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autisticarachnid · 1 year

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how does Jacob Dyer differ from the jacob in game?

oo this is gonna be tricky to answer because i don’t actually know a lot about in-game jacob, so bare with me as i’ll be using the limited knowledge i have

so the most glaring difference comes from the family. my jacob was the oldest of four children with happily married parents- a mother who worked in alchemy and a father who worked for the ministry. he grew up in a stable, loving, supportive household.

another main difference is jacob got into the vaults out of sheer curiosity, and wasn’t involved with R at all. jacob did receive a brief threat or two from them, but he didn’t realize the extent of R’s existence until duncan’s death; duncan had been separately threatened and didn’t tell jacob. jacob was purely a curious child with a desire to figure things out, and got into the vaults because he was curious and wondered if he could figure it out. in fact, by the time the vaults proved themselves dangerous he didn’t even want to be involved anymore; he stayed involved in the vaults because he felt lile it was his responsibility to protect those around him.

after his expulsion, jacob returned home. he briefly stayed with madam rosmerta like in the game, then returned to his house once the heat on him died down. he began sneaking out after realizing R was responsible for duncan’s death; however, this was a mix of wanting to avenge duncan and wanting to protect his family from their wrath. just like in-game, he was duped by rakepick and left in the portrait vault.

jacob slowly began losing his mind in the portrait vault, as he began to doubt the reality around him. it’s important to know he struggled for years afterwards with hallucinations and psychosis, and was even diagnosed with schizophrenia later on. his psychosis did wear down eventually, but he continues to have hallucinations to this day, as an effect of his very mind and reality being warped for years.

also, jacob dyer stayed with thalia up until the moment of the portkey, at which point he instead disapparated into the forbidden forest to search for rakepick. he didn’t face his family for weeks after, too ashamed to show himself. (he did eventually show himself that december over winter break- it was an unbelievably emotional affair on all sides). he did stay somewhat in contact with thalia though, feeling like he owed it to her to keep an eye out and stay in communication. while he still did his best to limit the time he spent around her (for her safety, he told himself) he did talk to thalia, recognizing that she was clearly capable of protecting herself and had a strong army of allies behind her. the two worked together throughout her sixth year (and potentially seventh, i haven’t decided when R disappears) to track down and defeat R.

with the dyer patriarch being a regular ministry worker and not at all involved with ‘R’, that storyline doesn’t exist in my AU. i haven’t yet determined what happens with R in my AU, but they are dissolved by the end of the second war.

after thalia graduated, jacob became an auror briefly. he was an auror from around 1991 until 1993, when he quit to go travel the world instead. in 1995 he settled in greece, and had a one night stand with a woman named dionysia, who later gave birth to his daughter, elysia, in february 1996.

another difference thats important to note is his personality. while i’m still not 100% sure on in-game jacob’s personality, jacob dyer grew up as a shy, introverted and inquisitive child who loved his little sisters dearly. after duncan died, he notably became more reckless, independent and daring. he deeply cared for those around him, but was so afraid of hurting anyone else that he shut himself off from everyone. after he escaped the vault, he was running on pure survival instincts for a full year, being paranoid and constantly on-edge, afraid that he was being tracked/constantly endangering the people around him. after R was (kinda) defeated, he actually mellowed out a lot. by the time he became a father, he was introverted, reclusive, calm and quiet. he preferred to stay out of anything dangerous and distanced himself away from the UK, hoping to avoid his own reputation. he still lives in greece to this day, and lives a mostly quiet life running a small business. he only ever goes back to the UK once a year to visit family.

this is what i have so far on him ! i do want to further develop him at some point, so this may be updated later on ^^

#hphm #hogwarts mystery #harry potter hogwarts mystery #hp hogwarts mystery #jacob dyer

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malicemizer · 1 month

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Genuinely would not wish schizophrenia on my worst enemy it is a horrible illness that makes me feel all kind of twisted up things and my base line really is just fear. There is so much fear when you have a schizo spec disorder. Fear in every day things. Fear in everything even that of which you’re familiar with. But it becomes impossible to communicate that. If you communicate through art or music, good luck gathering enough energy to even practice your art (hasn’t drawn for months and hasn’t played guitar since last winter or something^) you completely lose your sense of self and you lose the ability to see things for how they are, or however you prefer to view the world. I can’t think about any of the things I love or enjoy time spent with loved ones because I’m too busy fighting psychic battles with demons only I’m able to perceive. And then when I open up about these battles I don’t receive sympathy, I receive the fear that I feel towards everyone else. Everyone is out to get me because if they knew that I perceive the world differently they’d persecute me. They can never find out and through that paranoia I make myself vulnerable to other forms of attack.

It’s an atrocious disease. Don’t self diagnose it, don’t pretend to have it if you don’t because you think you’re being edgy or because you crave attention or whatever. All I want is a normal life. But I’m stuck like this. Meds help but hiccups happen, like today.

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lakelandg · 5 months

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Polk County organization offers resources for homelessness and mental health

If you follow a dirt path into the woods near 2nd Eloise Terrace in Winter Haven, it will lead you to a homeless encampment. There is where you’ll find 23-year-old Austin Smith. “I get five minutes a day, when I wake up of peace and quiet. Then the voices they come and it’s really hard to deal with,” said Smith. Smith has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. “It’s…

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granhairdo · 1 year

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the soundtrack to my life movie that my roommate suggested should be real (no it should not it would be horribly dark)

part one: here comes the sun: aged 7-9. basically a lot of happy countryside childhood stuff with my lovely little sister

part two: little lion man, the gilded hand, winter is coming: aged 10-13. my father lost his jobs and on the matter of a few years became an abusive drunkard. my mother was working 2 jobs to support the family. my mother had an affair, having two children that were not my fathers. as the eldest sibling, i ended up raising all three of them and fostered a very deep love for each one of them that still remains today

part three: king and lionheart, the boxer, photograph: aged 13-15. i adjust to life moving in and out, living on the streets, and back in an old apartment. ive become the main victim for most of the violence because i always sacrificed myself for my siblings. im very suicidal at this point and they are the only people keeping me alive. my mother files for divorce from my father, hoping new beginnings for the family

part four: my body’s made of crushed little stars, duvet: aged 15-17. the divorce becomes very bumpy and my siblings and i end up in foster care for a year. the separation broke me as they were the only reason i was still alive. we met up occasionally but it wasn’t the same. i quickly grew even more mentally unsound and began to experience psychosis and just six months later, right after being brought into my mothers care again, was diagnosed with schizophrenia

part five: birdhouse in your soul, lemon boy, the literal heart: aged 18-22, i moved out but my schizophrenia worsened and i began spending months on end in psychiatric hospitals. along the way i have short lived romantics and hear of all kinds of life stories from the other patients

part six: the valley, only time: aged 23-current day, i settled down more and began to reflect on my past and the life i lived as i realize i probably won’t be around as long as id like given my mental and physical struggles

#Spotify

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the-ghost-king · 4 years

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Schizophrenic Nico, here's why I think it's possible:

I want to start off by saying these are just my thoughts, there is no one way to be schizophrenic or to have schizophrenia. It's also important to note that many of the schizophrenic symptoms overlap with other mental illnesses/nuerodivergences like ADHD, Autism, Depression, and OCD which I know many people who head canon Nico as having. I'm not arguing schizophrenic Nico is more correct, more canon, or more right, but to explain some thoughts on why I think it's possible/very likely he does so I can use this for future reference in various thing.

I am using the term schizophrenia as a catchall for all "types" of schizophrenia, but not for schizoaffective disorder which I would say Nico probably doesn't have.

Children born in the winter/those who were "sickly" as babies are more likely to develop schizophrenia. It may also be possible if your mother was sick while pregnant with you, or having a father who was significantly older when he had you.

A stressful life, especially trauma, are more likely to develop schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. It likely has something to do with excessive dopamine production, but it may also have something to do with the same genes that control the sleep-wake cycle. Schizophrenia is more common with other mental illnesses or with other nuerodivergences or developmental delays.

