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thefloralpeach · 5 years ago

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Bird Set Free- a Reddie Superpower AU

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier | Minor or Background Relationship(s)

Words:7454 | Chapters:1/?Hits:0

Summary:

Richie Tozier grew up to be a hero. Eddie Kaspbrak grew up without anyone there to save him. What do you get when you cross an angry vigilante with a hero who’s just trying his best?

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23335246/chapters/55900111

It started out as a conspiracy, and quickly turned into national controversy.

Nobody’s sure exactly who was the first case- abilities manifesting at a young age, anywhere between seven and seventeen. Videos surfaced of young kids doing extraordinary things, some of which people assumed was photoshop, but some of which occurred on live social media videos. The videos increased in frequency, the reports of strange happenings poured in every day, and eventually the government had to come out with a public statement.

Apparently, superpowers exist now.

It was the only thing anyone could talk about for a solid year. As a middle schooler, all you could do was wait to see if you were next.

The Losers often found themselves in conversation about what powers they hoped to have.

“I hope I get shapeshifting. I’d turn into the hottest motherfucker this world has ever seen and take over the world,” Richie would say.

Eddie never talked about it much, but he thought it might be nice to be immune to sickness. That way, maybe his mother would let him leave the house more… Or, maybe walking through walls would serve that purpose. He just wanted to be able to do what he wanted, and not be forced under her wing.

It was eighth grade when Eddie began to despise this hero stuff.

Instead of continuing his education with his friends, his mom decided to pull him out of school due to the fear that someone with powers would hurt him. She said that his ‘no good friends’ would end up accidentally hurting him, or some ignorant kid would get their power suddenly and Eddie would be a victim of it. Even when he reminded her that ability prevalence rates were pretty low, of course nothing could sway her.

So he said goodbye to seeing his friends in school, and hello to meeting up with them at every other possible moment; until his mother decided that was also too dangerous. So, he remained in his house like a prisoner.

His friends visited though, of course they did. Eddie had a window, and the Losers were pretty good at climbing. Besides, Eddie didn’t think anything could keep Richie from finding him and bothering him.

It’s a gross, rainy night when Richie makes a promise.

It starts with pebbles thrown at his window- Richie’s signature greeting. Eddie tries not to think about how cheesy and romantic it is, but the thought crosses his mind anyway.

He opens the window, and is promptly met with Richie shaking out his wet hair like a dog. Eddie makes a disgusted noise, which only draws laughter from the taller boy.

“You sure your ability isn’t being gross and annoying?” Eddie asks as Richie finishes climbing in, almost stumbling over his own feet. He clutches his hands to his chest, feigning hurt.

“I can not believe you would insinuate something so hurtful, Eddie my love!��

Of all the nicknames in Richie’s arsenal, that one is definitely the worst. Eddie can be annoyed by Eds or the ever-popular Spaghetti, but when he pulls out something so cliche that it could be in a romcom, Eddie’s heart always skips a beat. He hates it. And he also loves it.

Richie’s pulling stuff out from his backpack before he’s even sat on Eddie’s bed. It became a sort of tradition for Richie to bring Eddie some stuff that his mom wouldn’t let him have whenever he visited.

“What’s in the magic bag tonight?” Eddie asks, eyeing the bag of all-pink starbursts Richie already pulled out.

“Candy, of course,” Richie narrates, pulling out a bag of gummy worms and a jumbo snickers bar. “I also got you this cool magazine that talks about abilities and heroes, and this week’s newspaper.”

Richie would often bring Eddie stuff to read, stuff that clued him into what’s going on outside. Eddie’s mom allowed him a computer, but no internet, so Eddie relied on his friends for information about the world. It was a simple act that he cherished so much.

“Oh- I also made you this!” Richie announces, pulling out a CD from his bag. The cover is decorated with some crude doodles, and labelled ‘songs to help spaghetti forgetti his regretti’. He tosses it to Eddie, who immediately bursts into laughter.

“A CD? Isn’t that a bit old school?”

Richie puts his arms up in defense. “Well, you don’t have internet or a damn phone, so what was I supposed to do? Send you a Youtube playlist?”

Eddie shrugs. “Alright, fair enough.” He ignores the way his heart quickens at the thought of Richie compiling a playlist for him. “So, what’s on it?”

“Ah, you need to play it to find out, my deah!” He responds, slipping into a hilariously poorly-accented Voice. Eddie shakes his head, covering his mouth in a weak attempt to muffle his laughter. “I have something else for you, too.”

Eddie calms himself then, and quirks an eyebrow up. “Do I wanna know?” He asks cautiously. Richie was known for following words like that with a wet willy or a pinch to his cheeks. But, the jokester only smiles in response.

“Yes, you do! How would you like to sneak out of here with me some night?” Richie offers, and Eddie’s eyes light up. “We can head over to the clubhouse-”

“God, you guys still have that?”

“Yes! We can go hang out there, and all the others will be there too! And we can get a pizza since we know you’ve been force fed, what, gluten-dairy-nut-free bullshit?”

Eddie laughs, so giddy and over the moon with excitement that he ignores his health concerns. Richie doesn’t think his allergies are real anyway, and Eddie isn’t so sure he disagrees. Regardless, how could he even think to be concerned about such trivial things when he has the chance to escape, to spend some time outside for the first time in months?

Of course, Eddie agrees to go. They make plans for the weekend, when Sonia would be at bingo night. Richie and the others would sneak around and help him out the window, and Eddie could sit on the back of one of their bikes on the way- since his own bike had been given away once he was put on house arrest. Eddie gives Richie a list of his favorite bands so Richie can make a playlist for the night, and together they plan a list of snacks to have. They pick out some choice movies as well, since Ben had said he could rent a projector from the library for the night.

Eddie’s never been so excited for something in his entire life.

Friday comes after what seems like forever, and his mom leaves for bingo, and Eddie waits excitedly in his room. He reads a comic book to pass the time until 5 o’clock comes.

And then 6 o’clock comes.

Then 7 o’clock.

Something probably happened… maybe they couldn’t get away from their parents in time, so they just had to push things back.

8 o’clock.

9 o’clock.

And then Eddie’s mother pulls into the driveway, and he’s pissed. He’s angry, he’s furious, he’s…

Crushed.

Saturday comes and goes, but nobody visits him.

Sunday is the same.

Eddie’s mother asks why he’s spending so much time in his room, and asks if he’s sick- he struggles to invent a lie that she’ll believe. So he tells her the truth- that he’s sad, that he misses his friends. Not that she does anything to help (“Oh honey, you’re so much safer without them anyway”), but she does leave him alone to brood.

This is the first week in months that he didn’t get a word from any of his friends. He’d never gone more than two days without Richie visiting him, but in the coming years, this would become the new normal.

For the next few years, the only company Eddie has is his mother. His overbearing, absolutely psychotic mother, who put helicopter moms to shame.

It’s a month after Eddie’s abandoned that he’s able to catch a newscast while his mom naps in the middle of the day. It’s the 4 o’clock news, the headline reading ‘Superhero Madness: New Ability Registration Mandate to Pass, Increasing Regulation on Enhanced Abilities.’

He’s reading comic books, stories about real superheroes. The media outlets he’d seen were all over calling this new phenomenon the “Age of Heroes” and shit that Eddie finds absolutely ridiculous. So a kid can learn things really quickly or make magnets stick to them- Spiderman is still cooler. Spiderman just wants to save people, he wants to save anyone who needs it, even those overlooked by other heroes. Spiderman doesn’t care about being big and flashy. He’s a real hero- not like these wannabes.

Regardless of his opinions, he tunes his attention to the news for a moment. It’s not often he actually gets to see what’s going on outside of his prison cell of a home.

“… Required not only to register their abilities, but to train at government-approved facilities. Officials say this mandate will assure that these enhanced individuals learn to manage their abilities, thus ensuring their safety and the safety of others. Opposition has arisen as well…”

Eddie rolls his eyes. Government-approved facilities? Please. This is the least cool backstory he’s ever heard. Then he remembers, this isn’t a backstory. Because this isn’t some cool hero story. This is real life, and in real life, his friends left him, and no hero is coming to save him.

It’s two years later when he manifests a power of his own.

