#Trigger; emotional abuse

[neon-candies]

Happy Halloween!

Warnings for: Child abuse, emotional abuse, unhealthy relationship

Angel probably has this nightmare frequently after Annie was "born". And he probably tried to avoid talking about it at first. But it gets to a point where he can't even hide his fears and concerns. However that's a conversation for another time.

[dianagj-art]

This idea got out of hand way too quickly but I have no regrets<3

Isn't it fun to think that with all the crossovers One would actually have a support system of friends that care about him?

Coin Toss Michael by @gemini-forest

Bonus!

[klausysworld]

Hello gorgeous!

Sooo I had this idea of Klaus and reader being married (she wants a divorce) but currently separated. She starts seeing Damon. Klaus lets her have her way for a bit as nothing has crossed the line, but then he finds out reader slept with Damon and Klaus goes absolutely feral over it and tells his wife that’s enough of this and drags back reader home and slides her wedding ring back on her finger.

Not His, Not Yours.

Klaus and I had slowly but surely grown apart.

We had married for decades for now, just over a century actually and to begin with it was all but a dream.

He had hundreds of thousands of gifts and words to express his love. Paintings and poems to show how pure his feelings were.

He was gentle when I needed and only ever rough when I wanted when him to be.

There wasn’t a question of doubt between us both. I loved him with all of my heart and he loved me with all of his soul. So much so that he actually proposed to me. Elijah and Rebekah couldn’t believe it but were unbelievably supportive. I even turned into a vampire so that I could be with him forever.

And for a nearly eighty years, everything was okay.

Of course the gifts were less frequent but I didn’t care about that so much. Not if I still had him. Even if he forgot to tell me he loved me, I didn’t need him to, deep down I knew that he did.

One thing I didn’t like, was when he would get flirty with other women. Especially because of how he behaved when I, heaven forbid, smiled at a man.

But still, with reassurance from his siblings and Elijah’s promise to talk to Klaus about it, I dropped it and didn’t speak of it. So he flirted, it didn’t mean anything. What’s a kiss when I have his heart?

Surprisingly Klaus never slept with anyone else. I suppose it’s unfair to say surprisingly but to be honest I had feared and expected him to have from time to time.

Especially when he became more distant. When he would disappear or return in the early hours of the morning. I would beg to know where he was and after a series of repeated yelling, he would grab me and show me his memories of the night before. Often he just got drunk and would pass out somewhere random or wonder around for inspiration, sometimes he’d attack a village and slaughter hundreds in mere hours. When finished showing me, he would give me that same look and tell me that I shouldn’t look so surprised. He may love me, but he wouldn’t ever be better for me.

And I would just nod and told him I already knew that.

And I’d wait for the next time that would happen.

We went days between sex, then weeks, gradually months and eventually we just didn’t. We slept beside each other mostly out of habit but we wouldn’t touch.

I never stopped loving him, I don’t think I ever could but I wasn’t sure if I loved him the same way anymore. And I certainly didn’t think he loved me that way. But we weren’t exactly friends either. It were as though we were just strangers at this point, strangers who held each others hearts.

And I had accepted that perhaps that’s all we would be. We lived that way for a couple of years, I’d stay with him like a shadow but that’s all I would be.

Until Mystic Falls.

So much happened in not enough time. Klaus became his true self and for some reason part of me thought perhaps that would rekindle something but he showed no more nor less interest so I just went on.

Until one day, his eyes held a spark. But it wasn’t for me. It was for Caroline Forbes.

She was blonde, young and new to vampirism but still bold and confident in herself. I was like that once, before I grew quiet and obedient to Klaus’s will.

So I took another step back and let him chase her a little. I sort of wanted him to sleep with her so that maybe he would just divorce me and I would know that what we had was really over.

But he didn’t. He gave her a present, drawings and spoke poetry to her without her realising but he didn’t kiss her or even lean in.

He still would come back to bed and lay beside me like usual.

I didn’t want him to think I would hate him if he fell for someone else. I’d rather he be happy with another than miserable with me. I knew he craved more, so did I.

And so with a lot of courage, I asked for a divorce but he refused me. That I didn’t understand.

“Why?” I asked, my brows pulling together as he scowled

“Because you’re my wife” he answered as though that meant anything anymore “I have loved you for a century. I will not just be done with you”

“Loved, Klaus. Loved. It’s in the past.” I argued

“I love you now as much as I did then” he told me, his voice raising

“No Klaus…you don’t” I whispered, my eyes glancing to the floor as I let out a small sigh. This was probably one of the reasons he liked Caroline more. I showed weakness and submission too easily to him. The difference was that I knew he wouldn’t kill me if I fought back but I feared it would be worse.

“We’re not getting a divorce. Ever.” He stated calmly, though I could feel his anger.

“I can’t do this Klaus” I mumbled. “I can’t just be known and your wife and hide in the house all the time”

“Then go out” he grumbled

“You don’t let me” I answered, remembering the last time I went out without telling him and he yelled at me for being inconsiderate and stupid. Apparently it wasn’t safe for me without his protection due to being so intimately associated with him.

“Well…now you can” he replied matter of factly.

“You should ask Caroline out” I whispered “She likes you too, Rebekah heard her talking to Bonnie about you”

“I wouldn’t-“

“But maybe you should” I sighed, hesitantly looking him in the eye once again. “You should at least try…you might like to be with someone…” I paused and swallowed dryly “someone else”

“Are you seeing…someone else?” He asked quietly, his eyes flicking between mine.

“No…not yet” I whispered and he nodded

“But?”

“But I think I should” I murmured before falling back into silence.

We stood there for a while, uncomfortable and guilt ridden before his phone went and he reluctantly left.

He didn’t come to bed that night.

To me that seemed like his way of confirming that we wouldn’t be together anymore, or for a while at least.

When I saw he had made up a bed in one of the guest rooms, it was clear that was the case.

So I started to go out a little.

When I saw Klaus with Caroline at the grill, I realised I needed to leave. Leave town, his life so that I didn’t ruin his chances.

But as fate would have it, when I rushed out of the building, I walked straight into Damon Salvatore. He recognised me in an instant and was grinning like a Cheshire Cat.

