#tw death of a child (teenager)

[going-to-ikea-for-the-fries]

Home Pt.9 - END || cbf!Simon "Ghost" Riley

Rating: E Words: 1.8K Pairing: cbf!Simonxafab!reader / teen!Simonxteen!Reader Summary: Teen Simon and his best friend often spend their nights away from their respective houses because they found a home in each other… CW: death, death of a CHILD, house fire, corpses, grief, cemetery, some smut. Tags: you/your pronouns, SOME SMUT, ANGST, HURT NO COMFORT, heartbreak, grief and loss, loss of identity, canonical Ghost backstory, UNHAPPY ENDING. a/n: not proofread. THIS IS THE END (it WILL be angst and nothing else... but I'll write a happy ending alternative soon).

[← Previous] || [MY MASTERLIST]

-------------------------------------------------------

Is it macabre to attend your own funeral? Probably.

Nonetheless, Simon Ghost found himself standing near the back of the cemetery, watching on. 

His family wasn’t particularly well-loved in the neighborhood… but when a tragedy like this happens, especially one involving a boy so young as his nephew Joseph… everyone and their mother comes out to pay respects. It’s the “proper thing to do”, they say, even though it’s only out of pity.

However, he has to admit that seeing Oliver, Archie, Jack and Harry, his old mates, come to pay respects, accompanied by their respective families, pulled at his heartstrings a bit. Especially when Archie tapped Oliver in the back while the latter cried.

He’s been here the entire time watching the people come and go, flowers being thrown down into the holes of the Riley family communal grave, and other arrangements being spread all over and around the headstones. Four holes in total. First, ‘Simon’, then his mum Joanna, then Tommy… Then Beth and Joseph in the same one. 

It was close-casket, the bodies too badly burned to allow anything else. The fake Simon has the cheapest coffin he could get, leaving the best for his mum, Tommy and Beth… And he had forced himself to pick a beautiful little white coffin for Joseph. He didn’t even think they made coffins that small. 

Per his request, they lowered Joseph into the hole first, Beth’s larger coffin covering the little boy’s. Just like she was when Ghost found them. Her lifeless body curled over Joseph’s, cradling him tight to keep him safe below her own chest… It was fruitless.

Ghost allows himself to take a deep breath as, finally, the last few people have walked off. The sun is starting to set and people can only pretend to grieve for so long before the cold wind and the darkness makes them go back home. 

In his skull-printed balaclava, black beanie, and black hoodie, Ghost basically blends into the shadows that are starting to take over the cemetery, standing under a tree as his eyes trace the last people walking away from the open graves.

Just days ago Ghost himself was in one of these… buried alive. That’s the night Simon Riley died, he’d say, though, officially, he died in the house fire that took his entire family… A faulty heater during Christmas Eve, you see?

Lost in thought, Ghost doesn’t realize it until now that someone lingered behind. A woman. She moves slowly, tentatively, in the direction of the graves, carrying a couple of bouquets.

More of the same, he thinks… Though he secretly admires the commitment to stay here as the sky is darkening and the air is cooling down.

She places one of the arrangements near the headstones, somewhere amidst the mess of all the other ones…

She flicks on the torch on her phone, to read the names on them… And very gingerly crouches, right in front of ‘his’ grave. She lowers the second bouquet onto it and tosses it carefully on top of the coffin.

Then, she lays her forearms on her knees, letting her hands hang between her legs as she remains crouched in front of his grave. Only to then watch her fold her hands and bring them up to her mouth, to hide the fact she’s crying. He can tell from the way her shoulders rise and fall and and her whole form shakes.

From this distance, he can’t hear her speak, and with the darkness, he can’t see her face.

But he knows.

He knows it’s you.

He watches you fish something out of your pocket and, slowly, toss it down onto the grave too.

He feels his breath being taken away torturously slowly… It feels like someone has grabbed his lungs and forcefully wrung out the air from them like water off a wet rag. 

He’s suffocating.

-

“Merry Christmas!” You cheerfully squealed as you tossed your arms around his neck from behind, strangling him a bit and, shaking him from side to side.

It was freezing outside and you had rushed out in the early morning so you could exchange gifts.

You were twelve, he was thirteen.

“Bloody hell, Y/N, are you tryin’ to kill me?!” He complained playfully as you let go and fake pouted… Then you both broke into laughter.

He tossed a bag of Cadbury mini-eggs at you, which you caught with a giggle. Then, you carefully handed him a little box with a Terry’s chocolate orange in it.

It was all either of you could afford.

“Merry Christmas, you pain in the arse.” He grumbled at you… As if he didn’t have a massive crush on you.

-

You were thirteen, he was fourteen.

“Merry Christmas, Sleepin’ Beauty.” He said it first, as he watched you sneak out the door carefully at 1:30 A.M. You had agreed to meet at midnight but you took your sweet time because you accidentally overslept.

“Shut up, you tosser.” You scoffed as you stopped in front of him, exchanging your gifts.

Terry’s chocolate orange, Cadbury mini-eggs.

“Go back inside, it’s freezin’.” Simon added as he watched you shiver in your pajamas. Poor thing, he thought, as if he hadn’t been here, in the freezing cold, waiting for you for over an hour.

“I will, I will!” You announced dramatically. “Merry Christmas, Riley.” You added as you reached up and kissed his cheek.

Then you turned and rushed back inside. Leaving him outside... but the chill in his bones was long forgotten.

-

You were fourteen, he was fifteen.

The wall clock at your local pub announced it was midnight.

“Merry Christmas, love.” He told you as he surprised you by dangling the Cadbury mini eggs bag in front of your face.

You leaned up and stole a kiss off his lips, his mouth melting into yours. Your friends around you complained in mock disgust at your PDA.

You pulled away and stuck your tongue out at them, mocking them back, before you turned all your attention to Simon.

You reached into your little shoulder bag and pulled out his chocolate orange, handing it to him. “Merry Christmas.” You told him and smiled sweetly.

-

You were fifteen, he was sixteen.

You were cuddling in the backseat of his dad’s Renault Clio, smoking together.

You had dozed off a couple of times by now, feeling warm and cosy in his arms, as usual.

Simon looked out of the window, enjoying the sight of the empty farm fields, lightly speckled in white snow.

“Darlin’?” Simon called for you and you stirred awake again.

You lifted your head from his chest, ever so slightly, where you had been lulled to sleep by his rhythmic heartbeat. 

“Hm?” You murmured groggily.

“Merry Christmas, lovie.” He whispers as he kisses your forehead.

“Merry Christmas, Riley…” You return as you nuzzle up to his neck, your nose rubbing against his skin.

You’d exchange your gifts before he dropped you off at home…

-

You were sixteen, he was seventeen.

It was tight in that backseat, his body no longer fitting lengthwise across the backseat and yours just barely fitting too.

Simon thrusted into you, holding one of your legs over his shoulder, while the other wrapped around his hip. His knees were bent and his head was pressed flush against the smooth roof of the car.

Your moans were loud and almost pornographic, forcing him to have to kiss you to shut you up. But even then, he kept up a hard and unforgiving pace, his hips slamming into yours feverishly.

It all stemmed from the undeniable hunger you felt for one another after three months apart while he was in Basic Training.

He couldn’t get enough of you, the way you looked up at him with those tear-filled eyes, your face red from the heat, your breaths erratic, your forehead dripping with sweat…

“Been… thinking… about this… for so long…” He grunted through the strain of trying to hold back his orgasm.

“Simon!” You moaned, your voice jumpy and high-pitched as he kept the rhythm that was driving you both to the brink of exhaustion.

“Three… bloody… fuckin’... months… without you…” He groaned. “God…” He grunted. “Keep moanin’ for me, darlin’... Show me who you belong to.” He demanded.

And you did. You made sure to make yourself heard, calling his name and whining, desperately so, as he made you both reach your limits.

As you both winded down, your weak legs wrapped around his hip, his head lying on your sweaty breasts, he looked up at you. “I love you.” Simon told you.

Your eyes softened when you looked down at him, his brown eyes seemingly even more beautiful that night than they ever had been. “I love you too.” You told him softly.

He pushed up and kissed you sweetly and, after glancing at the dash clock out of the corner of his eye, he chuckled against your lips.

“Merry Christmas.” He murmured. You probably replied something of the sort as well, though he kissed you back into silence.

You would exchange your gifts soon after.

-

You were seventeen, he was eighteen.

Simon was at the mess, shoulder-to-shoulder with his fellow Corporals, squeezed tight so they could all fit at the table.

His rifle hung around his back, as he lowered his head like an obedient dog while shoveling mashed potatoes and slices of roast turkey into his mouth.

The CO had barked a hurried “Merry Christmas” to the troops before allowing them to dig in.

They hurried to eat. 

Simon was one of the first to stand up and rush his tray to the tray return trolley, and then slap his helmet on.

Then, he dashed out the door to join his platoon in the frontlines, swinging his rifle forward.

There was no Terry’s Chocolate Orange that time…

There was never going to be another one.

-

By the time Simon Ghost finally catches his breath again, you’re pushing back up onto your feet. He imagines you’re about to walk off and leave… But you don’t.

The sun has fully set by now, bathing the cemetery in darkness… And there you are. Still standing. 

Grieving over him.

His chest hurts, his heart squeezing with the realization that you are not taking his death well… Even after 15 years.

He wishes he could go forward… To tell you he’s not actually dead… that he just needed to pretend.

He wants to ask you how you’ve been, what you’ve been up to, to tell you how grateful he is that you came, how proud he is that you’re alive and healthy, by the looks of it.

He wants to tell you about his regrets, he wants to apologize, he wants to tell you he wanted to marry you, that he's never loved another woman like he's loved you.

But he doesn’t.

He simply continues to watch you from a distance as you hang around for a long, long time. Longer than anyone else. Hell, longer than Oliver did.

He watches your figure seemingly take a deep breath… And then… you start walking off toward the car park

He’s tempted to follow after you, even if just to watch… just for a moment more.

But he doesn’t.

Instead, he walks up quietly toward 'his' grave, spotting what you threw into it easily.

He recognizes the shiny foil of a Terry's Chocolate Orange amidst the flowers without any issue.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before turning and walking away.

There was a time when you found a home in each other's arms...

But that's dead and buried now... Just like the chocolate orange will be.

And that's for the best.