Common symptoms include:

Hallucinations

Delusions

Disorganized thinking

lack of motivation

slow movement

change in sleep patterns

poor grooming or hygiene

changes in body language and emotions

less interest in social activities

Now what does this mean for Nico, and why do I think it's likely he has Schizophrenia?

Let's start with Nico's childhood, "children born in the winter/those who were "sickly" as babies are more likely to develop schizophrenia". Although Rick proposed two birthdays for Nico, the fandom generally accepted the January date more fully. We also know that Nico is described as small when he was younger, smallness is common in children who grow up sickly, but it is also common in children who's mother was ill while pregnant with them. We obviously don't know if Nico was sick as a kid, or if Maria was sick while pregnant with him, but again being born in the winter makes these things more likely, as well as consideration for the time period Nico grew up in and the larger variety of illnesses going around at the time. (He is vaccinated against some things though).

Trauma and Nico... do I really have to go into super detail on this one? He spent his childhood growing up in a fascist country that was extremely racist/anti-Semitic/homophobic/etc, his mom died when he was a child- in front of him, his father intentionally gave him amnesia, his sister died when he was a child, he then proceeded to become homeless living/spending lots of time with Minos who verbally (and possibly physically) abused him, becoming aware of his past memories, becoming aware of the fact that many people hated him because of his father and because they thought he was joining the other side (therefore, he was "bad"), he fought in many battles as a child, fought monsters alone, was often faced with life or death situations, went to Tartarus alone (where the goddess of misery told him he was "perfect"), was trapped in a hostage situation with little/no air for a long time while people debated whether or not to save him, was outed against his will, was freed only to travel again fighting monsters and then win a battle, was eventually made to quest with Apollo despite still having lots of healing to do in ToN. So stressful life? Fuck yeah, that doesn't being to cover it.

Genetic factors, obviously nothing here is confirmed so I'm speculating a little bit again, but the common idea in regards to Hades children through the series is that they are "bad". Mental illnesses have been stigmatized for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and often mentally ill people were made out to be weird/bad/etc. It's more than possible there is some sort of genetic factor taking place, also "having a father who was significantly older when he had you". Although I doubt godly genes work the same as mortal ones (trust me I have lots of thoughts on how god genetics/DNA work, but that's not the point right now), I think Hades being the oldest out of all his brothers and having a reputation for having "questionable" children says something... We have no information on Maria's family history at all.

As for schizophrenia often occurring with other mental illnesses and/or neurodivergences: Nico canonically is implied to have either ADHD and/or Autism, and is canonically stated to have PTSD. I think most people would agree that saying Nico has or has had depression isn't a stretch in the slightest.

So canonically we can all agree Nico has severe trauma and coinciding mental health issues/neurodivergences, so out of 4 possible issues I’ve first presented we guaranteeably have two. If I wanted to stretch this a little I would give myself a half point for him being born in the winter and a half point for the aspect of Hades genetics but I won’t do that.

On top of that schizophrenia usually appears during teenage and young adult years in people who receive diagnosis; most people live with mental illness for a few months or a few years in some cases before they're able to receive a diagnosis. Nico being 15 (16 by the end of ToN/shortly following the end of ToN) is about the age that schizophrenia would start to make an appearance. It's also more likely to be found in men, with men also noticing the appearance of schizophrenia appearing early in their lives, and experiencing more negative symptoms in comparison to the higher commonality of affective symptoms in women. That's a really complicated explanation to basically say there's 3 more things that would make Nico having schizophrenia make more sense.

Alright, let’s go back to the list of symptoms I provided:

Hallucinations

Delusions

Disorganized thinking

lack of motivation

slow movement

change in sleep patterns

poor grooming or hygiene

changes in body language and emotions/behavior

less interest in social activities

Once again, some of these are not solely related to schizophrenia and can be the result of other mental health issues, I’m just going to go down the list and add in some moments from the books in which Nico shows some of these traits/behaviors.

Delusions/Hallucinations (more later)

Our best chances for understanding Nico's thought process is in Blood of Olympus where he has a P.O.V... Sometimes Nico's thoughts do derail, or sometimes they get a little confusing, but not always, and when talking to others he is consistent and aware of what he's saying, as well as blunt. Anything "off" about his thought patterns to me just seems like ADHD..

Dietary changes (whether or not you think he has an eating disorder) are behavioral changes (I personally think Nico has AFRID)

Within House of Hades Nico's poor sleep patterns are constantly referenced, and I'll give him a pass on poor hygiene because he's in the middle of a quest but still..

I have extremely complicated feelings on what Will says here, it's possible Nico is an extremely unreliable narrator (unlikely, it seems many people are bothered by him and only maybe a handful aren't), I've also thought at many points this was Rick trying to backtrack some stuff with Nico because he realized he'd made his story a little too harsh for a kids book, it could also be Will's trauma kicking in and that happening... I'm not counting it as full proof about Nico disliking social interactions, but Nico does try to leave even after this conversation and isn't convinced to stay until the last chapter, so maybe there's something to be said about people's dislike of him for being a Hades kid- but I think it's fair to say Nico also dislikes people at least some because he doesn't have interest in trying to befriend anyone either, and is quick to assume all people dislike him (paranoia/low self esteem/and some other possible stuff). There's lots of discussions to be had about this quote and other similar ones, and I don't think a broad brush approach of "Nico good everyone else bad" is accurate it's more, "Nico is good but he fails to try and you have to work on your own mental health everyone won just go to you, and also people dislike Nico for silly reasons and need to get over themselves and make an effort too". (I'm extremely oversimplifying my thoughts and feelings to keep it brief.)

More on delusions and hallucinations:

Now I want to state that lots of schizophrenia symptoms share a lot of commonalities with ADHD and with depression, so although I might include some moments you think are just ADHD/depression I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with you but they could also be schizophrenia or coexisting mental health issues/divergences. I also went through the DSM-5 for schizophrenia (the DSM-5 is just this big book with lists and it’s how doctors diagnose any mental health issue/divergence), I also looked through the DSM-IV (an older book from before DSM-5 which is no longer really used) and the differences between the diagnosis was fairly minimal but they quit categorizing types of schizophrenia and instead rely more on a couple of word descriptions that seem more in line with a spectrum rather than a checkable box.

In order to receive a schizophrenia diagnosis, two (or more) of the following, each present for a significant portion of time during a 1-month period (or less if successfully treated), and at least one of these symptoms must be (1), (2), or (3):

Delusions

Hallucinations

Disorganized speech (frequent derailment or incoherence)

Grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior

Negative symptoms (i.e., diminished emotional expression or avolition).

It’s important to note that only one of these need to be checked off/true if the patient has voices which narrate their actions/behaviors/thoughts or if the person has more than one voice conversing with each other.

Nico deals with auditory hallucinations (2), he believes the voice belongs to Bob, his titan friend he left in Tartarus:

However this isn’t and immediate diagnosis because Bob’s voice doesn’t talk to another voice(s) in Nico’s head, and we don’t know if Nico has voices running commentary on his behaviors/thoughts.

The reason I state we are unaware if Nico has commentary isn’t because Nico hasn’t said anything, but because many people with schizophrenia before their diagnosis believe the narrative voices are just their thoughts and are a normal internal monologue- usually patients don’t realize anything is wrong until the voices start providing commentary on their actions so instead of “washing the dishes now” the voice(s) might say “wash the dishes now, you’re so lazy you can’t do anything, idiot” during a period of psychosis which may help them acknowledge that the voice(s) isn’t the way most people experience internal voice(s). It is very possible Nico is unaware he is experiencing narrative thoughts and simply assumes that his experience is something most people have, but I won’t use this to argue my point because it’s not confirmation of anything.

Returning now to Bob, Nico knows he is hearing Bob’s voice but he believes Bob is calling to him from Tartarus. Now, Nico says the voices are calling to him from Tartarus but there’s no confirmation of this anywhere… What I think is happening is Nico has a guilty conscience. He feels bad for “using” Bob to get out of Tartarus and various other things, so he feels bad that he is still down there. However, we don’t really know if Bob is calling to him or if Bob is able to do that- what I personally think is happening here is Nico’s brain is convincing Nico that Bob needs him because Nico is upset with himself for not helping Bob more, but also because Nico has never “sat still” before without a quest. Nico has also always felt the want to be needed/important...