“What’s Klaus’s wife doing out and about?” He snickered and I sighed

“I’m not” I mumbled and he raised a brow

“Not what? Not his wife or not out?”

“I’m going home” I whispered, walking outside but he followed.

“Oh come on, I didn’t mean to scare you off so quick” he chuckled and I rolled my eyes

“Please. You couldn’t scare me” I muttered “have you seen who I’m supposed to be married to?”

“Supposed to be eh? Things not turning out?” He pressed, walking backwards beside me as I made my way back to the mansion.

“My marriage falling apart won’t benefit your precious Elena. It’s been broken for years.” I grumbled, and he rolled his eyes

“Forgive me for being curious” he muttered, his annoyance shining making my heart sink. I didn’t like it when people were rude and now I was the one doing it.

“Sorry” I whispered “I didn’t mean to sound so snappy”

I could feel his eyes on me as we neared the manner and before I could get it the door, his hand reached for mine which however pathetic it may seem, made my smile. Nobody had touched my skin for months.

“You should come out more, I’d like to talk with you some more” he told me and I faltered

“I wouldn’t tell you anything- not about him”

“I didn’t think you would” he answered, before leaving.

After that I went out a little more.

Damon would tease me and make me laugh. He would draw out the little confidence I had left and have me use it. I’d taunt back at him and go so far as to flirt once I’d had a few drinks.

After a while he asked to take me out. I thought he was joking.

“Oh will Elena be joining us? Perhaps Stefan to?” I laughed but he didn’t even smile

“I’m serious” he stated, his hand squeezing mine “just us…anywhere you want”

I stared at him “I um…I don’t know” I whispered, nervous and confused.

“I can wait” he answered as he caressed my arm softly.

When I got home Klaus was already there, his eyes on me in an instant. Without a word he placed his wedding band on the table before him and walked out the room. I felt a lump form in my throat as I shakily slid both my wedding and engagement rings off and put them beside his.

I went upstairs and cried. And I felt stupid for it because I was the one who asked for this.

So after a moment I pulled myself together and grabbed my phone. I took a breath before sending Damon a message

I like the Italian the next town over?

He replied quickly

Friday, 7?

I’ll meet you there

I’ll see you soon

I swallowed thickly and closed my messages before searching for apartments near me to rent.

If Klaus and I were actually ending this then I wanted to do it right. That meant I needed to live without him fully, so I sent in some applications to a couple of places.

Before any of them could come back, my date with Damon came around.

It went surprisingly well. We ate, spoke, joked and laughed. He paid, insistent that I shouldn’t. He then drove me back to the mansion and kissed me goodbye.

I refused to look anywhere near Klaus when I went up the stairs. He never said anything either, we spoke only if we absolutely had to and on the occasion that Damon and I would see Klaus out, we would instead go to his house for a while.

I spent a lot of time with Damon, he made me feel more alive. He brought back the spark in me that I thought I had lost and built my confidence back up. He made me feel more things in a couple months than Klaus had in the past fifteen years.

I knew it was wrong to compare them, but when all I had ever known was Klaus…he was all I had to know how a relationship worked to be able to tell if what I had with Damon was really something.

It progressed quickly, it scared me somewhat. I worried that it was a trap to make me help him with everyone else. However when I heard him defending me to both Elena and Stefan, I double guessed myself.

Slowly I felt myself begin to trust Damon, I felt as though I was learning to love and desire once more.

It was because of that feeling that I didn’t stop him when he began to take my clothes off. Or when he trailed his lips down my skin and pressed his mouth between my legs. I cried out for him when his fingers curled inside me and I clung to him when he finally took me as his own.

I stayed beside him for the rest of the night, pressed to his chest with his arms around me. It was a warmth that I wasn’t used to anymore but that I needed and yearned for. I stayed at his house for days after, wearing his clothes and living in his arms. But unfortunately I knew that I couldn’t just move in there so soon, so I had to go back to the mansion.

————————————————————————

(3rd person)

Klaus found out that Y/n had slept with Damon the day after it happened. Stefan had told him so when in the heat of an argument.

To begin with he thought the Salvatore was just trying to piss him off but when Stefan’s face dropped and his heart sped up, Klaus realised it was true.

Immediately he went home and smashed every item in her room. Shredded her clothes and tore up every flower Damon had gifted her and the little photos she had printed of them. It was after he broke apart her bed and found the box of forgotten memories did he calm down. He found all the poems and pieces of artwork he had ever given her, love letters and other tokens of their love kept safe and close to her. It broke him.

Klaus never meant for their marriage to deteriorate so badly. He loved Y/n, truly. But throughout the years he got distracted. Whenever his family got to town, his focus was off her and whenever a threat showed up he made a point of being distanced from her to ensure they wouldn’t attack her. After the first few times he’d done that, she got upset and wouldn’t want to kiss him, not when he would go weeks of ignoring her and then expecting her affection.

So he began to drink some more, to forget her touch and her voice for just a moment. But it made everything worse. She began to worry he was cheating on her and to be honest he couldn’t blame her for thinking that but in the moment when she would accuse him, he would be outraged.

He couldn’t stop himself from yelling, being offended and snapping. But after, when he would hear her cries and see her curled up in their bed, he would push himself further away in hopes that he wouldn’t be able to hurt her as much from a distance.

It only got worse.

And now he was on the floor of a room that was once his aswell, crying for his marriage that would no longer last.

Eventually he dragged himself up from the floor and went back to his own room, or rather the spare room that he had been sleeping in. He dug through his drawers to find their rings that he took after they both removed them and put his wedding band back on, smiling sadly at the fond memories of the first time she had put it on him.

He held her rings in his hand tightly as he heard the front door open and closed quietly before soft footsteps sounded up the stairs.

————————————————————————

(1st person)

I moved as quickly but as quietly as I could up to my room. I was in jeans and one of Damons shirts so I really couldn’t let Klaus see me.

Hurriedly I opened my bedroom door only to come to a standstill. Quite literally everything was on the floor. If I didn’t know what Klaus was like, I’d have thought a hurricane had passed through the room. I stared blankly for a moment before I both heard and sensed his presence from beside me.

“What did you do?” I whisper, staring at all the little things that meant so much to me scattered and broken into pieces.

