#Its like you poured liquid discomfort and shame into my soul

[bare1ythere]

The funny thing about having problems with self loathing is like. My self hate feels so innate, so inherent to being me, that I don't even know where begin to untangle it as a "mental health problem." If something is me or mine I just will not like it and that's not something that can be fixed

[ethereousdelirious]

Sicktember 2024 Day 4 - "Great. I got a cold for my birthday."

IT'S MY BIRTHDAAAAAY!!!!! That's right, I got the birthday prompt on my birthdaaaay I'm pretty sure that means every fill today is posted in my honor 😌 I'm getting many, many colds for my birthday

It's my OCs againnn I told you to get used to them

Again, this is some sort of vaguely steampunk universe. It's not clear in context so I'll just tell you that the name "Adonis" refers to Sterling (his whole first name is "Sterling Adonis." He has yet to forgive his mother for that).

Night stretched out in all directions, the contours of his room highlighted here and there by the solar lights in the yard. Gilles rolled over and closed his eyes.

Nothing felt right.

The darkness magnified petty slights into vast insults, small shame into soul-shaking humiliation. And his body was not spared the effect— a dry throat became a raging pain with each swallow; a little discomfort became deep muscles aches.

He rolled over again. Face-to-face with the ceiling again. Cold green light made streaks pointing to nothing.

He'd be a mess tomorrow if this kept up.

Gilles closed his eyes again.

—

Every step down the stairs ached to the bones. His eyes yearned to shut, to sleep, and burned with every blink to remind him of all that he'd missed. Worst of all, he'd somehow gotten up late, wrestling with himself as the sun rose higher and higher.

Politeness escaped him as he stepped into the living room. He couldn't force a sound through his dry throat.

“Morning, Gilles!” Hewitt chirped, a brightly-colored bird in the morning air. “Happy birthday.”

“Happy birthday,” Sterling agreed, somewhere off to the side.

Gilles had no free will; his body dragged itself to the couch and dumped him on it. Facedown, limp as a fresh corpse.

“Are you alright?” Sterling asked.

“Sorry…” Gilles groaned into the blackness of a throw pillow. His nose wanted to run. It tickled, chilled when he inhaled. Oh, perfect. Perfect, perfect, perfect.

“I take it you slept well,” Hewitt called.

He must have been at the kitchen island. Sterling had sounded distant as well. Good, good of them not to crowd him.

“Comme un bébé,” Gilles mumbled.

A pause.

“Do you want to take a nap?” Sterling asked. “It's your birthday; you can do whatever you want.”

“No…” Gilles forced himself to sit up. It was his birthday. He couldn't spend it lazing around.

Being upright presented its own sundry unpleasantries, most notably the ache in his back. He was too young to wake up feeling like this. What an injustice.

Hewitt smiled at him, and further away, Sterling lurked like a shadow by the coffee pot.

Gilles hauled himself to the table, too slow to preempt Sterling pouring him a cup of coffee. The sound of the liquid splashing made his skin crawl. When Sterling set the mug on the table, the scrape of the porcelain on wood crept from skull to spine.

“Thank you,” Gilles croaked. Each word cut into his throat. He took a long swallow of the coffee.

Sterling looked at him for a long moment, but it was Hewitt who spoke: “Do you still want to go to breakfast?”

“Uhh…”

“Give him a minute,” Sterling said, but with the gentle lilt of a smile in his voice.

A tickle ran through Gilles’ nose. “Hh'tsch!”

“Good health,” said Hewitt and Sterling in unison.

Tears ran down Gilles cheeks, blurring his view of the dark coffee sloshing in his mug. His sinuses burned. “Hhi'TSCH! IH'TSH!”

Sterling sighed and murmured something, his hand leaving a bright spot of heat as he trailed it across Gilles back. A moment later, a stack of napkins appeared in Gilles’ watery field of view.

“Thank you.” Gilles sniffed and buried his face in one. All that sneezing had only worsened the pressure in his sinuses. How was he supposed to go out like this?

It was Hewitt who finally asked the dreaded question: “Gilles, are you feeling alright?”

“I… Mm…” Gilles raised his head, but he kept his eyes fixed on the table and the napkin held fast under his dripping nose.

“I think,” Sterling said gently, “you got a cold for your birthday.”

“C'est parfait,” Gilles muttered into the napkin. Should he even bother taking medicine? He could drag himself through the day's activities, yes, but at the risk of getting all his friends sick.

He took another long swallow of his coffee to ease the stinging in his throat, to clear some of the intolerable drowsiness from his head.

“Poor Gilles,” Hewitt cooed, a touch of playful mocking coloring his tone. “Why don't you come have a lie down on the couch, hm? I'm sure Adonis is figuring out how to fix everything as we speak.”

