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chernabogs · 5 months ago

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“kiss me. take me from this place. ’” for the writing prompt with Lilia and reader 👀👀

I went a bit of a different approach with this where the prompt isn't written in, but is instead what this whole fic builds off of. I couldn't find an appropriate place to put the words based on the content, so I hope this is ok <3

HOOKED

Inc: Lilia, Baul mention, Reader (spoken second person here). Warnings: Heavy discussion of PTSD including a detailed PTSD-attack. Read at your discretion. WC: 2.5k Summary: Many of those who came from the era of Briar Nation before Briar Valley believe the silent suppression approach is both more mindful and correct in terms of etiquette. Lilia is not exempt from this, even when he knows it's a ridiculous belief.

There is a stigma against seeking help that Lilia would argue is the most ridiculous belief to have been ingrained in the older generation. Rather than communicating one’s thoughts and emotions to others, many of those who came from the era of Briar Nation before Briar Valley believe the silent suppression approach is both more mindful and correct in terms of etiquette.

Of course, he’s not exempt to this.

The difference between himself and the rest of his generation is that he’s the largest hypocrite to exist among them. He encourages his children and those nurtured by his hand to speak their thoughts and to be aware of how they feel in the moment. Meanwhile, he’s shoving every stressor he’s experienced into the nooks and crannies of his mind, where they sit and stare at him expectantly as he tries diligently not to look back.

Perhaps in time, he tells himself.

He wasn’t quite aware of the term ‘post-traumatic’ until he heard it spoken of on one of his trips abroad forty years back. By fate, be it cruel or kind, there was a conference occurring in the hotel he was staying at that he took upon himself to quickly visit. Uninvited and for free, of course, but that’s beside the point. At the time glamour still wasn’t as illegal as it is now, and so it didn’t take much concentration for him to conceal the pointed ears and sharp teeth he has to blend in with the crowd of well-dressed folks with degrees too long to remember. That day he played a clinical psychologist, a physician, a biologist, and someone in forensics all in the span of a few hours. It was an exercise in acting he quite enjoyed.

Back to the main focus, though: Post-traumatic, or PTSD, as it would come to be called.

It was new, it was fresh, and it made the pinpricks of discomfort crawl across his skin the more he listened to the psychologist whose name he didn’t recall describe it. Glasses—the man had large, coke-bottle glasses on his face, which kept glinting under the fluorescent glow of the lights while he spoke about the consequences of war on the mind. His hands would wave in the air with each sentence and his glasses kept glinting as the pinpricks grew to daggers until finally Lilia just got up and left the room. He went to the hotel bar, got smashed for the first time in god knows how long, and spent the rest of the night staring at the colourful glasses on the shelves until he was finally asked to leave.

Glasses had described it as presenting in several ways. Recurring dreams (he dreamt of it at least once a week, a dragon’s shriek, and then the sudden nothingness), avoidance of external reminders (he didn’t immediately go back to Wild Rose even when it became accessible), persistent negative beliefs about oneself (no comment), self-destructive behaviour (no comment), sleep disturbances (no comment). If he and Glasses had engaged in a one-on-one conversation for all of a minute he wagers the man would’ve tried to recruit him to be studied.

Glasses did miss the mark on a few things, though. Granted he was basing his work off of a human’s experience in war, not that of a fae like Lilia. Glasses had said that PTSD could make someone feel as though they were trapped in a prison that was their own mind—but prison felt like a very child-friendly way to describe it. To Lilia, it felt more like a fish on a hook. It pierces into his body and pulls at the flesh, ripping into his muscle and making sure it’s the only thing he can think of coherently. Sometimes he’s so numb that he hardly notices it’s there, until something triggers it, makes the string the hook is on yank upwards, and then he isn’t able to do anything because all he’s stuck on is that fucking hook.

Sometimes in the late evening when he finds himself sitting with Baul on the man’s porch there will be a sound—a twig snapping, a tree falling—that will make both of them tense and look around. Their eyes will meet, an unspoken look of understanding will be shared, and then it’s back into the next topic of conversation. Maybe if he told someone he was caught, if either of them told someone, they’d be able to wiggle that hook free. But that’s not mindful or correct in terms of etiquette, isn’t it?