“I don’t want you seeing him” he told me, his voice firm. My head snapped to his and I felt both anger and sadness swirl inside me.

“You ruined everything I have” I uttered, my voice still barely above a whisper

“You slept with him” he stated his tone cold but his eyes showed hurt and I part of em felt guilt but the other side just wanted to smack him.

“And?” I asked, my volume increasing slightly

“And? And you’re mine. You do not get to sleep around-“

“For crying out loud Klaus! I am not yours!” I yell, pointing my finger at him “And I do not sleep around! I slept with one person”

“I should have stopped you seeing him ages ago, this shouldn’t have happened” he muttered

“You can’t control every aspect of my life Klaus. We are not together anymore. We agreed on this” i whispered, my tone tired.

“We have not agreed on anything! I never wanted this-“

“Klaus we haven’t agreed on something for a good twenty years! It’s why we’re here” I exasperated

“That does not give you the excuse to fuck someone else” he growled and I glared

“Why? Did you plan on fucking me? Because I highly doubt it Klaus. And even if you wanted to, I wouldn’t have your hands anywhere near me now” I retorted.

I knew immediately that he would speed at me and so moved out of the way, he continued to chase me round the house until eventually he had me against the wall. Both of us were panting heavily, my hands pushing at his chest but he kept me caged.

“Get off me!” I cried, kicking my feet at his legs but he only grunted and held me as still as he could. I shoved at his chest with as much strength as I could but it was obvious that I couldn’t overpower a hybrid. He faltered only slightly at the impact before his hands were grabbing my waist to lift me. Without thinking I brought my hand to his face, smacking him as hard as I could manage.

His head cracked to the side and my eyes went wide. Slowly, he turned back to me. His expression was one of surprise as he stared at me. I felt myself grow meek under his gaze and my bottom lip wobbled.

“I’m sorry” I whispered “I didn’t mean to do that- I didn’t…” I felt his hold on me weaken but I didn’t move this time. My hand tingled from where I’d hit him and so did the guilt that pooled in the pit of my stomach.

His arms slipped around me, hugging me to him and I just didn’t know how to react.

I love Klaus. I do, I always will. But I couldn’t just pretend that every bad thing hadn’t happened and fall back into his arms. I wondered if in Klaus’s mind, if he thought that just sleeping with me and telling me that he found me pretty would be enough to fix this marriage. I knew it wasn’t but I worried for what he thought.

Still, I hugged him back gently. By touch reluctant but there. His warmth enveloped me and I felt my eyes water at the once familiar sensation.

“I missed you so dearly” he mumbled, his face lowering to nuzzle the crook of my neck. He pulled away slowly and grabbed my left hand, I looked to him blankly as he slid both rings back onto my finger. “I’m gonna fix everything” he whispered

“Klaus-“ I sighed

“Just let me try” he murmured

“I-“

“Please” he whispered and I sighed softly. Only the lords know whether I was going to make the right decision or not.

[howlsofbloodhounds]

special brand of torture where nightmare encourages his sans-classic henchmen horror and dust to teach Killer how to “feel again” (everyone knows that’s not the real purpose) only that is dangerous in this environment and they do it by reintroducing stuff from the past that could be comforting for them but not Killer so even “small” things like trying to drink ketchup or stargaze or talk about papyrus too much triggers him so badly and frequently he often wanders around dissociated to avoid being triggered into stage 1 and then it finally happens the straw finally breaks the camels back and the meltdown almost results in his death send tweet

[paingoes]

Aegean Seas

Destroyer AU

long awaited roleswap AU. featuring royal delta and (defective!) living weapon paris

delta still has some psychic ability in this AU, but only a moderate amount. its nothing to write home about.

paris doesn’t have any powers, just an incredible capacity for violence. 

(Content: living weapon whumpee, royal whumper, carewhumper vibes, institutionalized slavery, blood, biting, choking, electrocution, choking, suggestive language, background lady whump, clowns, hidden injury, past abuse, past trauma, PTSD triggers, emotional whump, scars, body image issues, war mention, alcohol, non-con touching (nonsexual), conditioning, magical exhaustion, seizure, kinda fluffy?)

“You don’t have to look so upset about it.” Delta twirling the pearl earring around within the pierced fin. The golden bangles of his wrist clicked together lightly at the motion — and all the silver and sea-glass ornaments he wore jingled in time with the movement of the airship. He hadn’t been looking at Paris when he said it, and they were not the only ones in the cabin, but he understood it was meant for him.

“I’m not upset,” Paris said. At least, not as much as he could’ve been. 

Far below, the cerulean sea reflected the sun so that the water itself was blinding. Foam was gathering along the coast — a sure sign of rough waters. On the horizon, the embassy building jutted out from the cape.

~

The ship lowered itself in a hover just by the surface of the beach. Paris slid the exterior door open. He hopped the remaining few feet onto the sand right before the craft finally landed. By way of reflex, he extended one hand back to Delta, who took it without thanks as he stepped down.

The other members of the court soon followed, a handful of advisors and scribes sent to keep the time. With a home advantage, all support had been reduced to a skeleton crew. Paris shifted carefully in between them, eventually settling a few steps behind Delta and a bit off to the right, which he knew was the best sightline he’d get without drawing too much attention to himself.

The path up to the embassy was lined with basalt — and a pretty long walk uphill, considering how many of its visitors were geriatric. At the peak, he again pulled the entrance doors open, taking a cautious look in through the entryway. He felt the familiar weight of the blade tucked up into his sleeve, though he had no real expectation of using it. He held the door open for Delta alone, but deigned to let the rest of the congregation pass through in the same way. He stole a last glance out at the countryside before he pulled the door shut tight.

At the front, Delta’s eyes flitted up in the same clouded concentration he always fell into before the meetings. He refused to take notes, so dedicated to committing absolutely everything to memory. He played all the information back like rolls of film. He waved vaguely at the prompting of his advisors, but it was clear he was somewhere else. 

He only came to when they reached the center. It was a large room, polished, and most everything in it was the soft color of sandalwood. The painted monarch sat perched within the straight-backed chair. His own court spread out in a half-moon around him, all their papers all ready to go. Paris only caught a glimpse of them through the doorway, but the glimpse alone was enough to make him spiteful.

