. He was a perfect child, always seen but never heard, the perfect little trophy for his parents to put on display. He thought that was love for a long time. That it was performative, transactional. If he just did this one thing, surely they would love him, right?
Then, Steve forced himself to fit into a mold. He slid on a mask, played a part that was really easy to hide behind. People like Tommy and Carole seemed to love him when he was mean, when he looked down his nose at people they deemed unworthy of their attention. They would laugh and clap him on the back and keep him close, even if he knew deep down that it made him a little sick. And for some reason he still can’t fathom, it made other people love him too. Well, that superficial, surface kind of love where he was still seen as an object, an achievable goal. Be friends with King Steve and you’ll get something out of.
Transactional.
It wasn’t until Nancy that Steve really began to understand what love really was. He threw his whole self into loving her. In hindsight, maybe it wasn’t the smartest idea to go all in on something that he still didn’t really have a grasp on, but for the first time, it felt like he was being loved for love’s sake.
Until it wasn’t. Until Jonathon. Until the house. Until the world quite literally turned upside down.
Even with that falling apart, it opened up a whole new world of love for Steve. A new understanding to just what the word meant, the weight behind it when it really matters.
Love is protecting those that matter most. Love is staring down the mouth of a hell creature and still swinging even though your arms feel like jelly. Love is redirecting punches so that they don’t have to hurt. Love is diving into a murky lake into hell to help fix what someone else broke. Love is late night drives when you can’t sleep and the nightmares are too much. Love is admitting that maybe, just maybe, love looks a little different than what you expected it to.
Love is being brave.
All of these lessons, all of these people in his life that showed him that love can be so many things, if only you’re willing to give as much as take.
Which is why Steve makes a decision. It might be a bad one, but he’s learned that sometimes love means having to jump into the fray and trusting that they’ll catch you. He knows, deep down, that someone will, even if it’s not the person he really wants to.
“I’m going to do it. Tonight,” Steve declares that evening as he’s shelving movies. He’s working the late shift with Robin, but has plans to hang out with Eddie later. The very thought of it makes him flush, with happiness and nervousness in equal measure. “I’m going to tell him how I feel.”
It was a slow sort of descent, realizing that he loved Eddie. It started with their talk in the woods of the Upside Down, to pulling Eddie’s broken body out of that awful place, to helping him heal once they realized he might actually pull through. He was drawn to Eddie, drinking him in whenever they were together. He loved when Eddie was loud, or when Eddie was quiet, settled. The fact that Eddie trusted him with the different facets of himself blew Steve away. And Eddie listened when he talked. He listened when Steve talked about sports, or his newfound interest in carpentry thanks to helping Hopper fix up the cabin. He listened when Steve couldn’t sleep, or when Steve got scared about what the future was going to bring, now that it felt like maybe they could actually move on from the nightmare that is Hawkins, Indiana. Little by little, it made Steve realize that Eddie made him happy and maybe a little stupid. The good kind of stupid, the happy kind.
Robin turns to look at him, smiling softly. It’s her soft sort of smile, the one she only saves for him when he’s actually doing something for himself. “Good on you, bud. You’ve only been pining for him for months now.”
“You’ll have a pint of ice cream at the ready in case this goes south?”
“Sure, but I doubt you’ll have to worry,” she replies, rolling her eyes. “Now go find something to do before you pop out of your skin. I can see you sweating from here.”
He lasts about another twenty minutes before she lets out a gusty sigh. “Okay, you’re starting to make me nervous. It’s dead in here, why don’t you just leave and head over there now?”
Steve wants to argue. It’s on the tip of his tongue, but she’s right. If he waits any longer, he might just vibrate right through the floor. Once upon a time, he was good at this, smooth and suave and so fucking fake. It was easy to talk to people he didn’t care about, but this? This thing with Eddie?
It matters a lot.
“Okay, okay. Sheesh. I know when I’m not wanted,” he jokes, clocking out and heading out the door.
“Go get your man, Harrington! I expect non-explicit details in the morning!”
He waves her off and gets into his car. The drive takes about fifteen minutes, heading to the little house that Wayne and Eddie got as compensation for their trailer being confiscated for study. Steve’s just glad that Eddie doesn’t have to live in the reminder of where everything went down.
He parks his car and sits for a long, long moment, fingers tight around the wheel and his breath coming in harsh pants. He can do this. He can do this. He can be brave.
“Steve? What are you doing out here? I thought you had work,” Eddie calls from the porch. He must have been sitting out here longer than he thought if Eddie had come to find him.
Steve takes one more big breath before he heaves himself out of the car. “I did, but Rob sent me home. It was dead and she said I was bothering her.” He smiles, trying to ease the angry butterflies he feels building in his stomach. “You good with me coming now? I guess I should have called.”
Eddie smiles, wide enough his dimples pop and Steve wants to feel them under his thumb. “Of course, Stevie. I’m still working on dinner, but you can keep me company.”
Steve eagerly follows him inside, feeling himself relax as he steps through the door. The place is always a little cluttered, a little messy; Steve loves it because it looks like people actually live here. The fact that he’s welcomed into this space makes him feel a little warm and gooey inside. “Thanks, man. What’s on the menu?” He’s babbling, he knows he’s babbling, but he can’t help it.
Eddie gives him a look but answers, “Just some spaghetti. Nothing fancy.” He heads to the stove and starts stirring a pot, the smell of it hitting Steve full force. “You okay? You seem a little off.”
He wants to brush it off, pretend it’s nothing. It would be so easy and he knows Eddie would let him. They’ve learned each other’s tells, when it’s time to push and when it’s time to leave shit alone. Just one more thing that Steve loves about Eddie.
So, no. He needs to say it. For himself, to let go of this thing that he’d been trying to hide for fear of it being yet another stupid thing he does for love. But his love for Eddie could never be that, even if Eddie says no. Eddie will still be his friend, will still love him, even if that love doesn’t look the way Steve wants. He doesn’t expect anything, doesn’t want more than Eddie can give him.
“Uh, well… actually, there’s something I want to talk to you about?”
Eddie nods and sets the spoon down, during the fire down as he turns to face Steve. “I’m all ears, Stevie.”
Steve nods, taking a deep, shaky breath. He can be brave. “Okay, so. Can you… let me just say it? Don’t say anything until I’m done, okay?” At Eddie’s nod, he continues, “Um, all right. So. Uh. Eddie… I’m… I like you. I like you a lot. Actually, I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you.” Eddie’s mouth drops and Steve has to look away, before his heart beats out of his chest and he gets sick from the way his stomach churns. “It took me a while to realize it, but I am. I just… I love you. I love everything about you. Even the weird, shitty parts that I know you don’t like, but they’re part of you, right? And I don’t… I don’t expect you to feel the same, or want me back. It would be great if you did, but like… it’s not why I told you? I told you because you deserve to know. To know that someone loves you because I can’t imagine not loving you anymore.”
There. It’s out there. Steve swallows around the lump in his throat and tries not to count the seconds as they pass. It feels like they’re beating against his ribcage, in time with his pounding heart.
Suddenly, there’s a hand cupping his cheek, gently turning his head until he’s looking at Eddie. The look on the other man’s face is soft, his eyes sparkling and the curve of his mouth small but so so kissable. “Stevie… baby…” The words are like a gut-punch, making Steve weak in the knees. “How could I not love you back, hmm?” Eddie chuckles, his thumb caressing the skin of Steve’s cheek. “Always the brave one of the two of us, aren’t you? I didn’t want to say anything because this… I didn’t want to lose this. If I was wrong, you know?”
“Me too,” Steve whispers. He’s afraid to break the bubble that’s surrounding them, like if he speaks too loud it will break and he’ll realize this was all just a dream or something. “Eddie…”
Eddie doesn’t say anything, he just pulls Steve in until they’re kissing, mouths moving against each other softly as they press closer.
It’s warm. It’s sweet. It feels like coming home.
Something settles in him as they kiss, as they touch and move together in this new way. He wants to cry. He wants to laugh. He feels like he could fly.
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whatwouldmickeydo · 1 year ago
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Mickey leaving prison in S10: "All right, here are your belongings: your clothes, your wallet, and your folded-up photograph of a teenager giving the middle finger to the camera."
He hadn’t meant to hang on to it for so long, never intended for that picture to become a staple in his wallet, tucked away behind his license, the edges frayed and faded.
It had haunted him at times, like a green eyed specter keeping watch whenever he’d open his wallet to grab something, that smirk of his staring back as if to remind him of all the ways he’d failed.
Then there was prison, where he thought it was gone forever, relegated to wherever they put prisoner’s belongings while they rot away behind bars. Until he managed to bribe a guard into bringing him his shit, crinkled picture peaking out of a messy bundle of other crap that suddenly didn’t seem so important.
He’d stared at it for so long that night, before tucking it away with a heavy sigh and heading out to the car where Damon stood smoking a cigarette, the moon the only light to see by.
He’d carried it all the way to Mexico, hesitating for a moment before stuffing it inside his backpack at the last minute, refusing to unpack all the loaded feelings that went along with it.
It’s been folded and unfolded so many times, there’s now a layer of tape keeping the top and the bottom half together, thrown in the trash at some point, then fished out five minutes later, smoothing it back over and over to remove the wrinkles. Rinse and repeat.
And then he doesn’t need to look at it because the real thing is finally there again, beautiful and vibrant and fucking alive. Coming together like no time has passed at all, lips and tongues and hands burning the same familiar paths down each other’s bodies on a shitty prison mattress.
He’s got newer pictures now. Better ones, ones with just him and ones with the two of them together, happy and healthy and fucking loved.
And yet.
And yet somehow this picture stays, transferred from his old, ratty, falling apart at the seams, one good rip will tear the whole thing apart wallet to an actual nice leather one that Ian buys him for a birthday one year.
He’s not even sure why he still keeps it there, doesn’t really take it out much but it’s somehow a comfort to know it’s still there, a reminder of all the heavy shit they’ve gone through over the years, both good and heartbreakingly bad. But maybe that’s all the more reason to keep it, something to balance out all that they have in their lives now. Sickness and health, all that shit. Maybe it’s a symbol of hope, that things weren’t as lost as they once were, that it was all worth it after all. That they found their way back to each other in spite of all the cards stacked against them. Then again, maybe it’s just a picture.
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nadas-dirthalen · 2 months ago
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vir in theneras suledin. (1)
solas/lavellan, rated M.
synopsis: Immediately after the events of Tresspasser, the Dread Wolf is gone—and in his wake, the Inquisition is brought nearly to its knees, to say nothing of its Inquisitor.
Yet Ithalia's dreams tell a different story: one where gone is not truly gone, and a forest in the Fade speaks more truth than she dares let herself believe.
author's note: These chapters are short at first! Bear with me, I promise I'm going somewhere lol <3
content warnings: canon-typical violence mention, canon-typical depiction of severe injury, canon-typical amputation depiction, canon-typical profanity, canon-typical depiction of depression.
ao3 link!
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When the Dread Wolf turns, her teeth clamp down until blood’s taste blooms on her tongue.
Ithalia shoulders the burden, the pain past all hope of comprehension. She feigns that the tears in her eyes are from parting—parting to the doom of everything alive—and not from the fact that she, herself, is…
No: she waits to move until his foot is through the last eluvian. Then his knee, next to vanish. His waist. His arm. His shoulder. She holds still until the last piece of him—an ear—ripples through the pane.
Gone.
She looks down at last, and then—only then—does the scream rip through her throat.
She is coming apart at the arm. The pulse of the Mark’s magic—his magic, the Dread Wolf’s magic—pushes out from her veins, sears her nerves, splits the skin.
It tastes the air and then fades into it. The world tilts as she watches it. Spins. Her lungs lose their understanding of how to breathe without wailing.
This is wrong, her mind signals dimly, too slow. This is wrong. An arm shouldn’t…
An arm shouldn’t peel away, blazing shuddering green and then…
Green and then gone.
Her stomach roils. Her vision blurs.
A voice erupts in this garden of stone.
“Is she—where the fuck is she…?!”
“She stumbles and falters, she begs him, why—”
“Dear boy, please. Just once. Is that to the left or right of us?”
The Iron Bull. Cole. Dorian.
Run. Run. Run.
But why should they? The threat is gone.
Gone.
“She is bare-faced—”
“Cole, darling, now is truly not the time—”
“There!”
Ithalia fights to turn, trying to will her back to move, but her head won’t turn. Her gaze is pinned to the crumbling ruin of her arm. Slick with gore, magic and skin fraying in unison.
Wrong.
Her head swims. Arms shouldn’t do this.
She forces her gaze to the grass around her, and then its green—lush, soft—rushes toward her face.
A white-hot burst of pain stops her fall. She shrieks, and it isn’t enough for the fire in her lungs.
“Shh—shit, I know,” the Iron Bull’s voice comes down from above. Two pillars—his arms—keep her from toppling. The sky above him, somehow still a carefree blue, whirls overhead.
Then all sears white again, an explosion of pain from where her wrist is ceasing to be.
“No, I—shit. Shit,” he stammers, strained. Ithalia fights to narrow her eyes. His brow is pinching. The sunlight haloes his form.
A tear glistens on his cheek.
