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doginasillyhat · 1 month ago

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why are these heartbreaking scenes in my kinkfic

Otto and Atticus: The Crash

Inspired by a prompt from @speech-bubble. An idea I've been floating in my head for months.

This is a complete self-service for my whumping hurt/comfort side. Please read the warnings.

CW:

More of a hurt/comfort whump fic than a hiccup fic

Parent death (mention of Otto's mom and dad in this topic)

Car accidents (fatal with injury)

Car accident scares (non-injury/near miss)

PTSD

Crying and sobbing

Breaking down

Emotional vulnerability

Mention of alcoholism

Panic attack mention

Mention of nearly falling off the wagon as it pertains to alcoholism

Hiccups from emotion/crying

Hard hiccups

Forceful hiccups

Deep mildly painful hiccups

Hiccups are cured

Atticus taking care of Otto

Otto feeling guilty for needing to be taken care of

Atticus deflecting their emotions

Two unhealthy people in a healthy relationship

Mark's inability to grow a mustache is funny

Emotional vulnerability is hard even when you feel safe

All the trauma

All the comfort

Some of the hiccups

It had not been a good day for either Otto or Atticus. It had all started when Atticus walked down in their sock-feet, sweatpants, and an A-line shirt to Otto standing in the kitchen gripping his coffee and looking off into the middle-distance toward the cabinets with a mildly distressed wide-eyed look.

The expression on his face, taut and emotional, reminded Atty of the week after Otto had been informed of Olivia, his mother, passing away of liver cancer. But in that instance the tall clock maker had curled on the floor of the kitchen, back against one of the lower cabinet drawers, his hands red and raw with having scrubbed every inch of the kitchen in an attempt to cope with the sudden confusing emotions he felt about her death.

That day there had been a bottle of scotch he’d discovered in his cleaning spree. He had intended on throwing it away but found the urge to imbibe so painfully great he couldn’t even handle the bottle and, instead, slid down to the floor in a panic until Atticus came home with groceries to find him.

It had been a very difficult couple of months. Atticus had poured the scotch out into the sink at Otto’s shaking behest with trembling hands and tossed the bottle as they’d ordered Otto to go to the couch if he could. There they comforted Otto as best they were able. They’d called Otto’s sponsor as he sobbed in their lap, panicking at the likelihood of him having caved to his urges to down the bottle of scotch if Atty hadn’t come home when they had.

The perishable groceries had spoiled in the cloth bags without being put in the refrigerator as Atticus ran their fingers through Otto’s sweat-soaked hair.

Otto had taken up going to meetings for a while after that experience. He got reclusive. He was terrified to be around any form of alcohol. But eventually, with his sponsor, Atticus, and the local AA group, he was able to find his mooring again.

So, as Atticus peered around at their partner’s face looking so similar to what it had that day, they felt their heart rate quicken in fear.

They checked his hands for the bright red marks of obsessive cleaning but found none. This did little to calm their worry as Otto still had not reacted to their presence, and they were nearly in front of him at this point.

Atticus had woken up earlier than normal. Perhaps if they’d continued to sleep until their normal wake-up time they wouldn’t have witnessed this emotional episode. Though it was uncomfortable, in hindsight they would be grateful they were there.

“Hey, bud...you okay?” they said softly, just loud enough to hear, but hopefully not too loud to startle.

Otto gave a little gasp, but it wasn’t a dramatic unsettling of his reverie. Instead, it was as if he was coming out of a dream of some sort. Or perhaps, more fittingly, a bad dream. He took a larger breath and frowned after spotting Atticus. He looked down in confusion trying to figure out how to answer the question. He was honestly not quite sure what the answer was.

“Um…” he said. He swallowed, his face still filled with confusion and a terse sort of sadness. He took another breath through his mouth, the air whistling a little on his dry lips. He turned the mug around in his long fingers while tightening his grip on it to feel the heat it still radiated despite having cooled down significantly since he’d poured it.

Otto continued, “I...I don’t really...uh,” he swallowed and cleared his throat shaking his head and blinking. He let a breath out through his nose.

“Take your time,” Atticus encouraged.

They edged closer to Otto as if coming up on a feral animal. They waited until Otto locked eyes with them again before offering a hand to his arm. When Otto didn’t lean away, they laid their hand on his shoulder and gave it a rub. To their relief Otto seemed to relax a little, though he gave a sniff and swallow, a shaky breath, and his brows lifted as if he could cry at any moment. He was obviously fighting the emotion.

“It doesn’t usually…” he paused and gave a mirthless laugh and another breath in before continuing, “It doesn’t usually hit me this hard. But um…” he sniffed and rubbed his nose with what seemed to be frustration as Atticus watched. “I, uh, I guess that close call on the interstate a few days ago sort of...maybe that has something to do with it?”