The newscasts he’d been able to watch intermittently had reported that abilities seem to appear between the ages of ten and sixteen, as if a part of puberty. It made enough sense, Eddie figured at the time. He assumed after his thirteenth and fourteenth years passed that he’d never manifest anything- but he’d been wrong.

It’s nothing special, of course. He’s watching something on TV, not even the news or anything special, just some reality show, when he notices a weird light. He looks around, thinking at first that a lamp was suddenly turned on, but he quickly realizes it’s emitting from the palms of his hands.

“Huh…” he mutters. Light hands. Some freaking power, huh?

They don’t appear to do anything besides glow every so often. He debates whether or not to tell his mother, but ultimately he decides to hide it. What good would telling her do, anyway? What did he expect, praise? Comfort? No, he knew he would get nothing less than an hour of rambling about how much she now had to worry about, how much it would drain his energy, how much they had to fear from a soft little glow.

So, he hides it.

As much as he hates his stupid glowy hands at first, it starts to become a rather welcome feature.

He no longer has to hide a flashlight in his room for when he wants to read in bed- his own hands suffice now! Well, when he can get them to turn on, which isn’t all the time. He starts to understand all the hype he’d been seeing on the news about controlling abilities- if this were something dangerous, Eddie would surely be in some deep shit.

Every now and then, Eddie gets the gaul to ask his mom about things that he knew he wasn’t supposed to- if he could go out with her when she grabbed something, if he could return to school now that abilities are more regulated, if he could just go for a bike ride like he used to. The answer is always no, of course.

The only time he’s allowed out of the house is for visits to the doctor, which have also become less often for some reason. Eddie wonders why his medications remain the same even though he’s being seen less.

Sometimes, his mom gets tired of his curiosity.

“Eddie, you know why you have to stay in here, you know it! I can’t risk losing you, Eddie-bear. Do you know how many people are being attacked every day by these new monsters?!”

“But mom-”

“I don’t let you watch the news because it’s so terrible, every day there’s more attacks and more people sick and dead , I just can’t bear it!”

Eddie wants to tell her that he sees the news when she doesn’t think he’s watching, that things are starting to stabilize, that crime rates haven’t actually gone up that much and that people aren’t actually being attacked- but of course she doesn’t let him get a word it. It’s part of her defense against Eddie trying to fight back.

“Mom, listen to me, please -”

“Do you want to do that to me? Eddie-bear, you know how hard it’s been after I-” she sniffles for effect, “After I lost your poor father. I can’t risk losing you too, honey, you know that-”

“Mom will you just listen to me?!” He raises his voice, earning a gasp from his mother. The look on her face is almost scandalized. He doesn’t realize why until he gestures in frustration with his hands, and he notices a familiar glow. “I just want-”

“EDDIE!”

She interrupts him, running over and fawning over him until his glow dims and eventually fades. He’s bombarded with questions about how this could have happened, how could she ever let him out now, how they had to make extra sure to be careful, blah blah blah. He promptly loses all hope of ever getting out of there.

She corrals him to the stairs and up to his room, her shrill voice running nonstop the entire time. Eddie tries to tune it out, but it’s hard- she’s persistent, and his hopes are crushed. He hears the lock on his door click as she leaves.

Eddie barely notices the glow of his hands as he punches his pillow. He spends ten, maybe twenty minutes just punching, screaming, doing what he can to get his frustration out. Once he slows down, giving his poor bedsheets a break, he realizes that the glow has spread to just above his elbows.

“Stupid fucking glowy hands…” he mutters, glaring at them as if that would get it to stop. Of course, it doesn’t.

With a sigh, Eddie drags himself over to his bookshelf, grabbing something that sounds mildly interesting so he could distract himself from his stupid emotions and his stupid situations and his stupid hands. As he glances over the other options, his eyes land on something he hadn’t looked at in years- Richie’s mix CD. ‘Songs to help spaghetti forgetti his regretti’. The glow in his hands fades as Eddie traces over the shitty doodles on the cover, and a ghost of a smile settles on his face.

He’s still pissed off that everyone abandoned him. He’s confused, he’s frustrated, he’s angry and he’s hurt- but most of all, he’s nostalgic. More than anything, he misses his friends, and he just wants it all back. He likes to think that there’s a good reason that they left him, and that they’ll be reunited one day and everything will be happily ever after- but he also knows that’s just a lot of wishful thinking.

Eddie breaks his thoughts by popping the CD into the player on his radio, pressing ‘play’, and flopping on his bed.

He closes his eyes, smiling to himself as the first notes of the song drift into the room. The CD plays on repeat until Eddie falls asleep for the night.

The next day, Eddie is horrified when his mother hires someone to install bars on his bedroom window. It’s for your safety, Eddie, she insists. The government is getting involved now, I can’t let them take you away.

But he knows they wouldn’t take him away. He knows he isn’t that lucky.

And he has the sneaking suspicion that his mother would have installed the bars whether or not the government was a concern.

Eddie’s hands don’t glow as bright anymore after that, though he isn’t sure why. Maybe he hated that stupid power so much that it’s in the process of disappearing- he hopes that’s the case. If he can prove he’s normal, then maybe one day he can leave.

In the next year, Eddie catches many newscasts about ability regulation. He managed to convince his mom to let him watch the news a little bit, because current events was something he had to be versed on in order for his home school requirements. She wasn’t happy about it, but ultimately he gets to watch the news more regularly now.

It’s something Eddie never quite cared about, news. When he was twelve and thirteen, the news was the most boring thing he could ever think of watching. But now, it’s a connection to the world he no longer gets to be a part of.

The last he’d heard, a few months back, was how the government had started allowing those with trained abilities to register as heroes. Their official title was something boring, of course- The National Force of Enhanced Individuals or something dumb like that. But everyone calls them heroes. Crime rates had been steadily decreasing since they passed the bill creating the force, and maybe, just maybe Eddie gets his hopes up when he hears that.

He hasn’t asked his mom about going outside in a while, but during this newscast, he thinks maybe he has a chance…

“So, that’s great, huh?” Eddie ventures from his spot on the couch, looking expectantly at his mother.

She’s sitting in her recliner, as she does most of the time, her attention on some magazine rather than the television. In response, she hums in question, not even bothering to look up.

“The- the Force of Enhanced Individuals…” he gestures to the screen. “Seems they’re lowering the crime rate. That’s great, right?” He cautiously explains, wary of the fact that this conversation could go to hell at any second.

She raises an eyebrow, glancing at Eddie for only a mere second.

“I suppose so, yes. It’s about time these streets got safer. You never know what could happen out there.”

Eddie pauses for a moment.

“So… it seems like things are more regulated now. More than they were a few years ago, I mean…”

She puts her magazine down then, switching her focus over to Eddie. “Eddie-Bear, I know you’re not trying to ask me to leave again, right? Because you know we’ve talked about this. You know why you have to stay here.”

And, there goes his plan.

His eyes are pleading, and he tries his best to sound reasonable, to make a point.

“I don’t- I don’t want to go far, just… I want to be outside more than just doctors visits, Mom! It’s not healthy for me to stay in here-”

“Don’t use your health on me! I know everything about your health, Eddie, and I know that you’re much better off in here, safe. ”

“I just want to go- go to the store with you maybe, or the library, or hang out in the backyard- I mean look, Mom, crime rates are down more than they’ve ever been! Heroes are protecting people!”

“Stop asking, Eddie.”

Her voice is so calm, so sure that Eddie feels like he wants to explode. He clenches his fists, and again, that familiar glow is back.

“No! I shouldn’t even have to ask, Ma!”

“Don’t you start this with me-”

“Most kids my age are outside all the time! They go to school, they go out with their friends, they do things! I don’t even know where my friends are!” He yells back, ignoring her retorts.

“Your friends don’t come here anymore, and it’s better for you that way! They were terrible influences, you don’t need them, Eddie-”

“I’d like to know where they went, why they left! I’d like to have the chance to look for them at least! Christ, Mom, this is a prison!” He gesticulates wildly in front of himself, pleading with his hands without noticing that they’re exactly why he won’t win this fight.

“Eddie, do not raise your voice with me. You’re scaring me, honey!” Eddie knew this tone well. “Why don’t you go upstairs and calm-”

“I DON’T WANT TO CALM DOWN, MA!”