-------------------------------------------------------

[← Previous] || [MY MASTERLIST]

taglist: @iite-cool , @spicyspicyliving

Thank you so much for reading this fic, to the people who've read it here and on AO3! Your support mean the world to me!

[wallwriterstuff]

To Soothe A Soul ||John Price x Teen!Simon Riley||

Warnings: Mentions of drugs. Implied child abuse and neglect. All the angst. Talk of foster care and sibling separation. Implicit talk of death. Mentions of military discharge and injury. This covers many sensitive topics, Minors should not interact with this.

Words: 2679

Summary: Written for @glitterypirateduck O Captain Challenge using a take on the promtps 'An unexpected visitor' and 'A Rescue Takes Place'.

Former Captain John Price can spot a dead man a mile away, and he's known enough of them to know that not every dead man dies. It's in the eyes, that dead-eyed stare that proves the body might work but the tattered soul inside has long since withered away. He's horrified to find those eyes in the gaunt face of his newest foster child. Simon Riley is a dead man walking, and he's barely 14.

Part 2: The Yes Basket

“Any medical or dietary requirements? Allergies?”

“None as of yet but a doctor’s appointment will be organised for the near future to craft a more detailed healthcare plan. Kid’s malnourished and deficient in an alphabet of vitamins I’ll wager.”

His pen tapped rhythmically against his notepad, his gut feeling tight with anxiety. It wasn’t the first time he’d been called for an emergency placement and it probably wouldn’t be the last, but the fear of the unknown still prickled at the base of his neck, licked in icy stripes up and down his spine. A career in the military had prepared him for much in life, but even the horrors he’d faced abroad couldn’t have prepared him for some of the kids that came into his care. Fostering had definitely been a good move for him after an honourable discharge due to injury had forced him out of the field. The kids he cared for needed routine and consistency as much as he did, and it filled that aching need to have someone reliant on him being at his best, gave him the motivation to keep up with all those exercises doctors had insisted would help him stay healthy and help him to readjust to civilian life. If he had someone to do it all for it was much, much easier.

“Alright then. Anything else I need to know about him?” Price asked, halting the movements of his pen and poising his hand to note down anything of significance.

“Simon has a younger brother, Tom. He took on a caring role for him and it was his wish for the boys to remain together but…welfare concerns don’t permit it right now. We’ll talk more about a family plan going forward with you to ensure they get time together but for now just expect some backlash from the decision to separate them.” The woman on the phone, Kate Laswell she’d introduced herself as, sighed heavily and added, “Also…Simon found their mother. He’s seen a lot in the past 24 hours alone. Be mindful of his grief.”

Price couldn’t quite force his hand to move for a moment, thickly swallowing at the sympathy that clogged his throat for a second. He’d need to wipe that from his expression by the time they arrived; he doubted the boy would want to see it. Lowering his pen, he nodded slowly.

“Alright. How long?” His mind was already racing with all of the things he needed to get ready, to prepare.

“40 minutes from where we are to your address. We’re moving quickly with this one.” Kate informed him. Price internally groaned at the time limit but kept his tone calm and controlled as he agreed that it was fine and hung up. He took a moment to take a breath and then he placed his notebook away and pushed to his feet. He ran his home with just as much military precision as the barrack’s he’d been used to living in, with not a thing out of place and not a speck of dirt visible. No, no, it was the spare bedrooms that needed attention now. They were cleaned the same as the rest of the house but none were set up to welcome a teenager into. As he walked towards the stairs, he saw the fuzzy black ears perk up before hearing the click of hardwood beneath his claws. The grizzled German Shephard wasn’t the most welcoming looking dog given the scarring on his face, but he had a teddy bear heart and intellect that rivalled any human. His big head tilted in question, knowing that at this time of night Price was more likely to be sitting and nursing a glass of whisky and not traipsing upstairs. Price smiled gently and gave the lean muscles of his flank a firm pat.

“We’ve got a guest coming to stay Riley. You gonna be a good boy when he comes, hm?” he fussed him for a moment longer before gripping the railing and ascending the stairs. For the next forty minutes, the former Captain set towels in his bathroom, placed fresh bed sheets on every single bed in each of the spare rooms, and aerated each room to ensure it was fresh and prepared. In the kitchen, he set his fruit bowl front and centre and he tidied up his coat and shoe rack to ensure there was space for another set of belongings there. He tried to drag all these things out, not wanting to wait in the silence for his new charge to arrive and let the anticipation get to him. Riley settled against his side as he attempted to watch TV to pass the last 15 minutes, some mind-numbing episode of Match of The Day he could really care less about since Liverpool hadn’t been playing that day.

His own doorbell startled him like a gunshot, made Riley perk at his side. With a few firm commands and quick scratch behind the ears, he had Riley settled in his dog bed and was taking that last deep breath behind the door. I’ve met plenty like you, we’ll be fine.

Oh.

Oh no, no he hadn’t.

I’ve never met a kid like you at all.

Simon Riley clutched the bin bag full of his possessions in a white knuckled grip, his fist trembling with the effort as if scared that losing his grip meant losing everything. Every inch of him was locked up tighter than a maximum-security prison, and those eyes…those dead, dead eyes. They didn’t flinch. He’d seen SAS boys focus through glinting scopes with the same sort of resolve, unblinking, unyielding, vigilant in a way they’d been rigorously trained for. This gangly teen in tattered jeans and a baggy hoodie made a bigger impression than any he’d yet met. Dead as those eyes were they were keen, sharp, and Price knew they wouldn’t miss a trick. Overly aware now of his expression and body language, Price stepped aside to leave a nice wide gap, his smile welcoming and face soft, open.

“Hi, Kate right? And you must be Simon. Do you prefer Simon, Si, some other nickname?” he asked, gesturing for them to come in. Kate gave him a slightly strained smile and he guessed the ride over had been rather intense. Simon Riley oozed intensity in waves. When he stepped over the threshold into Price’s home it was like watching the grim reaper himself enter, an oppressive and ominous atmosphere following him, like he’d been trained to make his presence fill a room in a way his physically body couldn’t. Intimidation was something Price had dealt with for years however, gotten good at himself, and so he maintained that soft, open body language and didn’t flinch at that dead-eyed stare. I see you, but you don’t scare me, and nothing here should scare you either.

“Simon.” He grunted finally, fingers flexing around the bin liner. One bin bag. Moderately full but from the bulky way it stretched the bag Price guessed the majority of it was clothes. There was a stink that followed the bag to. Weed, he recognised, smoke, something bitter and tangy…iron-like. He filed that away as a conversation for later. Nodding, Price gestured to the shoe and coat rack.

“Simon, it’s good to meet you, I’m John. I made a space for your shoes and your coat here. House rules are that shoes always come off before we come in, please, or we’ll be forever mopping the hardwood.” He chuckled, maintaining that friendly smile as he waited to see what he’d do. Simon was already testing him clearly, because he let the silence drag out for a long while before he finally toed off his shoes and set them on the rack. His toes curled and uncurled into the hardwood for a moment. Price had seen it before both in soldiers and in previous kids, that fight or flight instinct. It was the scary unknown that did it. For some kids that came in this was the first house they’d been in that was clean and well-lit and warm. For some it was the emptiness of the open space that was unnerving after they got used to cramped bedrooms or bustling, busy living rooms filled with unsavoury visitors or simply one too many family members.

“John has offered to let you stay here for the time being, but I’ll be around still okay?” Kate assures him, “I’ll work on setting up visits with Tommy for you, and you’ve got my number saved in your phone, in case you want to talk to me.” Price knows instinctively that Simon won’t ever use that number. He doesn’t look the type to lean on anyone, least of all a stranger whose separated him from his brother.

“Actually, there’s more than just me in the house,” he pipes up, “Are you alright with dogs, Simon?” The boy doesn’t give him a single twitch of a response, simply looks from one adult to another. Buried deep beneath the layers of forced apathy Price can see exhaustion. “Riley’s an ex-service dog, worked with me on many a mission. He’s got a good temperament and likes a lot of fussing. He’s got a few scars though. You want to meet him?” his questions are met with silence once more, so John simply takes a few steps left to the archway leading into his living room, where Riley sits patiently in his dog bed near the window. His tongue lolls out of his mouth, ears perked and tail flicking in excitement. He doesn’t run, but he does lope forward a bit, curious and wanting to meet new faces, but Price makes him heel.

Simon almost rises on the balls of his feet, like a bird ready to take flight, eyes fixed on the German Shepherd in his eye line. Price takes a second to evaluate him, trying to see if it’s fear or curiosity, but the boy gives so little away. It’s the faintest twitch of his free hand toward Riley that gives Price incentive to motion the dog forward. It’s a gentle and tender display, as if Riley knows how sensitive the wounds Simon’s carrying are, like he can read the neon sign that screams HANDLE WITH CARE emblazoned on the boy’s broken soul. He sniffs gently at his pale hand, and Simon’s nose wrinkles ever so slightly at the cold, wet sensation on his bony knuckles. It doesn’t stop him from reaching to give Riley’s ears a scratch. The German Shepherd sits obediently, pushing his giant head into Simon’s hand for more. Kate gives the faintest smile.

“What’s his name again?” she asks.

“Riley.” Price replies, chuckling slightly as she goes to fuss him to. Her input causes Simon to fall back, eyes snapping to her and away from the dog, moving quickly from one fixation to the next, always hyper-aware and alert. How many times had the hand he’d not been watching for struck him? You can relax here, son, he wanted to say.

“A very good boy.” She coos. Price hums in agreement and steps up beside them.

“Living room has the TV and an old games console. I don’t have many games but if you like we can get some more in eventually. I don’t really use it often. Kitchen’s right through if you want a drink or something to eat?” His offer is met by that dead eyed stare again, but after a moment of consideration Simon gives him another quiet answer.

“Water.” His voice fluctuates with all the tell-tale signs of a boy on the cusp of puberty and Price is again hit by just how young he is for someone so alert and mistrusting. He doesn’t let the way his heart cracks a bit show on his face and simply leads them through to the kitchen, silently showing Simon exactly where the glasses are for him if he ever needs them while offering to make Kate a coffee to. Simon doesn’t contribute much to the conversation at all, just remains this silent and oppressive presence lingering in the corners of the room, anywhere that gives him a good vantage point really. He's a silent spectre, a sentinel, a ghost. Always somewhere just out of sight with everything in his watch and reach. Price lets him stand where he’s comfortable, concedes that little bit of control to him on a night he knows the boy’s had no control of anything.