“I can… solve my own problems…” Gilles muttered into his coffee.

“It's your birthday,” Hewitt protested. “You don't have to. Come on, let us look after you.”

Gilles ran a hand down his face. He could argue, forcing up weak protests through his sore throat, in pursuit of some murky satisfaction, collapse in his bed and spend his birthday just like he'd spent the previous night.

With a sigh, he picked up his coffee and dragged himself to the couch. “Alright,” he said, glancing between his friends too quickly for either one of them to establish eye contact. “I'm at your mercy.”

“Relax, Gilles.” Hewitt hopped off the kitchen island and placed a hand on Gilles’ shoulder. “It's going to be a good day. We'll make sure of it.”

[ton-e]

okay, so I haven’t written smut before (counting out that Natasha piece lol) soo I’m not entirely sure what to do. So! Let's say that, this happens in the boxing AU where Barnes and Rumlow have just met. Competitors before friends, rivals before equals. 

Now, Rumlow isn't the one to hide behind insecurities. He knows what he is, how he lived, how he'll die.

He isn't a man of honesty, not when he was barely reaching the edges of the kitchen top of his poverty-stricken home, and not when he signed with Pierce when the topic of experience came up. But if you asked him, 'Hey, how old you think you'll be when you die?' He'd answer: 'No older than 14, that's for damn sure.'

He has no fucks to spare, never did in 21 years and he isn't feeling generous now. The world carried all the shame to his name, so why should he bother? He tells himself, no, it's not the oppressing weight of shame holding his tongue back, preventing him from shouting 'I love Bucky Barne's big, beautiful dick, say something to me about it!' 

The fact of the matter is, his mouth may run like a track racer, but he does care about the idiot's image. They're fresh meat on the butcher's shop; Blood is still wet and boiling, having yet to cake on battered skin, camera flashes blind them, and the bell roars in their ears long after the ring empties.

They're dandelions in concrete, and those get ripped fast.

Besides, takes no Einstein to notice the sting in his coach's eye. Mary '' Mayhem ' Carbonelli doesn't like him as far as she can throw him, and it's plenty obvious that if the ref failed to raise Barnes' arm in victory, like an ax above Rumlow's neck, she would've jumped the ropes and finish the job. 

But the need for that vanished, cause Barnes, fast, sudden, devastating, a blur of black and red, made his ass K.O. in the first round. 

A cross punch attacking him cruelly and shamelessly, leaving his jaw shattered and his pride broken. He's not a good sport, because he refuses the glove bump and storms out with a sneer on his lips. The announcer hollers the boxing world has a new limit, and its designation is ''The Winter Soldier ''.

It takes all the reigns of control inside him not to trash his locker. Anger is the perfect fuel for fighting. Rage is even better when fucking. 

'It's not fair, not fair, not fucking fair, ' pulses his mind, an ode to the fire in his soul and a shallow tribute to how robbed he feels. He feels like liquid flame, and he wants Barnes to burn, too.

 He spots only his shadow walking to his locker room, shoulders and backplane wide and shining with sweat. A haughty voice suggests they're the perfect canvas for scratch lines and teeth marks, but a hungrier desire to leave another brand of bruises wins. 

 They clash like bullets firing in twin direction; Barnes with something to prove and Rumlow with wounded pride. He's so much taller, Rumlow licks his lips as he shoves the man for the third time, so much taller, so much bigger, so much better up close.

Rumlow wants to burn in the flame of his eyes. 

'' Back the fuck up, '' the warning tastes different from Barnes' lips. Danger tastes sweet on his mouth. '' Or pick your teeth up from the floor. Your choice.''

'' Make me. Bitch.''

A punch mimics the other, a spit, a push, a slam, and an error makes it that long, slender but firm fingers entangle in his wet hair and pull mercilessly. A moan rushes from his lips before he's able to block it.

 The aggressiveness under Barnes' fist halts, cold shock taking over. Rumlow's belly cooks a cocktail of sensations, - Mortification, astonishment, red hot embarrassment, dulcet pleasure, - some too lighting fast to identify, others not leaving fast enough. Anticipation sets him chained to the trapping spot he's in, mounted on the wall, and caged between two solid forearms. 

' This is it. This the finish line. He'll walk out of here and tell everybody, my manager, my gym, the world, I'll be buried--,''Something in the bright hazel of Barnes' eye both melts and steels; In a turn of events, Rumlow finds himself the only white spot in a world of black.

Barnes' voice has rain pouring in his mouth. '' Get on your knees.''

 He didn't need repetition. 