As he yells, he swiftly throws his hands down to his sides, and something happens.

He can’t put words to it, but he feels a sort of tingling heat in his hands, and the next second he hears a crash- no, two crashes, one on each side of him.

Everything is silent for a moment, even his mother. Her mouth hangs open, though no words come out, and she’s looking at Eddie with something between shock and horror on her face. She turns her attention to Eddie’s left, and instinctively, he does the same.

There’s a visible dent in the wall there, as if somebody strong had punched it. Almost cautiously, Eddie turns his head to the other side, and notices an equal dent in the cabinet. Each dent is equal height, and Eddie knows what happened.

He’s still processing it, and he doesn’t want to be right, but he knows.

“Eddie…”

Her voice is so low, Eddie barely processes it. His eyes glance between the dents, then to the floor.

“Yeah… I’ll go to my room.”

After that, his visits to the doctor decrease exponentially so, only once every few months. But he’s given more medication than he’s ever had before. Given his little ‘condition’, he’s not surprised. It’s probably messing with his system somehow, and the medicine is helping with symptoms he hasn’t even noticed yet.

He feels tired all the damn time, even though he goes to bed early and wakes up a little on the later side. When he’s not doing his work or watching something completely idiotic that his mom insists he must join her for, he’s either napping or staring into space. It’s annoying- maybe that’s one of the things that the medicine is helping. Or maybe he’s just fucking depressed, who knows.

He’s also confined to his room most of the time, and his mom locks the door when she goes out. After his outburst, he assumes she doesn’t trust him, and he can’t be too mad this time, he knows. She’s just trying to keep him safe, of course.

He doesn’t have much schooling left. He still gets to watch the news for current events, but only when supervised by his mom. And, it’s better than nothing. He does okay on the work he’s given, although he knows it’s all minimum-effort curricula.

He has video games to keep him occupied, and a fair amount of books. His mom gets him things sometimes while she’s out, which is nice of her.

He’s also been trying to control his abilities.

Maybe it’s stupid. All he has are glowy hands… but he knows they’re capable of something else if they were able to mess up the walls that day. And if he knows anything about superpowers from the comics he reads, he knows that it’s much better for everyone if he controls this thing before he accidentally learns more about it.

It takes a lot of work to learn how to make them glow on command. It takes a lot of focus, and a solid month before he actually does it for the first time when he wants to, instead of it just appearing.

Awesome- now he can use his own personal flashlight whenever he needs it. Whenever his mom says “lights out” at 10pm and he still isn’t tired, or when he drops something and doesn’t have a phone flashlight to help him find it.

And it’s cool, it’s a great feeling actually, to be able to have a little bit of control over this shit. But it’s not enough.

Eddie’s mom is out grocery shopping, so naturally he’s locked in his room. He dreams one day of being able to blast the door open somehow, but he’s far from that. He dented the walls a little bit exactly one time, so he’s not exactly the pinnacle of power here.

But… maybe someday he could be.

A stool sits by Eddie’s window as a perch. He sits down as he opens his window, thankful that the weather is warming up, and for a moment he forgets his goal here. The open window is the closest he gets to being outside anymore, and every time he smells the natural air, he finds himself longing for the days he used to spend out in it. He misses biking around town, he misses the barrens, he misses the clubhouse in the forest. But a window is better than nothing.

He physically shakes his head to refocus himself.

Outside his window are several trees- his targets. It’s almost surreal, realizing exactly what he’s about to do, but he knows it’s important.

“Focus…” He whispers to himself, nestling his arm between two of the metal bars that lined his window now. He rests it lightly on the windowsill, spreading his palms as if trying to use the force.

Except, this isn’t the force. He’s not drawing anything to him, he’s trying to push it away .

His hands glow, which is no longer anything special to him. He figures they’ll glow brighter as he focuses more, as he prepares for… well, whatever he’s capable of, but at the moment, he doesn’t notice anything.

Thoughts keep crawling into his mind- how much he wishes to go back outside, to see his friends again, to have friends again.

As his mind wanders, the glow spreads up his arms, gradually becoming lighter. But, he’s not focusing. He’s reminiscing, he’s yearning for what he once had, and what he could have if he wasn’t in this stupid fucking house.

Wait, no.

Eddie shuts his eyes tight, willing the thoughts from his mind.

“I said focus, dammit.”

When he opens his eyes, he stares at the tree in front of his window, aiming his hand at it. He takes a deep breath, thinks of nothing but the tree, and-

And nothing happens.

Clenching his fist for a moment, he takes another breath and decides to try again. Hand through the window, eyes on the tree, focus on power. Mind clear, hand glowing, energy flowing, and…

Still nothing.

Eddie tries this for a solid half an hour before he gives up, slumping over his stool and resting his head against the bars. Maybe that weird blast thing was just a fluke, and there was no way to control it. Or, maybe it’s based on like, what he eats, or what he does during the day. Maybe he has a lot more investigating to do before he can actually make his powers do anything besides give him glowy hands.

The world outside the window catches his attention again, and he spends some time just watching it. It’s a nice day out; he can hear kids playing down the street, birds chirping, he can see squirrels and chipmunks scampering around, and there’s barely a cloud in the sky. Four years ago, he’d have been all over a day like this- riding his bike, relaxing in the barrens or by the quarry with his friends…

It’s not fair. It’s not fair that his front door is locked from the outside, that his own bedroom door is locked to keep him in, and that he’s a prisoner in his own home. It’s not fair that the only thing he wants to do is get out, to run, but he can’t. He’d trigger his asthma anyway.

It’s not fucking fair that he can’t even escape out of a window because there are fucking bars on it, it’s not fucking fair that everyone he knew, everyone who was ever kind to him had just up and left him why would they do that? Why did they do that?

(Eddie’s hands glow brighter, but he doesn’t notice.)

Was he really so forgettable that his friends could move on so easily? Or was that his mom’s plan all along? Had she told them to fuck off one day, and they all just listened? The school district still has to check on him regularly to make sure his mother is following the law- had they really noticed nothing? Or had he just never been worth the second thought?

(His hands are shaking, still resting on the windowsill.)

Richie made him a damn mixtape, for christ’s sake! A mixtape! You don’t do that for people you don’t care about, you don’t do that and then abandon them, forget about them, leave them to their warden of a mother and a lifetime of no real fucking human interaction.

(There’s a faint vibration in Eddie’s palms.)

Eddie clenches his jaw, runs his hands through his hair before placing them back between the bars, and shuts his eyes.

Fuck heroes. Fuck superpowers. Fuck this whole organization, the one that spiked fear into everyone and feeds off of it. Eddie’s mom is scared, now Eddie has to suffer for it, and there’s nobody coming to save him. These people have the balls to call themselves heroes, but who the hell are they saving?

“Fuck…”

(His palms brighten.)

“FUCK!”

Eddie slams his hands down against the windowsill and feels it before he sees it. Energy. Pure energy. And it came right from his hands, he knows it did.

The glow of his hands dimmed to a dull shimmer, and there’s an obvious dent in the tree that had been perfect just a minute before.

Like last time, everything is still for a moment, oddly quiet. Eddie can only stare ahead of him at the injured trunk. He flicks his gaze to his hands, still tingling, still glowing.

So. That’s how his power is going to work, then.

After a few months of “good behavior”, Eddie’s mom stops locking him in his room when she goes out. It’s a start, he figures.

He “graduates” that spring, but there’s no ceremony, no speeches, no cap and gown. He gets a cupcake though, which is nice.

The news is still filled with stories about heroes, about thrilling stories of rescue, about new agencies funding research and training and about crime rates plummeting. It’s all good news in theory, but Eddie can’t help the pings of jealousy he feels for all the happy people he sees rescued.

Rescued.

Nobody’s come to rescue him. Nobody even looks for a situation like his- it’s not a flashy villain he needs to be rescued from. He’s in no mortal danger, not even any physical danger in all honesty. But does that make him any less miserable?

No.

And how many other kids are in similar situations? How many other people need saving, but are ignored for all this flashy hero and villain fantasy shit? Eddie thinks about these things a lot. But it’s not like he can do anything about it.