“I’ve got a few different rooms upstairs, all of them are ready to move in to but I thought you might want to pick one that suits you.” He says, leading the two of them upstairs. Simon hasn’t once let go of his bin-liner and Price suspects getting him to wash anything in that bag is going to take considerable time and effort; this is all Simon has now of home, and however much a hell-hole home might have been he’s seen kids cling to the most disgustingly filthy objects purely because it’s the last vestiges of their old life and family they have left. He’s left all the doors open so Simon can explore each room upstairs at his own pace, and he waits patiently at the end of the hallway to give him time to adjust to the idea that this home is now his to.

Price can sense the overwhelm a mile away as Simon lingers in each doorway, like he’s afraid that to enter a room would be to taint it somehow, the pristine white linen looking to fine for his grubby hands. He can see the dirt under the boys nails, the slight lacquer of grease in his unkempt hair. Moving quickly indeed he thinks grimly as he watches the boy hesitantly test a mattress and peer out a window. That soulless stare focuses back on him when he’s found the room he wants, but the words won’t come. Simon never once asks if the room can be his, he’s never been allowed to want, but he acquires it through presence alone.

Price nods to the chest of drawers, “Bottom one’s got bedding in. We can talk some more tomorrow about how you want to decorate it. Take your time settling in and come down when you’re ready. Lights out at 10:00, alright?” Simon gives him a slow blink, and Price realises that’s all the reaction he’s going to get as he turns and walks to the stairs, Riley on his heels. Laswell waits near the front door, tapping away on her phone to organise the rest of Simon’s life no doubt. He clomps down the steps, absent-mindedly rubbing away the phantom aches in his leg once he hits the bottom.

“Kid doing okay?” Laswell’s question comes with a critical eye of him, and Price knows she’s really asking if he can cope with him more so than if Simon will be alright here. He gives a slight nod, glancing back up the stairs.

“Okay as he can be given the shit he’s gone through…he’ll, er…he’ll take some getting used to.” Price admitted.

“He’s not said more than five words to me since we met hours ago, and that stare…”Laswell shuddered a bit. Price hummed in agreement as he opened his front door to let her out.

“We need anything we’ll let you know, till then best to let him settle.”

“Alright then. You have my number.” Laswell lifts a hand in farewell as she walks down the front path and towards her car. Price watches her go, his mind already back on the teenage boy she’s leaving behind. Deposited in his house with nothing more than a bin-liner to his name, Simon Riley was going to require some serious care, and he felt clueless as to where to start. With a deep sigh, he closed the front door and set off towards the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea and a game plan. He was going to make this house a home for the boy, one way or another.

[starry-eyed-adam]

‘call me if you need anything’

grief is becoming a common theme in the discord server :)

[yurious-george]

4'33'', by John Cage, is commonly remembered as 4 and a half minutes of silence. But contrary to popular belief, the song is not actually meant to be the sound of silence, but the sound of quiet. Ambient noises contribute to - and consist of - the performance. True silence does not exist. If one tilts their head right, the whole world sings. and, with that said, a playlist.

yeah, this one's a doozy. hi, cubewatermelon and co. miss me?

rhetorical question. don't answer that.

A few nitty-gritty things out of the way, first. this is specifically intended for the 2018 mod team for the sleepless domain fans discord server, primarily cubewatermelon/mary cagle. Folks who knew me are welcome to look on, but I'm not going to do much to catch people up to speed. hi, everyone! hope you're well!

I also might be a bit disjointed or biased in my recollection. For reasons that will be made clear extremely soon, I can't put my childhood on a linear timeline. I can only express myself, and hope I don't mess it up horribly this time.

Noooowww to the big stuff. re: stalking; i genuinely didn't mean to stalk anyone, and when they told me to back off, i backed off. I am not willing to discuss this further. not being able to conceptualize other people's emotions or the consequences of my actions has caused some problems for me

that's an autism thing btw. im autistic i dont think i told anyone that

And now, the special guest you've all been waiting for: a big round of applause for the elephant in the room! In accordance with the WMA Declaration of Tokyo, the deliberate overprescription of psychotropic medication is a form of pharmacological torture. Most victims of pharmacological torture and experimentation are children, because it is nigh-impossible to sue for brain damage when there is no fully-formed adult brain for comparison prior to the abuse.

Torture is a strong word, but I don't have another word to use. psychiatric abuse usually describes mistreatment in psychiatric wards; pharmacological abuse describes a patient who takes advantage of a prescription; medical abuse is when a doctor (usually physically) abuses their patient. Being able to understand what happened to you is a form of agency, and I don't even have the words. I identify as a torture victim; this may change.

This high dose was precedented and legal, but the vaginal stretching of intersex infants is also legal. much involuntary psychiatric & psychotropic treatment (such as restraints and solitary confinement) are legal, and child marriage is legal. abuse is not abnormal: it is profoundly normal. Because something is normal, legal, and precedented does not prevent it from being torture.

and when your mother hands you a poison apple and says "here, eat this; it will be good for you; i hope someday you'll forgive me" you have to eat it, because you are eight years old and you don't get to argue with your mother. despite all this, I don't blame my aunt for refilling the high dose. when I said the dose was hurting me, she listened. (thank you, auntie. i wouldn't have gotten out without you.)

And this brings us to you. oh, you four. (five? i forget myself!)

I'd like to establish some context. I was used to things getting taken from me. friend groups in particular: I didn't expect to keep any friends, because I constantly expected to have to pack up and move on. I moved a lot in my childhood, and in Africa, i was constantly told that at some undetermined point in the near future, i'd have to go back to the states. living with my aunt was a temporary thing, i was expected to eventually move back in with my parents at some undetermined point in the future. I relied heavily on online friends because they were people I could have anywhere, so online communities were my only lifeline - not to mention, i was basically in solitary confinement while in Kenya.

Most of all, I was terrified of my mental health/actions being exposed, examined, found lacking, and ultimately excluded. (this is why i was so afraid of psychiatric wards.) When you decided something had to be done about me - cutting me off from the server so i had to speak with you - It was either comply with your demands to communicate (which I could not, and did not understand why) or lose the community. I was so, so afraid of you i wanted to die when you all confronted me, and of course i couldn't say that, because only manipulative people would say "your attempt to solve this problem makes me want to seriously hurt myself."

But then I got called manipulative anyway <3 yay <3

Seriously: I wasn't trying to manipulate anyone, and i have no idea how you can manipulate someone without intention. (ah, that felt good to say!) Between medication spellbinding, alexithymia, and prior abuse, all my thoughts were so disordered i genuinely couldn't explain myself most of the time. Looking back, I have no childhood memory where I was fully lucid. I leaned into a manic persona because it was the only way I had any agency at all. I was something beyond both reason and self-recognition, and I willingly tried to brute-force my way through an extreme trauma response to please you. And you still hit me with my worst nightmare. that's why i was mad at you lol

I was so, so afraid, all the time, and I didn't even have the tools to understand I was afraid. How could someone as confident and impulsive as me be so fearful all the time? Was that manic persona freedom? Or was it a longer leash?

(Forgive my impulse toward rhetoric. I shouldn't ask questions you can't answer.)

I also couldn't say how badly i was hurting, because that would be venting, but you also accused me of venting when I was just talking about my day? or what was on my mind? I didn't understand that very well. autism moment, don't bother explaining it now. I also couldn't burden people with my actual mental health problems, because making strangers deal with that would be toxic! I resent you for setting up a system where it seemed safest not to speak and then punishing me for my inability to communicate. I resent every system that set me up for failure and punished me for failing, including yours.

And yet - I know that was not your intent! I can see in retrospect how hard you tried to be kind using the tools you had. The people with power over me, who genuinely did not want to do me harm and gave me multiple second chances, still upheld and facilitated the systems that tortured me; a miniature parody of the psychiatric system. (talk therapy and communication are useless if you struggle with self-awareness.) The same is true for the source: No person in my psychiatric treatment wanted me to suffer, and yet, here I am: a torture victim without a torturer. (except my parents, sort of.)

The logical conclusion, then: the system only intends to heal those who are already compliant, or prioritize compliance. The rest of us are treated to induce compliance, and if we still cannot, we are sequestered away. My medicine made me sick, and my prescribers made money off of keeping me sick - off of my torture. This is not a conspiracy: it is my lived experience.

However, even if i could communicate perfectly, we still would have had massive communication issues. Like - you know that one page where ben and steffi talk about dating, and ben says he thought steffi was gay? and steffi gets super defensive and it escalates into a screaming fight? I found that offensive, because a character getting that offput by the concept of not liking men (or a man) is kind of lesbophobic! But I understood that it would be a pain to redraw/write the page so they they fight about something else, don't fight, or some other solution, so i didn't need it to be fixed - just wanted to point out that was a reasonable interpretation, and one to be aware of in the future. but somehow my concerns got interpreted as a phrasing issue…? like, Ms. Cagle rewrote the page to say "weren't into guys" instead of "gay"..? You were very polite about it, Ms! But I found this interaction so baffling I didn't even try to correct it. that… wasn't what i said…

frankly we should bring back mildly homophobic steffi. twas narratively appropriate (<- different essay for a different time)

but yeah the whole communication operation was doomed from the start. rip!

The issue was always my inability to communicate, but my meds made it nigh-impossible to understand what I was feeling, and when I did, expressing myself could get me institutionalized. My suffering was inevitable but always, somehow, my fault. Awesome! *disintegrates into a pile of sand*

I cannot deny I was a girl like a box of matches waiting to be struck. You had no choice but to do as you did. But is it really what you ought to have done? (On this, I have no answer. I hope you have one that satisfies you.)

(that was genuine, by the by. i've spent a lot of time pondering this mess, and I still haven't found the "right" answer. I don't think there is one - though action or inaction, there is no version of this story where I don't suffer. I can only hope it was worth it. wait, hold on *adds the omelas child to my Kin List*)

Nor can I deny making my previous open letter in a small attempt to 'get back' at you - i'm not above that. lord knows i'm not innocent. but i really was trying to channel that rage into something productive. unfortunately i was doomed to fail because i didn't know what i meant. if you showed me that letter now, you'd hear a lot of "what? I don't know why I said that" "i have no idea why i would complain about something so minor" etc. You can disregard all that. This is what I was trying to say. the obsession, the trauma, the projection: all of it. So much of my obsession was talking around an issue i couldn't identify.