“Watch the entrance,” Delta whispered to him just before they passed through the entryway. Paris nodded and stepped off to the side of the door. 

Soon he was alone in the large hallway. The building was old and its halls were echoing, though not quite as bad as the castle. He leaned back against the wall, wishing he’d brought the cigarettes with him. He passed the butterfly knife idly in between his hands, having no better way to occupy the time. He’d gotten good enough at it that he didn’t even need to look while he did. His eyes still scanned the corridors in the way they’d been trained, sizing up each impotent official or underpaid clerk whose heels tapped down the linoleum tiles. There was no real threat. Nothing ever happened.

The jingling bells warned of her approach before she came into view. He sighed, slipped the knife back into hiding. Jo popped out from the doorway. She was quicker than he would’ve thought, skipping out a few paces before she even turned to see him. When she did, her painted face contorted into an express of unadulterated mirth. She giggled — and the bells of her hat jingled again as she flipped over to stand on her head.

“I was wondering where they were keeping you this time.” Her voice was raised in faux cheeriness. 

Paris watched her carefully — he couldn’t not. The rapid movements set all his nerves on edge. He was sure she knew that. He was sure it was why she did it. He didn’t answer.

She rolled over into a backbend and let her hands guide her up. When she was upright, she was not more than a few inches from his face. She was shorter than him, the difference exaggerated by the heels of his boots and the flatness of her stupid pointy shoes. She rose up on tiptoes to meet his eyes. He could see the glitter against her sclera. 

“No dogs in the house of law, eh?” She stretched one leg up over her head. Her movements continued so fluid and so completely uninfluenced by anything she was saying, as if they were completely different hemispheres of her brain.

“I heard that when the neophytes drop out, they give ‘em a new name and put ‘em out on the street. Painted silver! They spend the rest of their days doing tricks for spare change. Is that true?”

No one ever dropped out. He didn’t answer. She did a back walkover, her speech uninterrupted.

“Or I heard what they’re really doing now is selling all the new grads to Crimson’s West Front,” she paused for dramatic effect, “There’s a famine there, you know. They need new meat!”

She cackled. He stiffened slightly, because that part was probably true. Even if they weren’t getting eaten, a lot of the kids did get bought out for the war effort, and were given no arms when they arrived. They were getting pushed into the meat grinder, literally or figuratively.

She seemed disappointed with his lack of outward reaction. As she rolled onto the floor again, she laid there on her stomach for a second, kicking her legs back and forth.

“You don’t have to worry about that though. I bet he’s nice to you,” She grinned impishly, pushing herself up into another handstand. “I hear he’s nice to everyone.”

She erupted into a laughing fit at that. His eye twitched. He felt the weight of the blade in his sleeve. She looked over to see his expression and her smile widened. She cartwheeled towards him, again landing only inches apart from him.

“People on High Street got a name for him. What was it again? The something wonder? You’ve heard it before, right? You had to. You spend enough time with that whore to-“

He threw her into the ground before she could finish, the last synapse snapping within him. 

The sudden violence got a forced, clipped laugh from her. She did a back roll before he could strike again, sitting up on her knees before she swept one of his legs out. He dropped, but it didn’t slow him down. Nothing could have. He still drove his fist full force into her jaw, once, twice, about as many times as it would take to break it off. 

She didn’t let him get that far. Jo was stronger than she looked and just as quick as he was. She was not downed easily. When he pinned her, she slipped. When her nails reached up to scratch out his eyes, he bit down upon her fingers hard enough to break them. Her blood gushed into his mouth. It was familiar. He didn’t even stop to spit it out.

She elbowed him in the face at the same time she drove her knee up into his stomach — all sharp angles. It was hard enough to knock him off of her and onto his side. Blood poured from his nose. It splattered on the floor right beside her own. She crawled forward on her bloodied fingers, trying to get even. He forced himself back upwards, lunging at her again. He became vaguely aware of a commotion behind him.

“Stop,” Delta said tiredly.

Paris did not stop. No fucking chance. Not now. She was still moving, still breathing, still fucking laughing. His hands closed around the undulations of her throat. 

“Stop,” Delta repeated.

Blood dripped thick and hot from the both of them. Johanna twisted beneath him, her eyes shining like stars. He wanted them barren. He wanted her to stop moving.

“Stop,” Delta said it with no more emphasis than the first two times, but he’d closed the distance between them now. The prongs of the choke collar dug into Paris’s neck, cutting off his oxygen. 

He backed up on his knees, leaning backwards into the touch, the only way he could loosen the chain. But for all the slack the proximity created, Delta only pulled it higher, tighter. No air reached him, even when he’d stopped, even when he had stilled. It kept going. The panic gripped him immediately, tempered only by experienced. Delta wouldn’t kill him. He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, and as soon as he started to think that he would, the chain released. Paris gasped shakily, collapsed down onto his hands and knees. One hand pawed desperately at his throat. Small beads of blood had formed there in the collar’s outline.

He felt the pressure of the chain being picked up and winced, but it did not tighten again.

“Sorry about him.” Delta frowned. “And…sorry about your…clown.”

“Oh, don’t worry about her. She’s had worse.”

And sure enough, Jo sat up again, the wounds he’d given her already half-healed. Her stupid fucking hat jingled as she shook her head clear. The sound was enough to re-trigger the prey drive. He lunged.

Sharp and course electricity ran straight through his body, aborting the attack before it could even begin. All his muscles locked up. He’d built up a tolerance for the dryer sparks, but being tased was rare. It was a different story. He knew the shock only lasted a few seconds, but those seconds dragged out like years. Delta didn’t even say anything, the tips of his fingers retreating from the raw skin of his neck. 

“Here girl,” the monarch snapped their fingers. 

The clown stood up in her wet clothes, skipping happily back into the employ. Paris kept his eyes trained on the empty space in front of him, the blood spots on the floor. He heard their footsteps retreating. The hallway was silent. One of Delta’s fingers was still hooked around the circle of his collar.

“Clean it up,” he said. Paris nodded. The chain went slack and he was alone in the hall once again.

~

“She started it-“

“She is a jester,” Delta cut him off. “She was doing her job. If she didn’t have that healing factor, you would have killed her.”