“The Iron Bull,” Cole interjects. He is tremoring, somewhere Ithalia cannot see. “She is bare-faced. She… she is bare-faced and embarrassed…”
“Lift her!” Dorian calls over him. Then, “Maker’s breath, I might be sick.”
“What can we do?! She isn’t bleeding—not that I think. Fuck. Fuck.” The Bull grunts, and then the ground is gone from under Ithalia. They’re rising—he lifts her. “You need a healer. More than that. A miracle, maybe. Dorian, do you have anything to…”
“No! This isn’t—she isn’t dead, amatus. Like this, there’s nothing I can… A miracle is right.”
They all need so much more than that. They are all going to die.
“Of all the times you’ve had some quip, some move, now is when you stand still? Move! I’ll beg if I must!”
The Veil will come apart, and then they will. They all will.
It’s a fight for Ithalia to remember the bounds of her mouth through the ache ripping holes in her awareness.
“Solas,” she forces out, hardly more than a groan.
Dorian’s voice breaks down below. “We know.”
“He… I… He was here. And now…” She swallows—saltwater on her lips, bile down her throat.
“Save your strength,” the Iron Bull urges, arm hooked tighter around her shoulders, squeezing ribs.
“No.” A futile gasp. Each step the Iron Bull takes is a crack of lightning up her entire left side. The sky whirls overhead. “He was here, and now he—he is…”
“She is real!” Cole cries behind them. “She is real, and it means—it meant—everyone could be—could perhaps have been—”
“By Andraste’s left tit,” Dorian bellows, “not now!”
But all she hears is the thunder of the Bull’s charging steps. The break of every pained sound up her chest.
“It’s alright,” the Iron Bull says through the storm, between one eluvian and the next. “We’ll get you home.”
“No. Lost. Gone,” she gasps, eyes rolling. Then, as if the words will reach through a pane of glass and an impossible distance away, “Var lath vir suledin—ma ghilana, ma ghilana—la melana mir vhenas bora—”
“I know,” the Bull says, though he cannot possibly. “Hold on. Hold on.”
She does, she tries, but the dark comes chasing her frayed nerves before the next eluvian, and she falls helpless into its jaws.
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copperbadge · 11 months ago
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Hi Sam! When you decided to go for an adhd diagnosis, is there a reason you went to the type of place you chose? I know you ended up having a difficult time with them after your evaluation. Did you go to your pcp first or try any other routes?
I’m starting to feel very heavily impacted by what I’m fairly certain is undiagnosed adhd, and I really want to try medication to see if it helps, but as I’m sure you’re aware, the process of making appointments is very difficult for one with undiagnosed adhd. Sigh. I’m wondering if it’s worth it to try and just make an appointment with my regular doctor to see if that gets me anywhere. But I know that doctors tend to be very cautious when prescribing, and I don’t want to bother with completely pointless appointments.
I just feel so overwhelmed when I think about trying anything else.
Yeah, I started working on getting evaluated in 2019 and only managed it in 2022, so I'm familiar with The Delay :D It never occurred to me to go through my primary care doctor -- I haven't had one for most of my adult life, because my insurance doesn't require it in order to see my specialist, and I just use a clinic if I'm sick. If you have a PCP you trust that's probably your best bet. You don't need to talk to them about prescribing, even, just talk about "I wonder if you have a recommendation for where I might get evaluated." You might even be able to get a recommendation without making a formal appointment. But if you get pushback on getting evaluated, then you can venture out on your own (more on this below).
I had a recommendation for a testing site, and I called a handful of times in 2019, but they never called back -- the desk person would say "Leave a message for our scheduler" and I'd say "Is there any way I can talk to a person? I keep leaving messages that don't get returned" and they'd say "Oh, they'll definitely return it this time" and that never happened. So by about mid-2019 I gave up and said I'd deal with it later. I started to research it in 2020, but then there was a global pandemic and I didn't want to be spending hours on end in a small room in a medical center.
And honestly, whenever I spoke about it to someone who wasn't a peer -- a parent, a doctor, etc -- I'd get a skeptical look and the response, "But you're so put-together and you're successful. Why would you think you have ADHD?" And I internalized that a little, to the point where I thought, yeah, I'm coping fine, it's not like anything would change other than maybe medication, why bother? Which...
That worked until it didn't, sometime in late 2021.
It worked until I looked at my life, which was not falling apart, and could see it fraying, and that if it did fall apart, it would be catastrophic. So my resolution for 2022 was to get evaluated. If it was ADHD, to get medicated; if it wasn't ADHD, to get help because clearly my life was not going as well as it looked.
So I just...sat down with an empty spreadsheet and I started googling "adult adhd evaluation chicago" (If you're not in a major city, I'd google your state or major cities nearby instead). Every site I found, I recorded the URL, my thoughts on the site, and their process for making an appointment. Once I had a list of places, I started "cold-calling" -- mostly via email, just reaching out to each place and recording the date and how I contacted them. When they answered, I recorded the date they replied and whether I responded.
The place I ended up going wasn't the first to call me back but they WERE the most responsive, and the first to schedule me for the evaluation (I did save the spreadsheet in case that fell through). They did a good job, more or less; I had struggles with them, but those were more to do with the fact that the woman who evaluated me already had one foot out the door and left my eval unwritten, meaning someone else had to take up the slack, which took time. And it at least helped to be able to say to my prescribing psych, during our first meeting, "Look, I have a diagnosis but I'm struggling to get the paperwork from them, and I'm really hanging on by a fingernail here." He gave me a much-abbreviated evaluation (basically a 20-minute questionnaire) and was able to prescribe for me that day.
So your other option is to just...find a psychiatrist who specializes in adult ADHD and/or ADHD medication management, make an appointment, and say, "I don't think I have it in me to set up a longform evaluation for this. I'm wondering if you can help me get evaluated and get some help." One of my goals was to get medicated but your overall goal is not medication -- the goal is help, and that just often happens to be medication. This isn't like, a trick to get a prescription or to manage a suspicious doctor (those have their place, believe me I know) -- your goal in getting treatment should always be to improve your life. But it's okay to want medication, you just have to want it in terms of improving quality of life, not medication qua medication.
So on the one hand, you sound like you need help, and you should work towards getting it -- but on the other, bear in mind that this sometimes just takes the time it takes, and keep your eyes on the goal. If you can be doing something, do it, and if you can't, then don't feel guilty that you can't.
Good luck :)
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guppygiggles · 9 months ago
Text
Like Real People Do, Part 2! ♡ (Casper x Avery)
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☁️ Summary: Casper waits for Avery to make good on his promise to visit, and gets more than they bargained for!
☁️ Warnings: Suggestive language, mild tickling (please do not interact with this if you're a minor!)
This is a series now!
Part 1
Part 2 *you are here
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
If you just got here and want to know more about my characters, you can read my comic starting right here!
Everything that hurt, always hurt more the second day.
I sat up in bed, pain wrapping around my middle like a boa constrictor, squeezing agony into my bones. It was four a.m. again, but now it was Monday; a workday.
I grabbed my phone and opened my company's intranet page, hastily navigating to the HR section of the site and putting in for a sick day, followed by an email to my boss and coworkers.
Good morning,
I am not feeling well and will not be in today. All incidents assigned to me are up-to-date with notes. In case of emergency, please text me.
Thank you,
[deadname]
I stared at my reflection in the dirty bathroom mirror. My teal hair looked like the aftermath of a fork stuck into an electrical outlet, and there were pale violet circles under my eyes. While they were genetic, they had become even more visible since my insomnia started. Lifting my shirt, I looked at my stomach, where a bruise like an arm of the Milky Way bloomed in shades of blue and purple, fading to yellowish green at the frayed border. I clattered three Excedrin into my palm and swallowed them dry.
My apartment didn't have a dining area, so I sat on my green-corduroy couch as I peeled an orange. Aside from the hum of the air conditioning unit, it was quiet.
What the hell happened yesterday?
Given the shape and location of the bruise, I felt pretty certain that I had, indeed, crashed my skateboard into the pier's guardrail.
"Oh, shit! My skateboard!" I remembered dismally. It was probably at the bottom of the ocean by now, waterlogged and unsalvageable. Unlike most other skaters I knew, who often had a quiver of five or six boards, I only had one; a drop-through longboard that wasn't too long, which meant it was perfect for my short stance. It was the first board I'd learned to ride, and I'd saved up for months to afford it. My heart sank as I remembered how much research I had done to find the perfect beginner skateboard, and the graphic I had so carefully selected -- a stylized depiction of a person surfing beneath a cloudy, pastel sunrise.
Sunrise. Clouds.
The rest of my memories from the previous day surged back.
"Avery!"
I nearly choked on an orange slice as I glimpsed the microwave's digital clock. It was five a.m. now.
"Sunset time Port Oleander," I googled frantically, the search engine responding with cruel indifference, "seven-thirty p.m."
My fingers counted the hours: fourteen and a half. I collapsed back into the couch as impatience like a cartoon anvil fell on me. How could I possibly wait that long?
Memories of the lighthouse assailed me as I slumped, stunlocked, on the couch; wet brick, old paper, bergamot, sea spray. An embarrassment of books. Sunlight glinting off bits of ice in Avery's swirling, translucent head. His huge, sincere, almost goofy smile. His laugh.
My stomach twisted with a swell of emotion so strong it was almost painful as I recalled the sensation of Avery's warm, boisterous laugh vibrating my ribcage. I wanted - no, I needed - to hear it again and again and again. My fingernails dug into the couch cushion as I fought to gather myself.
"This is just infatuation... right?"
I wasn't exactly a stranger to romance. I'd had partners here and there, but admittedly, the termination of my previous relationship over two years ago had left me unsure that falling in love was, well. For me.
The initial "spark" that seemed a crucial part of attraction for other people, for me, was apparently defunct; attraction did not happen often, and when it did, it was more a slow and methodical building of a home, less a match igniting an all-consuming fire. Love, intimacy and trust were all building bricks, predicated upon a wrought-iron foundation of knowing a person well, forming a bond as friends over time.
Physical intimacy, itself, was a whole 'nother ballgame. As a solitary person, most physical touch -- even mundane -- carried a weight of closeness that was not always comfortable or welcome, but was embarrassingly out of my control. I recalled my recent visit to the doctor, cringing a bit. Though I was loath to admit it, even brushing hands with the grocery store clerk as they handed me my change left a lingering sensation that I had to fight to ignore. I wasn't the type to hug a stranger; I wasn't the type to even hug my friends unless we'd spent significant time together. I certainly didn't think about ti...
My ears suddenly grew hot.
Was I already thinking about... that? With Avery?
Avery's hand holding mine over his kitchen table, his palm cool and soft, the mysterious and silent storm rushing beneath his skin. His gentle gaze that, despite his obvious years, held an innocent curiosity. His playful-yet-shy bravado as he introduced himself with a flourish of his hand, the way he so effortlessly scooped me off the ground. I wondered if his skin felt the same everywhere else... on his body, and on mine.
"Oh, no. We just met, we are NOT doing this," I argued, trying to appeal to my own sense of reason,"you're just gonna have to tough this out, Casper. Don't rush into things and scare him off, this is probably just a crush you're going to get over once you get to know him."
"But I've never even had a crush before, I don't know what to do!"
"Dude, just be regular! Just hang out with him like normal and see what he's like! I don't know, take him to the fair or something!"
"Is that a good way to get to know someone you're attracted to?!"
"I don't know, I'm you!"
I lowered my reeling head into my hands, suddenly regretting eating that orange as my stomach churned. Things were happening so fast. I looked at the clock again -- agonizingly, only an hour had passed.
A horrible thought occured to me, then:
What if Avery didn't feel the same?
"Don't go down that road," my internal monologue chided, "you have no idea how he feels. Don't spiral out of control."
"Why would he even be interested in me? I'm weird! I spend all my time by myself, I'm chubby, I barely have any talent, I don't even have any friends since I moved here! Not to mention how much trauma and baggage I have-"
"See, this is exactly what I'm talking about! Stop it! Everyone has baggage, even Avery probably does. You don't have to earn other people's love! You're good enough just for being who you are, and if he would only love you for what you can do for him, he wouldn't be loving you for the right reasons, anyway. Now get up and channel this nervous energy into something productive for god's sake, before you burn a hole in the couch."
I stood.
I cleaned up the coffee table.
I vacuumed my carpet. I washed every thread of clothing I owned, and my bedding. I did the dishes, cleaned every window and mirror and dusted every surface. Raiding the fridge and freezer, I threw out everything that was expired, then I alphabetized my spice cabinet. I mopped, scrubbed, wiped, and folded until my apartment looked like it was straight out of an IKEA catalogue.
Then I left, and ran every errand I had been putting off. I finally emptied my mailbox, bursting with junkmail (I was sure that our postal worker just loved me). I got my car inspected and put air in my tires. I went to the grocery store and restocked my fridge.
All the while, my mind reeled like a YouTube video set to loop:
Avery, Avery, Avery.
+++
By the time I was done, it was six forty-five p.m. I sat on the couch in my favorite pair of jeans and my coolest short-sleeve button-down: a navy blue number with tiny koi fish print. My hair was perfectly quaffed, and I radiated a shower-fresh clean. My apartment was silent, my palms sweating as my hands rested on my thighs. Despite all my arguing and resistance, I was the very definition of down bad.