(meguka image) I know now

I knew I would be traumatized by this whole situation. I saw it coming and i could do nothing to stop it. But Gear was crucial to deciphering all this - in fact, suddenly thinking about her last year prompted me to really dissect my medical situation and realize i was tortured. I couldn't have done it without her. cassie & maggie, against the world.

Gear scans surprisingly well as a victim of long-term torture, actually. I don't think you meant to do that but good job!

speaking of her - i still don't think she's consistently suicidal. she's a real cockroach of a character, and I love her for it! But sometimes, i want to die and i want to live mean the same thing, because they both mean i need to get out of here. Imo, her thought processes and desires frequently contradict themselves, like mine did. and making your favs kill themselves in increasingly gruesome ways is really fun catharsis!

But please don't take this to mean I consider myself - or Gear - blameless. I love her because she's not blameless, because she's cruel for fun, because she'd rather be wicked than helpless. Like knows like. What I mean to say is, as of 2018, there is a black space between little Margret and Gear, and I saw all the signs of something very, very bad happening in that space. I know because I shared that space. what I mean to say is, teenage girls don't go out of their minds over nothing. Everything I made here is just an expression of what I heard in the narrative's silences.

and thus my biggest apprehension around revisiting the comic. knowing the author and I have such fundamentally different experiences with mental health - what if the signs of torture i picked up on weren't intended, or i completely made them up? what if, in the parts i haven't read yet, there's information that uproots my entire interpretation, or berates her for refusing mental health services that hurt me profoundly? how do you reconcile that a character so crucial to deciphering yourself may not be anything like you at all? I Don't Know. Shitpost, probably

You're welcome to share those shitposts and whatnot by the way. Creating this let me put down years of hurt, and i hope it relieves you, too. I don't need to go back on the server, or forgiveness, or anything besides understanding. consider this a peace offering. the terms are yours.

Despite writing nearly 10k words, I still probably missed something or was callous or whatever. Self-expression and self-understanding are… new to me. My apology may be understated, but please take it as I meant it, with utmost sincerity. My askbox is open, and I'm more than happy to discuss antipsych resources, KB, What The Hell Is Wrong With Gear, artistic choices made in this comic, etc. I'm even down to reconnect on discord! Maybe. Uh, I'm conflicted. I reserve my right to not want to talk, be slow in responding, and so on, as should you. we've no obligations and all the time in the world. Let neither of us hurt ourselves in meeting because it's the "right" thing to do. I'm not blaming anyone or trying to start drama. If it would give you the most peace of mind to completely ignore this, please do so.

or, translated: as of right now, I'm not ready for any information about KB after steffi reunites with her dad, or difficult emotional reunions. I would really like to hear from everyone, and I'd appreciate casual well-wishes. I don't want things to be the same, I want them to be peaceful. Baby steps, cassie, baby steps. (very large and fearful prey animal tries not to run into oncoming traffic)

mostly, making this was for me. Perhaps I've said too much, but after spending so long unable to express myself freely, my art was cathartic and necessary. I'm no one's martyr or innocent, I'm just a torture victim trying to make sense of it all. I want to articulate some thoughts I couldn't figure out how to say before and make some silly things that make people laugh. Most of all, I'm happy in ways I never thought I could be, and I would like to share that joy with old acquaintances and other fans of a story I adored.

What I mean to say is: The train's about to leave the station, and there's an empty seat beside me. The train will still leave whether or not you board; but I would be honored not to go it alone!

Thank you to everyone who stuck by me even after the drama. Ethel, Felipe, Chris - even though we've fallen out of contact, your kindness and patience meant more than i can say. special thank you to @stars-in-a-jam-jar, the first person i confessed everything to after the smoke cleared, and someone i consider myself close with no matter how long we fall out of contact. My close online friends, @shafpanda, @theoandmoon, @dvanaestmrva, my honorary cousin @my-name-is-jimmy, and everyone else I confided in about my torture. and, of course, my partners @transloo and @teenyjellyfishy, and my little sibling, @aroacenezhaanddainsleif, the three people I love most in the world. Thank you, all. it is an honor to love you, and be loved by you.

[bonnie-the-mutt]

I went to an egg hunt today. there were lots of kids there. my friends are younger than me, and I think they were trying to be "too cool to participate."

not me tho. I was borderline regressing. running around collecting as many eggs as I could. I had a blast. I LOVE healing my inner child.

I even said to a friend, "where's your inner child ?" and she replied, "she died when I was 8" so I said, "find her and let her play again !!"

[and-stir-the-stars]

@dire-kumori has an au where Scooped Mike gets time-travelled to before CC and Liz's deaths, and he's filled with such blind rage and self-loathing upon seeing his younger self that he kills young Mike over and over again in a time loop that young Mike barely even understands. Guess who wrote a one-shot for it? (I'm also tagging @serenefig and @cloudwhisper23 bc I feel like you'll be interested in reading)

word count: 3,715

“Have fun with your friends’, brats. Don’t even think about coming back until morning unless you want to spend the night outside, ‘cause I won’t bother unlocking the doors for you.”

Cold lines of metal pressed grooves into Mike’s back as he leaned against the front door threshold and waved his siblings goodbye. His voice resounded in sharp echoes across the tree line; he spoke a bit too loud considering that his little siblings were only a few feet away, but then again, that was the point. 

You never knew what things were lurking in the shadows, listening and lying in wait for the moment they could get you alone. Sometimes, however, you could use that to your advantage.  

Michael’s gaze roved over the tree line as his siblings turned their backs on him and walked down the driveway. The trees surrounded their entire house in a near-perfect circle; shadows crept beneath the trees’ gnarled, grasping finger-like branches. As the sun slumped further down in the sky, the shadows drew steadily closer and closer to the house like a tidal wave of darkness begging to be held back no longer.

The eldest Afton’s jaw clenched as he dug his teeth into his gum with even more ferocity. Slowly, he pulled his Foxy mask from the top of his head to cover his face. 

He didn’t have to be afraid with the wicked smile and sharp teeth covering his face. It was an assurance that Michael could be strong and brave even when– no, especially when he was all on his own, just like the pirate fox he felt so much for. 

If a monster wanted to chase him down, then so be it. But as long as Mike had his mask on, the monster wasn't the only dangerous thing around.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Electricity shot through every nerve ending in Michael’s body. The jolt of adrenaline made every hair stand on end, and heat roared through his veins like wildfire as Mike crouched behind the garage wall with his fingers white-knuckled and half-numb against the cool metal of his bright red bat.

Each breath passed his lips at a crawl. Everything around him seemed to blur and fade to gray as Mike focused his entire being on the harsh slam of rubber soles coming closer and closer. 

A million ghostly aches, sharp and dull and stabbing and pressing aches of a million undeaths, all sparked to life with increasing intensity as the monster drew closer and closer, but Mike pushed away the memories of aches and pains assaulting his limbs.

He only needed to get one good shot in. 

He smelled the bastard long before it got close. It was something like the curdled cup of milk that Mike had found in his room last week, the maggot-infested animal carcasses he and his friends would poke at when they found them on the side of the road, the stank of rotten eggs– all those putrid smells and more clinging to the bastard's skin in an eye-watering stench that made Michael’s stomach churn and his throat burn on principle. 

Mike's heart hammered in his chest, almost to the same beat as the footfalls chasing him. 

There was a flurry of movement as the sicko ran past Mike where he was crouched out of sight behind the wall. 

The reaper's footfalls quickly slowed as though somehow aware that it had been duped, but Mike was already moving. 

The decaying monster didn't even have time to turn around before Mike jumped forward and slammed his bat into the back of its head. 

His years' worth of practice hitting baseballs did nothing to prepare him for the vibrations that rocketed painfully through his arms and shoulders and all the way down his back, nor for the sickening crack of a human skull shattering under his hands. 

The monster went down, but Mike could only stand there even as a voice in the back of his mind screamed at him to run. Vomit burned his throat at the curdled blood and the dark red and purple slimy skin that clung to the metal of his bat before it fell to the ground with a wet plop beside the monster. Thick droplets of the creature’s ice-cold blood dribbled down Michael’s face and smeared against the teen’s lips as he stood there in shock.

Boney claws wrapped around Mike’s ankle. The sharp pain of bone digging underneath his skin jerked Michael’s mind back to awareness, and he brought his bat down on the thing's wrist just before it had time to yank him to the ground. 

The fingers didn't let him go even after the impact of Mike’s bat ground the compact bones along the creature’s wrist into fine dust held together only by moldy stretches of tendon and skin. 

Michael brought the bat down on the thing's arm again and again and again before its other hand finally snaked around and grabbed hold of the slippery dark red metal.

Michael yanked the bat closer, cursing himself for giving the reaper a chance to rip his weapon away. But the reaper didn’t; instead, it used the momentum of Michael’s action against him.

Mike's vision went red with pain as the handle of his bat flew back at him and slammed into his lips with enough force that Mike heard his plastic mask crack on his face. 

Except Michael realized a split second later that it wasn’t just his mask that had cracked. Something sharp and coppery exploded in Mike's mouth and the teen choked on shards of his own teeth as the fractured remnants slid down the back of his throat. 

The thing's fingers were still locked around his ankle, and the moldy strands of tendon and skin keeping its bony purple hand attached to the rest of the monster's body snapped apart as Michael stumbled backward with tears in his eyes and dark red blood dribbling down his chin. He was too stunned by pain to react even as the monster peeled itself off the ground with one arm; its other, handless appendage hung limply against its side in a mess of unnatural angles kept together only by thin layers of rotting skin. 

Its neck snapped down to look at its obliterated arm, but somehow, the creature looked almost bored as its empty eye sockets focused on the mangled stretch of flesh and shattered bone attached to it. The monster’s remaining fingers latched around its broken arm before ripping the twisted limb from its shoulder with enough force that its entire body jerked at the motion. 

The shattered lower part of the arm flopped to the ground in a pile of putrid skin, and the reaper's head snapped back up and its empty eyes focused directly on Michael with its fingers still grasping the remains of its upper arm. 

"You're going to regret that,” it whispered in the grinding croak reminiscent of a bag of gravel and forks shoved down a garbage disposal. 

"M-Make me." 

Michael had wanted to sound stubborn and strong, but the words cracked in the air and passed his lips in nothing but a whimpering stammer as he tried not to gurgle on his own blood. 

He should have ran the second he had gotten a hit in on this– this stupid son of a bitch. Things were– Everything was already going so wrong. 