His eye twitched. Killed her. Kill her. It flared up within him again, without any target. He dug his nails into his wrist to keep from something worse. The anger burning so hot inside of him he thought he might just be sick from it. She’d done it on purpose. She’d got him on purpose, but it shouldn’t have worked. 

“You weren’t there,” he said, the ache of defensiveness rising in his voice. “You don’t know what she was doing.”

“Did she draw on you?” Delta asked, sounding bored. He already knew the answer.

Paris’s face flushed anyway. He gave no reply.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Some small satisfaction crept into his voice, then faded quickly into irritation. “You didn’t have any impetus. Nobody was in any danger until you snapped. And now they know that if they so much as wave a flag in front of you, you act like a rabid fucking animal.”

“I was defending you, you ungrateful fuck!” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. Delta looked up in shock.

“I’m sorry,” Paris amended quickly, retaining at least some sense of self-preservation. He covered his mouth with his hand in a a belated effort to silence himself. It wasn’t enough. He’d been on thin ice before, but that could not be tolerated. They both knew it.

“Why are you like this?” Delta asked. He didn’t say it as an insult. He asked like he really wanted to know.

That only made it worse.

~

The inner courtyard of the Aegean palace was dense with marble and wildflowers. He always thought the statues looked out of place among the foliage, the vines creeping up the legs of the gods as if they’d already been forgotten. The last of the day’s light was held up in the violet clouds. Beneath them, the walls were doused in the cool blue of dusk. The air was warm and wet.

Paris went without prompting, without needing to be forced. He pulled the shirt off of his back, shivering a bit as the scars that already laid there were exposed to the open air. He knelt down by the post. The guard shackled his wrists to the side of it. He rested his forehead against the wood, curling and uncurling his fingers. It made it more tolerable.

He heard the whip crack against the ground as the guard made practice shots. Delta sat off to the side, one elbow propped up against the aluminum garden table, watching without much interest. He’d never get his hands dirty doing it himself. He wouldn’t even know how. 

That idiot guard didn’t know much better. The first strike came down unpracticed, landing diagonally along his shoulder and against the old scars. He pressed his head further into the post, preferring the pressure he felt there to the hot pain that was forming along his back.

It only grew. It layered. It would’ve layered already, in just a single beating, but his body had years worth of them just waiting to be reignited. The whip dredged up the old pain easily. It didn’t split the skin, but he could remember when it had. The thought alone made him dizzy. The pain quickly became all he could focus on. It kept going.

“Please stop,” he said, beginning to get truly nervous now. It’d been going on too long and was pushing up against the bounds of what he could tolerate. His hands turned over anxiously in the solid iron of the manacles. He couldn’t have gotten out even if he tried.

Delta held a hand up. The whip temporarily ceased. He stood up from the table, electrifying the air as he got closer. 

He shouldn’t have said anything. 

“Hm?” Delta asked, leaning down a little, “Stop?”

He could tell that he was feeling vindictive. Delta’s voice took on that soft, too-patient tone it always had when he was furious. 

“Paris, when I told you to stop, what did you do?” he chided.

“…Kept doing it,” he muttered miserably into the post. He hated when he got like this.

“So you do understand.”

“It hurts.” He kept his voice soft, somewhat whiny. It was calculated, but he didn’t have to force it. It didhurt.

“It’s supposed to. I wouldn’t have to do this if you would just listen the first time. You don’t have anyone to blame for this but yourself.”

There was no making him understand. Delta had no concept of what hurt meant — of how much was too much. His own body was unblemished. He’d never bled for anything. 

For as long as he was standing there, the punishment couldn’t continue. They wouldn’t dare swing the whip when Delta was in line of it, god forbid. He took the break for what it was, a few needed seconds for him to catch his breath. Delta seemed to catch onto what he was doing, taking a few steps back. He turned back to the guard.

“Finish up. Gag him if he talks again. He knows better,” he instructed. 

He paced out of the courtyard, retreating back inside the castle walks. He never liked to see the aftermath, either.

~

Delta had been sixteen years old on the eve of his first and only assassination attempt. It had been a failure, in the sense that he had not died from it. It had also been a failure in the sense that the assailant had not even gotten close. 36,000 volts ran straight through his circulatory system before the knife could even fall.

Delta had been uninjured — and in the end, unshaken. The King and Queen were not. They had no other heir.

Paris came as a knee-jerk reaction, dredged up out of whatever trench they’d found him in. He could play nice, when he needed to. He knew exactly what was on the line.

He was passable. The King bought him alone and unannounced. He’d complain for years afterwards that he’d been ripped off.

Paris had glanced up when he was first made to kneel in the throne room. His first impression was that Delta looked awfully calm for someone who had just survived an assassination attempt.

Delta was unimpressed by it, and had been unimpressed by everything since.

~

Almost everything. Kitty glowed blue in the light of the lounge. It was Delta’s favorite room. in the palace. It had been even since he was little. The walls were all made of glass, with thousands of gallons of seawater lying just behind them. Whole shoals of fish reflected silver onto the dark floor. The sequins of Kitty’s slit dress had the same effect.

She was wearing a collar. He didn’t know why he found this so funny. He guessed it could be considered a choker, if he wanted to be generous, but with the ears and the tail, “collar” was the first word that came to mind.

Hers wouldn’t choke her. If he wanted her to, he’d have to do it himself.

She draped herself over the arm of his chair. Kitty was growing into herself so beautifully. Her eyes still lit up at the sight of the fish swimming, just the way they had when they were kids, and he knew she wanted nothing more than to break straight through the glass to get at them. But everything else about her now shone with such a honed sophistication. 

“You’re bleeding,” she said, her eyes widening with concern.

“What?” He blinked. He hadn’t meant to.

But sure enough, a thin stream of blood trickled from his nose just as soon as she got close to him. Delta blushed, a pale blue hue rising up beneath his freckles. It came as a betrayal.

“You’re so predictable.” She almost smiled, pressing a pink handkerchief to his face before the blood could drip onto the soft sheen of his clothes.

The air around him crackled so badly both their hair stood on end.