The close call was a car zagging straight into their lane as they both were on their way back from Margie and Cindy’s house. It was completely unexpected, and if Otto hadn’t evasively maneuvered when he had they would have both had injuries at the least. The worst was something Atticus didn’t want to think about.

Otto had been so shaken up that Atticus had offered to drive home. Thankfully they were driving the automatic car and not Otto’s manual. Though Atty experienced driving anxiety, Otto was in no condition to drive. Neither one of them discovered what came of the swerving car. It continued on miraculously not causing any further incident. The important thing was they both made it home safely.

“This...is about that?” Atticus hazarded a guess as they still rubbed his arm in a way they hoped was comforting.

“Um...no, but…” Otto shook his head and huffed, eyes rolling in further annoyance at himself. He felt tears prickling at his eyes and he was trying desperately not to give into the urge to cry. He knew, though, once he started explaining himself, he would have no control over it. He might not have any control over it either way with the dull ache he felt building up in his chest.

“Sweetie, there is no expectation from me on knowing what this is about,” Atticus said. “But if there’s something I can do to help…”

Otto looked at his partner with fondness. Of course, Atticus wouldn’t expect him to be vulnerable if he didn’t want to. They wouldn’t put that pressure on him. It was sweet but with the safety he felt with his partner, there was no need to fear vulnerability. He just didn’t want to cry. It was messy and a hassle to cry. And he knew this particular dam would break in a particularly violent way. He didn’t want to lay that weight on Atticus, not after all they had already seen of him similarly distressed. But he also desperately didn’t want to deal with this alone and knew Atty would smack him if they knew he was trying to protect them from his emotional outburst.

It was a double-edged sword to have a partner with a high emotional IQ who’d been raised by a mother who was a social worker.

“It’s...uh…” he started and felt his throat rebel against the words. He shook his head stubbornly and cleared his throat in annoyance. “Today is the anniversary of...my dad...of my dad’s death.”

Recognition gleaned in Atticus’ eyes. They hadn’t known the exact date it had happened, but Otto had told them enough about the occurrence, so they recognized the significance and the connection to their close call on the interstate.

Otto had been 8 years old when his dad had been driving him and his two siblings to a rehab facility his mother was being released from. Otto had fought with his older sister to take the passenger seat and won. As a result, he’d had a front row seat of the accident that ended his dad’s life and sent Otto and his siblings to the hospital. The last thing Otto remembered was seeing his dad covered in blood, unresponsive.

A drunk driver had swerved in front of them and his dad wasn’t able to stop the car in time. They crashed into the truck and the cars behind them crashed into the back of the car. The airbag on his dad’s side had failed. The airbag on Otto’s side had caused whiplash in addition to a concussion and he’s sustained broken ribs from the seat belt.

It was traumatic in every sense and changed the entire landscape of Otto’s life. In the current moment his eyes had closed, and his mouth had turned into itself as a thin line trembling to keep his composure.

“Hey,” Atticus said softly as they rubbed his chest underneath an arm still attached to the mug he was clutching in his hands.

Otto opened his eyes, the lump in his throat so large he didn’t even try to speak around it. He could feel the tears building on his lower lids and his body jerked in muffled sobs.

“I’m sorry,” he finally managed as a whisper.

“No reason to be sorry,” Atticus assured him. “I just want to know how to best help. I’m going to give you a couple of options, okay?”

Otto sniffed and nodded, trembling a little.

“Okay. One, you can go upstairs and be alone for a while. You don’t need to worry about hurting my feelings. I totally get it if you need to be alone. If you want, I can check on you. Bring you some water and tissues. Alright, but the second option is that I can stay with you. You can lay on my lap on the couch and do whatever you need to do. And I can just...be with you. Listen if you need to talk. I can offer physical touch...or not. It’s up to you,” they said.

Atticus watched as Otto took in a shaky breath, squinted eyes brimming with moisture, and a flushed redness blossoming on his face.

“The...second one!” Otto sputtered, sniffing as he quivered and frowned with tears starting to break the barriers of his lids and slide down his cheeks. “I’m sorry...I don’t wa—”

“I offered. You have nothing to be sorry for. Lemme get a box of tissues and a glass of water, okay?” Atticus said taking their small hand to the scruff of his jawline and touching the moisture there as Otto nodded succumbing to the soreness of the emotional release he was finally allowing to happen.

Atticus held their hand around Otto’s body to his chest when they were both situated. Otto was on his side faced away from Atticus instead of his back, like he usually was. The pillow on Atty’s lap was already becoming wet with his tears as his cheek pushed against it. The feeling of their hand against his chest was both comforting and triggering. He held a hand against theirs to keep it there, though. It felt painful and safe.