It very well could be a delusion.

Schizophrenic patients often experience delusions which make them think they are destined for greatness, or that they have some divine/high force calling out to them for help that only they can provide. It’s an extremely common thing in individuals who experience delusions, and is in fact one of the most common delusions experienced. So although Bob could really be calling out to Nico, I don’t think he is, it doesn’t entirely make sense and there’s lots of little things which point to it being not entirely real- like the fact that nobody else knows about it? Or how absolutely sure Nico is that he need to return to Tartarus? It seems like a mixture of PTSD, delusions, and trauma response (returning to the trauma), working against him. I’ll say delusion is very likely (1).

Using these two factors alone there’s sufficient evidence for diagnosis, but let’s keep going just to see.

For disorganized speech (3) this isn’t something Nico seems to struggle with, and even if he did “derailing” could be ADHD or Autism, so I don’t think this symptom pertains to him.

Changes in behavior (4), seem to all be explainable via depression and/or PTSD- he has begun to express emotion again in Tower of Nero upon learning of Jason’s death he is said to be upset by Will and he walks off to be alone, seems like depression to me. Emotional/Behavior changes from schizophrenia tend to relate more to bipolar disorder rather than a depressive disorder, so I would say if Nico has schizophrenia he probably doesn’t have emotional or behavioral changes from it. If he did he might have some catatonic behavior, but this seems to be clearing up some in Tower of Nero so I’m not super sure on that, maybe during bad periods of psychosis behavioral changes occur, but I would lean more towards this isn’t a symptom Nico personally deals with. Negative symptoms (5) tie into this same idea, it’s possible it’s schizophrenia, but it’s more likely PTSD or depression at work.

So why do I care so much about the possibility of Nico being schizophrenic?

I feel like canonically/fanonically making Nico schizophrenic does a few things, firstly schizophrenic rep in media is extremely extremely awful- can you think off the top of your head of a schizophrenic character who isn't from a horror film/a murder/a villain in their own story? Maybe, but personally I can only think of one which is Charlie from Perks of Being a Wallflower- and even then? That's not canon, it's only implied- and it might not even be true

Schizophrenic media representation always paints schizophrenic people as bad, scary, and evil, and although the horror genre is extremely well known for being super ableist, transphobic, racist, homophobic, and misogynistic (just the final cherry on top) having one of the first- if not the first openly confirmed schizophrenic characters in children's media not only be someone who has lots of character development, and isn't a stereotype, but also be someone people have grown up with, cared for, and sympathized with- would be extremely monumental.

People with schizophrenia and other related disorders aren't something to be scared of or to think of as bad, and often times they're more bothered by whatever they're experiencing than you are.

I don't have schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder or anything like that, but I have various undiagnosed mental health issues which often lead to me questioning reality, or having to set aside time to convince myself that no there isn't a man living in my wall... Having a character have to question those things, work through those feelings, and learn to trust themselves and care for themselves even with those difficulties would be really great to see in media, not just for people with schizophrenia but also for people with similar/related disorders who might share symptoms see parts of their own struggles in a good, educative way.

I have to finish this in two parts because tumblr keeps breaking because there's too many words in my post lmao (2nd part here)

#nico di angelo #pjo #hoo #toa #percy jackson #will solace #solangelo

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whump-town · 4 years

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A Cumbersome and Heavy Body

Chapter Five: They Told Me That The End Is Near

Summary: Stubborn until the very end, Aaron Hotchner isn’t going to go down without a fight. It’s just getting hard to tell the difference between fighting them and fighting the cancer.

Word count: 3195

Author’s Note: I’m about to fuck yall all kinda of ways-- buckle in babies cause shit is GETTING FUCKED

Warning: the subject of this fic is cancer and it’s treatment, cursing, maybe out of character (idk, man. hotch is weird)

Welcome to the final show Hope you're wearing your best clothes You can't bribe the door on your way to the sky You look pretty good down here But you ain't really good

She hates everything about labeling his days as “good” or “bad”-- this stupid emphasis on each thing that he does and how well he can perform it. The doctors will ask how he is, nearly expecting to be told something other than like he’s dying, and that always frustrates her beyond words. She can feel Hotch tense each time, looking to her in his desperate attempt to conjure a lie they will believe. “Good” or “bad” and he wants to say “okay” so that they don’t poke him more. So they don’t stand him up in the room and run their hands down his sides feeling for more swollen nodes and inclinations to infections or whatever other bad nonsense will rear its ugly head.

Mostly, she hates how there are “bad” days and there are days that aren’t gut-wrenchingly horrible but they aren’t “good” either.

Tuesday he’d smiled and sat for three hours with Reid. The genius turned on the sofa to face Hotch in the recliner, rocking himself gently as he spoke about anything and everything on his mind. Emily had watched them for a moment from the kitchen, shocked at the painless ease Hotch was sitting with. Enjoying something close to normalcy as Reid doesn’t look at Hotch and see the sickness overcoming his pale skin. Doesn’t see how tired he is or how weak. He’s just Hotch and they’re sitting in the living room talking about quantum mechanics and then attachment theory and diagnosing schizophrenia.

For three hours there is so much normalcy to their chaotic lives. For three hours there is “good” and for the remaining hours after Reid leaves there is something close to right in the middle. It’s fighting tooth and nail over some supplements he’s supposed to have in this meal replacement that tastes like chalk. She chases the fight with vodka and he locks himself in his office to drink the meal replacement in the sort of isolation that affords him endless frustration with no outward consequence. He ends up sitting in there and hoping she forgives him for being such a pain in the ass. He knows she probably will.

Then he does something stupid, something entirely brought on by impulse.

“You’re a fucking asshole.”

He can’t finish the job on his own, the clippers shaking painfully in his grip. His arm hurts and he can’t stand long enough to get the whole thing even. “It’s falling out, anyway.” He tells himself that it doesn’t matter, that he should be lucky he made it to this age without losing it. He tries not to think about it, mostly. To the way that his father used to smile at him and rustle it just to see the strands sit in all kinds of directions. How Haley would curl against him, arm over his shoulders, and brushing the strands as they talk.

But it’s just… hair. Mostly.

And “good” had melted into bad as Emily stood over him, running the clippers through his remaining hair. She’d cried and he had too but he had the free hands to wipe those tears before she could see them. She’s always the strong one, the least he can do is pretend for a moment.

Standing behind him, she can see every bone in his back. His pale skin stretched over each vertebra, like the hard pressure across knuckles clenched tightly. The plethora of scars in various stages of healing-- several from tubes and wires and tests and others from the childhood he refuses to speak of. A canvas with a story right there for her to see. There are no real secrets between them anymore.

The last bit of hair falls and she looks at what they’ve done. “You’ll have to wear a hat,” she tells him. She steps out of the tub, using his shoulder to balance herself. “I always thought you had a weird-shaped head but now I know.” There’s nothing abnormal about his head, she’s just thinking about how cold he always is. That at least now he’s got an excuse to wear a beanie inside and how he’ll look like a dork with the assortment of color and variations Garcia’s going to knit the second she catches wind of this.

She offers him her hands so that he can stand too and it’s a testament to their proximity that his shirtlessness isn’t strange. She’s watched his skin ease apart under the pressure of a scalpel. Sat beside him on the bathroom floor, head on his shoulder as the night moved on but they both knew he’d be back here all together too soon to get up. The scars are nothing to the vulnerability that he’s shown her.

Standing she… she sees the protrusion of his collarbone. Of the harshness, the invasion of the central line snaking into him. It overcomes her and she pulls him into her. Throwing an arm over one shoulder and around the other, pinning him against her. “I love you,” she whispers turning her face into his neck.

Her warmth seeps into him, in every place that her skin rests against his. The desperation in her tone makes him smile, the way that she holds him. He’s empathetic to her pain but it feels good to be held, to be loved like something someone is terrified to lose. “You know,” he says. “I kind of figured. You’ve stayed around too long for someone who, supposedly, hates me.”