The creature lurched at him. Michael didn't have time to run or stumble away; he barely had time to raise his bat. 

The reaper still had the upper part of its broken arm in hand, but Michael didn't notice the sharp end of broken bone protruding from the severed arm until the jagged point had already buried itself inside Mike’s shoulder. 

Two pinpoints of light sparked to life in the monster’s eyes, and its gaping black eyes looked directly at him as Michael screamed. 

The reaper ripped its broken arm out of Michael’s shoulder and aimed for the teen's heart. 

Michael just managed to ram the end of his bat into the reaper's neck at the last second. 

It was a weak blow. The monster’s close proximity didn’t give the teen enough room to maneuver the long bat and Mike's arms and wobbly legs trembled dangerously, worsening his ability to strike. But by some miracle, it was enough to make the monster stumble a few steps back, though it grabbed onto the teen's bat and ripped it from his hands as it stumbled.

Michael didn’t fight to get the bat back. He turned on his heel and ran. 

The teen’s hands clawed at his own shoulder as the monster’s footfalls echoed behind him once more. 

Tears stung Michael’s eyes as he remembered that bloody, grimy, disgusting bone piercing into him. God only knew what kind of germs that thing had put into his system– what if the wound got infected? 

Not that an infected wound would matter if Mike didn’t keep himself alive and out of the creature’s way.

Michael forced the pain and panicked delirium away. He had to focus; this was the important part. 

The reaper was just behind him, following at a pace closer to a walk than a run. 

Somehow, that was so, so much worse. The monster didn't have to run to keep up with him, and it knew it. It would always catch him in the end, like a hunter casually strolling after the blood trail of a wounded deer. The creature would never tire nor stop chasing him, and it was just a matter of time before Mike got too tired to go on running from it.

‘No. No, no, no– not this time.’

The monster’s slower pace did make this more difficult, though. Michael couldn't move too fast. He needed to always be just out of the creature's reach, or he would risk the monster getting distracted or frustrated and trying to cut him off by going a different route.

This would have a way better chance of success if Mike could keep the monster right where he wanted it. 

Michael dashed into the house from the garage and raced up and down hallways and from room to room. As he ran, he ducked and jumped periodically to avoid tripe wires, avoided stepping on any rugs, and danced around jagged pieces of metal and nails and blades that had been embedded into the hardwood floor. 

He really couldn’t afford to mess up this part. Any wrong moves or missteps would have to be avoided at all costs. But with any luck, the monster hunting him wouldn’t be so careful. 

As he raced up the steps, he made sure to skip the fifth step down. But as he reached the top, it slowly dawned on him that things had been unusually quiet. As far as Mike was aware, the monster never seemed to react much to pain, but there was a distinct lack of surprised grunts or infuriated yells, or whirring gears and mechanical parts snapping as traps were set off. 

Chest heaving as he panted, Michael turned and looked down.

The reaper was standing right there at the bottom of the steps. It looked exactly the same as it had when Michael had fought it in the garage, like it hadn’t set off a single trap during the chaotic chase. 

Its head was tilted back, staring at the kitchen knives and heavy hooks used to hang endoskeletons that Michael had stolen and hung from the ceiling over the steps. They were hung high enough that Mike could race up and down with no problem, but the taller monster should have gotten a nasty surprise as it came after him with that single-minded focus it always seemed to have. 

Instead, the monster looked up at the trap with an annoyed expression before meeting Michael’s eye. 

Keeping its head ducked low, the reaper placed its foot on the first step. 

Michael’s heart leaped into his throat and he stumbled down the hallway, struggling to breathe properly through all the panting and the blood still flooding his mouth and throat. 

How was that thing still walking?! Mike had set death traps up in every inch of this house; it just wasn’t possible that the reaper could have stumbled through the house without setting a single one off! 

The thing on the steps was still way, way too quiet. Had it seen him skip the fifth step down?

Mike turned for a split second to see if the reaper had gotten to the top steps yet. 

A sharp pain sliced through Michael’s throat. 

That single second of distraction had been enough time to throw several hours of analyzing the layout of every trap he'd set up in this house out the window. 

The sharp feeling wrapped around his entire throat as his own momentum forced him further into the trap. The wire tightened, and suddenly Mike’s feet left the floor entirely and he slammed against the ugly red wallpaper. 

Hurricane was a small town. One where there wasn't much to do, especially when your father worked at the most interesting place in town and you had to spend nearly every day there for hours on end.

Michael and his friends had explored every nook and cranny and forgotten place there was to find in the town. Including the abandoned railroad tracks in the surrounding woods.

Those tracks were so old that the rusty spikes meant to hold them together could often be found lying on the ground around the tracks, ripe for the taking; even the ones still riveted inside the old tracks could mostly be removed with some determination, and the sharp, rusty, six-and-a-half inch long spikes were attractive prizes to a group of rowdy teens with nothing better to do. 

Michael had stored a lot of them away in his closet over time. 

Sticking the rivets through a slab of plywood and nailing the plywood plank into the wall upstairs with the sharp ends facing outward had been a lot of effort, just like a lot of the traps he had spent the entire day building, but Michael had deemed it a worthwhile venture because he had been certain those spikes would be able to do some damage. 

And Michael had been right. 

Michael had put six or seven of those spikes through the plywood, but when Mike slammed into the wall, he only felt one big blast of pain set his back on fire. He didn't even have time to scream before a gush of blood and vomit slid through his throat, staining his shattered teeth and turning his inhuman screech into a quiet gurgle. 

The wire stayed wrapped around Mike's throat and cut deeper as his feet–- suspended by the railroad spikes and wire too high for the teen to reach the ground– thrashed wildly in the air. 

Michael’s vision went black as the thrashing jostled the spikes, widening the holes in his back and sending the sharp, rusted rivets deeper into his flesh until some of them scraped against his ribcage. 

Gasping, Michael sucked in one shaky breath after another and tried to ignore the desperate need to claw himself upward. His throat and lungs were filling with liquid, but he wasn't drowning in water. There was no surface he could rise above to make it all stop. 

What a strange sensation it was to drown in your own hallway without a drop of water in sight.

Bloody fingers clawed at the wire around his throat, but he couldn't pull it away any more than he could clear his airway. 

Salty tears leaked down Michael’s face in a futile attempt to clear away the blood still staining his chin. Between one blink and the next, the red wallpaper and family picture frames in front of the teen were replaced by two hollow black eyes and putrid purple flesh flecked with varying shades of green mold that peeked out of the crusty white bandages holding its splitting skin together

The monster cocked its head at him, and Michael finally got a good view of the damage he had dealt it earlier. The side of its head had caved in like deflated basketball or a sandcastle under an oncoming tide, and yellowish-white shards of bone jutted out from the jelly-like mixture of blood and decaying muscle dripping from the cracks in its head. 

The white pinpoints of its eyes flashed up and down him curiously, watching the blood flow down Michael’s body and drip into an ever-widening pool under his feet. The thing's lips had long ago rotted away, but Michael realized as raspy, cracked laughter spilled between the thing's dried-out, wrinkled gums and bared yellow teeth that the monster was smiling at him.

"You bastard!" More blood dribbled down Michael’s chin and gurgled inside his throat. Mike tried to spit it all out like this was nothing more than his morning mouthwash routine. "You bastard!" 

Floorboards moaned under the reaper's feet as it took another step closer. Michael flinched as it did so, and immediately bit back a cry at the white-hot pain of spikes shifting inside his back and scraping against bone and organs.

"That looks like it hurts," the reaper rasped. 

Michael’s tears stung as they leaked into cuts on his face from his earlier fight with the monster. He had felt hot and sweaty before from all the running and fighting, but now his fingers were iceblocks against his neck as he struggled with the wire digging into his flesh. A frighteningly cold, bone-deep chill cut into Michael's form, and the child trembled as he struggled to breathe through the blood and the pain. 

He couldn't run. Couldn't fight. The monster– the reaper– was going to kill him now. 

At least the pain will stop, a voice whispered in the teen's head. 

A quiet sob shook the young teen's core. He needed the pain to stop so fucking much, but he didn't want the pain to stop– he wanted to live. 

But if he was going to die, at least it would be on his own terms.

"Go ahead," Michael growled. "Jus– Just g-get it over with." 

The creature cocked its head at him again, like it had been too distracted watching the blood seeping from Michael's form to bother listening to what he had said. 

"Just d-do it!" Michael sobbed. "K-kill me, you– you wrinkly, p-puss-filled ball-sack! Come on! Just– just– get i-it over with and kill me!" 

The reaper took another step closer. "No." 

Blood-shot eyes locked onto the reaper's gaping eye sockets. "Why?!" 

Wasn't that the point?! Wasn't that what this– thing– had set out to do, over and over and over?! 

The reaper's hand settled on Michael’s chest. Mike didn't have the energy left to flinch or be wary. He only met the reaper's eye in pained exhaustion.

But then the reaper pushed. 

Michael screamed as his prized railroad spikes dug deeper into him until his bloody back was finally pressed flush against the wall. 

One of the railroad spikes went all the way through Michael’s chest and stabbed into the reaper's palm, but the monster didn't seem to notice. It ripped its hand away before latching onto one of Michael’s wrists as the teen frantically tried pulling the reaper's arm away from him. 

"You want to know why?" Its voice whipped against the air in a wild hiss.

The dull hallway light gleamed off the dark red liquid coating Michael’s skin as the reaper shoved the teen's blood-stained hand in front of his face before it snarled at him. "Because no matter how many ways you try to run or fight it, you will always bring this hell down on yourself with your own hands. You did this, Michael." 

'You're insane,' the teen wanted to say, but there was too much blood in Mike's throat for him to talk, or even to breathe. He tried shaking his head at the thing, but the wire was starting to cut frighteningly deep inside his throat. Michael could only stare at the monster in front of him with wide-eyed horror and beg for it to just end this, like the bastard was supposed to do when it caught him. 

The reaper released Michael’s wrist, and the teen's arm fell limply down to his side. 

He should do something; he should fight. But his energy had been draining away with every second he spent hanging on his own death trap, and there was so little left inside him. 

He couldn't even lean away as the reaper lifted its only hand, moved its fingers around the edge of his mask, and traced the curve of his head with an almost gentle touch. 

The reaper's broken fingers paused on a string looping behind the teen's head. It latched onto the string and pulled, ripping the Foxy mask off of Michael’s head. 