Something good, he guesses, is that he’s gotten better at damaging that poor tree outside his window. The trunk and some of the wider branches have visible scars, though they still aren’t much. Maybe he’s confined to small blasts or something, but it’s still kind of cool.

So his powers are tied to emotions? Good. He’s got a lot of those. And he thinks about them when he wants to channel his energy- that must be what his power is, technically. Energy.

It makes sense that he’s exhausted after he practices, in that case. He tries not to show it, though- he doesn’t want his mom to have any more reason to worry about him or keep him confined.

It’s a Tuesday afternoon in July when she runs to the store, and Eddie gets a few hours to himself for what he’s been calling target practice in his head. He doesn’t know what he plans to do with his tiny blasts of energy, but he figures it’s better to be able to have some sort of handle on them than to just have the ability to do it and no idea how.

Like always, he’s tired after he fires off a few blasts- both physically and emotionally. He thinks about those news stories, the smug faces of all those self-proclaimed heroes. He thinks about his situation, how he longs to leave, how he may as well be in an actual prison. It’s good stuff to keep in his mind when he wants to practice, but it’s hard to come down from, and it always just reminds him of how fucked his life is.

Sighing, Eddie pushes himself off his stool, taking a moment to stretch his arms over his head. A snack and a nap sound absolutely perfect right about now, so he decides to do just that.

He pads out of his room and downstairs, a little tempted to turn on the TV, but he was sure his mom would have some way of figuring out that he’d done it- she probably had cameras or something installed, or motion sensors, or a battery monitor on the remote. Something weird and over controlling, of course. It’s expected by now.

While Eddie rummages through the pantry, he understands why his mother had to go out. They were low on snacks of pretty much every kind, and he was gonna have to make something if he actually wanted food. Maybe pasta, that was an easy choice.

Spaghetti.

The voice of an old friend echoes in Eddie’s head, and he finds himself smiling softly before he closes the pantry door.

If he’s gonna make something, he may as well check to make sure they have cooking spray, and maybe some spices. Not that Eddie’s the best cook ever, since he’s not often allowed in the kitchen, but if he has to make something he’d rather it be edible and not something bland that sticks to the pot.

Okay, so he has no idea how to use spices besides like, salt and garlic, but he can still experiment.

Step one- learn where the spices are.

Eddie isn’t allowed to cook, really. Anything he’d done, he’d done while his mom was out. And it’s not like she’s the lord of good cooking, so Eddie’s also pretty amateur.

Finally, he opens a cabinet and finds some usable stuff next to the nonperishables. Garlic powder, some extra salt and pepper, oregano, basil, some extra baking soda and baking powder… and some old pill bottles? He takes the containers to inspect them, curious.

One of the bottles is labelled Phenobarbital, and the others Lorazepam.

That’s Nembutal and Ativan.

Sedatives.

His first thought is, obviously, that they’re just more medications lying around the house. It wouldn’t be surprising, since his mother seemed to always be going to another doctor, and she used to take him nearly once a week.

His second thought is that they had a set medicine cabinet, one that was organized by need. Why would she move them to a food cabinet instead?

And his third thought is one that scares him to death. Suddenly, he’s wondering if it’s not his powers that are making him feel drained.

Because, what had his mother ever needed sedatives for? Sure, one doubles as an anxiety medication, but there’s no way in hell Eddie is lucky enough for his mom to actually seek help for her paranoia.

Tentatively, Eddie opens one of the bottles, and he recognizes the pills as ones he’s given… often.

His breaths quicken, and he wants his inhaler but it’s upstairs- and is it even an inhaler? Or is there something else in there that his mom didn’t tell him about?

Suddenly the bottle is shaking in his hand, his fist clenched around it as the pills rattle around inside. And suddenly, it’s much brighter in the room than it was before. He feels a familiar vibration in the palm of his hands.

“Eddie-bear!”

He hadn’t even heard the door open. But he heard that voice. Her voice. That grating, shrill, helicopter voice. It only gets worse once she finds him in the kitchen, her footsteps quickening as she rushes over to him.

“Eddie-bear, what are you doing? What’s going on honey, put that down, you need to take your pills and go to your room-”

Eddie’s eyes are glued to the bottle.

Sedatives. Fucking sedatives .

He knew she didn’t trust him, but he didn’t think it would have come to this. He never thought she’d flat out lie to him like this.

His jaw is clenched, and he swallows down a lump in his throat as his mother keeps babbling.

“What the fuck is this, ma?”

She gasps as if scandalized. As if she has the right to be shocked, or to be upset at anything Eddie does after pulling this shit.

“Eddie- honey, you know that’s just your medicine. You’re sick -”

“These are sedatives, don’t lie to me.” He snaps his head up, glaring into his mother’s eyes. She takes a step back, looking at him like he’s some dangerous monster. And, hell, maybe he is.

“Eddie you- you needed them-” her tone is pleading, and it just pisses Eddie off more. “You- you needed something to help you, oh God-”

The fear is evident on her face, and the only thing Eddie feels is rage.

“Help me? You think that was helping me?” He drops the pill bottle then, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. “You-”

“Eddie, your eyes-”

“You drugged me!”

“God, have mercy-”

“YOU FUCKING DRUGGED ME!”

Eddie gestures in front of him, and watches with not-so-much horror as his mom stumbles backwards with an audible shriek.

There’s a moment where he wants to panic. But the anger takes over again, and he doesn’t care what happens to her. He doesn’t care what he did. He doesn’t care.

He needs to get away, he needs to go be alone. He takes off towards his room, but pauses as he catches a glimpse of his reflection in one of his kitchen’s glass cabinets.

His eyes… his eyes are glowing, just like his hands.

No pupils, no hazel iris, no whites. Just a glow, like a flashlight.

Before he has to listen to more shrieking, Eddie all but runs upstairs, slamming his door with more force than he thought he had in him. If he didn’t know better, he’d think he felt the house shake with the action.

He rushes to the window then, his body shaking with how fucking angry he is, and throws it open. Reaching both hands out in front of him, he aims, and it doesn’t take a second thought to fire a blast.

It’s easy when he thinks about everything, and when he feels like there’s so much… so much energy pent up inside him that he could burst.

The dent he makes in the tree is much more noticeable this time.

He grits his teeth, and fires another.

Fuck her. Fuck everybody.

A branch falls.

He fires another blast.

Fuck “heroes”. Fuck this society. Fuck this whole fucking world.

He hears his mom getting up from downstairs. And he’s not fucking sorry. Not one bit.

Eddie doesn’t speak to his mom after that.

He avoids going downstairs, and eventually she starts bringing meals up to him, pills in a neat little pile on the side.

They taunt him, the little white tablets. At first, he’s not sure which ones are the sedatives, and which ones he actually needs. But he’s not sure how much he cares anymore.

He stops taking all of them.

And, surprise surprise, nothing happens.

He doesn’t say anything, though. He takes the medication and hides it in a small box under his bed, covered by comics so his mom doesn’t find it if she ever decides to snoop around. And, after all this shit, he wouldn’t put it past her.

He’s 18 now. Most kids his age are going to college, going to work, moving out, doing something .

And Eddie? He’s making a plan.

He notices his mom trying to slip him more medication. And he’s wary of anything that she might be able to sneak a powder into.

He must be successful in avoiding her attempts to drug him, because he feels more alive, more energetic than he had at any time in the past two years.

The stool near his window becomes Eddie’s new best friend. Now that his energy is back, he’s better than ever at controlling his blasts.

He knows his emotions help it along, and he learns that the brighter the glow of his hands, the stronger the blast he can emit; and he learns that his blasts can be strong. It’s during a particularly intense storm that Eddie tests the waters a little more, and ends up knocking over one of the trees outside his window.

If he can knock over a tree, then surely he can knock out a wall, right?

He bides his time, but it takes everything in him to pretend like things are normal. He waits for winter to pass, paying moderate attention to the news when his mom goes out and storing up some essentials. Nothing too conspicuous- a jar of peanut butter here, a box of crackers there, and a few twenties from the stash in her room.

He doesn’t know exactly what he’s gonna do or where he’ll end up, so he does his best to prepare for anything.