She laughs. How many times had she gone out of her way to mumble “I hate you” at him? For waking her up to make her go back to bed so that she doesn’t spend her whole night on the floor as miserable as him. To have something to say in the face of the scary things that happen, when he squeezes her hand too tight or when he’s that numb calm she knows is no good.

“I do hate you,” she sniffles.

He laughs. An actual laugh. “Good,” he replies, wrapping his arms around her. “Good.”

Wednesday he makes her French Toast with a black beanie pulled down over his ears, one she’d seen only in the winter to stave off the threat of the ear infections the icy fingers of the wind give him. They talk while they eat and it’s a truly monumental thing to be shared between them-- a meal.

There’s something about sitting there and watching him perfect some glorified egg bread that annoys her. Knowing that likely, tomorrow this will be like a slap to the face. A taunt to see him now and then. Today he will the Aaron that she knows. The Aaron that peers over her shoulder while she’s trying to do things, baiting her into pointless arguments with his bad French and even worse German. To the Aaron who walks soundless and who grins when he turns up silently behind her and makes her yelp with a jump.

She watches the ease in which he takes to his french toast bleed away like the color in his face until lunch brings one of those meal replacements and he can’t do it. Then she finds the french toast she thought he’d eaten in the trash where he’d purposely tried to cover it. Knows that next week they’ll find the meal replacements didn’t work and do something else to his poor body. Cut another hole, insert another tube.

She hears him fall that night.

After hearing him laugh loudly over some stupid thing she’d said.

After playfully fighting with him over stealing one of his sweaters-- he has so many it’s not going to kill him to let her borrow one.

After just sitting with him on the couch for hours listening to music and sitting in the dark.

She hears him fall and, worst of all, she hears how hard he tries to cover it up. The sound is not as distinct as it should be with no crash that rattles dishes or a harsh thud. A stumble, really, a softer thump as he leaned into the wall for support but found none.

“Aaron.”

He’s sitting up against the wall, shoulders sunk in and head hanging. When he looks up she sees the blood pouring down his face, the tears pooling at the corner of his eyes. “...can’t stop it.” He coughs, wiping at the blood across his lips. “It won’t stop, Emily.”

She runs to the bathroom, grabbing a wad of toilet paper and not thinking twice about manipulating his face in her hands. One hand holding the back of his head while the other dabs the blood up. “We’re supposed to go to the hospital when this happens,” she reminds him. He’ll need platelets or something invasive but more than likely he’ll be submitted to an hour-long wait in the E.R. to be told it was the right thing to come in but altogether unnecessary.

He groans, not in pain but in the general theme of the awfulness he knows will ensue if she makes the decision they will be going to the hospital. To the cold beds and the wheelchairs.

“Water and bed,” she says, instead of what he’d thought would be her asking where his shoes and coat are. She smirks at him, knowing what he’s thinking and seeing the surprise written across his face. “We’ll tell them Tuesday about it,” she assures him. Tuesday when they’re probably going to tell them he needs to come back in another day. When they see the supplements aren’t working and he’ll probably need something invasive and painful. Then they’ll deal with the nose bleeds popping back (and that cough she’s noticed but has let convince himself she hasn’t noticed).

“Bed,” she says again when the words seem like they haven’t processed.

“Bed,” he repeats thickly, her fingers clamped over his nose thickening the nasally quality of his voice.

They shuffle down the hall, Emily’s fingers curled around his hip and his arm over her shoulder. Heads bent in towards one another. He whispers an apology, feet hardly leaving the ground, and leaning on her a little too much. He imagines the beginning. When he’d laid on his bed, thinking about her and thinking about his father. The way the cancer had eaten his father away and he can see in the mirror, he watches closely and knows the same thing is happening to him.

His father had done what he can’t-- ended it.

It had been Aaron who found him. So strange to see such a violent man seemingly… peaceful. His memory is a patchwork of things, his childhood full of too many greys of undetermined moments, but that sight. Seeing his father’s lifeless body in the high-backed office chair he’d spent so many waking hours in has been unforgettable.

He can’t do that. He won’t make Emily see that or leave that sort of memory for Jack. It’s important to him that it be like this.

“You have to sit up.” She props him up on pillows, ignoring his complaints. The blood has slowed and there’s nearly no point in wiping it away. He just watches her, vacantly staring back as she tucks the blankets around his chest. “Sleep,” she instructs, kissing his forehead. “Do you want me to stay?” He knows she will. She’ll sleep right here beside if he asks but… no. He’ll be okay.

It snows.

He watches it from the only window in his room, she’d pulled the curtains back before she fell asleep. He sees her and her giant shadow with the yellowing light from the street pouring in, eating out the deep consuming darkness looming over him. Until today he’d only ever suspected she was dragging his office chair into his room but he’d never caught her, always waking up after she’d moved the chair back and gone back to her own room. Leaving behind only the three deep dents in the carpet where she’d sat for hours. There had been so many nights he’d spent sitting and watching Jack sleep as a baby-- some irrational fear that the baby would stop breathing in the middle of the night and so long as he was watching Jack would keep breathing. He needn’t ask silly questions, he knows she’s using the same irrational approach.

Clenching his teeth he tries to bite down against a cough breaking out, afraid to wake her some such peaceful slumber. He pulls himself upright, curling down as his temples throb, and his body shakes violently beyond his control. A goal in-sight-- the water on his nightstand and getting Emily back to bed-- he powers through it and overcoming the weakness of his body feels so satisfyingly familiar. To days when there was pain but no cancer and he loves the triumphant that washes over him.

The water is warm and stale, left there by Emily yesterday when she’d forced him to take his medicine (even though he thought he’d throw it back up and he had). It kills the ache of his throat, dry and bitter, and he clears his throat softly to take the rest away.

“Emily,” he whispers. Moving his lips cracks the dried blood on his face he grimaces as he smells the thick scent of the blood. “Emily, get up.” He won’t leave her to sleep in this chair all night. He’s made the mistake plenty of times, knows it’s no good. “Come on,” he touches her arm, palm against her bare skin. She jumps his touch is so cold. “Sorry, sorry--”

She really sees him and jumps even harder. Yelping in shock. “Oh! Oh, God!” She wraps her arms around her chest, breathing quickly, startled. “Fuck Aaron,” she shouts. “You scared the shit out of me!”

He rubs his nose, tries to dislodge the blood.

“Is-- Is something wrong?” She pushes her hair back from her face, “are you okay?”

God. He’s hurt her irreparably, hasn’t he?

“Nothing.” He offers his hand, even if the hand trembles visibly enough in the low light. “Nothing, I promise.” She takes his hand, allowing him to guide her up. “You shouldn’t sleep in that chair,” he informs her softly but still with that distinct fussiness to his voice.

She looks back to the chair and up at him, “I guess I’ve finally been caught.”

He smiles. The first time he’d put two and two together he was angry. Overly frustrated, seething over something so… sweet. She’d sat with him through the night, watching him sleep, just trying to be close and he’d been mad. Not now, though, now he can see how tired he is. He can feel her hand still clutching his. “It’s okay,” he shrugs. “It’s late, let’s go to bed.”

She frowns, brows crinkling as she looks around them in confusion. Sleep riddled brain torn between the rational thought that concludes he’s right, she should go to bed, and the worry she’d felt hours ago about leaving him in this room. She’s not sure what to do now, which thought to travel and act upon.

“Do you--” he looks down at the thrown back covers on his bed. Remembers this wouldn’t be the first time she’s slept in that bed beside him. Likely more than just the memories he can think of now, unprompted. He blushes, embarrassed he even had the thought but she looks down to and nods.

She doesn’t want to leave him alone.

He doesn’t want to be alone.

They start side by side, neither entirely comfortable. She falls back to sleep first. He can feel her breath even back out and within a few minutes she turns over towards him, her hand resting over his wrist. He looks back to his office chair, the giant back of the old thing. She’s so afraid to lose him, they all are. He can feel it in every little thing that they do. How Dave lingers a little more after each visit, hugs him a little longer. The way Derek looks at him, how close he stands. Even in Spencer and Jack who soak up his attention like flowers to the sun. Turning and facing him, finding him wherever he is to enjoy just one more moment. Hanging on to his every word.