My incessant thoughts piped up.
"You're trying too hard. You realize that Avery saw you yesterday, unconscious, in a ratty t-shirt and cargo shorts, nasty and sweaty from skateboarding, right? You probably looked like shit, and he probably thinks that's how you normally look. You probably smelled bad, too. He's gonna know."
"He's not gonna know. How would he know?"
A soft knock on my door interrupted my internal warfare and made me jump out of my skin.
I put my hand on the cold doorknob. My heart beat so furiously I could feel the fuzzy edge of my consciousness, and I silently bargained with my hypotension that if it just left me alone for now, just for tonight, I would pass out all it wanted tomorrow. I turned the knob and opened the door.
"Hi!"
It was my neighbor. I experienced an emotion that could only be described as crushing relief.
"I found this outside my door, I think it's yours, isn't it?"
She was holding my skateboard. It was wet, but it didn't look to be soaked through. I gasped, taking it from her.
"Yes! You said it was outside your door?"
"Yeah, I don't know how long it was there, though. Probably since this morning. This is the first time I've gotten out today, so..." she trailed off. We'd spoken in passing, but we didn't really know each other.
"Well, thank you, I lost it yesterday. I think my friend found it and probably just forgot which apartment was mine."
"Hey, no problem. Have a good one," she said, smiling politely as she left.
When she was out of sight, I hastily looked around. The sun was just beginning to sink below the horizon, and as I looked up, I could see hard chips of stars starting to appear. Over my shoulder, I checked the microwave clock again. It was seven o'clock on the dot. How much longer? What would I say when he arrived? What would I even do when he did? My hands grew cold as I realized that, in all of my stress-cleaning, I hadn't planned anything for Avery and I to do together. Maybe I still had time?
"Good evening," a familiar, airy voice spoke from mere inches in front of me.
I jumped again, head snapping forward as my suddenly weak hands dropped my skateboard, which rolled lazily across my small patio.
Avery stood before me in the dying light. He wasn't completely transparent yet, and the fading sunlight behind him illuminated the delicate curves of his head, giving new meaning to the phrase "silver lining." He was grinning like a child who'd just had ice cream for the first time.
My words caught in my throat.
"I'm glad you found your skateboard! I fished it out of the water after I took you home, but I couldn't remember which apartment you lived in -- sorry about that. I hope it isn't ruined."
Across the courtyard, a man opened his door and stepped out, snapping me out of my besotted daze. My fight-or-flight engaged.
"Get in here!" I whispered urgently, grabbing his shirt sleeve, eliciting a surprised yelp as I pulled him into my apartment. He was lighter than I expected, and as the door swung closed, I tumbled backwards onto the floor.
"My goodness, Casper, are you okay?" He offered a hand to help me up. I scarcely had time to brace myself before taking it, and had no choice but to endure the overwhelming thrill of sensation as his cool palm pressed against mine, pulling me to my feet. He was light, but his strength was undeniable; he practically pulled me off my feet by my hand.
"Oh, yeah, fine... ah... I saw someone... out there, across the yard, and I was afraid they would see you," I hastily explained, avoiding his eyes as I tried to calm my palpitations.
"Well, that was kind of you! Believe it or not, though, humans do see me sometimes. Usually you just assume I am something else, like fog, or simply a trick of the light. Come to think of it, though... I suppose, technically, I am both of those things..." He put his fingers to his lips contemplatively. It was only then that I noticed a few things about him that were different from last time -- he was wearing square-framed glasses, and he seemed... shorter? The first time I saw him, he practically towered over me; now, though, he was only about a head taller.
"Did you get shorter?" I asked rudely, wincing before the words had even left my mouth. Mercifully, he didn't seem to mind.
"Oh, yes! It's a scorcher today, isn't it? I evaporate when I get too hot, or if I go too long without water, similar to how you run out of energy when you don't eat."
I realized that I hadn't offered him a seat or anything to drink since I abruptly yanked him into my apartment. I sensed my father rolling in his grave.
"I'm so sorry, can I get you something to drink? I have plain water, but I also have flavored sparkling water, you know, like La Croix? They aren't sweet, but, they're kinda fruit flavored. The kind I have is strawberry. I also have hot tea? I don't have any soda or anything, I don't really drink soda or alcohol, I also have m-"
Avery put his large hand on my shoulder, offering a reassuring smile. I flushed immediately, becoming aware that I had spoken in such a rush that I'd forgotten to breathe. I inhaled greedily, unable to meet Avery's eyes as I gestured to my small couch for him to sit.
"Sparkling water sounds lovely. I've never had that before, but I love strawberries!" he said, taking a seat.
I cracked open a can for each of us, then took a seat on a cushion across the coffee table from Avery. My couch was so small -- really more of a loveseat -- and I was afraid it was too soon to sit so close to him.
As Avery took a sip of the fizzy drink, his eyes lit up, like they did when he laughed. The liquid entered his mouth, and I watched the bubbles swirl like a hurricane just below the surface of his clear skin, before disappearing into the cloudy translucency of his body. Almost imperceptibly, such that I might not have noticed if I wasn't watching, he grew a bit taller.
"Hehe, that kinda tickles," he said, giggling, "it's not much of a flavor, is it? More like an idea of strawberries. Nonetheless, I like it! It reminds me of the flavor of tea."
"Oh, god. Oh, no."
My mind spun like a top flying off a ripcord. I felt my blush rise cartoonishly from my neck all the way to my hairline, like mercury in a glass thermometer being thrown through time, straight from winter into summer. Had I been a cartoon, I was sure that steam would be whistling out of my burning ears.
"The way that word sounds on his lips... oh, god, this is more than I can bear," I thought, watching him read the back of the La Croix can, his head tilted upward as he peered through his bifocals. There was no denying anything anymore; no bargaining, no holds barred. I was helplessly, hopelessly, powerlessly smitten. I had no choice but to admit it, now: all I could do was double-down.
"Hey Avery?"
"Yes?" He smiled again, and I realized with dizzying elation that he always smiled when he looked at me.
"Have you ever been to the fair?"
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kelnexia · 8 months ago
Text
This song reminds me a lot of Five Pebbles…
youtube
Pregame and Spearmaster’s part of the timeline:
“Lost in this desert and I'm looking for freedom. A small oasis or a moment of breathing.”
(He want’s to ascend and is searching for a solution.)
“I'm still alive but I can hear my body screaming…”
(Could be referring to the rot painfully eating away at him.)
“On my own I'll make it. Blood and bone, I'll take it!”
(His stubborn pride and independence.)
“There's no one to call my friend, but the burden's feeling lighter without their things…”
(He’s kicked everyone out of his life and is trying to convince himself he likes the solitude.)
“I see on the road ahead, a person walking slowly as my vision fades. I wake on an empty bed, but I quickly take my leave and I refuse the aid. No one can hurt me if I'm walking all alone... They can't desert me if I've already turned to stone.”
(He rejects Sun’s offer to help.)
“I'm burning! I'm burning! I'm burning it all down with me! I'm burning! I'm burning! The only way I'll be set free!”
(He’s desperate… Desperate enough to take Moon down with him on his quest for self destruction, despite her begging him not to.)
Rivulet’s part of the timeline:
“I'm sick of asking, if this path will make me who I'm supposed to be... In taking the path less traveled, will the difference be the one I want to see?”
(This could be him looking back on his past choices that ultimately lead to everything falling apart.)
“If I had known that it would be this way, I would've never put myself this far into the fray. Cause now I'm seeing everything I am today, is just a product of the existential price I paid. Now there's dust in the wind and my vision has dimmed. The sand has covered my skin. Is this the end of the end?”
(He’s acknowledged his mistakes for what they are and is filled with regret.)
“I wipe it from my body, but it's starting to blend, and now the only option left is just to soak it in…”
(He’s stuck with the consequences of his actions and has nothing left to do but sit with it.)
“SCORCHING SUN! FREEZING NIGHTS!... I'm slipping. LOSING SIGHT of my WILL TO FIGHT. ON MY OWN. All alone... It's ticking. Counting down my fading light. I'm sick of picking myself up off of these burning sands below. I'm still alive but something died in me, ages long ago... Now my stomach is sick and I'm hearing the tick to the next time I fall and hit the ground. This time will be quick, no longer equipped to lift myself this time around. I've burned it all down, as the flames surround me and I fall into the sand. Like a shot in the dark, I use my last spark for one last deed before the end. My head's on the ground again... I try to lift my head, but I'm still sinking in... I lift up a shaky hand, and I say the only word I should've said back then... Help”
(He’s dying and has lost all hope of being able to save himself. The last line reminds a lot of what he says when you return to him after you’ve delivered his power cell to Moon.)
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death-poems-itsuki · 6 months ago
Text
Tw: Referenced suicide attempt, self harm, talk of past abuse, Itsuki just not being okay at all
Inspired by @v-extreme-diminuendo
Falling to the floor, the young preteen sighs in disappointment. They’d made sure to a really sturdy rope this time, but this time it’s fallen off the hook they’d tied it to rather than the rope fraying. After taking a moment to get some air back into their lungs, they carefully push themself up and walk across the apartment to the bathroom, checking their neck in the mirror.
Rope burn, pretty prominent this time. This would definitely not be fun to explain to their sister later.
They felt even worse this time, which was strange. This usually cleared their head for a moment, but it was just worse this time. Maybe it was that stupid parasitic bullshit that lived in their brain. They’d found out pretty early on that thing’s goal was to make them kill themself, but they’d been trying that long before it had showed up. Maybe that’s why they felt worse now, as if it was punishing them for failing.
Looking back up at the mirror, they realize how awful they looked. Their split dye looked messed up, their roots growing back in since they hadn’t had the energy to fix it, the bags under their eyes horrible, their neck all raw and scarred up from how many times they’d attempted. The fact they went to school like this made it worse. No wonder they got bullied so much.
They’re momentarily tempted to punch the mirror to get rid of that horrible reflection before remembering in the back of their mind that their sister would have to pay for a new one, and she was already tight on money trying to raise them on her own.
Instead, they punched the wall as hard as possible, over and over again. They’re not sure how many times their fist slammed into the wall, but they could feel the steady drip of blood pouring down their hand. Luckily, the bathroom had strong tile, so it didn’t break, though their knuckles were completely busted, reduced to a mess of broken skin and blood, leading them to simply shove their hand under the sinks water and watch the blood pour down the drain. It was bleeding much more than they’d expected it to, and the more blood poured out of their skin, the more their head began to fog.
They can’t really remember what happened between that and them collapsing onto the mattress they slept on every night, but the wounds had managed to spread up to their elbows and from their hips to their knees, making any movement they made hurt horribly. But they felt like they deserved it. Thats why this stupid ability chose them in the first place, right? Because they’re too pathetic to live.
All they do is burden the people in their life. Thats why their parents hurt them, right? Why they’d go to bed every night completely sore from another beating? Why they’d memorized the sounds of footsteps down the hallways? Why their sister had to borrow money from coworkers to pay for them to live with her?
If they just died, that would all be solved, right? But it was as if the world just wouldn’t let them perish, as if it was keeping them alive as some sort of sick punishment. They simply sigh and decide they’ll deal with this all tomorrow, pulling their blanket up over their mangled body and falling into restless sleep.
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chim-aera · 8 months ago
Text
the dance
you wander into the woods on a particularly pleasant evening, fireflies are dancing in the sky, and the trees thrum with some sort of primal, eldritch energy. It's Beltane, may day, the mother earth, the may queen, has her head tipped back in splendor as the sun coaxes spring from her core, and the earth spins and shimmers with the green flush of life, abundance, fertility. the air is sweet, saccharine like blackberries smeared in your pockets, on your hand, your lips, brushing them to a rosy purple laughing like Dawn, rosy fingered and grinning. they're all grinning. once you step past the sanctuary,
it's already too late little mortal, but you know that don't you?
stones stand like stoic sentinels, you set down an offering, maybe a piece of lemon cake, or a button that never stays on right, and you slip past the fraying seams of reality, into what lies beyond. laughter, dancing, wine sweetened smiles, languid grins, it's dizzying, and otherworldly, eyes, slit, cat like, fangs and rows of teeth like a predatorial fish, wings, gossamer and goose down, claws, hands, boney and double jointed, they glance at you, in all their unblinking eternal curiosity. you move, spinning, the music takes you like an overzealous dance partner, turning you around and around until you can't remember when you even started dancing. lips meet yours, sticky with honey and nectar, soft, sickeningly sweet, it's drowning you alive, you're drunk on it all already.
he notices you, a gaze sharper then briar-points, his hand grasping his chalice, long cold fingers slipped around glass. a smile tugs at his lips, flowers are braided into his hair, long, heavy tresses falling down to his waist. he smirks at you, dangerous, the game you're playing, deadly, but there's a sick little joy in that isn't there?
he asks you to dance, do you take it? a cloak like meadows, his breath earthy, wine laden, hot on your ear, on your cheek, sharp nails tease lazily along your collarbone, skeletal fingers curl gently around your throat, he feels the pulse throb there, it only makes his smile widen, creeping along his lips like a snake soon to be fed.
you don't pay notice to the danger here, thousands of eyes flicking towards you, curved mouths lopsided and hungry, watching, waiting. but he holds still, they wouldn't dare strike, they wouldn't dare play with his toy, not until he's had his fun with you.
he takes your hand, his other at your waist, or the small of your back, he twirls you around, his gaze heavy, holding you in place like a moth pinned down by a needle, still fluttering, but hopeless nevertheless. the dance continues, your body never letting you stop, you don't want to stop. you protest when he begins tugging you away from the dance floor, but he simply shakes his head, eyes crinkling in amusement,
mortals are fragile little things, it wouldn't do to see you break all this early.
the effects wear off, eventually, you feel tired, heavy, he pulls you effortlessly along like some sleepy child and you find yourself eventually pressed to his chest, folded in his embrace on his throne, his firm body, large, startlingly large, you realize that now, held fast around you like a shield, or a prison. his gaze never wavers, and he lifts your chin, long digits pried under your jaw, tilting your head back as he gently coaxes your lips apart with one finger, it teases your tongue, pushing down, silencing any startled, pitiful little sounds of protest, before something cool and metallic is pressed to your mouth and the taste far too sweet it resembles bile floods your senses. you try to choke, you try to sputter, but his grip holds firm, forcing it down, while his hand at your neck presses ever so gently into the column of your throat, making you swallow every last drop.
you're left reeling, confused, the sound of the music seems far away, yet it pounds in your ears like some distant demonic drummer, and you press yourself into his arms, nuzzle into the soft silk of his tunic, he coos, soothing you with sweet words of endearment while his touch slides down your spine.
and what do I call you, little one?
the word falls past your lips before you can even think, and a cold, slithering dread grips your soul. this was the third rule you had broken.
never dance. never eat nor drink whatever they offer. and never, never child, do you give them your name.