He keeps a bag under his bed, right next to the box of discarded pills. His mom hasn’t been too nosy about his room- why would she have any reason to be, since he rarely leaves it anyway. By February, the bag consists of a few comics, the supplies he’d stolen from the kitchen, and the money. By March, he adds more money, two changes of clothes, a bottle of water, and a blanket. He wants to be prepared in case he has to leave early.

By May, the weather has evened out, the days sunny and long.

Eddie barely interacts with his mom, and something tells him she doesn’t much mind. She’ll insist on an “I love you” every now and then, but Eddie obliges in order to keep her at bay. He’s learned to play the part of the perfect, quiet, sedated little boy.

It’s a Saturday late in the month when Eddie decides it’s time.

His mother is downstairs, watching some mind-numbingly stupid reality show. He does one last check on his bag, making sure he had everything. He’d been able to steal about $250 without his mother noticing, which he figured was enough to get him, well, somewhere . Everything else is in place- even his inhaler, for good measure.

He slips on his best sneakers, which didn’t have much wear in them, since he’d been outside maybe ten times in the past two or three years. His clothes are comfortable, with a hoodie tied around his waist and a watch around his wrist for good measure.

He takes a step back, standing in the middle of his room with his bag slung over his shoulder. Soon… soon he’d be out. Taking a deep breath, Eddie raises his hands to the same height as the window, and he focuses his energy-

Until something catches his eye.

Something he spent a lot of nights listening to. Something he wants so badly to hate, but he can’t. It gives him too much nostalgic joy.

‘Songs to help spaghetti forgetti his regretti’

Eddie swallows a lump in his throat as he stands perfectly still, eyes glued to the little CD, sitting besides his portable player.

Part of him wants to leave it, to forget everything about this part of his life and start over, brand new. But, as much as he wants to forget everyone, to forget the Losers club, to forget Richie , he can’t. He can’t bring himself to do that.

With a huff, he grabs the CD, placing it safely in Richie’s stupid little case. He shoves them in his bag, then returns to the middle of the room, facing his window.

He can almost hear his mom’s voice in his ear, urging him to stop, telling him he’s too weak, that he won’t survive out there, that he should just stay safe here with her.

“Fuck you,” he responds to no one.

Again, Eddie raises his hands, angling them towards the window.

“This one’s for you, Ma.”

Boom.

#reddie #eddie kaspbrak #richie tozier #reddie fanfiction #it fanfiction #reddie fanfics #it fanfics #it (stephen king)#my writing #my art #uh yeah heres this

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myrhymesarepurer · 6 years ago

Text

The Un-Understandable Peace

Summary FMAB, Post-Promised Day

It was understandable.

It was understandable that every one of the team’s flats out in the desert of Ishval were next to each other. Same block, same building, same floor, quite literally the next door over. It was all understandable until he knocked. “Hawkeye. Why is there a door in the middle of my living room?”

Pairing Royai Words 3,012 Rating K

a/n a clinic. on how many time the words ‘reasonable,’ ‘certainly,’ ‘simply’ and ‘understandable’ can be used in one drabble. also, a mini break fic. Four coming soon, loves. Enjoy.

ao3 ffn

It was understandable.

It was understandable that every one of the team’s flats out in the desert of Ishval were next to each other. Same block, same building, same floor, quite literally the next door over.

It was certainly not ideal, she knew. Riza Hawkeye valued her solitude, her space.

But, it was understandable.

Understandable due to the fact that the remains of the biggest town of the Ishval prefecture mostly consisted of little houses and little shacks lined into messy little neighborhoods. There were no apartments nor any houses suitable to rent, much less buy.

There just wasn’t much real estate. So, the military had one built, a dorm,

a dorm for the handful of military officers working in the thick of the sand and sun. Somewhere to stay while they reported for duty, pushed their pencils and oversaw the resurrection of stable life in Ishval from the scorching discomfort of an old little school located in the heart of the biggest little city.

It certainly wasn’t anything fancy, understandably so.

One bedroom that included the kitchen, one bath, and one modest closet all within walls made of smooth sandstone. Assuredly none of the oo’s of ah’s of shiny new city buildings made on a hefty private sector budget only miles away from major suppliers.

But, it was certainly functional and certainly understandable, that her new next door neighbors were the same people she spent every waking moment of the working day with.

Riza hummed at the thought. No, it wasn’t ideal at all.

But, it was understandable. It was all understandable until,

there was a knock on the door.

Riza wiped the sweat off her forehead, peeled off her military jacket, and cut open another box, fighting through the heat to unpack the very day she moved in.

That way she could be past it. That way she could be home.

Riza scrunched her nose knowing not even her meager flat in East City, much less her flat in Central, were even close to reaching such a status of comfort.

She was never quite sure what was missing. Black Hayate, she knew, had helped some.

But, Riza found that the rooms to which she returned simply to sleep after hours at the office, she could collectively call them her house, her flat, yes, but never her home.

It was a terribly cheesy sentiment, and dealing with such thoughts was not at all Riza’s strong suit. Yet, so thankfully, it was interrupted by the knock, the knock on the door.

Riza flipped her lock and opened it to the hall, yet in front of her stood absolutely no one at all.

Then there was the voice behind her, muffled, yet strikingly familiar.

“Wrong door, Captain.”

Riza then glanced over her shoulder to find another door that surely had no reason not to be noticed.

Yet, it was understandable that she hadn’t for Riza was certainly not looking for a door in the middle of the shared wall of her new apartment, much less expected to see one. So, she was understandably surprised to flip open a different lock curiously not attached to her front door, turn the knob and reveal General Roy Mustang on the other side.

“Hawkeye,” he said her name carefully.

“Why is there a door in the middle of my living room?”

Technically, she thought, it was also in the middle of his bedroom, of his kitchen, of his entire apartment, a door opening straight into her own.

Riza blinked then surveyed the doorpost, for the existence of a door where this door currently stood, was certainly not understandable at all.

“I have not the slightest clue, General,”

Riza took pause, then hummed in diligent thought, “Would it be possible that every apartment has one, Sir?”

She, of course, could not think as to why one tenant would need direct access to another to the extent that it became a feature through out the complex as a whole.

Riza tilted her head in disregard for that un-understandability, and thought the door might be a blessing in cases of break-in or emergency. If she suspected some dangerous something, she could get to the General very quickly, provided they kept the door unlocked or obtained a key of some kind.

Solely for safety, of course. That would be understandable.

But, Roy watched her think and swallowed tightly. No, he knew. “Possibly,” he still said,

“Possibly, but probably not, no,”

One quick sly check into Havoc’s room across the hall confirmed Roy’s theory. He pointedly brought up the subject the following day during his telephone call with the Fuhrer. Within the updates and what not, he slipped in his query, assuming the Fuhrer had, indeed, glanced at the blueprint at least once,

or perhaps, more than once.

Roy was, indeed, correct.

“Solely for safety, of course,” Grumman said.

“Ah, I see” Roy said surely, hiding just a speck of skepticism, knowing, of course, that justifying the door with his safety was reasonable, prudent even, to be sure.

“You are bound to have some enemies out there, Roy. I imagined your Captain would appreciate the ability to reach you in a moments notice.”

Roy nodded, scratching his head, the doubt understandably persistent.

It could have simply been true that the Fuhrer of Amestris chose to oversee, yes, an excessively minuet detail, in the name of protecting the leader of his forces out East, the security of the beginnings of the Reconstruction of Ishval.

However,

Though the Fuhrer he may be now, Roy’s mentor he had always been,

the same mentor that had forever been quite dead set on hooking him up with his granddaughter, more or less for life.

Regardless of intention, the reality remained: that very granddaughter was now his next door neighbor, living in the apartment directly on the other side of this spontaneous special order of a doorway leading straight from his bedroom to hers.

It simply seemed entirely too convenient.

Of course, not to suggest Fuhrer Grumman was encouraging any inappropriate, much less any illegal behavior, but Roy still ruminated on how thoroughly he did enjoy any occasion Riza visited his previous flats for some overtime work, regardless of how much paperwork she had in tow.

Having her closer was always a luxury, yet, understandably, did not come free of risk.

“That’s very considerate of you, Sir. Thank you,” Roy responded graciously, yet sighed understandably so.