He wakes soaked in sweat, shaking as Emily talks to someone rushed, too quickly to sound anything but frantic. Afraid.

He opens his eyes as a sea of red flushes through the room, the shrill of an ambulance breaking up the serene silence the snow has muffled the Earth with.

“Aaron?”

She’d woken to him struggling to breathe. Both had turned over in the night and while she’d turned toward him, he’d turned away from her. Her arm over his hip, her head against his back, they were nearly welded together. If not for the proximity-- his arm pulling hers closer, her leg in-between his, she likely wouldn’t have heard him at all. But she’d felt him jerk in his sleep, fighting his body for air.

And he wouldn’t wake up.

“Aaron?” she calls a second time. She should go open the front door, let the EMTs in but she’d seen a sliver of his eye. His cheek is cold against her palm but she cries, tears streaming when he opens his eyes. When he turns his face into her palm. “There you are,” she beams. His eyes slide back shut. “Stay awake,” she asks, her nerves getting the best of her and she shakes him. Pleased when his eyes open back up and find her. “Stay awake, don’t you want to see the snow?”

The stretcher is cold and he mourns the loss of his thick comforter but the drugs flooding into his blood makes him loose, pliable. He doesn’t fight being taken from his bed, even if he longingly looks back for it. Lets them strap his legs down place an oxygen mask over his face. The snow means nothing to him. He hates it, honestly, but as they step outside, Emily tossing his winter coat of him like a blanket, he looks up at it falling down on him.

Her hand slips away and he looks back for her, confused. She stands in the street, face turned to the fat snowflakes falling around her. All the light coming from street lamps high above her head. He’s reminded of a lifetime ago. When she’d gone against his orders and gone to investigate Michael’s death with a ferocity he hadn’t seen coming. When she’d avoided his eye and said she’d understand if he wanted her badge and gun after that little show. She’d forced his hand, made him call the Vatican, and consider his own allegiances. To when they were two very different people than they are now-- younger, naive… alone.

She catches up to them, slipping her hand back into his. Her fingers freezing cold as they curl around his. “Don’t you love it?” she asks. She looks back out, watching until the doors shut behind them and all she has is a tiny window.

He doesn’t but she does.

She looks young, weightless.

In a way, yes, he does love it.

@laiba-the-person, @emily-hottie-prentiss, @unionjackpillow, @clockedstar, @baumarvel, @blakeprentiss, @qvid-pro-qvo, @aaron-hotchner187, @ssalavellan, @lazyhater

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #aaron hotchner #emily prentiss #david rossi #derek morgan #spencer reid #penelope garcia #jennifer jareau #tw cancer

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mylittleredgirl · 4 years

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the thing is: i’m really attached to my bipolar diagnosis.

a medical diagnosis probably shouldn’t feel like a war medal, but i dragged myself through the trenches of every alternative therapy my loving parents or my young adult self heard might help, and then so many incomplete diagnoses and wrong medications to get here and it feels like i barely made it alive.

there’s a safety in it. it’s one of the “real” ones, the ones that bystanders can’t easily argue out of existence -- bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are the two mental illnesses that basically everyone has heard of and basically everyone agrees require intervention. i like that it scares people a little: “oh, so you’re really crazy,” and they’re thinking about serial killers on tv, but it also means they’re not saying “i used to have a little bipolar disorder in the winter but i got a full-spectrum light and started doing yoga.” that it’s something more than me just not trying hard enough.

(i’m a certified yoga teacher. everyone i know is a yoga teacher. my parents raised me in a yoga cult. “have you tried yoga” is terrible for everyone, i know, but at least once every five years i’ll have someone in my orbit die from a treatable cancer because western medicine is a boogeyman and they really believe they can cure it with crystals and vitamin c. one of my fellow cult babies has CF and while on the transplant list for a double-lung transplant (now successful!), people were constantly telling her she could manage it with diet. so there are degrees of pressure toward alternative therapies to the exclusion of pharmaceuticals, and i spent my childhood feeling besieged by people lovingly trying to get me off my asthma medication by any means necessary.)

(i mean, this therapist isn’t wrong that there’s probably some potential for unusual childhood trauma here. but i firmly believe that there are two things at work here and one of them is chemical.)

i tried to manage this for years through “doing the work.” yoga and meditation and talking through my “trauma,” digging around to try and figure out what terrible things might have happened in repressed memories that would explain me, all the while engaging in para- or suicidal behaviors every october and february and june.

so it triggers a perhaps unwarranted knee-jerk fear and anger in me when a medical professional doubts the possibility of a chemical imbalance that feels justified by the extent of my psychiatric history and the effectiveness of finally for-fucking-finally getting on a mood stabilizer. and it feels much safer to rant about that on the internet than it does to talk about it to a professional who’s using my every word to build a picture of me that can impact my ability to survive my life.

#dear livejournal #my exciting mental health #//none reblogs please #and i know that bipolar disorder is Not Quite Right #because diagnoses are umbrellas over symptoms and not discrete boxes #but it's very disconcerting to unseat that without having some other hypothesis with an action plan there to take its place #also polite request that your response not be 'i'm glad you're getting therapy' because yes #we're all glad i'm getting therapy #but i'm not entirely in the mood to rejoice in it at the moment because therapy is terrible :)#you know what i love? group hospital programs! when other people get to have therapy and i just get to watch

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schizophrenicfordpinesmoved · 3 years

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diagnosed with schizophrenia cuz i was born in late winter

#m's letting me read articles on schizophrenia and language disorders to her and infodump #and this one claims that people born in late winter/early spring are more likely to be schizophrenic

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doubledaybooks · 5 years

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All the books coming this winter/spring...

Ok, folks. It's cold. Time to dive under the covers and hibernate next to a teetering pile of books. Time to kick off that 2020 reading challenge. Time to plant the TBR seeds that will go into the flowers that make up new spring books...or something (I don't know, I'm sleepy). Here we go!

JANUARY 2020

1/14: Zed by Joanna Kavenna: In the not-so-distant future, a global tech corporation has made a perfect world with a perfect algorithm...but what to do about all these messy people?

1/21: The Janes by Louisa Luna: the follow up to Luna's thriller TWO GIRLS DOWN, THE JANES follows private investigators Alice Vega and Max Caplan as they work to identify two Jane Does discovered on the outskirts of San Diego.

FEBRUARY 2020

2/11: The Illness Lesson by Clare Beams: at a newly founded school for girls in 19th century New England, the students are falling mysteriously ill...when a sinister doctor is brought in to treat them, a young teacher must decide how to save her pupils - and herself.

2/25: Soot by Dan Vyleta: the sequel to national bestseller SMOKE, this fantastical story brings readers back into a universe that is "part Dickens, part dystopia, and totally immersive" (Entertainment Weekly).

2/25: The Storm Before the Calm by George Friedman: a master geopolitical forecaster predicts the dramatic upheaval of government, foreign policy, economics and culture in the 2020s.

MARCH 2020

3/3: The Back Roads to March by John Feinstein: a fascinating journey through the unsung, unpublicized, and often unknown heroes of college basketball.

3/3: The Body Double by Emily Beyda: an unnamed young woman is approached and asked to give up her old life and identity to impersonate a reclusive Hollywood star...gritty, glamorous, and seriously deranged.

3/3: The Velvet Rope Economy by Nelson Schwartz: if you've ever been to Disney World, or flown on an airplane, applied to college, or stayed in a hospital...you're familiar with the way an invisible velvet rope divides Americans in every arena of life. This book investigates the toll this velvet rope takes on society.

3/10: Good Citizens Need Not Fear by Maria Reva: A brilliant and bitingly funny collection of stories united around a single crumbling apartment building in Ukraine.

3/17: Child of Light by Madison Smartt Bell: the first and definitive biography of the great postwar American novelist Robert Stone.

3/17: The Dream Universe by David Lindley: A captivating book that asks the question: what happens when science becomes more theoretical and less tangible? Does modern science have more to do with the philosophy of Plato than measurable phenomena?

3/17: The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness by Sarah Ramey: The darkly funny memoir of Sarah Ramey’s years-long battle with a mysterious illness that doctors thought was all in her head—but wasn’t. A revelation and an inspiration for millions of women whose legitimate health complaints are ignored.