It's too late now, you're cradled against the chest of the Seelie Lord, he chuckles, a rich sound that vibrates in his chest making you shudder, and his fingers keep caressing your shoulders, yet it feels strange, like branches brushing against your skin, or spiders scittering beneath your clothing. your mouth tastes strongly of the wine, it sets heady in your mouth like the taste of a nightmare, yet you know this is far, far from the storybooks of lore.
you squirm, he holds you fast, two large hands clamped over one thigh, the other threading into your hair, tipping your head back, effectively immobilizing you.
he looks down at you, amused, almost pitying.
you were far too much of an easy little game.
but he's won, no matter.
you try to struggle again, but petal soft lips, sweet yet hungry crash against your mouth, swallowing any sounds from you as his fingers tangle into your hair. he rocks you against him, his hands grasping, kneading, caressing any flesh he can reach, and you can't help but lean into him. growing drunk on his attentions until you're pleading and begging like the sweet little mortal you are.
you don't remember much when you wake, all you feel is a dull throb, a need, festering inside you. you awake in a field of soft grass, mushrooms circling you like a mycloligical Stonehenge.
a fae ring, how fitting.
your hair is braided, mussed, yet not tangled, and a heavy crown of blossoms rest on your head. you can't help but bring it to your nose, your body responding to the sweet, sharp scent of earth and pleasure, and the need inside you only heightens.
you look around to find the stones, moss laden and unchanging. yet your meager offerings are long gone, was it last night you laid them there. last week? last month?
you stand but your mouth feels dry, insatiable, you feel hungry, a desire inside you untamed and wild.
you stand like a bewildered creature in the forest shade, blinking and confused, remembering his soft touch, his gentle words, his lips, his hands, prying apart your lips, tangling in your hair, pinning you flush against soft earth, gentle, all consuming, pleasurable.
you crave it.
you don't know if you can live without it now, everything you knew was faded, fuzzy like the glow of fluorescent lights. distasteful, bland.
when the sound of music fills the air you want to cry, of joy, of terror, your legs react far quicker then you do and you find yourself running, the barrier splits for you once more, the revel hasn't ended, and his throne is in view among the crowd, debauchery and revelry filling the eternal dusk.
you move towards him, strong arms embracing you, he takes you back into his hold and you feel you want to never leave. when he brings his goblet to his lips you snatch it from him, in your strange human hands, bringing it to your mouth as you greedily down it to the dregs.
you laugh, his eyes flicker with something dark, something filled with a dangerous enjoyment, but you only find charm in that.
a wicked, wicked charm.
your head swims from the wine, your mouth tastes saccharine, from his lips, from his drink.
before you know it his mouth is upon yours, his tongue licking into your own, your hands clutch his doublet, he smirks and you can feel it. you devour each other like beasts, like lovers, like fae.
when you both eventually pull away you're panting, he is not, but his eyes are blown wide with lust.
you smile, a dizzy sort of desire tugs at your senses, fills your mind and body.
this was wrong, all of it, around you horned beasts and beings, creatures with tails and cats smiles twist and move, drinking wine from each other's mouths, hands, hooves, horns. cries of ecstasy and energy. it was a dance of debauchery, to the very finest, but you simply lean back into his chest, finding a solace in it. and he presses you closer to his heart.
now the fae king watches new strangers stumble drunken and laughing, tripping like newborn fawns around the revels, the ones that wish to stay, while his lover holds their arms around his neck, watching, with the same clever, amused smile he has. they turn to you, king and consort, and a grin spreads across both lips, of the fae, and the one who's not quite human, not anymore.
so if you travel, little one, to the world of the fae, past the stones arch sentinels of cracks of mossy grey.
leave a gift and carry caution, rowan, iron, salt, and do not heed their pretty promises, do not take their balms.
take not wine nor bread nor cakes, kiss not the honeyed lips. raven eyes, and silver horns, rolling nectar hips.
take not their hands, their fervent dance, step not to beat nor tune. and when you see the High King's head don't follow him to your doom.
and if you follow my warnings fast, perhaps you can go free, but trust me child, you'll wish you had, and ended up like me.
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awkwardgtace · 2 years ago
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Ice Cube Prank Gone Wrong... or Right?
hey @da3dm here's the next request. This might have changed a little bit from the original idea.
Rhys is a young borrower that likes to play tricks on mostly one of the two humans he lives with. One day it goes a little wrong.
Ice Cube Prank Gone Wrong... or Right?
Rhys glared at the dark blue thread currently wrapped around his ankle. It mocked him as he hung limply from the vent with that as his only life line. Stupid vent just had to shift under his weight and make him fall. He knew he was lucky he was caught by the thread, but he was more annoyed that his prank wouldn’t work out now. How could he drop one of those weird cold plastic cubes on the grumpy human when he was stuck like this? 
It would be easy to free himself. It wasn’t like this was the first time he was caught by his ankle, but the humans were loudly talking in the other room. He had time to glare at the thread and vent for betraying him. At least he was supposed to have time. The humans were supposed to stay in the kitchen together. This was the day they always did that, but one voice started to come closer. From where he hung in the sky Rhys saw the grumpy human in the doorway starting to walk away from the room the other was in.
“I’ll just eat later, I have to meet this deadline,” the grumpy one shouted. Rhys started to try and climb up enough to free his ankle. He had to work quickly. Heavy steps rocked through him making it hard to grab the string.
Rhys froze when he felt himself drop. Staring up he saw the thread fraying. The sharper edge of the vent had caused the thread to weaken. Another step from the human had him drop again. He managed to grab the thread and start to pull it apart enough to free his ankle. He paused as he dropped again to stare down at the floor that would kill him if he landed on it. Another heavy step, another drop, and he went back to work.
Biting back a cheer he pulled his ankle free, holding himself up with the thread. Unfortunately it wasn’t fast enough, the human took another set of quick steps that had him falling. Rhys had no time to scream as his body registered the free fall. He was going to hit the hard ground and turn into nothing. His mouth kept moving as he tried to make some noise to maybe land on a human’s hand rather than the floor.
His body collided with something soft and warm, but firm too. The thing shifted forcing Rhys to slide down the soft surface. He felt more than heard the human make a noise that would usually make him laugh. He tried to grab onto something, but found only a surface that felt like skin against his palms. Ice filled his veins as the realization of where he landed hit him. The human, the grumpy human and he was still sliding down towards the floor. The reality didn’t get to set in long before he’d fallen between the human’s shirt and skin.
“Ryder! An ice cube really?” the human shouted. The voice was too loud. Covering his ears would have been a blessing. It took a steeper fall for him to remember to grab the cloth and avoid reaching the hard floor. “I told you to knock it off with these dumb-” A hand reached in too quickly to dodge. Rhys had the air squeezed out of him as fingers pinched him. “-pranks.” 
Rhys was pulled out from the human’s shirt and rushed up to see a giant face. He felt sick as the golden eyes studied him. It had been terrifying to consider being caught by either of the humans. The one holding him always looked angry and put his full weight into each step. The yelling would bring the one with silver eyes, meticulous in everything he did down to the bits of plastic he left out a lot. The one holding him narrowed his golden eyes.
“...You’re not an ice cube,” the golden eyed human said. 
Rhys had quips and responses flit through his mind. No I’m not, put me down. I’m just one you’ve never seen. Correct now if you’d let me go. I’m a new ice they’re testing out. None of them sounded quite right. He didn’t really know what an ice cube even was. His best guess would be that plastic square filled with water he was planning to drop on the grumpy human. 
Either way he couldn’t bring himself to make a sound. Even if he did speak and miraculously got let go, there was no way for him to get home. He never set up the ladders and steps he needed after he moved here. The humans were too fun to mess with. Along with how hard it was to steal the materials from them. A stolen pin had grumpy searching for hours until Rhys put it back. A stolen plastic sword from the other one had the guy almost digging into the vent that Rhys liked to store things in. No reason to bring it all the way home when the humans might go crazy enough he gives it back.
“Felix I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the meticulous one said. He was coming closer now. The steps reached him even through the grumpy one. The fingers holding him actually tensed which forced a pained gasp to escape. It was followed with almost too much pressure removed. Rhys had to hold the fingers to make sure he wouldn’t fall.
Horrified, he stared at the entryway the grumpy human had come from. The other human appeared, his long black hair tied back and out of his face. He always knew the grumpy one was shorter, but held up this high made it more obvious. It was also more terrifying as the taller one came closer. His silver eyes lit up once they found Rhys. The approach of the tall one grew worse once he smiled.
Fingers thinner than the ones currently trapping him wrapped around him. Rhys could feel the strength in the digits as they forced him from Grumpy’s hold. He was moved quickly, fast enough to make him feel sick. The light around him disappeared. The fingers pressed him to something firm and warm. Not as soft as before, but that wasn’t important. The fingers slid until he was pressed against that firm surface by a human palm.
“Ryder, what exactly are you doing?” Grumpy asked. Rhys was doing everything he could to forget about those eyes. The way they looked at him made him want to die.
“You mistook them for an ice cube, they have to warm up,” the meticulous one announced. He always spoke like he was issuing orders to someone.
“You don’t even know if it’s supposed to be that cold. Warming it up could kill it.” 
Rhys shivered at the tone used. He was going to be just some bug or animal to these two. He shouldn’t have been so focused on messing with them. They just kept blaming each other, but never did anything else. It was funny and almost made him feel like he belonged here. It was a lot nicer after the way he was sent away from his last few homes.
It seemed like the one holding him now at least wanted to help him live. That could give him the chance to escape. Then he’d leave and find another new home. The fourth one this year… 
“Please, nothing alive should be this cold. Probably came in from outside due to the weather,” the meticulous one said. Rhys almost nodded along to that. A perfect excuse that he could use. A clicking sound came from above. It made his blood run cold. The things he left in the vent weren’t likely to stay where he left them now. 
“Ryder, you have no idea what that is, if it belongs-” the grumpy one stopped. Silence followed for a horrible span of seconds. 
Rhys held his breath, unable to see what was happening. The fingers that slid away wrapped around him. He grabbed the cloth shirt as tight as he could, desperate for something to keep him safe. His attempts to stay were completely ignored as the meticulous one pulled him free. He was forced to face the humans, wrapped in a tight fist. The grumpy one held a purple plastic cube between his fingers. The traitorous frozen thing had become slick in the warm air of the vent.
“Aha,” the shout made him jump, the meticulous one was too loud. “It appears we discovered a little prankster!”
 Rhys started shaking. The humans definitely would hurt him now. He felt the golden eyes assessing him the whole time. The softer hand was held out near him. Rhys looked at the one holding him, there was something in the way he looked that answered any questions Rhys could ask. The grumpy one was going to get his way, it didn’t matter what happened.
The fist holding him moved until he was dropped on the palm. Fingers curled over him. He was brought close to those eyes, he genuinely considered poking one to try and escape. That would just kill him, Grumpy was wearing a shirt that just had thin bits of fabric on his shoulders to hold it up. Grumpy let out a hum while staring at him.
“Ryder, finish cooking breakfast. We’ll come eat in about…” Grumpy mumbled as he tilted his head, “thirty minutes.”
“Yes sir!” the other said. 
The hand holding Rhys wrapped the fingers around him blocking most of his view. He was pulled close to the human, unable to see anything around him anymore. The steps jolted through his spine. This human wasn’t thinking about anything he did as he walked. Rhys didn’t want to see what Grumpy was planning. He tried to run through what he’d been taught before being sent off on his own. He was following one rule at least, never refer to a human by their name. Being too familiar could get him killed, although familiar wasn’t the issue now that he was caught.