“However, if anyone is to see the door and question the purity of its purpose-“

“Tell them they can telephone my secretary for an appointment, my boy, “Grumman grinned “Though, I may have conflicts on that day.”

And, that seemed to be that.

The door connecting their apartments was for his own safety, as verified by the Fuhrer himself, and that was understandable.

It would just stay closed, unlocked, but closed,

in case of emergency, solely for safety, of course.

Of course.

But, of course, either fortunately or unfortunately so, the door certainly did not stay that way, closed not at all.

And here and now, Riza Hawkeye, stepping out of a shower that was not her own, wondered how, why, and when she had so un-understandably crossed this line.

The shower in her apartment had been broken all week. So, it was certainly reasonable she used his.

He had then requested her assistance, as she was already there,

in reviewing his rough draft of the procedure proposal for the establishment of an education department in the Ishvalan state.

It was due at Central in two weeks and was, by far, their biggest project yet, so it was certainly understandable she lend her aid, encourage his most new found lack of procrastination.

It was all very reasonable, Riza thought, understandably so.

Yet, it wasn’t the logic that troubled her, no.

It was the truth that once she left the little bathroom and its veil of steam, he would read through his proposal aloud. She would ensure the document’s clarity, verify its eloquence, and do so all while terribly exposed in her deteriorating discipline.

Riza paced the patch of carpet in front of his bed, biting her thumb nail in concentration, like she only ever had in private, dressed so comfortably in her little pajama set, its debut appearance to an audience outside of the pup sleeping in the corner.

She dried her hair with his spare towel, washed her face, brushed her teeth, even smoothed on a layer of moisturizer,

all while claiming to be working, all while in front of her superior.

She simply didn’t seem to care, Riza struggled, it was as if she were-

She stumbled on the word,

home.

Riza swallowed thickly, shook her head, caught up with Roy’s voice and focused on the logic.

The logic was no issue, no.

They never seemed ever free of deadlines to meet, reports to author, developments, construction, all to oversee.

This, of course, was the work they had been waiting for, and they threw themselves so very willingly into the fire.

It was exhausting, she could admit.

Yet, the General persistently accepted, even encouraged, her requests for overtime. Her productive little heart was spoiled to the uttermost by his compliance, of course, under one condition; they burn the midnight oil in the most comfortable fashion.

They did, in fact, have that door. Roy had shrugged, feigning nonchalance at the time. They could put it to good use. Quite reasonable, indeed.

So, comfortable they were, and perhaps too comfortable she became.

For there was one particularly long night after one particularly arduous day she most understandably, yet still foolishly drifted off at the foot of his bed, expense reports, half finished, in hand.

Of course, Roy picked her up, tucked her under his covers and let her sleep there in his room under the pretense that the shorter distance was less likely to wake her from her much needed slumber.

It was, Riza was reluctant to admit, the best night of sleep she had ever gotten in that desert.

She woke up to a mop of black hair on the pillow next to her. Her stomach washed so un-understandably warm,

and Riza supposed that’s the moment, pinpointed it as the culprit, when she most shamefully began to falter, began to be baffled by her own behavior.

She so wished to blame it on the heat, on the blazing desert sun, but she knew there was a piece of her that melted after they all settled down in Ishval.

Yes, this piece had dwindled, but only because she had been so wonderfully warm, so very blissfully often.

It was a curious feeling that accompanied the new door, it seemed. Gone were her defenses, a gooey puddle was left of her resolve.

Riza worried over her lip, at least for a moment every night.

It was so sloppy, so foolish, so very uncharacteristic,

so very dangerous

It wasn’t illegal, no, this company that they kept.

But, neither did say a word about the imprudence of the thing, nor what precisely might their excuse be were they to get caught so perilously familiar with one another, consistently returning to such a place together.

Because, in no matter of time at all, Riza was working long nights most every night, fell asleep in his room most all the time, and soon enough

a toothbrush joined his at his sink, for convenience a set of spare pajamas lay tucked away in the second drawer, just in case, and her suite, only one door apart, was left clean and nearly wholly untouched.

For, by chance, she had allowed herself this place, this comfort, this sanctuary

after she, for so long, never allowed herself nearly anything at all. The chance. The reason why she returned. It was something she most certainly did not understand.

Perhaps, she might snap out of it. Oh, yes, she so hoped she might snap out of it, and soon.

Roy had stopped reading. Riza stopped pacing.

For a moment, she felt maybe he was reading her mind. If he was, she willed him to keep his opinions to himself, for his endorsement for the continuation of the generous amount of time she spent in his flat was, firstly, already thoroughly voiced, secondly, not helpful to her

in any capacity, whatsoever.

Then Riza blinked and felt the lazy fan on her legs, and realized Roy had taken pause, not to read her mind but to admire her shorts.

It had gotten too hot. They lived in the desert. She had chosen the shorts. It was reasonable, understandable.

yet so terribly terribly unwise.

Roy had looked up at her, just once, from his place on the bed, lounging against the headboard, and well-

He never had the pleasure of seeing Riza’s legs nearly at all, much less like that.

Riza froze, most probably from her lack of clothing. She clutched the bridge of her nose,

“Is this going to be a problem, Sir?”

“Hm?”

His eyes met hers, though they certainly took their time.

“Should I return to my suite?”

Some small piece of her hoped he’d say yes. She felt she needed it to be an order.

Otherwise, she feared she might never leave, being so very delightfully, wonderfully toasty this way.

That pesky feeling, unidentifiable. It was so very unreasonable, un-understandable.

Roy, of course, did not oblige and suggest she need leave him nor the delightful, wonderful warmth that spread from her chest to the tips of her toes.

He did not even grant her the mercy of a definitive answer.

Roy just gave a lopsided grin, so very deliciously warm in itself. He cleared his throat for good measure and picked up where he left off.

Riza tried her very best to concentrate, bit her lip, bit her thumb, made suggestions.

It was in her subconscious that she was directed toward his freezer to scan for sweets.

Ice cream sandwiches, she grabbed two.

Riza unwrapped her own carefully and took her place on the edge of the bed, knees folded under her.

Roy had stopped reading, again.

She lifted an eyebrow, opened her mouth to advise he appreciate her legs in a less overt manner before she grabbed her spare pistol underneath the pillow next to him.

He beat her to it-

“I was just thinking,” he promised. “About, Sir?”

Roy stared at her still as she broke a small piece of her sandwich and popped it promptly into her mouth. He inched off his reading glasses. Riza cocked her head just so at his sudden somber.

“Have we ever existed like this?” Roy hummed, “had this peace?”

She blinked, realizing perhaps he too had noticed.

This most particularly pesky feeling, so alarmingly, uncomfortably comfortable.

Peace, Riza pondered. It was a peculiar word she had missed when attempting to identify that warmth from her head to her toes, every time she knocked, every time he opened that door, and invited her to make herself at home.

Home.

No, she did not feel that often, Riza could reluctantly admit.

“Not that I can recall, Sir.”

Roy took pause, read his packet, flipped a page, and mumbled softly,

“Do we deserve it?”

Riza swallowed, her throat much narrower than seconds before. She picked at her sandwich and came to the definitive answer much too quickly.

“Probably not, no.”

Chocolate cookie stuck to her hands vexingly. Riza felt the need to move, refocus, rethink, before she became trapped in her endless world of regrets.

She slipped off the bed for a napkin.

As if to catch her, as if she were to leave him, Roy called after her as calm as he could manage.

“Would you be more comfortable somewhere else?”

It was a reasonable question, understandable, to be sure.

Riza picked the chocolate off her fingers, and bit at the inside of her cheek, knowing the real question

Should she more comfortable somewhere else?

Ah, this is where she so often got stuck and fled the thought rather than tread on such terrifying territory.

The gut answers were simple yes, she should, yet no, she wouldn’t.

Riza shook off all the reasons why, with one shamefully beautiful little smirk of her own.

She shrugged,

“Probably not, no,”

parroting her previous response, a little joke with herself. Such silly humor so splendidly simple, so seldom shown, set aside for the moments when she was Riza, the moments when she was home.

Roy felt humbled to be a part of such a spectacular thing.

He grinned goofily, stretching his arms behind his head, “Oh? Sounds like you enjoy my company, Captain.”