~

Apollo tread into the kitchen with the golden fringes of his clothing catching all the light. He dragged the kitchen chair out and fell lightly into the seat. He made a soft sound of surprise  as he found Paris leaning back against the edge of the counter. 

“You have to stay up as long as he does?” Apollo asked. He leaned forward against the marble table, rocking the chair from side to side.

“I’m not supposed to sleep at all,” Paris responded flatly, only half joking. It was a bad look for him to be sleeping while Delta was awake, in the same way it was a bad look for him to be sleeping in. That left a very small window for him to get any rest at all. 

Apollo grimaced in sympathy. He placed the empty glass down on the counter. Wordlessly, Paris took it to refill.

“Oh, I didn’t- Is that even your job?” Apollo asked, a blush rising to his face.

Paris shrugged, pouring the last of the bottle out into the glass. He slid it back across the table. 

“You should let me fix that for you,” Apollo offered.

Paris yanked his hand back as violently as if he’d been burned. He thought it was invisible. It hadn’t healed that wrong. It still worked. It wasn’t an impediment. He clutched it to his chest protectively, shielding his wrist with his other hand.

Apollo gave him a knowing look. He stirred the drink idly. The ice made a soft noise as it clattered against the edges of the glass.

“They didn’t splint that for you in training?” He tilted his head.

Paris looked down. He tentatively loosened the grip on his wrist. It’d just been a fall. He’d gotten knocked backwards and he’d needed to stop himself from cracking his skull onto the floor. He’d done it wrong. The wrist had taken the brunt of the impact. He kept it in a splint at night — and when he was alone — but he couldn’t ever wear it around the trainers. He made use with the bandages instead, prayed everyday that medical didn’t come see him. In time, the bones had stitched themselves back together. Not enough, apparently.

Apollo was still staring at him.

“…It’s disqualifying,” he said softly.

“Ah,” Apollo leaned his elbow on the counter. He pressed one finger up against his lips. “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”

Paris looked at him gratefully. Apollo took another sip of the drink, seeming to study the swirling patterns of the table’s surface. After a while, he added:

“He wouldn’t mind, though.”

Paris frowned. He didn’t think so either. That wasn’t the point. He couldn’t have his wrist be unusable for a full six weeks. He could not stand to be any more unusable than he already was.

He couldn’t bring himself to say it. He never would. The silence endured. Apollo shrugged, taking the drink back with him as he ducked out of the bright kitchen. Paris drew the sleeve of his shirt all the way past his fingertips.

~

ponyboy: heyyyyy

headrooms: holy shit

headrooms: i thought you fucking died

ponyboy: nope :-)

ponyboy: just busy yk how it is

headrooms: fuck

headrooms: dont scare me like that

ponyboy: sorryyyyy

ponyboy: how have you been

headrooms: im chill

headrooms: i got beat up by a jester last week

ponyboy: lmfao

ponyboy: dude shut up your job is cushy as shit

ponyboy: you wanna know what they had me doing last week????

headrooms: uphill both ways in the snow

ponyboy: i was pushing whole barrels full of petroleum and poison uphill in the coldest day of winter. they didnt even give me gloves until my fingers were already falling off!!!

ponyboy: hey fuck you

headrooms: lol

headrooms: are you good though like actually 

ponyboy: ya i mean

ponyboy: its definitely heating up here but we’re still holding a good position 

ponyboy: they kinda treat me like shit but they also dont want to lose me so im not being sent for the real suicide missions yet <3

headrooms: thats good i guess

headrooms: is vi chill

ponyboy: omg no shes been on her fuckin period lately 

ponyboy: bitch mode

headrooms: lmfao mine too

headrooms: i swear its the full moon

ponyboy: IT LITERALLY IS IDK WHAT HER PROBLEM IS

ponyboy: ughhhhhh

headrooms: i miss you

headrooms: like

headrooms: all the time

ponyboy: i miss you too !

ponyboy: ill let you know if im ever in your corner of the galaxy! i want to see you again so badly <3

Paris winced. If her people ever ended up in his corner of the galaxy, that was a bad, bad sign. Selfishly, he wished for it anyway.

He heard footsteps approaching and quickly slid the phone back into his pocket. He was not quick enough to get rid of the cigarette. Delta paced out onto the balcony in a whirlwind. Little bouts of lighting lit up by his eyes.

He plucked the cigarette straight out of his mouth. His other hand smacked hard against the side of Paris’s skull. 

“Ow,” Paris winced, though it didn’t really hurt. Because he wanted Delta to feel bad. Or because he knew he wanted to hear it. Whichever it was that day. Whichever worked.

“Those are my fucking lungs,” he hissed. The guilt trip hadn’t worked. Paris shrugged.

“Sorry.”

The apology worked better. Delta’s body language relaxed some as he snubbed the cigarette out on the palace wall. He didn’t ask for the rest of the pack. Smoking was fair game, really. It was getting caught doing it that was the issue. 

“Who were you texting?” he asked mildly.

He hadn’t hid the phone quick enough. He tried to play it off.

“Just Lorry.” He looked down. 

“Oh.” Delta’s expression seemed to soften, almost imperceptibly. “Is she okay?”

“Yeah,” he answered automatically. His heart quickened right after. “…Why? Did you-“

“No,” Delta cut off that train of thought before it could really begin. “No news. I was just wondering.”

“She’s fine, then,” he confirmed. As much as she could be.

It was only then that Delta actually looked guilty. He didn’t have to. It wasn’t his fault. Lorelai had been purchased months before Paris had. It was a miracle he was even allowed to stay in touch with her. He knew most of the program’s graduates weren’t half as lucky.

He still wanted the cigarette. He leaned back against the wall, unsure what to do with his hands or his mouth when it was gone. Delta didn’t leave after that, the way he’d expected him to. He pulled himself up onto the railing with a kind of stupid abandon.

The air carried the scent of salt from over the ocean. Down on the beach, two kids flew a white kite right above the waves, blissfully unaware of the peacetime’s fragility.

~

“Keep?” Paris asked, holding up the alligator skin boots. They’d been dyed a shade of ruby red.

“Absolutely not.” Delta shook his head frantically, “Toss. Don’t even tell anyone I had those.”

“I thought they were nice,” Paris muttered. 