Felix sighed as he kicked the door shut to his work room. He should have warmer fabrics than the creature currently wore in here. He just needed an idea of how big it really was. He walked to the desk he used to test designs, none of the dolls were quite small enough. They’d work at least.
He sat down, grabbing a few things before bringing his hand close to the table. Folding back his fingers, the thing was still shaking. It was hard to believe this was actually planning to drop an ice cube on anyone. Probably just liked the color and tried to steal it. He tilted his hand until the creature slid off. He hesitated for only a second before curling his other hand around it.
Felix grabbed a few of the heavier sewing kits he owned and placed them around the creature. Each side blocked off except the one open to where he’d be working on something. He considered something to keep it occupied. If it liked purple he could give it some purple fabric. Maybe it would make a nest on his desk… that would be interesting at least. He pulled his hand back, resting his elbow next to the sewing kit near the edge of the table.
“Stay put,” he mumbled. He didn’t really expect the thing to listen. Looking human doesn’t make it human. “I have a feeling you’ll run off if I don’t stop you.”
Felix grabbed the smallest doll he had. It was still at least twice as big as the creature. He found himself wondering if there were any other extremities he should worry about. Wings, a tail, anything. He’d just have to assume there weren’t. He wasn’t going to risk injuring it to find out, plus he’d need more than thirty minutes to go that detailed. He snapped the doll apart to get to work.
Felix jumped as the small creature shrieked. He stared at the thing, the small hands held over its head in fear. He didn’t see how it could have hurt itself. There weren’t any loose pins around. The idea that this had been the cause of the string of pranks he’d suffered only grew more impossible. Although the shaking was making him struggle to believe it wasn’t as human as it looked.
He noticed the creature looking at the doll in his hands. His own eyes went wide as he made the connection. Ryder’s theory that it came in to avoid the cold may not be wrong. If it had been in the house for any time it would know the dolls come apart. He put the doll back together, holding it out to the little creature. He used his empty hand to tap the creature’s head, guilt consuming him as the little thing scrambled away. The eyes locked on his fingers.
“Hey,” he whispered. He spared a glance at the doll he held. This creature was smaller than it and the doll was already so small in his hands. “They’re designed to come apart. I’m not gonna hurt you, I just use them to make small designs easier. Here, try pulling it apart, it’s easy.”
Felix held the doll’s head close to the little thing. He didn’t expect it to listen, he wasn’t ready to accept tiny people existed. It was a strange creature that used fabric to cover some shell or something… probably. Regardless he’d make something to keep it warm. After that they’d have to wait and see. The small form slowly stood and reached past the doll head to the shoulders. He smiled a bit when pink eyes stared up at him. Weird eyes just like he and Ryder had.
The small person tugged on the doll’s body. Felix didn’t even need to help, the doll popped apart. He smiled when a look of awe took over the creature’s face. There was a chance it hadn’t spoken because it was mute. It looked so much like a person, it was getting harder to deny that. It was possible that their voice was too quiet for them to hear too. The face was staring straight at where the doll had separated.
“Wow…” they whispered. Felix thought his heart stopped. That was definitely not meant for him to hear. It would be easy to pass off as the wind. At least if he hadn’t been sure the small mouth moved when he heard it. He sat back, pulling a slightly bigger doll closer to work with. He couldn’t deny it anymore, they’d found a tiny person. He’d wait until they’d eaten to ask about getting measurements for better clothes.
It was hard to guess the right size for someone so small while working on a doll four times their size. It didn’t have to be perfect though, an oversized sweater was enough. He kept looking at the small person while he worked. They were studying the part where the doll broke apart. It was clear they’d never seen something like it up close. He smiled when he saw the way they acted when they found another part that could disconnect.
Felix finished the sweater, but left the small person investigating the doll longer. At one point he reached closer to show more of how it worked. They backed away, but moved closer as soon as his hands were gone. It sort of reminded him of when he and Ryder were younger. The constant questions from the younger one about what he worked on. The look of awe felt more like their sister though.
“We’ve probably made Ryder wait long enough,” he said. The little person jumped and stumbled away from the doll. Felix grabbed the pieces, locking them back in place. He offered the sweater to the person, hoping it would work to get some response. He wanted proof he hadn’t imagined their voice. It would make everything a lot easier moving forward. 
Small hands grabbed the sweater. The little face stared up at him with wonder and something he couldn’t name. The purple sweater was pulled over the small head. Felix had estimated poorly, it looked like it hung down past their thighs. It would be something he could fix once they started communicating. It had only just occurred to him they might speak different languages.
Felix reached for the small being. Hesitating when they started to shake again. He bit his lip, they couldn’t just wander freely. They would probably disappear, or worse a careless action could hurt them. He wasn’t about to let them die from his own ignorance. He pulled his hand back and set it in front of the person instead.
“Is this better?” he asked. The small face stared at him again, Ryder wasn’t going to be happy to let them leave anytime soon. Their frame looked thin. They felt it when he held them too. It was likely the little person hadn’t had a good meal for a long time. They nodded, Felix felt like an idiot. They listened when he offered the doll, of course they spoke the same language. He would have to make it up to them for doubting their personhood later. “I’m Felix.”
“...grumpy,” the small person said. He could hear a bit clearer. The voice was much more masculine than he first thought. The little man looked up with wide eyes. A deep breath made the sweater hanging loosely on his frame move. Felix opted to let Ryder deal with trying to make the man talk.
“Ryder’s waiting, let’s go.”
Ryder had focused his time since meeting the little prankster on trying to make small pancakes. He didn’t have the best judge of the small person’s size, but that wouldn’t stop him. Of course it didn’t help that he burned a lot of attempts. The delay Felix ran into wound up being something he appreciated. By the time he heard his elder brother returning he had the prankster’s portion ready. He set the plates with the pancakes he’d made for the two of them down.
Ryder stared at the small pile of tiny pancakes. He needed something for the little prankster to eat from. He searched around the kitchen before settling on a small dish they had from a tea set someone gave Felix a long time ago. He knocked the pile of food onto the dish, setting it centered between the two normal plates. He opened a bottle of water, using the cap to hold syrup for the small person.
As Ryder set the bottle cap down Felix walked in. His brother carried the small person in a flattened palm held near his chest. The small person didn’t appear to love the arrangement, but it might be better than a fist. He’d take that into consideration the next time he held them. Felix took his seat and set his palm down on the table. It made him smile to see the little prankster in something his brother had put together.
Ryder took his seat, leaning his elbows on the table. He put his hands up to rest his head on as he stared at the small person. It was clear they were young, probably close to his sister’s age. It made him worried that someone else was around they hadn’t seen. Felix hit his arm distracting him from his thoughts. The little person was staring up at him.
“I hope you haven’t found my brother poor company,” he said. Felix sighed, he never did like how Ryder phrased things. “I hope the pancakes are something you’ll enjoy, little prankster.”
The small person tensed. It made him worried. He moved his hand to check, but they scrambled away. The reaction spurred him on, reaching closer to them. Felix cleared his throat, getting Ryder to look at him. A single shake of his brother’s head made Ryder pull his hand back immediately. He looked to Felix for a sign of what to do next, a shrug was not the answer he wanted. 
“...gonna…me…” the small person said. Ryder leaned closer to try and hear them better. The following stumble made it worse again. Especially when they tripped on the too long sleeve of the sweater Felix gave them. He and Felix shot out a hand to catch them, but failed. The small person fell onto the bottle cap of syrup spilling it on the table and themself.
Felix stood up quickly, shaking the table as he did. Ryder frowned as the prankster wound up covered in more of the sticky syrup. He reached forward with every intent to help the person. They started trying to force their way out of the purple sweater on their own. Looking at the mess, the best option seemed to be pulling them by their legs. It would get them out of the sticky substance, mostly clean. 
Ryder moved carefully to pinch the small legs between two of his fingers. He pulled the prankster free from the predicament. The amount of squirming made him frown. The attempt was successful as he pulled them up and away from the puddle of syrup. The sink was running as Felix got things to clean the mess, he was almost tempted to just bring them over to it.
All his thoughts stopped when he met the face of the being he held. Nothing could make the tears on their face any clearer. The sniffling he heard was louder than a concert speaker to him. Slowly and carefully he set the little prankster down on the table. It was the first time Ryder took a good look at them.
The little person was young, younger than his sister. Salmon hair that needed to be taken care of and bits of dirt stuck to his tan skin. They didn’t find a small adult or a child without a parent. They found a young boy who was on his own in a world that definitely wasn’t made for him. Felix came back with a few wet paper towels, but Ryder knew the damage was done. They’d made things awful for a child.
Rhys wanted to die. He’d been able to handle it with Grumpy. Completely dumbfounded when he learned the human hadn’t just been finding the same doll a million times. Of course with both of them staring at him he’d started to lose his confidence. It didn’t help that he was almost positive Grumpy heard him mumble that in response to his offered name. Trying to speak was a mistake, he should just stay a dumb quiet animal so these monsters let him go.
He didn’t expect to be put down gently after Meticulous held him by his legs. A quick motion had him curled in a ball the second he was free of those fingers. Honestly, he thought that was going to be when he died. Whatever curiosity kept him safe so far would be gone now that he made a mess. No reason for humans to be any nicer than other borrowers.
“Hey,” Meticulous said. Rhys just tried to curl up smaller. Maybe he could disappear if he got small enough. “No one is going to hurt you.”
“As if I can trust humans,” he mumbled. Something cold touched him, making him jump. Grumpy’s face was close.
“So you can talk little guy,” he smirked. Rhys was even more mad at himself. He should know better by now. Talking to himself is what got him sent off on his own in the first place. He hugged his knees as tightly as he could. Desperately hoping the humans would think he died or something. A finger poked him, he tried not to move. “You need to clean the syrup off of yourself. Can you do that?”
Rhys refused to move. He felt one sigh and heard the other’s. Mumbled voices that he couldn’t make himself understand. Humans plotting was bad. He was expecting those huge fingers to lift him up and start wiping off the syrup stuff. Instead he was left alone. The humans moved other things, but not him. Slowly he chanced looking at them again. Grumpy had the clothes he made and turned away with them. Meticulous was holding a plate of something up high with his arm stretched over Rhys to do something.
Grumpy took a seat in front of one of the giant plates again. Meticulous set the one he held down in front of Rhys before sitting down himself. The two humans shared a look before nodding at each other. Rhys just hugged his knees tighter. A part of him thought if he didn’t act then they’d forget about him. Once he was forgotten about he could try to do something.
“You should eat the pancakes before they get too cold,” Meticulous said.
“He’s right. The syrup incident just joins our list. There’s also the butter event and the jelly fiasco,” Grumpy said.
“Jelly…?” Rhys mumbled. He didn’t know what jelly was. Grumpy got a smile on his face that actually made him look nice. Meticulous groaned which made him jump.
“My dear brother never tires of telling this story.” Rhys tilted his head, but Grumpy’s smile got bigger.
“He’s right I don’t. The kiddo here asked about it, no reason not to tell him.” Meticulous buried his head in his hands. “When Ryder here was a kid he wanted to make everyone breakfast. He was determined and succeeded in burnt toast. He slathered peanut butter on some pieces and decided he needed jelly to add to it.”
Rhys found himself nodding along. It wasn’t like Grumpy was a good story teller, but Meticulous reacting by hiding made him curious.
“Well the jar was stuck closed. Ryder wasn’t going to let that stop him, but his master plan was to hold it up above him to open it,” Grumpy mimed the action, holding an imaginary something above him and twisting his other hand a bit lower. “Our parents walked in just in time to try and stop him. He was pulled off the chair he stood on only to manage to open the jar as our dad held him close.”
Grumpy was laughing and Meticulous moaned. Rhys found himself grinning.
“The jar popped open and jelly spilled all over Ryder, our dad, the chair and the floor. Somehow it missed the burnt toast completely despite the splash all over.” Grumpy leaned closer holding up a finger with a big grin. Rhys actually leaned forward too. “The best part was back then every time he made a mistake it was some heroic deed. So he valiantly announced he’d defeated the monster trapped in the jelly.”
Grumpy started to laugh more and Meticulous hit his head on the table. Rhys wound up laughing too. It sounded funny even if he didn’t know what all the words were. Especially with Meticulous getting so upset. Grumpy kept a big grin on his face as Meticulous sat up straight again. They both were smiling still, it made him feel a lot safer.
With that safe feeling he decided to try the food they put near him. He reached out to one, it was almost as big as his head so he ripped a part off. Carefully he took a bite and his mind went blank. He couldn’t remember having warm food really ever, but it was more than that. He never had something that tasted like this. He started to eat quickly, completely ignoring the humans. He didn’t want them to take it away. 
“Hey,” Meticulous whispered while tapping Rhys’s head. Rhys froze, looking up at the human. “Take it slow, if you eat that whole pile I can make more. Or you can take from one of our plates. Going too fast can get you sick.”
Rhys nodded and forced himself to go slower. He almost wondered if they’d let him take some home. If they let him go. Although getting let go still wouldn’t do much. He didn’t get to focus on his situation for long. The two humans started to talk again. Telling more stories that wound up with him laughing. He had no idea how long he sat between them listening, how long he felt like this was normal.