Time stretches thin before the sun rays paint nightblue gold, showering the mighty buildings of New York City in bejeweled warmth, dripping from sky-piercing tops to the very bottom of every construction announcing a new day to them all.

Rumlow spends the night on his knees, on his back, laid carefully on his stomach, bent over on the wooden bench, limbs wrapped steadily around a trim waist, and bite littered neck. Barnes fucked him as he beat him: Fallen on the floor and wanting more.

 Rumlow is left behind with ruined shorts, a phantom weight threading his scalp with an uncharacteristic gentleness for hands capable of such violence, and a phone number in the palm of his hand.

The abandonment is welcomed, closes paths of awkwardness that may have ensued between them, dropping off any discomfort. His bones feel air-filled, his whole body feels as so; Featherlight on his feet, bathed in toe curly frissons kissing every space of skin they can find.

It feels as pleasant as the cloudy numbness webbing his mind, kneaded with a loving kind of forceful.Barnes is a special kind of lethal, Rumlow concludes.

The man knows how to get him down without even using force, commanding submission through touches light instead of hard, but confident you'll crumble down at his hands every time, and Rumlow will; Because he develops a steadfast addiction to the way Barnes fucks him, holds him, and breaks him just right.

[thefaithlesstheologian]

Astral

        It is much easier to mourn the dead than the living. While losing a friend to a tragic accident or illness is certainly catastrophic there is yet more pain to be had in losing a friend but them still living. Sure with death there is either a long strenuous build up to a cold, harrowing climax or potentially sudden shock, but there is just something about losing somebody on an emotional level rather than a physical one which makes it far worse.

           Perhaps it’s the lack of closure since there is no definitive answer to the question of how they are dealing with the situation or even if they care. Maybe it’s the idea of someone who you spent so much time and energy with carrying on with their lives without you which agonizes the soul. At least in death we tend to release our regrets, our insecurities, our animalistic tendencies that we harbor in life. It is like a cold war that is not easily won and it seems that as long as both people survive it simply carries the embers of what caused the fall out to begin with to continue smoldering.

           Sometimes they suddenly burst into fits of heat that quickly sputter out or worse, linger for days at a time. This feeling is something I know well because I have had to face its consequences…

           I won’t tell you his name or why we tore each other out of our lives, because that is not the important part of this sad tale. What is important is what happened, what cruel machination forged by unextinguished animosity had caused.

           I had just finished another day at school. It had been a fairly typical day with no real consequence except that I felt drained, like the ambition had been physically sucked out of me and deposited in a distant reservoir. The day sighed with a cold discomfort and my mind felt as if it had congealed into physical ooze. I hated that day, with no regard to its actual contents but with regard to its proximity.

           The day before was when tempers flared. The wrong things were said at the wrong time and each of us was pushed to our ends. In the moment it was a surreal thing, like the words we each spoke were not our own, the pure hatred and divisive cruelty in our voices felt like demons had used us as pawns in a cosmic game. Each hiss and violent jab struck me in a post-mortem of grief and regret. I tried to tell myself that things were untenable, that it was neither person’s sole fault but it was easy to use myself as a scapegoat as I always had…

           I walked up the front steps into my home and quickly passed into my bedroom all the while ignoring my family who tried to angle me with concern. I closed the door harshly, making a distinctive hard thud which dictated to the rest of the world that I did not want to be disturbed.

           I tried to distract myself that afternoon, playing games on my computer or getting an early start on my homework. However the voices of my conscience screamed at every attempt to drown them out to the point where it felt like I was trying to drown an unwanted infant.

           Tired, cold, and alone with my own madness I decided to lie down on my bed. I pulled a quilt over my face, hiding my shameful struggle from the world or perhaps I were simply just hiding from the truth of the situation. I closed my eyes and smothered my face in the pillow, which reeked with the scent of my own foul odor.

           Soon I slipped into a cold sleep amidst the noxious fumes and a well needed blackness courted my mind. Yet I knew this peace could not last, and soon pictures began to float by my mind. Memories of my friend combined with twisted fears about my future without him. Paranoid thoughts like “Who was next to go” or “Who would take who’s ‘side’” assaulted me as a captive audience to their madness.

           It eventually faded and became replaced with something else. It was a dream more vivid than the last parade of horrors.

           I awoke to the moist scent of a sleeping forest. My eyes popped open revealing me to be at rest among the trunks of the many pine and oak trees that decorated my hometown. I quickly stood up, confused by the strangeness of my surroundings. I wore clothes which were not my own, in the form of a long sandy trench coat and noticed as I stepped I wore thick boots almost like that of a soldiers due to their hefty build.

           Something seemed to allure me, a certain instinctual feeling which pulled me through the forest. I followed it, not entirely at my own will until along an overgrown path I found a small wooden crate buried in the underbrush.