The reaper's teeth ground together as it glared down at the bloody mask before letting the plastic slip from between rotten fingers and fall to the bloody floor with a wet and heavy thunk. And without hesitation, the reaper slammed its foot down on the only thing that had ever made Michael feel strong. 

Hearing the sharp crack of plastic as the monster decimated the mask and shattered Foxy's maw into pieces wrenched a hopeless sob out of the teenager's chest. 

The reaper stayed still. It didn't move further away, nor did it move any closer.

It only watched as Michael struggled to free himself from the trap one last time before finally giving up. 

Michael struggled to gulp down another shaky breath through his sobbing but was rewarded only with more blood in his lungs and pain searing every nerve ending until even the most minuscule movements lit every cell and nerve in his body on fire. 

Through it all, the reaper stood back and watched with a smile. 

Not wanting to see the monster's smug, rotten face or the blood staining his own body anymore, Michael could do nothing but close his eyes and wait for the moment when the last drop of blood would drip from his body and all the pain would finally end.

(Michael had the sinking feeling that death wouldn’t be that easy of an escape.)

[kito-oh-kito]

c-can we hear abt Caseys fam🥹🥹

Yes you can!!!! Ily anon

Casey’s family is probably the most developed thing about my au which is a little embarrassing but oh well (it’s all under the more because there’s a lot 💀)

TW FOR CHILD ABUSE ON THE LAST BIT (and dying?) it’s not too bad but thought it’s better to be safe then sorry

Okay so this is Zach Casey’s older brother and his wife Mackenzie

This is also them but teens

They’re in their mid twenties and newly wed 🔥🔥(their ship name is either Zackenzie or machary) they’re highschool sweethearts and I love them soooo much

Zachs the golden child well he was he was supposed to be the next in line for his dads gang but he decided he didn’t want to be a leader but when he told his dad that well he wasn’t happy to say the least, that’s when he really realised how bad his dad had gotten he wasn’t the understanding man he once knew, so he moved out as soon as he could he bought an apartment for him and Mackenzie and soon they got married, he meets up with Casey every few months to help them with bills and such just because he loved his siblings too much to leave them completely even if they have low contact.

This is Bridget the little sister she’s 9 and a massive deva she’s a popular girl in her school she’s apart of the ‘girl posse’

Her hairs actually curly she just straightens it to fit in she bleaches her ends and wears makeup, she stays out the sun so she’s lighter but not for too long or she won’t look ‘tanned’ she’s ashamed that she was the only one of her signings to get her moms skin colour she’s more ashamed that she didn’t even know her according to her dad she look ‘just like her’ but in Bridget’s words she ‘absolutely hates being compared to that dead witch’ she never means what she says but you can’t really blame her she grew up the only girl the only dark skinned (Ik she doesn’t look super dark there shhh) person in the house and she feels like an outsider.

Enough angst heres a fun fact

She’s deadly allergic to pineapples yippie 😶

And then there’s their dad the ‘big boss’ the deadbeat dad who has a gang and tattooes the symbol onto his kids Arnold jones

Believe it or not this is the only drawing I have of him I don’t like drawing old people but oh well ‼️

This guy his everything phobic (not the scared kind) he hates everyone and everything he drinks ..a lot and this is with his kids are most likely going to go no contact he drinks and is the leader of (drumroll) the purple dragons and he forces that role onto his kids

He wasn’t always like this he used to be fine when it was just him, zach and his wife but when Casey came along she almost died of blood loss and the doctors said they couldn’t have any more kids of course that didn’t stop them and she ended up dying when Bridget was born that’s when he snapped and ended up snapping and let the alcohol and violence take over his life, zach was his first son the next leader and Bridget was just a baby so his anger was taken out on casey, he was only seven when his dad started taking out his anger on him he didn’t know why he was confused as any child would be but that didn’t stop Arnold he’d become a cruel man that didn’t care for him.

Of course it got better sure he still takes his anger out on casey sometimes but it’s not as bad at when he was younger send some rip Casey’s (the aggressiveness included getting Casey totted earlier then zach did, smacking and dislocated shoulder ermmm….save him!!!!)

Anyways that was my rant on the joneses hope you like them we much I like them lemme know if you want a casey post 😪 or any other characters

[boots-with-the-fur-club]

Chapter 5 of the reincarnation fic!! Please make sure to check the tags, this chapter deals with some potentially triggering situations.

@daboyau

@rottmnt-background-screenshots

Leo wakes up in frustration.

“It ends there? We barely started to hear anything! Tomo, did you get any memories about Haru?”

There’s silence.

“What?”

“You called me Tomo.” Donnie replies.

“…..You know what I meant!”

“No, I don’t remember anything about her. It’s only vague feelings.”

“Gram-Gram said that the dreams would be more unfocused. Maybe we’d have to tap into our ninpo again to see what he was talkin about.” Raph comments.

“But we can’t, dad won’t let us!” Mikey pouts.

Leo thinks for a moment.

“He stopped us because he thinks it’s dangerous right? So, if we got some more help, he’d probably let us. I say we call in an expert!”

“And who, pray tell, are we going to get?” Donnie raises an eyebrow.

Leo smirks.

“Aprilllll O’Neil is here! And I brought breakfast pizza.” She proudly holds up a stack of three boxes.

“Right on time and as glorious as ever.” Leo and her share a fist bump.

April sets the pizzas down on the table and sits next to them. They explain the situation while eating.

“Woah….that’s pretty heavy. You guys seriously can’t catch a break for even a second.”

“We might if you’ll help us!”

“Of course I will. I’ve said yes to a lot crazier things, and this’ll be easy.”

“You’re the best!” Mikey hugs her.

“Anything for you guys.” She pats his head.

They eventually head to Raph’s room, sitting in a circle like they did in the other room. April instructs them to do what they had done before, but also tells them to not think about the memories as theirs. She wants them to try to imagine themselves as observers to help with gaining access to different memories.

Everyone begins holding hands, leaving April and Donnie as the last ones. For some reason, he feels nervous. April smiles at him warmly which puts him at ease. He finally takes her hand and suddenly feels a memory bubble up to the surface.

April’s methods seemed to have worked too because he’s actually seeing Tomo and the room he’s currently in. He was practicing with a bo staff but sort of fumbling with it.

The sliding door to the room opened, causing him to drop the staff in surprise. Giggling starts coming from the open door.

“Haru! You scared me!”

“You knew I’d be here after your lesson, it’s not my fault!” She gets up from her kneeling position and closes the door behind herself.

“Nobody saw you?”

“I’m always super careful. No more talking, I want to help already!” She smiles and walks closer, picking up the extra bo staff from the floor.

“It’s not fair. I actually get training but you only sneak in to watch and you’re better than me.”

Haru moves the staff with somewhat more control than he had.

“It’s because you get too much in your own head. You’re letting everyone pressure you too much.”

“I’m supposed to be good at this. Everyone else is, you are. They should let you train, I don’t understand what being a girl has to do with it.”

“For some reason it means I need to focus on cooking and cleaning. I don’t hate it, I like knowing how to cook, but I want to do stuff like this too. I also think you should learn how to cook, you’re pretty bad at it.”

Tomo pouts.

“I’m bad at a lot of things apparently.”

“So what? You worry about now but you don’t think about later. Later, you’re going to be so good with the bo staff you might even be able to win against me.”

“I only have trouble because when you get bored you start holding it weird.“

“Weird? Hmmm….you mean….like this!?” She changes the position of her hands like it’s a bat.

“Haru no! Not again!”

“Fight me!” She starts chasing him.

He runs away, but they laugh harder the longer they run after each other.

Donnie wanted to find this nice, but considering how Tomo felt and what he knows, he’d be setting himself up for tragedy.

Tomo and Haru’s names are eventually called. They leave their bo staffs in the room, open up the door, and rush out.

The entire scenery changes. The room changes to one covered in what seemed like carefully crafted decorations. Haru was hunched over a small table that was low to the ground.

Donnie glances around to see where Tomo was and is surprised when he enters the room. April had mentioned being able to see what the others remembered using this view but Haru wasn’t here.

It shouldn’t be like this.

“Haru?” Tomo puts a hand on her shoulder.

She sits up, eyes filled with tears.

“I’m scared, Tomo.”

“What? Why? What happened? Has someone hurt you!?”

“N-No, mother keeps talking about being ready to get married when I’m older.”

“Oh….why are you scared? That won’t be for a while.”

“I asked her if she had someone picked out already. She does.”

“Is his family bad?”

“I don’t know, but what I do know is that they live in Tohoku.”

Tomo freezes.

“But….we live in Kyushu.”

Haru tears up more and nods.

“A letter a year, if I’m lucky. That’s how much we’d be able to talk to each other. I-If I’m not….it’s never again….”

Tomo tears up but quickly wipes his eyes.

“I can fix this, I’ll talk to mother, there has to be something I can do!” He turns to leave.

Haru grabs his sleeve.

“There’s no point! Please, Tomo, this isn’t something you fix. There’s nothing we can do.”

“Then what is this? What am I supposed to do?”

“L-Lie. Tell me it’ll be okay. Tell me that we won’t have to be separated. Tell me that we aren’t going to just stop talking one day and I’ll have to forget that you ever existed!” Haru grips his sleeve even tighter.

Tomo’s eyes widen before he barrels into her with a hug.

“Please, never forget me. I’m not a twin without you Haru! I don’t mean anything!”

She hugs him back as tightly as possible.

“We will never stop being twins. No matter what family I marry into. I’m sorry for what I said, I don’t want to forget you! I just hate it all! We won’t even have the same family name anymore! What will I have of you!?”

Tomo thinks for a moment and let’s go of her to untie the yellow cord from his hair.

“This.”

“Your…..kanzashi?”

“It’s not a lot, but it’s something nobody would take away from you or stop you from having.” He ties her hair up with it in a low ponytail.

She looks into a mirror.

“My hair looks just like yours always does.”

“You may not be able to see me in the future…..but you can remember what I look like. Obviously you’re a girl so it’ll change, but we have the same eyes and the same smile. You’re never going to be without me.”

Haru smiles.

“You’re the best brother ever.”

“I know that. I’m your only brother.”

“Then am I the best sister?”

“I don’t have any other choice.”

She turns to him and shoves his cheek. Neither of them seemed particularly upset despite it.