After a while he realized he couldn’t eat anymore of the food. He frowned at the pile that was still mostly his height. He didn’t want it to go to waste. The two humans ate everything they had. He felt almost out of place, but the casual way the two talked had him lose that thought. He liked how they acted. Every once in a while they’d say something directly at him, but neither made him answer.
“Well, it’s almost time I get back to work on my designs,” Grumpy said as he stretched.
“I do need to finish painting those figures,” Meticulous nodded. Rhys felt a little sad that this couldn’t keep going.
“What about you, kiddo?” He jumped when Grumpy spoke to him, but got excited too. He never got to talk about the things he was planning. “What are your plans for the day?”
“After I dropped the cold purple thing on the grumpy human I was gonna try and take some warmer fabric from him. Then I wanted to see if the meticulous one dropped one of those swords so I could take… it…” Rhys trailed off. He realized too late that he excitedly told both humans his plans to first play a trick on one and then take from the other. He stared up in fear, but both humans had a look that almost made him feel safe.
“Grumpy… I wouldn’t think I look grumpy. Although Ryder does fit meticulous.” Rhys shrank away from the humans staring at him. Slowly Meticulous started to shake. Rhys started to slide back, he only moved a little before the human burst out laughing.
“I’m sorry, but Felix, that is one of the nicer things someone has said when they see your neutral expression.” Rhys backed up more. He didn’t want to be near angry humans. Grumpy sighed.
“That is true…” Grumpy’s eyes locked on Rhys again. “So, what else were you planning today? I don’t think you’ll get one of the swords you wanted. All of the meticulous human’s statues are being sent out soon. They need those weapons. I’d be happy to get you some warmer fabric, even make the clothes once I’m done with my designs.”
“Felix, he'd be bored watching you work. Why don’t you come help me paint, little prankster?”
Two hands were set down in front of him. He backed away, the warmth from them terrifying. He started to feel safe, like he belonged. That was dangerous. All he found out was these humans wanted to keep him and he wouldn’t get to find a new home. He didn’t want to be a pet… He wanted to keep exploring and playing his tricks. 
“Y-you’re keeping me?” he managed to ask. The humans shared wide eyed looks with each other. Both hands were pulled back. He didn’t know what was worse.
“No, we’re giving you a choice to spend the day with one of us,” Grumpy whispered.
“A-aren’t you mad?” A finger ruffled his hair and made him duck down to hug his knees.
“When I thought my brother, the adult, was playing tricks? Yes. A kid having fun, not so much.” Rhys stared at the humans with his own eyes wide. He pouted almost immediately after.
“I’m not a kid.” Meticulous leaned closer.
“How old are you?”
“Fourteen.” Meticulous gasped and leaned back, the hint of a smile on his face.
“Felix he’s right it’s worse he’s a teenager. Soon we’ll have to deal with loud music that the neighbors complain about.” Grumpy nodded as Meticulous spoke.
“It might even be rock music.”
“Oh no, little prankster, do you listen to rock music?” Rhys climbed up to his feet and shook his head. He didn’t understand what the humans were even talking about.
“I don’t know what rock music is…” Grumpy shot him a smile that made him start feeling safe again… It was tempting to use their names. They kept saying them. He already broke so many rules, would it be bad to break another?
“That’s a relief, maybe we can skip the punk phase.” 
“What’s going on?” Rhys had to voice his confusion. He didn’t understand anything anymore. The humans weren’t grabbing him or punishing him. They were just… making jokes. He stomped his foot as he stared up at them. “Are you treating me like a joke? I’m a person!”
“No, we’re making you smile.” The meticulous human’s voice was soft and kind. Rhys jumped from the voice. The grumpy human just gave him a look.
“Of course you’re a person… I apologize for doubting that at first. It is hard to believe people so small exist.” The grumpy human looked away. He saw a bit of red on his cheeks. That meant the human was embarrassed.
“So… what are you gonna do with me?” If the humans were just going to keep trying to make him smile he had to ask. He couldn’t just look for an escape when the humans weren’t making it easy. Acting different from normal would only trap him. The two shared a look.
“Nothing.” Rhys fell to his knees. This was just a weird dream and he’d wake up cold in his poorly insulated home. The humans would be loud, he’d still drop the cold thing on Felix. He’d maybe try to steal some of the stuff Ryder made… and he’d keep calling them by name in his head like he just did.
“I can’t get home… I lost my hook when I fell out of the vent.” It felt like he opened a door he shouldn’t. That now the humans would know he was helpless and stop pretending.
“What do you need for it?” He stared up at the humans in shock…
“Y-you’ll just give it to me? No deals or-or threats? Just… just like that?” One of the massive hands came close, a finger ruffled his hair again.
“Just like that. What do you need for a hook?” It felt strange that the constantly grumpy looking Felix was the one who gently ruffled his hair. It didn’t feel real.
“...thread and a… a paperclip or safety pin.”  Felix left without a word. Rhys just watched while Ryder folded his arms on the table and smiled. He looked at the silver eyed human with a bit of hope. “Can I… can I have pancakes with you again?”
“We can add chocolate chips next time.” 
Rhys jumped to his feet with a smile. He never got to have chocolate before. He knew humans liked it a lot. Felix came back, setting a whole spool of thread down along with a bunch of paper clips and safety pins. Rhys grabbed one of each, quickly fashioning a hook similar to what he had. He looked up at the humans, both standing at their full height again. He should leave, humans were dangerous. They weren’t mad at him or yelling or upset he had been messing with them.
“...can I still stay with one of you today?” he asked. Rhys jumped when two hands were set in front of him again. He would run away later, for today he’d embrace this feeling of belonging.
—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Rhys!” Felix shouted. The borrower ducked under a table to avoid the angry human. It was probably not the best idea to mess with the sewing machine… again. Heavy steps came towards his hiding spot. He tried to run, but a hand caught him as soon as he shot out.
“Um… hi?” he smiled. Felix glared at him, but the hold stayed soft. These humans were nothing like they looked like. The human turned and walked back to his room, setting Rhys carefully down on the sewing machine where he’d left part of it dismantled.
“What did we talk about with the sewing machine?”
“Not to take it apart when you have deadlines nearby?”
“What did I tell you and Ryder two days ago?”
“You have a deadline to meet… I still don’t know what those are though!” Felix sighed, it blew his hair back. He fixed it to sit over his shoulder again, he liked how clean it was now.
“You know exactly what a deadline is. I've explained it to you six times already.”
“I’m a fourteen year old borrower with no education. You can’t expect much from me.”
“Ryder told you to say that, didn't he?”
“...no.” Rhys looked away as Felix sighed again. The human did it on purpose, blowing his hair out of place again. He liked keeping it on his shoulder and Felix took advantage of that. The golden eyes stared down at him unflinchingly. He let out his own sigh and stepped back a bit. “I… might not know how to fix it this time…”
Another sigh and he stiffened. Despite how nice the humans were he knew they’d get angry at some point. Felix would grab him and squeeze him, or Ryder would trap him in one of those cleaners for the statues he made. Felix’s hand came close, but all he got was a light shove from one of the fingers. He pushed back at it, stumbling when it pushed him harder.
“Stay here while I fix it so you don’t leave it taken apart again. Next time I’ll start locking it up when I have a deadline to meet,” Felix whispered.
Rhys climbed to his feet and sat off to the side. He watched the huge fingers fix all the things he took apart. It felt weird to see how deft Felix actually was. The whole thing only took a few minutes. He just sat silently as it happened. Once it was done Felix sat back and smiled at him. This still didn’t feel real.
“Let me know next time you can’t fix it, I usually can ok?” the human said. Rhys nodded. He expected to be ignored, but a hand was placed in front of him. “Did you want to stay in here while I worked or go back to what you were doing?”
“I’m allowed to stay?” he asked. He thought Felix would kick him out after that.
“It’ll be boring, Ryder’s probably going to watch a video or something while the minis print.” Rhys climbed on the hand with his eyes shining.
“Let’s go to Ryder!” The human holding him laughed, but did as he instructed. 
The humans were dangerous and could hurt him. They could turn on him in an instant. The hand that was holding him carefully now could squeeze hard enough to break him. The one he was dumped on before Felix walked off could just drop him somewhere to forget about. Each time they held him promised those things wouldn’t happen. Soft, gentle holds that kept him close to their hearts. He really did find a place he belonged.
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satwu · 3 months ago
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[ bullet ] sender takes a bullet for receiver (okay but this in the weapon verse we have but instead of a bullet it's a cursed technique)
you  reach  and  time  bends,   parts  like  water  beneath  your  fingertips  and  molds  to  your  wanting—  this  is  what  you  anticipate  when  the curse user  shifts  and  energy  comes  FLOWING,   burst  of  light  to  the  senses    /    enough  to  make  vision  fray.    you  expect  at  least  some  of  it  to  catch  in  your  infinity,   heat  to  dissipate  between  atoms.    
then  you  see  him  f a l l . @sugwu
you  reach  and  time  bends,   but  it  stains  the  back  of  your  eyelids :   all these passing  months,   blank  walls  and  empty  scenery  and  a  head  so  empty  you  could  explode,   alleviated  only  by  the  thought  that  you  would  see  him  again.
EVERYTHING  ELSE  FALLS  AWAY.    YOU  REACH  AND  IT ALL  BENDS.    feel  starlight  pour  into  vein  and  think  only  of  his  crumpled  form,   dark  hair  and  lavender  eyes  and  a  smile  so  insufferable  it  makes  you  sick.  is  this  loathing?   no,   no  too  much too sweet  for  loathing.   YOU  HAVE  TOO  LONG  BEEN  A  BIRD  IN  A  CAGE  and  this,   this  is  ascension.    t h i s  i s  d i v i n e.
LILAC,   LAVENDER ,   V I O L E T .
you  lock  eyes  with  the  curse  user  and  let  it  all  flow,    PEEL  HIM  APART  LAYER  BY  LAYER ,    strips  of  flesh  and  bone  and  energy  and  soul,   and  you  can  taste  the  terror  in  his  atoms  and  you    GLOW .    ᶜᵘʳˢᵉᵈ ᵗᵉᶜʰⁿᶦᵠᵘᵉ ᵃᵐᵖˡᶦᶠᶦᶜᵃᵗᶦᵒⁿ : ᵇˡᵘᵉ . . . ᶜᵘʳˢᵉᵈ ᵗᵉᶜʰⁿᶦᵠᵘᵉ ʳᵉᵛᵉʳˢᵃˡ : ʳᵉᵈ.
H̵͈̹̪̱͕̹̜̰̉͜Ö̴̥͇̙̼̘̫͔̞́̕Ļ̴̣͕̯̰̥̺̦̀̇͌̔̾̚L̶̛̹̳͎̋̓̅͌̿͆̈́̑O̴̳̙͈̝̘͕̐̈́̆̊͋̀̄̓̊͘Ẃ̶̨̛̝̾̒̔̓̃̑͠ ̵͇̟̎̓ ̶̱̀̽̈̀̃P̷̡͍͉̈́̉̉̋U̴̢̟̱̮̪̞̼̓͊́͜R̶̢̛̪̺̀̆́͒̉̑͋͝P̵̗̟̈̅́͌͛̕̚L̵̯͌̿̊͋̎͋̕͝Ę̵̡̀͌̈͌̓͘ . 𝐢𝐭  𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥𝐬  𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭,   𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧'𝐭  𝐢𝐭 ?!?!?!    six  eyes  opened  and  bright  and  SCORCHING,    gravity  pouring  space  into  the  street,    obliterating  all in its path .
. . .
and all  that  remains  when  the  stars  fade  into  the  sky  . . . is  him. 
HIM,   cursed  energy  faint  and  flickering. & time  stills  with  a  delicacy  like  the  first  breath  of  spring,   sensation  rooting  itself  deep  into  a  chest  once  thought  empty  as  you  settle  at  his  side.    turn  his  face,    ( infinity  caved ),   and  search  for  warmth.   oh,   and  here  he  is ;    bitter and lavender  and  smoke.    brush  thumbs  over  cheeks  and  smile  despite  it  all ,          ❝  got  'em.   ❞          blind  to  the  destruction,   crumbling  buildings  and  shattered  streetlamps.          ❝   hang  tight,   suguru.    i'll  call  ieiri .  ❞          adrenaline's  sweet  aftermath  is  still  high,   burning  beneath  tender  palms,   so  instead,   fondness  colors  your  features.    you  know  what  comes  next.    you  do not  tell  him.
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captainderyn · 2 years ago
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Roommates prompts: falling asleep on the couch together (and being very flustered at their positions in the morning)
I'VE WRITTEN THE THING!
Thank you for this! It's kinda more a temporary accidental roommate vibe but its sweet and cute and filled with panicked gay feelings xD
Judy x V (Cyberpunk 2077)
--
Inviting V to spend the night at her place hadn’t been Judy’s plan that first night. Or the night after, or the night after. 
But the drive from Charter St in Kabuki to the other side of Little China was a pain, especially night after night, and V just looked so damn tired all the time. The circles seemed to get darker under her eyes each time she showed up at Judy’s door and the way she always picked up the phone no matter what time Judy called had to mean she wasn’t sleeping deep. 