3/17: The New Life of Hugo Gardner by Louis Begley: Divorced after decades of comfortable marriage, retired journalist Hugo Gardner sets out to explore paths not travelled in this sharp new comedy of manners.

3/17: The Red Lotus by Chris Bohjalian: an American man vanishes on a rural road in Vietnam, and his girlfriend, an emergency room doctor trained to ask questions, follows a path that leads her home to the very hospital where they met.

3/31: Code Name Helene by Ariel Lawhon: a story about the BADASS "socialite spy" who killed a Nazi with her bare hands and went on to become one of the most decorated women in WWII.

APRIL 2020

4/7: Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker: The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science’s great hope in the quest to understand the disease.

4/14: Bubblegum by Adam Levin: a crazy, hilarious, profound and epic novel that takes place in an alternate-universe Chicagoland suburb where the Internet has never existed. OH, AND THE COVER ACTUALLY SMELLS LIKE BUBBLEGUM.

4/14: Notes From An Apocalypse by Mark O'Connell: absorbing, deeply felt collection of essays about our anxious present tense–and coming to grips with the future.

4/21: What's Left of Me Is Yours by Stephanie Scott: A gripping debut set in modern-day Tokyo and inspired by a true crime, What’s Left of Me Is Yours charts a young woman’s search for the truth about her mother’s life–and her murder.

4/28: Camino Winds by John Grisham: John Grisham returns to Camino Island where mystery and intrigue once again catch up with novelist Mercer Mann, proving that the suspense never rests—even in paradise.

MAY 2020

5/12: The Anthill by Julianne Pachico: A wildly original blend of satire and social horror that follows Lina, a young woman returning to her home country of Colombia after many years away to volunteer at a daycare center called The Anthill. For fans of movies like Get Out and Parasite.

5/12: Flash Crash by Liam Vaughan: The story of a trading prodigy who amassed $70 million from his childhood bedroom–until the US government accused him of helping trigger an unprecedented market collapse.

#spring books #new books #tbr

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storiesthroughsongs-blog · 4 years

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Drops of jupiter

TW: Talk of death

this is a song that I have known for a while now, it's a simple song that for some reason when I first listened to it I really held on to the lyrics without really knowing why. In my head it's about loss, someone who lost a friend that was like family, and this person they lost was always looking for something outside of their bubble. I knew this song in high school, have definitely said it was my favorite song once or twice, but I never had a person in mind for the person who was lost in this song. When I was in college I went iceskating and this song came on, I have to say it was my freshman year, 2015/2016, I listened the the words once again “so tell me did the wind sweep you off your feet, did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day, and head back to the milky way, tell me did venus blow your mind, was it everything you wanted to find and did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there”, and thought of B. My senior year of high school my sister's best friend went missing, 40+ days in the middle of the winter, and he was found dead. I never had my sister without this man, I had never known life without B. I was 17, he was in his 20’s and in the last few years diagnosed with schizophrenia, he was in and out of mental health facilities. My sister had saved his life multiple times, and this was the one time that she did get to. B’s search history on his computer about “how to live of the grid”, he didnt want to be in out hometown around people he grew up with anymore. B wanted to leave and thought that this was the right time, I dont think death was the ultimate goal, I just know that the place he was, his “home” was not the place he wanted to be. So maybe his death gave him what he wanted, a release, maybe he wanted to dance along the light of day, but he left behind a lot of people who cared for him. I had a lot of people around me die growing up, but never someone who I remember as well as B, not someone who was young and a constant in my life like B was. And the part that I hate the most is that I didnt realize how much his presence had an impact on my life until he was gone. I can still hear his laugh, and see his smile. He taught me that people arent permanent, life can be taken faster than you can make memories. And B is a large reason why I am still here today because his life was cut short and what a waste it would be for me not to live when he wasnt given the chance to. The man should have been graduated from college with a degree right now. So I hope he found what he was looking for.

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misterspectacular · 5 years

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SEE (Hannigram fic)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23033302

Summary:

"Will felt himself lose form until he was transparent; a spectre, that only Dr Lecter could see. He lowered his eyes from the ceiling. The blue curtains in his window parted, letting in amber rays that pressed warm kisses to his soul, some of which had the power to ignite him. Each kiss left a burn that read, in perfect cursive writing, I SEE YOU."

Set between S01 E07 (Sorbet) and S01 E08 (Fromage).

Notes:

This is after Will has taken notice of the stag statue in Hannibal's office. This is after he's bared witness to Hannibal's surgical skill. This is after he's returned Hannibal's friendship. This is before Will kissed Alana. This is before he's had the brain scan. This is after Hannibal has smelled the Encephalitis. And before Will knew Abigail killed Nicholas Boyle.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

______________________________________________________________

Will Graham, over the years, had stepped into the office of many psychiatrists, and he'd never liked a single one of them.

He could see them flashing before his mind's eye; all of them different yet somehow nauseatingly similar...

The bright, white light shining through the windows; from the ceiling; from the lamps tucked into the corners... All pointing to him, like flash lights in the hand of a diver looking to explore the dark waters of his mind. No where for the sharks to hide.

The chair he sat in, as icy as the air that surrounded him; freezing him to it like the tongue of a rebellious kid who'd decided to lick a street pole in the middle of Winter. Or the couch, hot enough that he turned to liquid and seeped into the cushion, trapped within the fabric beside another coffee stain.

The smells, so sickly-sweet that the scent of decay would appeal, or chemical enough to be the embalming fluid injected into those that had decayed.

The rooms reeked of intention. SHOW YOURSELF, the lights demanded. STAY PUT, ordered the chair and couch. RELAX, commanded the scents; YOU'RE SAFE HERE, they tried persuading.

Even the plants in the corners all grew mouths and desperately screamed, LET ME SEE YOU.

Will Graham had never been a fan of being seen. He'd never been a fan of seeing, either, but there was no working his way around that one, try as he might. A single word was an autobiography. One glimpse was a biographical film. Most days, he would avoid those windows into the soul. Other days, his own trembling one would reach out, searching for a sturdy hand to hold on to... but his reach was never met. Through those windows and into the house, spelled out on the fridge in alphabet magnets, were the words I WON'T UNDERSTAND YOU.

The doctors had gone to school, they knew mental illness, they'd read books on psychology... but they didn't have experience, not with people like him. Nobody did; even he couldn't find any information on what he was. He was alone. He couldn't tell them that he'd lie awake most nights, living in his mind as somebody else; multiple somebodies... Criminal somebodies, ranging anywhere from burglars to serial killers. He couldn't tell them that each night he'd dream of strangling innocents. Slitting throats, breaking necks. They might say he had a form of Dissociative Identity Disorder. They could say he was suffering from Schizophrenia. Borderline Personality Disorder. Most likely, they'd deem him a Psychopath. He'd be put on medication, he'd lose his job and be sent to a psych ward. He'd live surrounded by the insane, for so many years that it would come to the point that he could no longer differentiate. He'd become as psychotic as the psychiatrists who'd diagnosed him believed him to be.

A glance and they'd see what was lurking through those windows, hiding behind the curtains. They'd see, and they wouldn't understand. No one ever had.

Up until he met a certain doctor.

"I imagine what you see and learn touches everything else in your mind. Your values and decency are present yet shocked at your associations, appalled at your dreams. No forts in the bone arena of your skull for things you love."

______________________________________________________________

One of these things is not like the others One of these things just doesn't belong Can you tell which thing is not like the others By the time I finish my song?

______________________________________________________________

Being in Dr Lecter's office was as comforting to him as being on a boat in still waters. The very air surrounding Will gingerly caressed him rather than shocked or sedated him. The room was in equal parts light and shadow; in lieu of the flash light was a lighthouse that took on the shape of a man. The scents were unique but subtle; refreshing.

There wasn't a plant in this room (at least, not yet), but there were many other things; one of which was a statue; a statue of a stag. It whispered to him, and it told him, I SEE YOU, AND I UNDERSTAND.

Will sat in the comfortable, black leather chair across from Dr Lecter. It was 8:30 in the morning.