Everything changes once again. Haru and Tomo were sitting outside on the deck of their home. The leaves on the ground whirled around a bit in the wind.

“Tomo?”

“Yes?��

“You’d tell me if something bad was going to happen, right?”

“It depends.”

“Really? You wouldn’t just tell me?”

“Ask me the question you’re really thinking about.”

“You’ve been training a lot more. It makes me think something bad is happening. Is it?”

Tomo goes silent for a moment.

“I don’t know. I really don’t. Nobody is telling me anything either. I’m just….thinking about later, like you said.”

“I guess my advice wasn’t so bad, especially since you’ve gotten much better.”

“I started thinking about one thing instead of a lot of things. It helped.”

“Oh yeah? What?”

“Protecting you.”

“I don’t need protecting, you know that.”

“I know you’re better at it than me, but if there is a time you need my help I want to be ready. That’s all.”

“You’re lucky I know what a worrier you are or I’d be mad at you.”

“And you’re lucky you have a worrier looking after you.”

“I’m the older twin, I don’t need looking after either.”

“Only by five minutes!”

“It still counts!”

“You never let me forget it.”

“I’m just reminding you of the amazing fact that you never had to live in a world I didn’t exist.”

“But you had to be in pain for five whole minutes without me.”

She leans her head on his shoulder, kicking her legs a bit.

“Five minutes too long.”

There’s yet another location change, as well as season as there’s snow all over the ground.

Tomo and Haru seemed to be visiting an isolated temple with their parents. Several men surrounded them, highly on guard.

“Are we really safe out here?” Haru holds onto Tomo’s arm.

“This is a sacred place, that will make anyone think twice about hurting us.” Tomo tried to sound calm but he was just as nervous.

Their mother placed down a wooden board of food and began to pray in front of it.

Tomo couldn’t help but be distracted, scanning the forested area around them. Something bright in the trees catches his eye.

He immediately pulls Haru onto the floor, covering her with his body and shutting his eyes tight. He only opens his eyes when he hears a gurgling noise.

The food was splashed with red. He didn’t want to look higher than that. He didn’t have to.

“Tomo! What happened!?” Haru struggles against his weight.

He only covers her more, making sure she can’t see a thing.

The guards close in on them more. There’s a lot of shouting and chaos. Men start coming out from the forest. Then, suddenly, he and Haru are lifted from the ground. He still scrambles to try to somehow cover her eyes.

It doesn’t work.

“Mother! Mother!! Father, we can’t leave her behind! She’s hurt!“

“She’s dead! There’s nothing we can do!” Their father takes off running with them in his arms.

Haru sobs while Tomo is in a state of complete shock. He can’t say or do anything in response.

After some time of running, the same men from earlier are coming after them. There’s less than last time but they’re still outnumbered.

Their father takes a moment to place them on the ground before unsheathing his swords. He hands the smaller one to Tomo.

“Take this and protect your sister! Run! Now!”

Tomo snaps out of it almost immediately, grabbing Haru’s hand with the one that isn’t occupied before running off into the forest.

They could hear the clanging of metal behind them. The sounds of someone running in the snow joined moments after.

Tomo’s eyes dart around the landscape. Eventually, there’s a snow bank to his side. He stops, allowing Haru to get next to him, then shoves her in.

It was so thick she’d be covered if she kept still. He breathes heavily as the man chasing them comes into view. His hands refuse to stop shaking.

The man laughs at him. Tomo was the least intimidating thing in the world at the moment. Still, he tried to at least give himself a little bit of a chance.

He held the sword out as best he could. The man came quickly at him, so fast that there was no chance to do anything.

Haru suddenly jumped out from the snowbank. She grabbed the man’s legs, causing him to fall.

Once he gets his bearings back slightly, the man slices at her. Tomo screams and stabs at him until the man stops moving. Only when he’s sure he won’t hurt them anymore does he drop the sword and pull his sister away.

“Haru! Why couldn’t you just stay in the snow!?”

“I-I couldn’t just let him kill you. Y-You were going to die.”

Tomo tears up heavily as he looks for the wound. The breath is nearly knocked out of him when he sees how bad it is.

“But now…..”

“T-Tomo. I-It’s okay.”

“No! None of this is okay! I was supposed to keep you safe!”

“My….my biggest fear….do you know what it was?”

“Don’t say was!” He presses down on her wound.

She shouts in pain, trying to get him to stop.

“T-Tomo!”

“I’m not letting you die like this!”

She breathes heavily, no longer stopping him but leaving her hands on his.

“I-It was be-being in a world wh-where I didn’t have you….th-that’s why….” Her hands start slipping.

“No no no, don’t you do it! What about being twins!? Haru!”

She mumbles something.

He holds her up, hugging her.

“H-Haru?”

“….Re…flection….” She whispers.

Her body goes still.

Tomo screams out in anguish, not wanting to let her go even now.

Donnie feels like his heart is about to shatter. It’s somehow even worse than he imagined. He and his brothers came back. Their deaths weren’t exactly permanent. Haru was gone. Tomo was never getting her back.

He sees the yellow cord drop onto the snow from her hair. A cold wind picks it up, flying it away. Donnie knows he can’t exactly interact with a 1,000 year old memory but he can’t help but grab at it.

Surprisingly, it lands in his hand. This is the first time he’s looked at himself in this ninpo energy memory place as an observer. His hand was completely purple and sort of see through.

The yellow cord glows then morphs into a new shape. He was holding hands with Haru. There was hardly a moment to take this in before her form grows, changing again.

“April….?”

[solis-angelus]

BABE WAKE UP NEW LOW JUST DROPPED.

source

[here-is-kia]

I haven’t been writing for a while, I feel terrible about it. Since now I have always used my laptop and used Grammarly before uploading here. Right now it is 5:43 am, in the middle of Ramadan, school is closed because of it. I need to study, I know, but I can’t bring myself to do it. It takes too much of my time, and my efforts fucking always goes unnoticed. Expected, I know. My laptop is fucking broken and useless now, I can barely use it. Day by day I am losing my sanity because of it. I have no will whatsoever. I begged to die yesterday, crying and shivering. Pathetic. Couldn’t even stop. I wish my parents would see me as a human instead of a puppet who should just focus on their studies. They want the good for me, but what’s the point if every single word they make me want to crawl out of my skin? Staying with them for over three minutes is painful. I want to be myself. To be free. I can understand and see my mother’s thoughts, I can feel them. Like a hand is holding a vein between my heart and neck. It’s not fair. How my father treats my younger sister, how my mother is different to her. Few days ago, well actually two days ago- Me and my sister cried in each other’s arms complaining about life. She is fucking 9. Nine. She says life is too hard, how she thought pain is fictional. She saw a childhood video of mine, and it shocked her how different i had become. Trauma can change you, some people have it harder, you may not remember and intellectualise your past. My mother has a lot of opinions, and I know the existence of it. Just because she ‘loves’ me doesn’t mean I feel loved by her, she oversees my screams, and tears. I am genuinely disgusted by her. If I were a mother, I vow I wouldn’t be like her. She thinks she is the best in the whole world, she ‘thinks’ she lets us do whatever we want. She simply doesn’t ‘parent’ us. She never will. And my father is… ugh. Saying anything about him brings tears to my eyes, it fact there are tears in my eyes right now. He cares, but I did wish if he just left me fucking Alone. I want my own life. I fucking hate my parents. I am being ungrateful and don’t fucking care anymore. They simply don’t fucking understand how fucking hard it is to get these grades. How can ALL of your three kids be suicidal? One is 9, another is fucking 7 and tried to kill hi self with a knife. I don’t even know if they are blind or are just ignoring everything. Mother likes to hide from father. I hate her. I hate it when I tell her my grades and she doesn’t tell father, father thought I hide my grades from him. I didn’t correct him. It hurts. I have my ambitions and all, please just give me a fucking break. From all your fucking expectations and opinions. I hate my mother. I tell her I love her every now and then, I am simply lying. I joke around and shit, but I can’t stand it anymore. I am a Muslim, a mighty believer too. I can’t run away when I get older, no matter how much I want to. Maybe I can, hopefully. Though death seems more easy, still begging your God to take away your life but still let you go to heaven is like begging your teacher to let you leave the exam hall and still let you pass. When will I be free? When? Never? I want freedom, I hate my mother’s thoughts and opinions, I can fucking feel them. It makes me want to crawl out of my skin. She thinks she is the best mother there is, yet all she does she buy endlessly for her little dolls and argue how I have tons of clothes. She hates me, I am too ugly for her. I know. I hope she— no I don’t even want her to know about the pain she had caused us. She is too stubborn and would cry like a child. It’s sadly really, to be trapped your whole life. I can never be alone, I hate them. I hate taking the blame always. It’s not like my father is the capable man he thinks he is. I want to die.

Actually you know what? I don’t want to be away from a family, I want to spend time with a family, I want to joke around with a family(I mean I am already a laughing subject no matter how amazing my grades and weight are.) I just can’t stand this one. I am far too disgusted by them. Far, far too disgusted. In Ramadan, your Naf is still with you, maybe this is who I actually am. A pathetic emotional child. A worthless being. What benefit would my parents get from my successful future, that I do not know. I think they want me to succeed so they can feel like they accomplished something. I can never be my own person. I hate them. Even if parents have their own problems, their children still shouldn’t all be fucking in love with death.

Here, death is not a fear but a privilege. The children envies people who experience death. They want to physically(my sister said to me that day) harm themselves for attention. Please, you are fucking busy but you are a parent. They aren’t parenting, they are slacking off, giving us the basic human needs then taking a break. I was never enough, will never be. I am worthless, and if my fucking mother says ‘Oh Sweetie no! Who told you that!?’ In her honeyed voice, I will kill her. I probably won’t— but it will still be my breaking point js—

Freedom, heaven, today I saw a comment on a reel on Instagram, saying the prophet said life is a prison to the believers and paradise to the non-believers. It is kind of like a sign, of course life is not a paradise to everyone. I am doubting the authenticity of the translation. The last sentence doesn’t sound correct, it certainly is not from the Quran. It says ‘prison’ not hell, so I don’t think the is actually ‘paradise’. I did like how it said ‘prison’ though, a sign hopefully. It just gives you that shed of hope every delusional teenager with trauma likes to cling into.