Perhaps in time, he tells himself.

_________________________________________

It’s because the sky is blue.

It’s the simplest, most common thing in the entire world that never changes no matter what occurs. The sea changes colour, the leaves change colour, the earth changes colour, but the sky somehow consistently stays blue.

He’s been having a bad week, and he knows you can tell because he hasn’t been poking fun at you as often. He hasn’t felt like gaming, he hasn’t felt like socializing as much, and he’s been going for walks more than usual. His boys can tell as well—the close scrutiny Silver has had him under is almost endearing—but they also know better than to react too much.

You don’t. He likes you mainly because you know barely anything about him. You’re not as aware as his boys may be. You don’t know the Right General: the man who destroyed armies and fucked up on the biggest task he was given (in his mind, at least). You know Lilia: the vice Housewarden of Diasomnia who hangs upside down in hallways and plays screamo on a guitar.

He's also developed a bit of a soft spot for you.

Well. Perhaps more than a bit, but that’s semantics.

This is also why he doesn’t say no when you invite him to go into town with you for a few errands. It’s a simple task that he’s done with you many times before, but today it feels like a huge commitment he isn’t sure he should have done. This is because he can feel it tugging in his head—the gentle pull of a thread that’s done before whatever is on the hook is yanked up to the surface. He’s trying hard to ignore it, trying hard to focus on your voice as his hand taps his thigh and he keeps looking around the woodland path.

“—and so, Ace is paying for it, because he was the one that went and dumped the grape juice on it in the first place.” You look down at the red-stained garb in your arms as you frown. His gaze goes to it only for a moment before he hums and looks away again.

“How much of a fight was it to get him to agree to that?” He asks, pushing to keep the conversation going and to keep you talking so that he has something to focus his attention on. The trees around you feel both familiar and foreign in this moment. “If I recall correctly, our dear Ace is as good at negotiating as Azul when it comes to his own money.”

You give a laugh at that which allows a brief blanket of warmth to drape itself on his shoulders. “Combined with Deuce, we managed to get him to agree quickly enough. I don’t think dry cleaning costs that much though, so it isn’t like this is going to break his bank.”

“Ah, you would be surprised.” A smile touches on his lips which still doesn’t quite reach his eyes as you both continue walking. You direct the conversation to other matters going on around the school and he falls into an attentive silence, letting you talk away so he can focus on your voice.

It’s when you step out of the forest and into a meadow clearing, when his eyes inadvertently go upwards to look at the blue sky, that the world shuts off. The sky had been like this—clear and blue—right before it had all gone to shit. Sunny, slightly cooler, with the sounds of a thousand bodies moving and the heady scent of grease in the air. He can see the glinting of light (glinting like Glasses had been), he can feel the tension grow in his body, taste saliva and copper in his mouth. In a manner of a few seconds, he’s sucked up out of the forest around NRC and into a sub-level of his own personal hell where he’s now sitting and watching all of his mistakes play back.

He's fighting against that hook. He’s squirming, wiggling, and biting as it pulls him all around. The world is black. He’s sitting on a silver chair and there’s a television in front of him and it’s playing that day at Wild Rose as the sky becomes a thunderous grey. He wants to scream and change the channel, but the hook has pierced the back of his head and is jutting out of his mouth. He can’t speak, can’t breathe, can’t do anything but watch as the same shit happens again and again and—

“—Lilia?”

His head turns as much as the hook allows. He can taste the rust from it as it stays in his mouth, but his eyes go wide when he sees you in the corner. The hum of television static and his quick breathing are all the sounds he can hear as you stand there in those shadows. Something garbled leaves his lips. You move a few steps closer, close enough that the light of the television reflects on your features, which wear a mask of your own fear as you kneel by his side.

You shouldn’t be here. You weren’t there, not when it was all unfolding, so you shouldn’t be in the same basement of horrors he’s currently in.

Your hand rests on his arm. It’s as though a thousand needles erupt where your skin touches and he recoils in that chair, jerks to the side, and causes that hook to split more skin. You move back quickly, and he can see what he thinks might be panic on your face.