           I cast aside the clumps of moss and severed branches that had been obscuring its presence and lifted up the weathered lid carefully. Inside were only two items, one of those rectangular red gasoline containers made out of a thick plastic, filled to its brim and next to it was a small book of matches.

           I took both, tucking the matches into one of my coat’s various pockets and hefted the jug of fuel along my side, hobbling along a predestined path with no agency of my own.

           I stumbled through the woods for a short while until the trees began to part and in the distance I could see a familiar place. A two story house, with peaked roofs sat prominently amongst the trees, stretching towards the clear night sky. The dusk coated the house in a cloak of darkness, warping its pale yellow paint into a mystical hue.

           With the stars and the winking moon as my only witnesses I marched towards the back porch of the house with unbreakable purpose. The grass crunched underneath my meet as I walked and in my path I caught sight of something.

           A makeshift cross posted above a pile of disturbed soil marked one of the many reasons I hated the house’s residence. On its face was the name “Rex” carved into its face. Four years old and killed by negligence, the poor creature simply symbolized everything I hated about the swollen and arrogant yuppies that slept so peacefully in their illustrious home.

           I marched up their porch, making sure to take light steps so as not to alert anybody to my presence. I put my hand on the back door and to my surprise it slid open. Whether that was a convenience of a dream or simply their shoddy sense of overconfidence I could not tell, but regardless I walked in easily.

           Inside was a large dining room, where a finely polished oval table sat with four chairs at each distant end. A finely embroidered rug with a fanciful pattern lined the floor and above a crystalline chandelier loomed peacefully. A pungent odor filled my nostrils; it was a fake, fruity scent which always overpowered me whenever I entered this place. I took shallow breaths to minimize its noxious odor so that I could carry out my purpose, whatever it was.

           From here I began my deadly crusade, pouring the jug of fuel in a row, soaking the carpet around my entrance. The perfume was quickly overwhelmed by the raw and strangely pleasing scent of the flammable liquid. I poured it over the table and then moved on to the next room, their living room. It was another plush room full of soft, clean, albeit not of their own efforts, furniture that lacked any proper blemish. There I doused the front door with noxious fluids.

           A stairwell ran up to the next floor, which I happily walked up and then back down, leaving a slimy stream in my wake. Sinister delight welled in my chest as I conducted my wicked dance. Once done, I had used the last of my gas on the stairs, and hoped that my efforts were sufficient.

           I reached into my pocket and grabbed the match book. Suddenly I heard a door, followed by encroaching footsteps. I flipped open the tool and pulled off a match. I saw something shifting atop the stairs, and I readied myself to ignite the wicked steps.

           As I was about to strike the figure came into view. It was an effigy so familiar, a plump figure with a receding hairline that carried himself with a tactless sense of worth. His sunken in eyes looked down at me wearily through the shadows.

           “Jay?” his voice muttered as I quickly struck the match alight and threw it at him.

           A dragon’s breath launched up the stairs as well as catching the carpet alight jumping to each pool I created. The figure of my old friend was suddenly emblazoned in vengeful orange, seemingly unaware of his fate, being swallowed by flame and anger.

           As the flames formed around me, closing in like infernal walls I snapped awake, my heart racing and a clammy sensation coating my skin. I took a couple deep breaths as I awoke slowly, realizing that it was just a dream.

           As I gained lucidness I looked at my phone uneasily, it was about seven o’clock. The dream woke me up so much so I doubted I would fall back asleep, besides another school day awaited. I slipped out into the dining room on my way to shower and noticed that my mother had left the television on, as she frequently did. I went to turn it off, but caught a jarring image in the news.

           On the screen was the image of a familiar lot where a familiar house once stood. It was replaced by a smoldering pile of ash and char as the image of first responders prodding around it played on the screen. My heart paused and I was frozen in that moment. The news said it was an accident. It said there was a gas line that exploded. It said there was no sign of arson or foul play, only a tragic accident.

           It was uncanny given my dream which perhaps a nightmare or some sort of premonition. A wicked mixture of elation, pleasure and guilt swirled in my head. I felt pain as I stared, even after the news moved to another story, for on some cosmic level I felt like I caused this. After all a part of me wanted this, it must have, otherwise why would I dream of it? And after all, I was an easy scapegoat.

           Was my nightmare actually a dream? In the coming weeks I felt the vice of grief pass me by, and finally, I was able to function as normal again. Occasional embers would reignite, memories of our friendship and of that tragic night, but they would be snuffed out as quickly as they occurred unlike before. I could live once more with certainty, without distraction. It is as I said; it is much easier to mourn the dead than the living. Or perhaps I am just deluded.