He tossed them into the trash pile anyway. He crossed back over the length of the massive closet, pulling another bag off the shelf. This was absolutely, definitely not his job. But it wasn’t like he had anything better to do. He liked anything that did not make him feel like a total waste of space.

His knees hit the ground before he really knew what he was doing. It was a better instinct, though, probably the least harmful out of all the ones he could not control. Delta looked up in surprise, only realizing what had just happened as the King stepped in through the doorway. Delta’s attention recentered on his father. They both acted as like he wasn’t even there.

“Don’t you have a dispatch to be filling out?” Ulysses leaned against the doorway, surprisingly casual in the company of his only son. It was a reprimand, but his tone was still playful.

“I’m fuckin’ working on it, jeez,” Delta snapped. 

“Doesn’t look like it,” the King glanced around the room. Paris flinched a bit as his gaze passed over him, but it didn’t linger long.

“Oh!” The queen Andromeda appeared in the entrance before Delta could even respond, looking excitedly at the gown Delta held in one hand. “I’ve always loved that dress! You never wear it!” 

“Oh my god,” Delta said, “Can you leave me alone.”

She rushed forward anyway, squishing his face with one hand as she kissed his cheek.

“Mom!” He blushed terribly.

She smiled, knowing exactly how much she was embarrassing him. He shoved her lightly back towards the door and shut it quickly before either of them could protest. He slammed his head against it once it was closed.

“You can get up,” Delta rolled his eyes. Paris did, rigidly so, in the same mechanical way as when he’d gone down. He blinked a few times, trying to bring himself back to the present.

“They’re so fucking annoying,” Delta muttered to no one in particular, wiping his face off.

“Your parents are nice,” Paris protested weakly in their defense.

“He beat you with a 2x4,” Delta reminded him.

Paris shrugged. The King could’ve done much worse. He’d snapped at Delta that time — not on purpose. Never on purpose. It was only the nerves firing wrong, the signals getting twisted. He couldn’t help it. But it’d been grounds for immediate termination. Paris got off easy, and had moved on from it fairly quickly. Delta still held a grudge against his father for it. 

“Keep?” Delta asked this time, desperate to change the subject. Paris guessed he was glad, too. Something in him ached awfully whenever they were around.

“Keep,” he affirmed.

~

It was awful. They had to hold court later, had to hold it in ten fucking minutes, and his heart felt like it was about to explode if he didn’t kill something. He paced uncontrollably, snapping at the air no matter how hard he tried to stop it. Delta watched idly from the throne. Not angry. Just visibly unpleased with it all.

“Come here,” he called finally. 

Paris flinched. It was not a request. He tried anyway.

“I don’t…want you to…” he protested weakly.

“I didn’t ask if you wanted it.”

Paris reluctantly approached, kneeling beside the throne. Delta tilted his head, the tiara slipping down a bit as he did so. A soft blush rose to Paris’s face. He pulled his shirt off, then lowered further onto the floor, laying down flat on his stomach. He rested his head against his arm, burying his face. He heard Delta rising up from the throne and settling cross-legged onto the floor beside him.

Delta made that same soft, dissatisfied noise he always did when he saw the old whip scars all along his back. Not his work. The lashes he gave didn’t leave a mark. He didn’t like it when they did. Paris winced.

They were ugly. Paris knew that if the King had caught a single look at the lattice, he’d have never been bought in the first place. Because it was defacement. Because they were ugly. The thought echoed in Paris’s brain every time he caught a glimpse. It was pure vanity. He was a weapon, he knew it didn’t matter, he shouldn’t have even cared about that kind of thing. But he did. He hated them. 

“So tense,” Delta murmured from above him. His hands kneaded into the ridges along Paris’s spine – that strange, analgesic touch. Paris could feel his muscles softening involuntarily, the tension in them forcefully removed.

The urchin spine slid into the center of his shoulder blades. He bit his arm to keep from gasping.

It wasn’t the toxin alone that did it. He knew that because he’d pricked himself with it once, just out of curiosity, and he had felt almost nothing at all. It was the way he used it. 

He didn’t always hate it; sometimes it was almost nice. It was nicer when they did it alone, when he wasn’t forced to take it, exposed on the floor of the throne room. It was viscerally unpleasant to experience against his will. He did not like Delta having that much control over his body. He didn’t want to calm down.

The spine entered again, and he calmed anyway.

It went on like that until all the rigid tension seeped out through his skin like poison, then a while afterwards too. It was gentle, despite everything. He could’ve cried.

“Better?” 

He nodded, though he really just felt hazy. He didn’t think he could even hold a sword anymore. The calm felt intrusive. He was sure he couldn’t move at all, almost limp in the aftermath. He didn’t need to, though. Delta pulled him up a little, trying to straighten him out. He found his position again, on his knees. 

He pulled the shirt back on, roughly. His arms had gone numb; it took so much more effort than it had to take off. He shifted, readjusting so that he was facing the rest of the room this time. It took so much effort just to sit upright then. He felt high.

“Good boy,” Delta said, about a half second before the doors opened. He was only saying it to be mean, but in the moment, Paris couldn’t bring himself to care.

~

Delta yanked his hand away from his face just before Paris could snap it off. Paris hissed in frustration, falling abruptly to the ground. He pounded his fists against the tile. It was all he could do to not fucking kill him. 

“Why the fuck would you do that?” He hissed out through gritted teeth. It was wrong. He was making it worse for himself. He had no fucking right to be talking to him like that. 

He couldn’t help it. He felt like he was going to scream.

Delta watched impassively.

“It’s getting worse,” Delta said. There was real concern in his voice. 

Paris pressed his forehead to the ground, curling up. Anything else. 

“I know it’s getting worse,” he growled.

Delta started to bend down, which was the worst thing he could’ve done.

“Get away,” Paris warned. For fucking once, Delta actually listened, taking a few cautious steps back.

It took ten whole minutes for him to get back to a state where the prey drive wasn’t waiting two inches beneath the surface. He sat up wearily. Exhausted. Fucking embarrassed.

Delta’s eyes were wide, but then, they always were. The rest of his expression revealed nothing at all.

“You need to figure that out,” he announced quietly.