Last time it had been three in the morning, when she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Evelyn, imagining her just down the hall, bloody and cold and dead. Her apartment had closed in around her and she’d paced her room like a feral animal, clawing at the walls but unable to face passing by that room. 
‘Sides, going into Night City at that hour was a surefire way to lose all your eddies and personal belongings at best, your entire life at worst. Judy was miserable, not suicidal. 
She didn’t have anyone to call other than V. That restless pain in her wanted to be soothed in only the unique way only V could. Typing out a text message was impossible, there was no way she could articulate exactly what it was she needed. She didn’t know what she needed. 
And she hadn’t expected V to answer. 
For 3am, V had been alert. Her quick answer, her face popping up on the holo after barely one ring, had been enough to jar Judy into sitting down for the first time that night. From the looks of it, V was curled up on her cough, her cheek pillowed on her forearm, even if there was no sleepiness in her voice. 
That first, “What’s up, Judy?” had been a soothing wash over her fraying state of mind and she’d taken a deep breath. One that hadn’t meant to quiver just like her voice wasn’t supposed to wobble as she’d tried to joke that she hadn’t expected V to pick up and was just going to leave a voice mail. 
Something about that had made V heave herself up from her couch, saying she’d be over at her place ASAP. 
Kabuki was a thirty minute drive from Little China. Judy didn’t question it when V was at her door in fifteen with take-out from the questionable 24/7 shop nearby. She just stepped to the side, holding open the door, and let V sweep in like she was always meant to be here. 
That had been four days ago, and V had been back at her place every night despite Judy’s half hearted protests that she really didn’t need to. 
She stayed until Judy fell asleep in the early morning hours and was always gone by morning, a note left on the counter in V’s awful handwriting and coffee ready to brew in the pot. 
And everytime without fail, when Judy called about their ongoing plans, V picked up on the first ring. 
By the time they wrapped up planning their assault on Clouds and the dolls  had left, V was swaying in her spot on the couch. 
She made to stand, mumbling something about how she should go, and Judy tugged her back down. Way more forceful than she’d intended. 
V tumbled back against the touch cushions with a grunt. Something was up, her eyes had glazed over partway through their planning and she’d excused herself to the bathroom as a coughing fit had nearly doubled her over. She hadn’t bounced back since. 
“Just want to crash here tonight, V?” Judy dropped her hold on V’s wrist like the skin-to-skin contact burned. Was it weird to ask? What if V was sick of staying here and just wanted her own apartment back? 
She tacked on before V could get a word in, “It’s late and I know you’ve been making that drive back and forth…” 
“Mmph, don’t wanna intrude. It’s not that bad of a drive.” 
Oh hell, maybe Judy keeping V up at all hours of the day and dragging her out here every night meant V was coming down with something. Guilt washed over her at the prospect. So many other big, important gigs V had on her plate and it would be Judy’s personal shit that would get her sick. 
Judy looked V up and down, “I think I’d rather you not drive back right now.” 
That felt too serious, too concerned for…whatever it was that they were. The merc she hired, who’d become something like a friend. The very attractive merc with the tattoos and the bright, bubbling laugh and--
She was staring; she ripped her eyes away from V, “Erm, yeah, kinda need you for this job so…makes sense for you to just stay.” 
“Can’t argue with that I guess.” V sighed and curled up on her side, sinking into the cushions. 
She was asleep before Judy even had a chance to say goodnight. 
**
 Judy froze when V’s sleepy grip found the hand tracing the ink on her arm and pulled her over onto V’s body instead, pivoting them so V was on her back. She tried to pull away, but V’s grip was surprisingly strong, and she relaxed into it. She settled against V’s chest and V curled around Judy, arm slung low over her back.
     V breathed deeply once she felt Judy relax and nuzzled her neck, nose buried in her hair.
    She had a feeling this was the first time V had fallen fully asleep in awhile. She was dead to the world as Judy squirmed for a moment, adjusting and questioning whether she should pull away.
Judy let herself melt against V. Their breath mingled and Judy could almost pretend that this was completely normal, that her brain wasn’t screaming, and that this wouldn’t all dissipate in the morning.
 She didn’t have half the reason to worry over V so damn much right now. This was V, dependable V. Who thought nothing about coming over to Judy's house in the middle of the night and who would think nothing of this.
V, who looked at her like she was the best thing in Night City.
 She shifted so that her head fell against V’s shoulder and took another deep breath. A few more minutes, that's what she'd give herself. Then she'd get up, grab a blanket for V from the hallway closet, and sequester herself away in her room before she made things all the more complicated.
A few minutes, she reminded herself, before V woke up and felt the way Judy’s heart was hammering out of her chest and how hot her face was. Before Judy had to come up with a series of lame excuses as to why they were in this position. 
She tried to focus on anything other than the fact that V smelled good, like the coffee she'd spilled earlier after gulping it down, and felt warm and comfortable.
The soft hum of V’s breath in her ear and the slow rise and fall of her chest pulled Judy's eyelids down. They might wake up early tomorrow and Judy was going to be embarrassed, but her body was too heavy to move.
Days upon days of exhaustion settled down on Judy all at once and she didn’t even mean to when sleep pulled her under completely. 
*
Unusual warmth registered first, before Judy even opened her eyes. Warm against her chest, her back; a steady, comforting weight draped over her lower back. 
Mind still muddled, she chased that warm, nuzzled closer to it. The warmth tugged her closer, that weight against her lower back tightening like muscled arms. 
Arms…it’d been so long since she’d been held in the mornings. What a pleasant dream. 
Her nose brushed against skin that still smelled faintly of coffee, and beneath it the rich, leather and gunmetal scent that always meant V. 
V. Judy went rigid, eyes shooting open. 
Though she was no longer snuggled on V’s chest, V was laying beside her, her arm draped over Judy’s side. They were tangled together, legs intertwined, and up until now Judy’s face had been buried in the crook of her neck. 
In one swift motion, Judy twisted away from her, nearly tumbling off the edge of the couch. 
V awoke more peacefully at her movement, the deep blue of her eyes clouded by sleep still and half lidded. Her hair was an absolute mess, half of it sticking up while her bangs were mused and tangled. 
Judy squished down the thought that she wanted to run her fingers through that hair, straighten it out. She pushed that thought deep, deep down. Already her face was flushing, cheeks burning so hot she was certain her skin would melt away. 
They stared at each other for several moments, neither moving or speaking. The air between them crackled with tension. Finally, V blinked, the dark circles under her eyes looking deeper than usual. She sat up slowly, stretching and groaning softly. The light caught just right, the muscles in her forearms flexing as she rose. 
Her shirt rode up her stomach and Judy forced herself not to look. Even though she could see the edge of a tattoo peeking out from the exposed waistband of her jeans. 
“Morning, Judy,” V drawled with a yawn, smiling lazily and stretching, rolling her shoulders, popping her back. “Sleep well?”
Judy nodded. The words wouldn't come out.
How was V so nonchalant about this? That they’d fallen asleep entangled the way lovers do? 
Horror dawned over Judy and her skin burned, prickling. Did V even know they’d fallen asleep like that? She’d slept so deeply that Judy wasn’t even sure she’d been coherent when she’d tugged Judy onto her. 
 Did V remember?
Was she supposed to fess up?
Why did Judy have to be so goddamn awkward? She couldn’t take her eyes off that naked sliver of V's torso. She watched as V stretched again, arms reaching towards the ceiling and fingers splayed wide as she rotated slowly.
“Earth to Judy, you okay there?” V asked. She gave Judy a searching look, "Look like you're fightin' demons over there."
“No no, sorry, just thinking,” Judy said, forcing herself to look away.
V seemed to accept the answer at face value and flopped back against the pillows behind her, sighing and running her hands up her face.
"Think that's the best I've slept in weeks."
Judy swallowed hard and said, "Yeah,”
The clock blinked barely six thirty, “I mean - it's not even seven yet. You’ll stay for breakfast if you want?"
V perked up again, looking far happier than Judy would have expected. "I won’t say no to that!” 
Anything to get off this couch and away from the distracting curves of V’s body, the temptation to fall back against her and give into everything that whispered in the back of Judy’s mind when it came to the merc. 
“Coffee sounds great right about now.” V made to get up and without thinking, Judy planted her hand on V’s shoulder. 
“I’ll make it, you stay here.” She scampered to her feet before she could think twice. 
V sighed behind her but planted herself back on the couch without more protest. 
But when Judy glanced over her shoulder, V was staring after her with unfocused eyes, cheeks a flaming, bright pink. 
Shit. 
She remembered. 
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punchdrunkdoc · 1 year ago
Text
Part 2, Chapter 6
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Summary: After the events of S3, Matt Murdock is trying to once again balance life as a lawyer and a vigilante. But he’s been scarred by loss and betrayal - will a mysterious new neighbour help him heal? Or will her secrets drag him back into the darkness?
Notes: This is a slow burn romance with an original female character, told in 3 parts. There is mystery, intrigue, action/violence and angst - all the good stuff!
Also available on AO3 and Wattpad
Masterlist
Reference pics - *UPDATED*
————–
PART 2
Chapter 6
Calina rubbed the petal between her fingers as she waited for the phone call to go through. The flower Matt had given her had wilted and died after a few days of sitting in a glass of water on her bedside table. All that remained was the single blood red petal she held in her hand.
Matt couldn’t have known that the colour of the flower exactly matched his Daredevil suit - it was purely a coincidence. But during her more fanciful moments, she thought it was more fate than random chance.
The first and only flower she’d ever received was like being gifted a piece of the man himself.
And with his offering and his apology, the wall that he’d erected between them had crumbled. They were closer now than ever before. Falling asleep next to him felt natural. Waking up in his arms, even more so. And Matt no longer seemed embarrassed to find himself wrapped around her in the morning. In fact, touching her seemed second nature to him now; he was always brushing his hand down her arm or grazing her waist when he walked passed her in the apartment…
It felt like they’d entered some new phase of their strange relationship. She should have been excited. She should have been over the moon.
Instead she was feeling anxious and unsettled again.
She hoped the Widows would have news that would ease those feelings.
“Yes? What is it, Calina?” Yelena finally answered after the phone had run a dozen times. She sounded annoyed.
“I’m so sorry for disturbing you,” Calina replied. She couldn’t hide the snark in her voice. “I was calling for an update, seeing as you guys have been radio silent for the last couple of weeks.” 
Yelena’s answer was just as snarky. “Well, I’m sorry that we’ve been too busy trying to find info on the man who drugged you to text you all hours of the day.”
“Well has all your busy-ness paid off? Have you found out who he was? Are there more like him out there?”
“Sort of. Yes. And we don’t know.”
Calina mentally matched the brusque answers to her questions. Then sat up straight, the petal falling forgotten to the floor. “Really? You know who he was?”
“Nicolai Aminev. A low level grunt from the research division of the Red Room.”
“Low level?”
“Yeah. Best we figure, he stole some tech during the chaos of the Red Room fall, managed to survive, and tried to make some cash out of selling a Widow.”
“If that’s the case, then there shouldn’t be anyone else after me. If he wasn’t part of some bigger operation-”
“We don’t know that for sure yet. We have a lead on some of his associates that we’re following up on. In fact, we were prepping for a recon mission when you called.”
Calina winced at the not-so-subtle rebuke. “I’m sorry. I know you guys are trying. I’m just feeling…trapped here. And useless.”
“It was your choice to stay.”
“I know. And I don’t regret it. I’m just going a little stir-crazy, Yelena. I can’t stay cooped up in this apartment much longer.” She rose from her chair and stared out of the windows, subconsciously counting down until the moment the billboard outside changed display.  She knew the timings and the pattern down to the second. She knew every crack and mark in every window pane. She knew every dent and scratch in the floorboards and every frayed thread in the rug.
She never thought she’d get sick of being in Matt’s apartment, but she was fast approaching that point.
“I hate that they did this to me, again,” she continued, her voice rising with anger as she paced. “I hate that they took away my choices - again. I’m trapped again because of those…those fucking bastards, and I hate it!”
The rage and the frustration and the helplessness that had been simmering inside her for weeks suddenly boiled over, until it had nowhere to go but out. She lashed out and punched the wall between the arched windows. The hard brick scraped her skin, causing it to split.
A warm, strong hand suddenly covered hers. “Don’t do that,” Matt whispered, stroking the damaged skin of her knuckles.
She gazed up at him, surprised. She hadn’t even noticed he’d come home from work.
How much had he heard?
He took the phone from her other hand and put it to his ear. “Yelena? It’s Matt. I’ve got this.”
She could hear Yelena’s tinny reply. “I warned you this would happen.”
“I know. I’ll deal with it.”
He hung up. “Go get changed,” he said to Calina.
“What?”
“Put on some workout clothes. We’re going to the gym.”
 ———
 “She’s going to get angry. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. But at some point, she’s going to snap out of her numbness and her fear and she’s going to get really, really angry. And you need to be prepared for that. You need to give her an outlet.”
Matt remembered Yelena’s words vividly. She’d taken him aside as the three Widows were leaving that Friday night weeks ago and issued her warning.
And Matt had been waiting ever since for Calina to snap.
It looked like tonight was the night.