-6:39 including time taken for tags :P

[une-sanz-pluis]

Of all the English princesses of the era only Blanche, eldest daughter of Henry IV, was married below canonical age. Henry had sought marriages for his infant daughters as soon as possible after becoming king, and after a proposed match between Blanche and a member of the French royal house was declined he secured Louis, son of the emperor Rupert, and the wedding took place in 1402 when Blanche was about ten. His second daughter, Philippa, was also one of the youngest English princesses to marry, wedding the king of Sweden at thirteen. The very high status of these matches and Henry’s precipitous haste in securing them are indicative of his tentative hold on the throne and eagerness to bolster it with powerful alliances, rather than of any strong approval of early marriage. Blanche was also the youngest of the princesses to have a child, a stillborn son, at fifteen. She died at sixteen, giving birth to her second child.

Kim M. Phillips, Medieval Maidens: Young Women and Gender in England, 1270-1540 (Manchester University Press, 2003)

n.b. The last sentence is incorrect; Blanche did not die giving birth to her second child but of a fever when she was six months pregnant with her second child. Her first child appeared to be a son, Rupert the English, who died in 1426, his birth is dated to 1406 when she would’ve been 14.

[going-to-ikea-for-the-fries]

Home Pt. 8 || cbf! Simon "Ghost" Riley

Rating: M Words: 1.3K Pairing: cbf!Simonxafab!reader / teen!Simonxteen!Reader Summary: Teen Simon and his best friend often spend their nights away from their respective houses because they found a home in each other… CW: death, death of a CHILD, house fire, grief. Tags: you/your pronouns, time skip, heartbreak, grief and loss, reader's new family, canonical Ghost backstory. a/n: not proofread. THE NEXT CHAPTER IS THE ENDING (it WILL be angst and nothing else... but I'll write a happy ending alternative soon).

[← Previous] || [Next →] || [MY MASTERLIST]

-------------------------------------------------------

He was thirty-three. You’re thirty-two.

It’s all over the news. A two-up, two-down council estate home caught fire in Manchester last night. Christmas’ Eve. All the occupants died inside, a family. Four adults, and one 4-year-old child, though they don’t reveal the names of any of the family members.

You’re halfway through stirring some spaghetti in a cheesy sauce as your eyes turn toward the television screen, already feeling a bit of sorrow for the poor child who lost their life. 

But then you realize that the news reporter covering the devastating fire stands in a street you’re all too familiar with… And the cameraman pans through the road, showing the house in question. A house you’re even more familiar with.

You stop in your tracks and drop the spoon and the pan. You feel a pit forming in your stomach, a scream getting caught in your throat, itching to get out. Your mind begins tuning out all other sounds in the home around you, your ears ringing.

You’ve tried not to think about it, about him… But Simon Riley has a way of popping up in your head when you least expect it. 

Usually, it’s just a stray thought, a leftover of a life you lived together, of a friendship that spanned your formative years. You see a brand of beer he used to drink, feel the scent of the cheap deodorant he used to wear, or spot a car that looks like the one his dad owned (the one you stole when you left Manchester) and the memories come flooding back for a moment.

You’ve healed, you’d say. 

You’ve grown up. You even have your shit together! You’re married to a man you love very much, have a maisonette flat in Dundee, Scotland, your own car, a fairly successful small business as a hairdresser, and a couple of “wee ones” running around, a 3-year-old daughter and an 8-month-old son.

So why does it hurt so much?

“Y/N?” Your husband calls out to you when he notices the way you’ve stood still, petrified, in the kitchen, eyes locked onto the television. You haven’t even noticed you’ve started crying.

He swiftly evades your 3-year-old who’s lying on her tummy on the floor, colouring a Christmas-themed picture with her little tongue out.

“What’s wrong, love?” Your husband, Samuel, asks, his hands gently cupping your face as he stands in front of you, looking down at you with worried eyes.

You shake your head and hang your head, shoulders shaking as you desperately try to control your sobs, to not alert your children. You pull away from your husband and you gesture vaguely, wordlessly.

You’ve been together for just about 6 years now, married for 2. He understands you enough to let you pass him to seek refuge upstairs in the bedroom. You allow yourself to weep into the pillows, clutching them tight.

You’ve lived in this flat, and lied on this bed, for the better part of your relationship. It’s warm and safe, and it feels like home… But now that you know that Simon Riley died, it feels suffocating.

Why does it feel like this? Why does it feel like you’ve just lost your footing? Like you lost all you knew? It shouldn’t feel like a tether has been torn between you.

Simon hasn’t embraced you in 15 years… So why does it feel like it did on those cold winter nights where all that kept you warm was Riley’s embrace, his breath and heartbeat, and whenever he shifted positions he accidentally allowed the cold to seep into your warm skin? Why does it feel like those few seconds of cold before his arms came back… but permanently? 

Why can you feel his absence in your bones? Why can you feel his absence tearing up every little string inside your heart?

Why does it feel like you lost your home in that fire?

Samuel dares to venture into the bedroom after a long while. He finds you sleeping, your pillows still peppered wet with tears. He situated the kiddos by finishing preparing lunch for them, and then putting them down for their afternoon nap.

He knows about your past. He knows about your abusive father, your battered mother, your friends, about how you ran away. You’ve made sure to trust him with all of that. He’s seen you torn up and grieving over the life you had, the child you were…

But this is new.

He slowly climbs onto the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight as he slowly leans his head closer and presses a couple of kisses to the back of your head, his hand gently caressing your hair.

“Love?” He whispers, which draws you from your light nap. Your eyes are swollen and a bit crusty from the tears, and your head is pounding with a crying-induced migraine.

“Hi… Sorry.” You tell him immediately as soon as you turn a bit to face him. “What time is it?”

“It’s alright…” He assures you and runs a hand over your hair gently, slowly bringing it around to your face and cupping your cheek. “It’s just 2:30 P.M.” He replies. “The wee ones are down for a nap.” He adds.

You nod your head and rub your eyes with the back of your hand. “I’m sorry.” You say again.

“Don’t apologize, it’s alright.” He assures you again as he leans in and presses tender kisses to your forehead.

He pulls you close onto an embrace, cuddling you close, your leg intertwined with his, his arms wrapped snuggly around your body, his nose nuzzling against the crown of your head.

You feel yourself relaxing. His embrace warms your soul and you feel the tension and the grief become easier to deal with. Samuel is your husband, he makes you feel safe, makes you feel loved.

“Do you want to talk about what’s on your mind?” He asks, breaching the subject only after a long while of silence.

“I knew them.” You reply bluntly, the words slipping past your lips quicker than you could think.

“The people from that fire?” He asks. Sammy is smart, after all. The man can’t hear the word ‘Manchester’ without wondering if his darling wife is related to it or knows about it.

“Yeh.” You answer and give a curt nod.

“An old friend?” He probes a bit, his voice gentle.

“Best friend.” You tell him and very tentatively add, “My first love.”

He doesn’t say anything, but rubs your back in an attempt to comfort you.

“I’m sorry, love.” He tells you and gently rubs his lips over your forehead, pressing little kisses to it again.

You go quiet again, lost in thought. He allows you to, simply caressing you soothingly.

After long, long minutes of silence, he speaks again. “Do you want to go pay your respects?” 

You raise your head from its resting spot on Samuel’s chest and you look into his eyes. “Do you think I should…?” You ask.

“Why would you not?” He retorts earnestly.

It reminds you that you never told him about Simon, about how special he was to you, about how it all crashed and burned…

“Our friendship ended 15 years ago. I never went back to Manc to see him and… well…” You trail off and look away. “It’s just…”

“You think you wouldn’t be welcome?” He finishes the thought for you. You glance up at him again and then silently nod.

“Well, love,” He says as he thinks. “It’s your choice, at the end of the day.” He adds. “But, whatever happened, I’m sure he held no ill will toward you.” He adds. “I’m sure he liked you a lot, just like you liked him.”

You look away again as you push yourself up into a sideways seated position, your hands holding you up in the mattress as you ponder it.

“And I think it would do you good,” Samuel adds as he gently reaches out and cups your cheek with his hand, tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear. “to say goodbye.” He explains. “Find inner peace… make sure you don’t regret it in the future.” He adds.

You simply nod and snuggle up to your husband once more with a deep sigh.

-------------------------------------------------------

[← Previous] || [Next →] || [MY MASTERLIST]

taglist: @iite-cool , @spicyspicyliving

[crazybagelbitch]

Ben Gross lost his sister when he was four, and she was fourteen. He was too young to really remember her, to really register the loss. Or so he thought. Devi's dad dies, he meets Aneesa, and the walls within him that he didn't realized he had come crumbling down. Ben/Devi slow burn but also a character study of everyone involved and a story of life after loss.

[awakentrashpanda]

I drew Sora mourning her dead kids while I was at church today because I can

[1doesnotsimplyhavejust1fandam]

One of the saddest parts (to me) of Sarah’s death is the fact that every part of her that cared about her dad and her Uncle Tommy was ripped from the world. After 12 years of her growing beside them, she’s just gone without a trace because the world is in shambles, and there’s no way of retrieving any memorabilia of her from the Miller house. The watch is literally all that’s left of her besides their memories. The first episode does SUCH a good job of showing the audience how integral Sarah is to their routine. She literally wakes Joel up and makes breakfast, she teams up with Tommy to tease Joel, she allows herself to be shepherded to the Adlers’ house after school to keep Joel and the Adlers happy. She’s shown to the audience as mature, thoughtful, and independent, just by her trip into the city to repair Joel’s watch. She takes care of her dad as much as Joel takes care of her. They’re a team, and all that is lost in just a few seconds and a child dying in vain.

[ginalinettiofficial]

i am. still just so glad i got out of teen wolf when the cast started falling apart. like season three was such a shitshow from day one and made me INSANE as it was airing and i just could not continue to watch for season four after they killed off or wrote off essentially half the cast and killed all the found family potential and i will admit!!! that seeing crystal reed herself on a new teen wolf story DID tempt me!!!! i am only human!!!! i am not immune to allison argent!!!! but truly i know myself and i know that the show died a horrible death for me over the course of s3 and there’s a lot of good reasons i stopped watching it and those reasons will sustain me through my decision to not watch this new movie

all that said. @ my loyal six followers. please do not be alarmed if i end up temporarily in a teen wolf revival moment. i am not immune to allison argent and the nostalgia of it all DOES make me want to go back and reread all the old classic pack fics from before davis decided to start killing kids left and right !!! i am not immune to the powerful energy of sterek writers, nor to the call of pack-fics!!!!