Soon, to the sensation of Atticus raking their fingers through his hair and on his scalp with their other hand, Otto finally let the rubber band snap in his chest. He found himself gasping and sobbing until his chest hurt with the exertion of the shallow breaths. He would gasp again, embarrassingly loud, and audibly let out the soft wails his body forced from his lungs through his vocal cords.

It wasn’t necessarily memories he was reliving, but emotions. He wasn’t experiencing flashbacks but, rather, the sensations of helplessness, loss of control, and grief. For a moment he was an 8-year-old boy in the hospital learning his dad had died all over again. Gasp after gasp brought a new emotion back into his body and mind to be relived. He missed his dad so much.

“It’s. Not. Fair!” he felt himself saying. The words weren’t a completely conscious act but burst out of him in a primal way. The words were spat similarly to a cat wailing out in fear or a dog growling and then whimpering.

Atticus felt Otto’s heart race and his chest rise and fall rapidly at his outburst. The arm he’d tucked down on their arm holding their hand to his chest was hot and the writer could feel the wetness of sweat from his armpit from the exertion of his sobs. They did their best to rub his chest from the awkward angle.

“It’s not,” Atticus agreed softly to Otto’s yell.

“If he...if he hadn’t died maybe...maybe I wouldn’t have...fucked up as much as I did. Been so stupid. Why did he have to die?” he whined.

Atticus leaned down toward him and put their head on top of his. Again, the heat of his emotion radiated from him as if he were a furnace. They didn’t care, though. They curled themselves over his body protectively and put their cheek against his hair after kissing him there.

“I dunno, sweet boy,” they said. “I don’t think there’s a reason to things like this. They just happen. And we just have to live through it the best we can.”

“It’s not fair…” he reiterated. This time it was softer, though. It was broken and thin. He gasped after it and then again before another round of crying hit him and he caved at the unsteady breathing and sobs.

“No, it really isn’t fair,” the writer said into his ear. “You didn’t deserve it. No one deserved it. You’re worth so much more than to have to feel this way. But I’m here and I will never let you go, and I will do my best to keep you safe, okay?”

Otto gasped in a couple more times in involuntary sobbing.

“Do you promise?” he managed in a whisper.

Atticus looked at his bright red flushed face marked with veins popping out on his forehead with their head so close to his and snuggled in a little deeper.

“I promise. I absolutely promise,” they replied emphatically.

Otto panted at the statement and was finally able to get some longer breaths into his crying jag.

“I think,” he said and sniffed finally having the mind to pull a tissue from the box on the coffee table in front of him and rub it over his nose and face. “I think I know why I feel so...so safe when you have your...hand on my chest.”

“Oh?” Atty asked.

“Mm,” Otto nodded against the pillow under his head. “The...last thing I remember...in-in the accident was…” he took a breath, “was my dad putting his hand across my chest to...to protect me.” He sniffed again, feeling more tears coming up at the sudden memory becoming sharper. “So...when your hand is there, I feel...safe…”

The last of his words came out in a whine again and he felt Atticus’ arm tighten around his chest.

“Oh, you sweet man,” Atty mumbled as they pressed their hand deeper into his sternum.

The huff Otto gave could’ve been a laugh or an expression of some other emotion. Otto would be hard pressed to define it, just that the action made him feel less tension than before.

After a while the clock maker finally was able to start to control his breathing again. The urge to contract and release sobs was ebbing. It was unfortunately suddenly replaced by…

“Hnk’uh! Oh! Ngk’l! Uh!” Each of Otto’s hiccups popped his stomach out forcefully and he made and airy chuckle through them. He hadn’t had the hiccups from crying since he was a kid, at least from what he recalled.

The hiccups were deep and forceful. They were nearly soundless except for the suction in his throat. They were double syllable, the sucking in and out of his stomach in time with the sensation and small sound they made. Instead of coming in clusters they were consistently spaced, slightly fast but slower than his clusters.

Atticus could feel the liquid in Otto’s belly sloshing with each spasm, stronger than they’d ever felt his hiccups before. At the first hiccup Atticus had startled but now they trailed their hand down to his stomach to hopefully offer some comfort. They quashed the arousal they felt at first very quickly, feeling a little ill at having felt it at all.

“You okay?” Atty asked in concern. By this time Otto had seemed to calm down except for his diaphragm. The way his body jerked around each second to half second was endearing but Atticus hoped it wasn’t as painful as it felt or sounded.

“Yeah,” he said and swallowed after another hiccup. He took a moment to blow his nose before he continued. “Haven’t ngk’kuh!had th—e hiccups l—kuh!-like this af—ter crying in a lo—long time.”