“Are we allowed to be here?” Calina asked, as he ushered her into Fogwell’s with a hand on her back. She sounded curious, but there was still a tension in her voice. The muscles in her back were taut, as if she was wound tight.
“It’s been abandoned for months,” Matt explained. “I come here all the time. It’s fine.”
He dumped his bag on the floor and shrugged out of his jacket and sweatshirt, leaving him in a sleeveless T-shirt. He sat on the bench beside the ring and started wrapping his hands as Calina wandered around the disused gym.
She flipped back the hood she’d worn to disguise herself as they’d left his apartment. The move sent a wave of her scent towards him, clearing the musty smell of the gym from his senses. The dust on the floor swirled about her feet as she inspected the old equipment, and he heard a punching bag swing as she gave it a light tap. The wooden stand by the lockers creaked as she picked up one of the dumbbells resting on it.
“‘No Pain, No Gain’,” she murmured, reciting the mantra painted on the wall. “We have a similar saying in Russia: ‘Without effort, you won’t even pull a fish out of a pond.'”
Matt laughed. “Not quite as catchy.”
That would have made her smile a few days ago. But now there was no response. She just moved on to the Wing Chun dummy in the corner. Before the gym had closed down they’d started hosting Kung Fu classes to try and generate more income. The dummy was a remnant of that failed plan.
He heard a muffled whack as Calina hit one of the wooden slats. Then another. And another, the pace increasing until she was executing a fast series of blocks and strikes against the dummy in a practiced routine.
Matt winced as the force of her hits increased. He could hear her breathing heavily beneath the rhythmic sound of her attack.
“Hey.” He came up behind her and pulled her away from the dummy by her shoulders. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
She shrugged out of his hold and viciously kicked the wooden statue. “No pain, no gain, right?” she sneered.
“I didn’t bring you here to hurt yourself-”
“So why did you?”
“Yelena said you’d need an outlet. This is the one I use.” He handed her some wrap for her hands and a pair of gloves. “I thought it might help.”
“I’m not much of a boxer.”
He remembered the way she’d fought against him before, all balletic grace and lithe deflection. “No. But the gloves and the bag will be less painful than the dummy. Just try it.”
While she prepped her hands, Matt tugged on his own gloves and started hitting one of the bags. By the time he’d slipped into his own rhythmic routine, Calina was next to him, jabbing forcefully at the other bag. 
Her form was good. She may not favour the style during a fight, but she was obviously well trained in it. She was light on her feet and swung from the hips, and her gloved hands connected with the swinging bag with satisfying slaps.
Matt tried to concentrate on his own bag - wanting to give Calina the space to process her anger on her own - but after a while it became hard to shut out the signs of her distress. The more she punched, the more erratic and harsh her breathing became. The faster her heart rate. He could taste the salt from her angry tears and her grunts of effort transformed into cries of rage as she pummelled and kicked at the leather target in front of her.
He wanted to pull her away from the bag and into his arms where he could hold her close. But she needed to work through this. She needed to let her anger out. So he continued with his own workout and waited for the moment she exhausted herself.
Luckily, he didn’t have to wait too long. After one last vicious roundhouse kick, Calina staggered back from the bag and braced herself on her knees, panting. When she straightened up, he finally got the chance to wrap his arms around her. He held her firmly from behind and rested his head against the side of hers.
Her breathing started to slow and sync to his, just like when they would meditate together. Her heart rate levelled out too, and eventually she relaxed back against him.
“Are you okay?” he whispered.
She nodded.
“Do you feel better?”
Another nod. “Yes, thank you.” Her voice was hoarse from her cries.
He reluctantly broke the embrace. “I’ll grab you a drink.”
He ripped off his gloves and dug through his gym bag for the water bottles. When he returned to Calina she was studying something on the wall.
And he knew exactly what it was.
“Here,” he said passing her a drink.
“Thanks.” He heard her twist off the cap and gulp down the cool liquid. Then she started played with the half-empty bottle, rolling it around between her palms, making the plastic crinkle. He knew her well enough now to recognise the meaning behind her uncharacteristic fidgeting - she was debating whether to say something.
“You can ask,” he said, gesturing to the poster he knew was on the wall in front of her.
“‘Carl Crusher Creel vs Battlin’ Jack Murdock’,” she read. “That’s your Dad? You said he was a boxer.”
“Yeah. This was his local gym. I practically grew up here. I used to sit on that bench over there and do my homework while he sparred.”
She took a seat on the bench he mentioned and he joined her. His eyes swept around the room, as if he could see its contents. And in a way he could. This vantage point was so familiar to him - it was one of the clearest memories he had from when he still had his sight. He could easily overlay the details he remembered onto the impression his senses gave him of the room - the black shine of the floor; the silver duct tape holding the punching bags together; the beat up looking grey lockers and the rich golden yellow light that would flood the room at dusk.
“Do you want to tell me about him?” Calina asked. “About your Dad?”
Matt sighed and leaned back against the wall behind him. “There’s not much to tell. He died when I was nine.”
“I’m sorry.”
Matt shrugged. “It was just the two of us growing up, and I idolised him - so much. I knew he wasn’t invincible, not like some kids see their dads. I had to stitch him up after enough fights to know that he bled and bruised just like a normal person.” Matt let out a hollow laugh at the memory. “Man, could he take a beating. He could get hit all day long and never got knocked out. That’s how he won his fights - outlasting the other guy. Never giving in.”
Matt could hear his Dad’s voice, clear as day in his head. ‘It ain’t how you hit the floor, Matty. Its how you get up.’
He continued speaking, his voice wistful now. “I wanted to be just like him when I grew up. Even though he hated that idea.”
“What do you mean?”
“He didn’t want me to be a fighter. He wanted me to get an education and get out of Hell’s Kitchen. He’d be proud of me for being a lawyer. I’m not so sure he’d be proud about the Daredevil thing.”
“But you’re helping people.”
There was that acceptance again, Matt thought, remembering his internal battle the other night during the storm.
But now he was worried that she was a little too accepting. That she’d romanticised what he did and turned it into something more noble than what it was.  She’d never seen what he did in the suit, after all. She’d never seen him when he truly became the Devil
“I don’t think he’d see it that way,” Matt tried to explain. “We both have this…thing inside us. This rage and this darkness that’s always trying to claw itself out. ‘Beware those Murdock Boys. They got the Devil in ‘em.’ That’s what my Gran used to say. She saw it in my Grandfather. And in my Dad. During his fights…he would occasionally snap. His eyes would go dark and he’d just start wailing on the other guy. I think Dad would worry that I’m just using the suit as an excuse to let that rage out.”
“Is that what you believe?”
Matt leaned forward and rested his arms on his legs. He tugged at the fabric wrapping his hands as he debated how honest he should be. “Sometimes. Sometimes I worry that I’m kidding myself that I do this for any other reason than to hurt people.”
“You’re wrong.”
He sighed. “Calina, you can’t say that. You haven’t seen me out there. I-”
“Yes, I have.”
Matt sat up straight and faced her. “What?”
She bit her lip and looked away.
“Calina?” He prompted, starting to get worried. When had she seen him? What had she seen?
“When I first found out about, um, you being Daredevil. I followed you. At night.”
“You followed me?”
“Yes. I was curious. I was trying to reconcile this person that I knew from this tabloid news story character.”
“How often did you follow me?”
“Just a few nights. Four at the most.”
“Jesus.” Matt sprang up from the bench and started pacing. He didn’t know what he most angry about. That she’d kept it a secret from him? That she’d seen what he was like as Daredevil, or that he’d been followed that many times without suspecting a thing.
No, that wasn’t right. He had suspected something. He remembered back to that time period, and the vague sensation he’d had of being watched. But it had gone away after that incident by the docks.
That incident…
“It was you.”
“What?”
“That night, with those kidnappers. It was you, wasn’t it?” She’d been the one who'd taken out the thugs while he was lying incapacitated on the floor.
She tipped her chin up. “Yes.”
Matt raked his hands through his hair as he thought back to that night. And to the next morning, when Calina had come to his door.
She’d been checking up on him. She’d known he’d gotten beaten up, so she’d come to check on him. He’d let her back into his life that morning. Everything that had brought them closer together since had started that day.
And it was all based on a lie.
He’d never suspected that she’d had an ulterior motive that morning. He’d just accepted the care and attention she’d given him while he’d been sick. 
God, every time he was reminded of how good a liar she was it hit him like a suckerpunch.
He forced down the betrayal that he felt. They’d both resolved to start fresh and discard the lies that had tainted beginning of their relationship. By introducing themselves to each other after their fight, they’d wiped the slate clean. Then they’d sealed that unspoken deal with a handshake.
He needed to let it go.
So he focussed on something else that he’d been wondering about from that night by the docks. “What did you use? To take those guys down. I remember hearing something odd, like an electronic device…”
“It’s called a Widow’s Bite. It’s an electroshock weapon. Standard kit on a Widow’s suit.”
“Wait, you were suited up? As a Black Widow? Jesus, Calina! Did it ever occur to you that that’s how you were found?”
The stubborn tilt of her chin edged up a notch. “Of course it did. But I don’t regret it. You needed my help. And that little girl needed you. Just like the other people you saved that week. When I followed you, I didn’t see someone revelling in violence and enjoying the pain he was inflicting. I saw someone helping his community. You showed mercy towards the people you stopped, Matt. Not needless cruelty.”
He took a seat beside her again and shook his head. “There’s still something dark inside of me. You need to understand that-”
“We all have that, Matt. Parts of ourselves that we’re not proud of. Dark aspects of our soul.”
It was her turn to sound self-loathing. He rested his hand on top of hers on the bench between them. “Hey. Whatever darkness you think resides in your soul was put there by the people who trained you and controlled you.”
She laughed bitterly. “I’m not the innocent victim you think I am, Matt. I’ve made choices - since I was free of the Red Room - that I’m not proud of.”
“But those choices were informed by the life that they forced you to live. By the person they forced you to become. Could you still say you’d have acted the same if you were allowed to be raised by your family, in a loving home, far away from the Red Room?”
She turned her hand over to grasp his, as if it was her turn to offer comfort. “The same could be said for you, Matt. If you hadn’t had your accident, and lost your Dad, would you still feel the same about the man you are today? We’re all at the mercy of chance. We’re all shaped by our experiences.”
He shook his head. “But that’s what I was saying before, about me, and my Dad. This is nature, not nurture There’s something inside us-”
“No. I don’t believe that. You make it sound like there’s something fundamentally wrong with you-”
He gave a hollow laugh. “Calina I dress up in a devil suit to go beat up criminals at night. That’s hardly the picture of a normal, well-adjusted human being.”
‘“It’s no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society’,” she quoted.
“What?”
“I moved on to philosophy books this week, and came across that quote from Krishnamurti, an Indian philosopher,” she explained. “I think it means that most people go about their lives not seeing the sickness and corruption in this world, or not caring about it if it doesn’t directly affect them. But people like you - who’ve experienced it, and gained empathy from it - they don’t conform. They fight. They fight to make the world a better place. That’s how I see you, Matt. Not as some rage-filled monster.”
Matt sat in silence for a few moments, humbled by Calina’s opinion of him. He tried to absorb the words, to make them his truth…but he was fighting against thirty-odd years of dogma. Thirty-odd years of believing there was something wrong with him.
It would take more than a few words…but he was still grateful. “Thank you.”
She squeezed his hand in response.
“And thank you, for before,” he continued. “That night with those kidnappers. If you hadn’t been there…you probably saved my life.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Thank you for saving mine the night with the serum.”
“I didn’t save your life. All I did was hurt you.” He could still hear the crack of her knee impacting the floor. He could still hear the pop of her elbow as it was wrenched out of his socket. He could still feel the heat rising from the bruises littering her skin...
It didn’t feel very heroic.
“You stopped me from having to live that life again, Matt. I consider us more than even.” She stretched her arm out in front of her. “And look, good as new.”
He took hold of her arm and moved it around, feeling the joint as it flexed, wanting to assure himself that she was telling the truth.
And she was. There was no evidence of any lingering damage.
He ran his thumb down the delicate skin of her inner arm, and reluctantly let go when she started talking again. “I think that’s why I’ve been feeling so antsy lately,” she said. “And why it all came to a head tonight. I feel ready to go back to my life, but I’m still at the mercy of whoever’s out there.”
“Did Yelena have any leads on that?” he asked.
Calina explained about the identity of the man who drugged her. “But Yelena’s being cautious - she’s worried there’s more to it than a low-level lackey trying to make some money.”
“What do you think?”
“I think what I’ve always thought - that there’s no danger here. Not anymore.”
“Does that mean…are you going to move back into your place?”
There was a beat of silence. Then another. And he felt like every muscle in his body went tight as he waited for her answer. “Calina?”
“Is that what you want?” she finally said, turning his question back on him.
“No,” he replied. 
And it was the truth. He knew she’d have to leave eventually. He just hadn’t let himself think about what that would feel like - watching her walk out of his door. And he didn’t want to think about it now.
He wasn’t…ready.
“You can stay as long as you need, you know that,” he finally said.
“Then I’ll stay a little longer. I, um, think Yelena would feel more comfortable that way.”
Matt smiled, recognising it as an excuse.
She wanted to stay.
With him.
“Then stay.”
————–
Chapter 7
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