Hannibal was still as he observed the dark-haired man before him. Will Graham was looking without seeing out the window while unconsciously rubbing two fingers of his left hand over his chin. His breathing was slightly rapid, shallow. He was exhibiting signs of anxiety... but it wasn't where he was, or who he was with, that created it. Will Graham wasn't present, and the rest of his body was still; the hand gripping the arm of the chair was relaxed. His legs were spread wide apart, open and inviting.

They had exchanged pleasantries, and though Will Graham had started to become comfortable enough to initiate conversation when meeting with Hannibal, to seek his help, to confide in him, this time he was more withdrawn. The circles under his eyes were darker, his lids were heavier, his skin was paler; all of which pointed to a lack of sleep. Hannibal waited patiently.

Will was trapped in an echo; a memory of the dream he'd had the night before. Or at least, what felt like a dream; it could have been his imagination, he wasn't entirely sure. He saw Hobbs in his kitchen, white-eyed and rotting, slitting Abigail's throat. He saw Hobbs on his own front porch beside a barking Winston, white-eyed and rotting, slitting Abigail's throat. Then he saw himself on his porch, bright-eyed and golden-skinned, slitting Abigail's throat. He watched as the blood sprayed from her carotid artery, drenching him in red. He watched as she fell to the ground and bled out, looking up at him with wide, blue, questioning eyes.

Only once Abigail was dead did Will stop reverberating. Slowly, the raging ocean that was his porch became the calm waters that made Dr Lecter's office. Will blinked, eyes scanning his surroundings, before landing on the lighthouse. The light momentarily blinded him. Dr Lecter saw him; Dr Lecter knew. Will quickly shut the windows to his soul.

"Sorry. Uh... didn't sleep well, last night," said Will, breaking the silence; scratching a forehead that did not itch.

Hannibal saw, and he knew Will Graham knew he saw, so leaned back further into his seat, crossed his legs and folded his hands on top of his lap; expressing his lack of discomfort. Relax, he told Will with his body. I see you, and I understand you. You are safe here with me.

Hannibal had a long list of questions in mind; each one to be asked only when the time was right...

"Do you still see him behind closed eyes?" was one of those questions.

Will Graham momentarily froze before lowering his hand to his knee. His brow twitched in mock confusion. Hannibal saw himself in the gesture; Will was so used to hiding that it'd become second nature to feign ignorance.

"Garret Jacob Hobbs," Hannibal clarified; feigning ignorance about Will Graham's feigning of ignorance.

Will's automatic reaction was to snort. It came off as if directed at Dr Lecter, asking him, what do you think? But in fact, it was directed at himself, asking why do I even bother? Dr Lecter had a way of seeing right through him... whether or not Will wanted him to was yet to be decided.

The YES wasn't spoken, but Hannibal didn't need a verbal admission.

"Why do you think that is?" he asked.

Will chewed on his bottom lip before responding, "Shouldn't I be asking you that question?"

"I could tell you what I think," Hannibal started. "But doing so has the potential to reshape your perspective. Speaking aloud what we are thinking can aid us in coming to our own conclusions... and those conclusions may be more accurate."

Hannibal let Will Graham consider that before he continued.

"What are you thinking, Will?"

Will took a deep breath.

"I..." he began, and he felt his face twitch. Stress, he told himself, as he rubbed it with a hand, as if the touch would help to ground, or shield him; either from Dr Lecter or himself. Perhaps both. Perhaps neither.

"I think... doing what I do... Profiling killers. Being the way I am..."

He lowered his hand and gripped the arm of the chair. He watched as the fingers of his left hand twitched. He made them stop by clenching his fist.

"... makes separating..."

He released his grip and looked up at the ceiling; sighing.

"... difficult."

"You profile many killers," said Hannibal. "What makes Garret Jacob Hobbs different?"

Will felt himself lose form until he was transparent; a spectre, that only Dr Lecter could see. He lowered his eyes from the ceiling. The blue curtains in his window parted, letting in amber rays that pressed warm kisses to his soul, some of which had the power to ignite him. Each kiss left a burn that read, in perfect cursive writing, I SEE YOU.

Will saw his own eyes through Dr Lecter's; they responded. I WANT TO BE SEEN.

"... I killed Hobbs," whispered Will, unable to look away. To be seen was... relieving, as much as it was unnerving. He was almost disappointed when Dr Lecter broke the spell by letting his eyes lower to Will's hand. It was then that Will realized he was rubbing the fingernail of his pointer finger over the pad of his thumb, over and over; it was the same finger he used to pull the trigger on Hobbs. The same motion. He tensed his jaw and stopped himself.

"Is that why you have difficulty separating? Because you took his life?" asked Hannibal, looking back into Will Graham's eyes once the motion ceased.

Will met them, close to eager.

"Yes..." he said, softly.

Dr Lecter's head tilted to the side very slightly but he did not so much as blink otherwise.

"But you don't regret it," he replied.

Will Graham laughed; he wished he regretted it.

"No. No... It's not regret that keeps him swimming around in the dark waters of my mind," said Will, pronouncing each word slowly and carefully. Calmly; thoughtfully.

Hannibal's lips were still, but his heart smiled, overcome with glee; this was the Will Graham that hid behind the mask. This was the Will Graham that Hannibal was working hard to rescue; to pull out from the depths of conformity. Here he was, the magnificent beast lurking within, and he was unmistakably beautiful.

Will was the one to break eye-contact, this time. Seeing himself through Dr Lecter's eyes while he confessed to such things was distressing. He didn't see the man he wanted to be; he didn't see the man that he saw through Alana's eyes. He saw a beast; a monster with black antlers, dead eyes and blood dripping down its chin. He looked back up at the ceiling and let out another sigh.

Hannibal sighed along with him, but only inwardly; the monster was back in hiding. Hannibal was disappointed but continued on; he knew it was only temporary.

"Then what is it?" Hannibal asked. Will Graham's blue eyes flitted around the room.

"Fear," he responded.

"What do you fear?"

There was a hesitation; Will looked at the loft above Dr Lecter's head, met his eyes briefly, before looking down at the shoes the doctor wore. They were pristine and perfectly symmetrical; Dr Lecter was an idealist. They were black on the outside, with the slightest bit of salmon peeking out from the underside of the lace guards; Dr Lecter was composed but not immune to excitement. They must have been ridiculously expensive; Dr Lecter had a taste for the finer things in life. He appreciated elegance. He WAS elegant. Graceful. Shoes said a lot about a person. Although, so did anything else.

"Likeness," Will answered at last, unmoving.

"You took his life, just as he had taken many lives, himself," said Dr Lecter; hitting the nail on the head, as usual. Will raised his eyes up from Dr Lecter's costly shoes to his thin leg; 'I'm very careful about what I put into my body.' From his thin leg to his luxurious tie. He let them run across Dr Lecter's full, pink lips. Let them trace his cheekbone, rise up into his hair, sink down over his forehead and rest on those warming, firy mirrors. They showed nothing but understanding. They were encouraging.

"I feel... like he's a part of me."

Will Graham's eyes said many things, but screamed just one; HELP ME. Hannibal would not allow him to go unassisted.

"He is what you consider your own darkness. A darkness you cannot escape," said Hannibal, and he let his brows crease slightly; intended to convey feelings of sympathy.

Will Graham's jaw shifted from side to side. He nodded once, a jerky movement, then he shut his eyes, long and thick lashes fluttering against soft cheeks, as he reached up and rubbed his neck and shoulder. Hannibal watched a moment longer before he spoke; falling through branches of scenarios until he landed on one sturdy enough.

"You carry the weight of your troubles on your shoulders. Your trapezius muscles hold the same tension that is present in your mind," said Hannibal, pausing before he continued. "Releasing that tension can be beneficial."

Hannibal waited for Will Graham's eyes to meet his; the connection would enhance feelings of trust when he said, "I can help you, Will."

Will's quivering soul reached out and was, this time, grasped.

"How?" asked Will.

Dr Lecter leaned forward, palms pressed flat against the arms of the chair and elbows bent, as if he were preparing to get up. He looked at Will with a smile that reached his eyes.