Riza’s smirk fell into a cutting glare, warning him not to test her with that ego, not to push the point.

For, truthfully, she’d rather not venture further into the topic, because, most unfortunately so, he was right.

Riza plucked the second sandwich off the bed and threw it in his direction, perhaps more forcefully than necessary,

“I only prefer your dessert selection, General.”

Roy fumbled on the catch, dropped his arms, dropped his act. He gave an exasperated sigh as she took her place next to him, on the bed, lounging against the headboard.

Riza plucked the papers out of his lap, and shuffled to find where they left off.

Roy ripped open his ice cream and took a healthy bite.

They sat there in silence-

perhaps silence was much too heavy of a word.

They sat there in peace,

the quiet only broken when Roy tried sucking the chocolate off his fingers. Riza handed him the napkin at her side wordlessly.

Roy found himself lost in thought again, watching her read, resisting biting her nails.

His voice was lower, not serious, but simply not cocksure confidence,

It was honest when he smiled at her.

I only prefer your dessert selection.

“Only?”

Roy huffed a light laugh. Riza blinked at the query.

He watched her cheeks dust pink as she fiddled momentarily with the corner of the pages, refusing to spare him a glance.

“Probably not,”

she felt warmth, understandably so.

“Probably not, no.”

#I actually #am a little proud of this #it is very much my silly style #and an idea ive had every night going to bed #the un-understandable peace #i promise i purposely used the same word over and over and over #i promise #myroyai #roy mustang #riza hawkeye #royai fanfiction #royai #royai fic

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a-m00d · 5 years ago

Text

hi... i think i should start writing.

i wanted to create a separate journal of sorts to write down my feels about the breakup. but as i’m writing this, i feel ashamed and embarrassed to give so much importance to this failure of a situation. as if he would somehow find these words and think so highly of himself. as if i look back later and say, ‘wow, i needed a whole tumblr blog just to get over him?’. i want to make the disclaimer to myself first and foremost: this journal is perhaps not due to his importance in my life but because of my own life’s importance so to speak. He was important in my life, but i don’t need a journal to get over him more than i needed with any other guy. I need one (or want one) because I want to start to sort out all my conflicting thoughts, therapy is expensive (though maybe i will seek out a therapist soon), i want an organized and private space for this, and i always do better with typing rather than writing (for longer periods of writing) because I can easily find the writing later. I felt the same when thinking about buying a new notebook just to write these thoughts down — I felt that it would be giving him too much credit for my emotions. Now, like I said, I’m feeling this way with starting a whole new tumblr blog just for this. But. I know that I don’t want him to take credit for any of my feelings, I do want to bask in them myself and revel and wail over what is going on inside of my head and heart right now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

my emotions have been insane over the past few days. obvious statement of the year. i also teeter between numbness/forgetfulness and utter sadness (mostly due to having to act normal for work and other obligations), but i feel somehow there is a healthy balance of that going on right now, and i’m very lucky i don’t have to be in the office right now. i’ll take that over the emptiness of being isolated and alone. my thoughts have been changing like the fucking tides. and the place i’m in right now is deciding if/when to let go of this relationship100%.

everything seemed slow last week, but then happened so fast at once. the breakup was triggered by our fight 1.5 weeks ago, on the weekend. our third time not being able to even walk with each other and cheer each other up in this disaster of a time. As I walked away from him (or as he lagged behind) i had the gut feeling it was time to end things for good. I’ve said and done this 100000x. This time was slightly different. I felt like i was finally able to surrender. Not 100% of course, but it was different than ever before. It was just a little bit more. Shortly after, he texted me, with a tone that i knew was half trying to make up and half trying to evoke me and blame me. I told myself that i shouldn’t go back to talk to him at that moment, but I did (just like every time). We met up and he made things worse. We both did. Feeding off each other like always. He kept on provoking (like always), and it got to the point I felt it was finally enough to end things. I could never handle when he went on and on about ‘why the hell are we together?’, ‘what are you (me) doing?’ ‘we hate each other’, etc. etc. He was the most ungrateful bastard, living in my house for free and treating me like this. I knew things wouldn’t change anytime soon with him, and I stood strong with my feeling on that walk, that there was no other solution I could think of. there was nothing more i could hold onto. sometimes things don’t work out, and you don’t have the answer. I couldn’t look for the answer anymore. I’m battling my own health issues, major stress, career decisions, and, of course, the quarantine. I let him go. He freaked out, obviously. He didn’t believe me for the next few days even. First he was a dick, then that was followed by him being anxious and frantically figuring out what he was going to do (mind you, with no money for NYC rent, no job, and nowhere to stay temporarily in the middle of quarantine), then endless crying and begging to me. I was able to stick strong with that feeling i had felt on the walk. I was sad, shocked, disappointed and relieved all myself, but I knew I didn’t have any other solution.

The rest of the weekend was filled with loneliness, sadness, drinking and eating in bed, sad yoga, ignoring each other, him making me feel bad (and actually feeling bad) for “kicking him out”. We had some more talks earlier in the week, when he finally asked if i wanted this for good. They were calm talks and I was able to stick with my decision. Later on in the week we started hanging out a little bit more, still distant, but enjoying each other’s company in the night time and not ignoring each other. I knew it became too much when even on friday night we got in a stupid yelling fight about... (and i’m sorry but i really need to write these details down)... him wanting me to play guitar hero right as i had called up my friends to chat, and came off the phone 20 minutes later (cut them off so i could play with him) and he refuses to play, saying he was tired and his feelings were hurt. saying he wanted to play 20/30 minutes ago but not anymore. I was absolutely furious. He might have even had the chance to sleep on my bed that night but i sent him straight to the floor and even threatened to kick him out right then and there. I had planned for us to have a good weekend together, and I was completely crushed when this fight happened. Maybe I was relieved to know i made the right decision, but just so sad to know our relationship had gotten this awful.

The next morning, he embraced me sweetly and I accepted. I know 100% that I would not have accepted this embrace otherwise, but it was our last weekend together, possibly forever, and I couldn’t let myself not at least try to enjoy our time together and bask in how good the good times made me feel. Even though I had some moments of internal disappointment about him and us, it was a relatively magical weekend (for a weekend spent in quarantine). We walked and talked forever, bringing his stuff into storage, picking up food (first time during quarantine for me, so, a treat), walking and driving to our old favorite places all day and night, making margaritas, and two nights of great physical intimacy (maybe not our best/longest ever, but eons better than we had experienced in over 6 months). I was very afraid of this physical intimacy, I was afraid of the cuddling and all the things he kinda pried me to do all week...but I couldn’t have been happier that I gave in, however hard it may make this time period for me right now, and regardless of if he was just manipulating me or not. Because on that night I realized I do really love him, and we love each other. Despite all the shit in our relationship, and whether or not we should be with each other, we share a real love for each other, and I feel that my heart has opened even just a little bit more. I don’t know what he is feeling, but I know that when he left on Monday I felt a giant, gaping hole in the center of my chest. I truly felt like I lost my best friend. Many times over the past few days when we were together (I don’t remember the conversation now) we talked about the possibility of being together again or hanging out as friends, and I kindof just knew that things would never be the same, and didn’t know how this would ever work out. But I knew that I would never want myself to forget this moment and feeling of love. As much as his love has killed me and ruined me it’s made me grow in ways I never knew I wanted to. I realized how every break up I’ve been through I’ve hid the emotions from others and myself, even from the partner. This time, I’m realizing I’m able to finally feel these things, and I know for the first time what it feels like (not to lose someone you love, but to be this open about it with yourself or others).

A few minutes before we walked out on monday we were crying looking at each other and I thought to myself ‘I really, truly love him’. It took me a few beats to kick the words out of my mouth (fear of rejection, judgement of my own feelings), but I knew I would be crushed if I hadn’t. Not even for him but for me. I decided I didn’t care in that moment if he felt the same way as me, I knew I needed to tell him that, there was no other time. The entire weekend I felt extremely vulnerable crying with him loving him and laughing with him after I had broken up with him...but this is an experience I’ve never had. There’s usually a lot of bad blood and repressed anger, maybe some brief break up sex followed by fighting at the end of a relationship....but (unfortunately) this was already the norm in our relationship....so the ending was truly just a letting go of it all and being happy with each other. Even for only 2.5 days, we really wanted to spend every waking second with each other. And the part that makes me most sad is knowing the familiarity of his face, scent, voice, etc. so well, and now having it vanish in thin air, forever.