“What can I do?” You ask. It’s such a simple question and he wishes so deeply to tell you an answer but what can you do? What can he do? It isn’t mindful or correct in terms of etiquette, right? He shakes his head. Panic turns to a touch of worry, of frustration, as you move to sit cross-legged beside his chair.

“I... don’t know what’s going on.” You say slowly. He listens as he forces his breathing to regulate. The dim hum of static is still coming from the right side of him as he keeps looking down at you. “But I’m going to sit right here, okay? I’m going to sit right here until you can tell me what I can do to help. And if there’s nothing I can do, then at least I can keep you company until you’re ready.”

Ready? Company?

He keeps looking down at you until he finally turns his head back to the television where those scenes are still playing. Beyond the television, he can see the outline of trees forming in the dark room.

The two of you sit there for what feels like an extraordinarily long time. The hook has stopped tugging, and the trees are becoming more visible in the darkness as the show comes to an end. He can hear birds chirping past the static, he can smell woodland instead of grease. He isn’t tasting rust anymore. A small, strangled hum leaves him, which catches your attention.

“Yeah?” You ask, scooting forward on the floor beside him to look up at his face. You’re so goddamn endearing when you look up like that, and he hates that you’re in this room with him right now. He needs to leave because he needs to get you out of here as well. You barely know anything about him, and he isn’t ready to ruin the perceptions you have quite yet.

“Can I touch you?” You ask.

“Yes,” is what he manages to choke back beyond the hook.

You stand back up and your hand comes to rest on his cheek. He doesn’t feel daggers like he did before, but he does still tense, which makes you stop again. A heartbeat passes before you lean down so your lips are by his ear.

“Breathe,” you whisper, and he does.

“Focus,” you whisper, and he does.

“Come back,” you whisper, pressing your lips to his temple, and he does.

The television shuts off and is pulled back into the shadows by something he can’t quite see yet, but he feels he will come to meet very soon. The chair he sits on vanishes and is replaced by a rock with a bubbling creek at his feet. The hook unlatches itself and is reeled back up for another day. It’s like he’s waking up from a dream as a groggy feeling settles over him.

Neither of you speak for a long moment as he continues to sit on the rock and your hand moves to rest on his back. A sense of embarrassment forms in his chest that he knows shouldn’t be there, but it exists anyway. Embarrassment, shame, and heavy, heavy exhaustion. His tongue licks his dry lips as he clears his throat to speak.

“How long?” He asks.

“It’s been an hour.”

An hour. That feels shorter than usual as he rolls his shoulders and gets to his feet. His hands are trembling slightly, and he appreciates you not mentioning it despite the way your gaze lingers on them.

He turns to you as he shoves them in his pockets, and he forces his lips into a smile. It’s a good thing he’s an expert at fake smiles to the point that he does this without a thought. “Do you mind if I...?”

“Not at all.” You reply quickly, grabbing your stained clothing from the ground. When you rise, you look worried. For a moment he fears that you may ask what just happened right now—but you don’t. You just offer him a slight smile back and hold your clothes a bit tighter. “Will you text me when you get back?”

“Yes,” he replies automatically, feeling a bud of relief blossom in his chest when you nod and step back onto the path. This is immediately replaced by guilt. “Thank you.”

The words feel dead and heavy on his tongue, despite the way they seem to soothe your own anxiety.

“Always.” You murmur in response as he watches your gaze linger on him a moment longer. He so wishes to ask you to stay, to explain to you what this all was, but he stills the words in his throat.

He likes you mainly because you know barely anything about him. You’re unaware of his past, much like his boys, and your perception of him is one he’s carefully gifted to you himself. The abruptness of this attack may have broken a crack in the pristine image which unsettles him.

He isn’t ready to discuss it yet. Not with you, not with his boys, not even Baul. He’s the largest hypocrite to exist for a good reason.

He continues to watch you until you vanish back into the forest, and it’s only with your departure that he finds himself able to breathe properly. The back of his skull aches and all he wants right now is to go to sleep for a few hours. His smile drops to a grimace as he turns and begins to go in the direction opposite of you.

Perhaps in time, he tells himself.

#lilia vanrouge #twst lilia #twst #twst fic #twisted wonderland fic #lilia vanrouge x reader #twst x reader #thank youuuuu

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