"Shiatsu massage," he said.

Will's brow twitched, his head jerked, and one corner of his mouth turned upward. He laughed a laugh much different than the first; it was almost a question.

When Dr Lecter stood up from the chair in one swift motion, hands running down his suit to flatten the wrinkles, Will lost his smile and his eyes widened. Question answered... but he asked, just for good measure...

"You're not serious, are you?"

He turned in his seat to follow Dr Lecter as the man walked behind him.

"Of course I am," Dr Lecter replied, resting his hands on the back of Will's chair. He smiled, the corners of his eyes wrinkling. Will blinked rapidly; he couldn't hold Dr Lecter's gaze and instead lowered his head to look at the salmon-colored pocket square. It matched the color hidden inside his shoes... was there anything Dr Lecter did that wasn't intentional? Did he do anything spontaneously? Will's lips twitched; alternating between a smile and a frown.

"Ah... not the therapy I was expecting...?" he said, turning back around, if only to keep Dr Lecter from witnessing his discomfort; he imagined his efforts were futile.

"Wellness of the body and wellness of the mind are of equal importance for a happy life," said Dr Lecter.

"Well, in that case, I'm screwed," Will scoffed, eyes widening before he ran his hands over them. The motion said 'I can't believe this is happening'.

"I think fate has other plans for you, Will," said Dr Lecter before hesitating. As Will anticipated contact, a butterfly fluttered wildly within the cage of his ribs. With each beat of wing, a question arose; the same one, over and over. WHY? WHY? WHY?

"This is more effective if done in a lying down position, but it is not entirely necessary," Dr Lecter said, subtly leaning over Will, as if he thought if he were any further away, Will would not have been able to hear him. The butterfly went through reverse-metamorphosis and became a caterpillar; a caterpillar which crawled up Will's oesophagus and made its way to his throat. He swallowed it back down.

"I'll sit," he said, voice hoarse.

As soon as Dr Lecter's hands grasped his trapezoids, Will stiffened, shut his eyes, and nearly choked on his own tongue. Though he knew the hands of a man were on him, he felt something else entirely. The Ravenstag came around the corner, big and black, and nuzzled his hand. It was trying to SHOW him something. Why? What was there to see? What about Dr Lecter had provoked the Ravenstag? What was it trying to tell him?

When Dr Lecter spoke, Will lifted his heavy lids and stared ahead; there the stag statue, behind Dr Lecter's chair, on the pedestal against the wall. That explained it; the statue must have been the last thing he'd seen before shutting his eyes. It had no meaning. Will rubbed his lips together. Fear had become a familiar friend; it came to him and asked him, ARE YOU LOSING YOUR MIND?

"Shiatsu massage is based on the same principles as acupuncture," Dr Lecter informed. "Instead of thin needle, the hands are used. Or more specifically, the fingers. 'Shiatsu' is Japanese for 'finger pressure'."

Will shut his eyes, and this time, he saw Dr Lecter wearing a black kimono; felt Dr Lecter's dichotomous hands on him. They were as firm as they were gentle. Dr Lecter took on the shape of a blue crab as he pinched, adding to Will's agony, and transformed into a raven when he released; flying away and taking all of Will's suffering with him.

"You apply pressure to remove pressure," said Will.

"Yes."

Hannibal went back in time until he saw himself preparing a pair of fresh, healthy, and beautifully pink lungs for consumption. Cassie Boyle. He'd placed her in the middle of a field in Minnesota, fully exposed; nothing to hide. The crime matched the punishment; she was stripped of all decency. Skewered, not unlike a shish kebab, by the antlers on the head of a stag. Three and a half hours from Garet Jacob Hobbs' address, found only because the stag head had been stolen about a mile from the scene. It could have easily been mistaken for a crime committed by Garet Jacob Hobbs; easily mistaken by anyone but Will Graham.

The stag was considered a messenger to the native tribes of North America, and it had delivered the exact messages that Hannibal had intended to. It said SEE ME and SEE HIM simultaneously; this 'copycat killer' - Hannibal - looked at his victims as if they were pigs; Hobbs did not.

Hobbs loved his victims. Hobbs loved women. Young women; daughters. Hobbs consumed them to keep them with him; he couldn't bare separation. He couldn't bare separation from a daughter.

Will saw; he received the message. 'Practically gift-wrapped', he had said, and that's exactly what it was; Hannibal's gift to Will Graham.

Cassie Boyle initially helped to tell Will Graham where Garet Jacob Hobbs resided, and the phone call that warned Hobbs set in motion the first stage of Will Graham's becoming.

Hannibal took a deep breath and exhaled; he disguised it as a sigh, as if massaging Will was taking a lot of effort, but what he was doing was detecting - Encephalitis, to be precise. The sweetness and the heat of it was still present; the scent of it had started to become more potent. Soon, Hannibal would move onto stage two; he would use the Encephalitis to aid Will in his evolution.

It was common for victims of Encephalitis to experience seizures do to abnormal synchronized activity in the brain cells; they were also apt to be photophobic. Hannibal planned to use this to his advantage. He would use flashing light therapy to overwhelm Will's already-overwhelmed brain, inducing seizures, and subject him to psychic driving.

'You're a killer, Will,' he would say. 'You killed Cassie Boyle.'

He needed Will to believe. It wasn't enough for Will to see. He had to become; only then would true understanding manifest.

Once he accepted what he truly was, Will would emerge from the chrysalis as the God he was meant to be; taking the lives he deemed fit to take. It wouldn't be long before he added the finishing touches to the painting of the Chesapeake Ripper, and once he saw it in full, glorious detail, tears of joy would stream down his blood-stained cheeks. He'd see Hannibal, and in Hannibal, he'd see himself.

The broken tea cup that made Will, the broken tea cup that made Hannibal, would join together. Pieces would be left behind, but that mattered not; this new, amalgamated teacup would be superior.

Will and Hannibal, together, would become a whole teacup once again... and Abigail would be the psilocybin mushroom tea that filled it.

And this... this was Hannibal's gift to Will Graham.

"Mild discomfort may be present as pressure is applied... but if you are resilient enough to withstand it, you will emerge a new man."

"Hm," uttered Will, brows raising even with his eyes shut. Behind closed eyes, the Ravenstag returned, so vivid that he could see his and Dr Lecter's reflection in its big, brown eye. Will could feel its breath on his cheek. SEE? it asked, then demanded; SEE. SEE WITHOUT EYES.

Will kept his shut as he said, "Not unlike psychiatry."

Hannibal's smile flatlined while his heart began to chortle. He did not discontinue his massage because he knew, for someone like Will Graham, it would be as good as a confession.

Did Will know?

"Do you feel pressured, Will?" Hannibal tested.

"I feel an astounding amount of pressure, Dr Lecter," Will Graham responded.

Hannibal, unsure as to whether or not Will was being deliberately vague, responded without giving anything away; "How does that make you feel?"

"Like a volcano on the verge of eruption," said Will, and he saw himself, bathed in blood under the light of the full moon.

Synchronously, Hannibal saw Will, bathed in the light of the full moon, blood as black as the night sky coating him from head to foot. He thought, perhaps Will didn't need psychic driving. Perhaps he just needed a nudge in the right direction...

"Volcanoes can be destructive; their eruptions devastating anything within close distance - except for other volcanoes."

"Mhm."

"Eruptions also help to create minerals such as gold, silver and diamonds, create rich agricultural soil, and were responsible for most of Earth's water."

"What are you saying? That I should erupt?"

"I'm saying you shouldn't fear eruption; it might not be as destructive as you think. And... it would release a lot of tension."

Hannibal rested his hands still against Will's trapezius muscles, indicating that he was finished.

"Do you feel like a new man?" he asked, smiling.

"I'm getting there. Thank you," Will replied, keeping his eyes shut even once Dr Lecter removed his hands entirely.

"The pleasure was all mine," said Hannibal Lecter.

______________________________________________________________

Notes:

I have so many things hidden in this story, and I was actually going to point them all out, but I decided against it. I thought it might be more fun to let you find them, yourself.

#hannibal lecter #will graham #hannigram #fanfic #story #see

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