I still don’t think I’ve processed everything 100%. I went to bed moderately fine last night, then woke up today bawling crying because I am usually woken up by him and this morning I wasn’t and it felt so odd and different, and I thought...this is going to be my life for a very long time now.

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touchmyspinebookreviews · 6 years ago

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Hello there, friends! As many of you know I haven’t had internet access and have had one hell of a year, well I kind of want to touch base on that and update some lovelies that have been asking questions and what not. So as many of you know I faced a huge financial battle this year and because of how so many supportive friends that I have on here I was able to have good, paid some on electricity and my seizure medications! Yippee! To be honest, I went 5 days without eating, went without AC while it was in the 90s, and was bruised up from head to toe. So to have loved ones such as yourself do this for me not only made a way, but it humbled me to a great extent to know how many good people surrounded me through their shares, likes, prayers and/or vibes, amazing donations, and most of all the fact that I finally had amazing and trustworthy friends!

Well ladies and gentlemen, I made two awful mistakes. First mistake was closing down raising $ without reaching my goal just because I figured there was two forms of employment found, I had a close friend that didn’t mind just helping out babysit, and I was wrong for thinking things were just better and felt that everyone saw me different because I was this loser and beggar. The second mistake I made was literally asking God and the Universe why I was rock bottom and thinking things couldn’t get worse because man, they did!!!

One clue of advice, my friends, never ask this question because I think God and/or the Universe took this as a challenge! Like you think that was hard, let me show you some shit! I mean don’t get me wrong, I lived through worse things as an innocent child. No child should ever have to face torture to extremes to get the highest bidder’s perverted fantasy fulfilled. Even though I have lived through this and I have even loved through dying 3 times before the age of 10 and was brought back, I still find my current issues harder to face. Not because it was all in the past, definitely not. In fact, I love with those images and flashbacks daily but what makes my situation so difficult for me is the impact it has on my three amazing children. With them, it changes everything. It changes every fiber of my being because I may not have chosen to get pregnant with my first child at 19 but I chose to keep her and I made her the choice and promise to protect her above all else. I have to put my pride aside and I must remain strong for them.

When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.

-Sophia Loren

So to bring you up to speed and give an update on yours truly and her big family(including all the animals I rescued), things seemed to get better for maybe a month after I did the fundraiser back in April. Things spun out of control and the last few months we have scrambled, walked, applied and tried everything in our power to survive but we are to the point of having no more way, an eviction notice hanging over my head by my own family, no money whatsoever to get out of the eviction, no internet or phone service so are unable to get a hold or hired for any jobs, and three kids that deserve the best and I don’t know what to do. I am absolutely at the end of the line. After I disabled the last fundraiser a month later Thomas’s boss ran off with all his employees checks even though I knew him forever, the car that was providing the other form of income was repoed because when family said they would pay it that didn’t happen. So went quickly to zero once again. I kept hope and pushed through and found every resource I could to help and things continued to crumble. As some may know, I am remission for liver cancer for the last four years well after getting deathly sick from a spell of not eating again, test results show that my liver enzymes and kidney levels are through the roof even more than they were at cancer status. I haven’t been able to afford the biopsy and tests I need her alone my maintenance dose of chemotherapy that I have been on for years. My inflammation levels are high and I have been in excruciating pain. I also have been fighting seizures and seeing my loved ones not get the proper treatment as well. It has been literally one thing after another. The doctor out me on bed rest until I can find out what’s going on with me and then my world comes crashing down and my children got hurt if you don’t know about the situation, you can read about it @ https://touchmyspinebookreviews.com/2018/07/20/motherhood-heartbreak-how-do-i-pick-up-the-pieces/. I will tell you that my children haven’t been without food because is adults stopped eating for them a few times and now we have good benefits and help from our church with food but everything else is CRAZY!😵 I also found out that my children were hurt and that made things go through a whirlwind. I struggled to pay for copays and any deductible for my kids to be seen by a specialist and they still need to be seen but my car doesn’t have insurance and needs a repair. Also the “friend” that was the babysitter that first month stole our rent money and hacked into our accounts, stole everything I own of value, and even stole family heirlooms that were irreplaceable or push come to shove could have been maybe sold for a way but she took everything. I am fought to stay myself through all this but now I am at the point of losing it. We have to come up with some money by next week and we have to come up with a plan because we will be homeless and hungry in the next 2 weeks.

I know that that’s a lot to digest and you’re

probably already running to the hills!!

I don’t know for sure why I am blaring this on public forum besides the fact that I feel bad that I have been so minimally active and really felt I should have given everyone a better follow up after the fundraiser and I love to vent here, to be honest. Not only do I love to vent on here because this is the only place that I feel like I can be myself and have support from real friends. The friends that I have missed dearly. Phew! Does it feel good to let it all loose to you guys!

Another thing I wanted to share was that I wanted to see if anybody was interested in my services for great prices.(I know that sounded a little sexual but promise that I am not offering sexual favors over the internet. Lol. No judgement though, if that’s your thing because to each is their own. What I am talking about is I have been a professional Tarot, Oracle, Angel Readings and Lenormand Reader, I also have professionally read palms and conducted basic numerology and astroloft reports. I knew you guys knew I was a reader and into many different psychic things and many different divinivation tools but I don’t think I shared with many that before my recent spiritual awakening I did professional readings years ago for about four years in a small business. I also have been accepted by Zodiac Psychics as a Tarot Reader and Life Coaching or being a counselor of sorts. Not only do I have professional and educational experience in all types of divination, I have my Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. I know some may be thinking who would want advice from someone who doesn’t have it together financially and such but suruprising as it may be, I also have certifications in drug counseling and have volunteered for many years as a counselor at The Rape Crisis center and as a speaker and mentor at group homes that I attended as a child. I still have clients that I have seen for Tarot & advice that I started seeing 5 years ago just unfortunately they came upon some stress as well this year so I try to help them out anyways much as I can. So with all this being said, it’s beyond obvious that my family needs a way to make money and I am to the point at putting my pride aside but I don’t want to offer nothing in return to people. I mean if you guys aren’t into any of the stuff I offer or some kind of book promotion and want to help me out and donate anyway, I would be forever grateful and definitely am not trying to say I’m too good for donations at all. In fact, I would love some prayers, shares, vibes, encouraging words and/or donations to help go towards keeping our home together and for me keeping my children. I’m so sorry if this comes off as begging or any kind of way but I really want to give my kids a home and also find a way to get to work and do what’s best for them and get medical treatment and pray for a miracle. Even with all of this and knowing my chances of survival are slim if my cancer has returned, I still have that drive and push to keep things going and to fight for my kids. I also want to be there for you guys as well! Which luckily my neighbor is letting me use her internet because she is going out of town for the next week or two so I can hopefully figure something out. I don’t know if I should start another fundraiser via GoFundMe due to the fear of losing my children to very unkind people but my PayPal e-mail is [email protected] and I will also have a free texting Wi-Fi number working starting now again which is +1-843-941-7929. Please email or text me about any services I could provide or any questions whatsoever. Thank you for hearing me out my friends. Regardless of anything, I am so glad that I have met you all and will be visiting your blogs over the next few days! Yay!💖XOXOXOXO😘💯💖

P.S. I also want to request that everyone can send positive vibes and/or to Stephanie @ Stephanie’s Novel Fiction! She has been having some serious health concerns and I think she is one of the most amazing people in the planet so she deserves a speedy recovery. Steph, thanks so much for all you have done for me. You are a fighter and I know you are going to get better and end up on top! 💖💖💖

Sorry for lack of proofreading, my device is being slow and TBH I am very anxious and feel vulnerable about all I shared so going to proofread later when I calm down and feel better. Love ya guys! Hakuna Matata, Loves! Xoxoxoxo 🌹💜🌹💜

Services I Offer And An Update On My Family & Health Hello there, friends! As many of you know I haven't had internet access and have had one hell of a year, well I kind of want to touch base on that and update some lovelies that have been asking questions and what not.

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