Otto made a sound more like laughter than before and rolled his eyes as he rubbed the tissue underneath them in bemused disbelief at the silliness of what he saw as a throwback from his youth.

Atticus had leaned back up and was carding their fingers through his hair again. The dampness had curled and frizzed it and they trailed their hands through the ringlets it had formed.

“Do you need to cure them? They feel pretty violent,” Atticus said as they rubbed his jerking tummy again.

Otto smiled but shook his head against the pillow.

“No,” he said, body flinching again with another spasm. “I ju—ust want you t—to keep hold-ngk’l!-holding me fo—or a little wh—while, if—if that’s okay?”

“Yeah. That’s okay,” Atticus confirmed.

Otto sighed, hiccup in between, in relief.

“How do you feel otherwise?” Atticus asked as the hand previously rubbing his scalp made it way to massaging his neck as his head was thrown by the continued side effect of his emotional release.

“Okay,” he said. He paused to let another hiccup happen with a grunt. “Tired.” His stomach punched again. “Feel a little si—illy. Guilty about y—ungk!-uh! you having t—to see me...ng’kuh!...freak out...ag—again!”

Otto felt a sharp ping of pain hit his ear as Atticus flicked it.

“Ow!” he exclaimed.

“Sorry! Force of habit,” Atty said, half sincerely. “We take care of each other Otto. You have been the level-headed one in this relationship way more times than me. Not that we should even be keeping track of that, but...suffice to say I am really very okay with being able to be present for you like this, okay? And...I’m glad I can be. Because...because for all the ways you think you fucked up in life, and maybe you genuinely did, you didn’t fuck up with me. And you can’t fuck up with me. I won’t let you.”

Otto swallowed down another wave of emotion, his body jerking into Atticus again. He grunted and put the tissue against his eyes again.

“That’s very swe—eet,” he said as an understatement and then, more lighthearted, “and a little om—minous…”

Otto heard Atticus snort a laugh above him and he turned his head back to look at them.

“Hi,” Atty said, finally seeing his face for the first time since he laid down facing away from them.

“Hi,” Otto said back, his chest caving in as his belly popped with another silent hiccup.

“Your face is all red,” Atticus noted. They traced the blotched patches across his forehead and down his cheeks with their finger.

Otto turned fully on his back and flinched as another hiccup hit him.

“Yeah?” he asked. He hiccuped again with a grunt.

Atticus nodded and placed their hand from his stomach to his chest, noting the way it pulled in sharply and the expression on his face as it did. Otto’s hand automatically covered Atty’s and now that the writer was aware the significance of the subconscious act they felt a swell in their chest at the symbolism. But they winced in unison as the hiccups kept hitting their partner so violently.

“These have got to hurt a little. I’ve never seen them so hard before,” they finally said.

Otto sighed.

“They act—tually do,” he relented. He hadn’t wanted to tell them the sharp pain each spasm was causing below his ribs. It seemed remarkably unfair to have the hiccups this badly after such an exhausting cathartic release filled with grief and emotional pain.

He so rarely had pain with his hiccups, so it was doubly frustrating to experience it now.

Atticus patted his chest a couple of times with the decision to cure them and Otto, for his part, wasn’t particularly resistant to the plan. After a couple of shots of apple cider vinegar and a full glass of water to rehydrate the clock maker, the couple made their way back to the couch to continue their cuddling.

“I do feel better,” Otto said as he only half-watched the documentary Atticus had pulled up on Netflix.

“Yeah?” Atty said, hopefully.

Otto nodded and pulled the writer in closer.

“I still feel sad,” he said as he took a breath. “But I’m really really glad I found you.”

“Well...technically Mark found me. But...I get what you’re saying. And, honestly, giving him credit for us is just...making his head way bigger than it needs to be. Dude’s already basically a model with a beautiful wife and two gorgeous children. Maybe let’s not make him the hero of our love story, huh?” Atticus said deflecting the compliment Otto had given them.

Otto just laughed and kissed their forehead.

“Deal. But, yeah, it is kind of irritating how handsome he is, isn’t it?” Otto said, falling into the comfortable banter.

“It’s just rude,” Atty confirmed.

“Well, at least you can grow a mustache. So, you have that over him,” Otto encouraged.

“True. That,” Atticus said. They preened said mustache with their fingers with a grin. “Take that, Mark! My upper lip follicles are far superior to yours!”

Otto laughed, holding a hand under his ribs as the action revived the soreness from his hiccups.

“You’re so weird!” he said affectionately with a chuckle.

“Yeah...you wouldn’t want it any other way, bud!” Atticus said, still grinning.

“I really wouldn’t,” Otto agreed as Atticus’ head leaned against his chest and he wrapped his arm around them.

#fr tho #OUCH #when will we get fun otto lore instead of sad

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