“I’m not doing it on purpose.” Paris buried his face in his hands. “You know I’m not doing it on purpose.”

“That isn’t going to matter to them and you know it.” His voice was soft. Almost sympathetic. “And don’t talk to me like that,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

“Delta…” Paris whined into his hands. It was an undisguised plea. As if the way he was talking was what mattered right now.

“I’m serious. Don’t.” The plea went unanswered. If anything, his voice hardened. Paris watched with some small horror as all the patience seemed to bleed out of him. As if he could afford to lose a single ally.

“Sorry,” he muttered. 

“Figure it out,” Delta said with such sincere urgency that it seemed like now was his turn to beg. He stormed off, unwilling to let anyone else get the last word in.

Paris picked himself up off the ground and put his fist through the nearest wall.

~

No matter what happened that day, he still came crying in the night like a little kid. 

Paris flinched a bit as he was awoken, but not for very long. He guessed he should’ve been used to it by now. Delta stood over him, tugging at his sleeve impatiently, wordless. His eyes shone like beacons in the darkness of the bedroom. His hair was down. He looked so young when he was like this. His look was all pleading.

Paris sighed, letting himself be roused from the bed. He just barely had time to grab the sword before he was dragged out into the hallway. He followed Delta all the way up the stairs, all the way up to his bedroom. He could hear the water trickling well before he entered.

His parents really did spoil him. Delta’s room was probably the most expensive part of the entire palace. Water rushed down from the ceiling in an artificial waterfall, landing into the koi pond that took up a whole quarter of the room. All the rest of the room was crystalline, opalescent. Absolutely cluttered with anything that would shine.

Paris didn’t roll his eyes at the giant seashell that held Delta’s mattress. He’d seen it enough times that it had lost its novelty. He didn’t expect anything less.

“Watch the door,” he begged.

Paris nodded. He knew the drill. He sat down on the floor by Delta’s bed while the sheathed sword rested in his lap. He wouldn’t need it. He knew he wouldn’t need it. Delta was just scared.

Delta crawled up into the bed, arranging himself carefully for the meditation. The low drone of electricity began to fill the room. Channeling again. All the stars had aligned for it.

“παρακαλῶ,” Delta muttered beneath his breath. “παρακαλῶ, παρακαλῶ, παρακαλῶ…”

The incantation began shortly after that. The hair on the back of Paris’s neck stood up. He kept his eyes on the door. He didn’t like to watch.

He’d learned to tune out the rambling, for the most past. He knew Delta didn’t like it when people overheard — and he only let Paris do it out of necessity. It was fine. He didn’t understand any of the Greek. It was only the rapid, manic way he spoke that really scared him. Hushed and quick and ancient. It felt right to avert his eyes for it. It was something he had no business witnessing.

His eye twitched a little bit as he realized just how loud the incantation was growing behind him. The room was getting brighter. He got the awful feeling he always did when he felt lightning was about to strike. It was getting bad this time. It was getting worse than he could ever remember it being.

He turned around.

It was about as bad as he imagined. The light burned and radiated off of him, bright enough to be blinding. Delta was definitely seizing beneath it all. His eyes were shut tight like the power was painful. His hands clutched at the blanket. Paris realized with horror that the bedding was turning blue from all the blood that then dripped from his mouth and his eyes. 

“Fuck,” Paris muttered beneath his breath. 

He should have known better than to wake a sleepwalker.

He regretted it as soon as he touched him. For a minute, he thought he’d really gone blind. The pain exploded in his arm as he was thrown back against the wall. His own body seized with the residual electricity. He gasped, crumbling down into a heap onto the soft floor.

“What the fuck did you do?” Delta coughed up blood onto the floor. Blood or tears poured from his eyes. In all likelihood, it was both. He wiped at them idly, not seeming to be in any particular hurry. It wasn’t like he’d be able to get all of it off with his hands.

He stumbled up from the bed — and immediately fell onto the floor. He crawled the rest of the way over to the koi pond, scooping the water up with his hands to remove the rest of the blood. 

“Why the fuck did you do that?” he repeated, even angrier now.

“You were seizing.” Paris gasped. His arm hurt badly enough that he thought it might be broken. He couldn’t tell. He was still mostly blind.

“I told you not to interrupt,” Delta pressed his forehead onto the stone. He couldn’t even stand.

“You’re pushing it too far,” Paris said. It was all he said. It was all he needed to.

“Shut up,” Delta warned.

“You’re pushing it too far,” he repeated, sing-song.

“Shut the fuck up!” Delta stood up again. Paris knew he meant to hit him, meant to fight him, and suddenly that was what was happening. 

“Oh god damn it, you fucking moron.” Paris blocked his fists with his arms. It hurt a little bit, but not nearly enough to incapacitate. He pushed Delta off with zero effort, which only seemed to piss him off more.

Delta growled, stumbling to his feet. He marched over to the bedside table, pulled out what Paris recognized belatedly as a fucking muzzle.

“Wait.” He tensed up, still not having risen off the floor. “Wait, wait, wait, chill-“

Delta fell messily to his knees, trying to secure it onto him. This time, Paris actually did fight. He caught his wrists. He hated that thing so much. It was the middle of the fucking night, he’d never be able to sleep with it on. He didn’t deserve it. He’d been trying to help.

“Stop,” he pleaded while he still had the ability to. “Come on. Stop. Please.”

Delta sighed in defeat. He dropped the muzzle to the floor — and let himself fall to it a few seconds later. He mumbled something in Greek.

“I’m tired,” he muttered into the carpet. His mouth was still bleeding.

Paris stood up, with a lot of effort, but he was still in better shape that Delta was. He picked him up with his uninjured arm. It wasn’t difficult. Delta was light. He wouldn’t have won the fight he’d tried to start. Paris pushed him back onto the bed, letting him collapse there.

“On your side,” Paris reminded him. Delta readjusted onto his side so that the blood wouldn’t asphyxiate him.

“Fucking goodnight, I guess,” Paris muttered, picking his sword back up from the ground. He picked the muzzle up too, placing it back in the drawer. Should’ve just thrown the damn thing out.

“Stay?” Delta asked.

“Yeah, think I’m good on that.” Paris started to walk out the door. 

“Stay.” It was an entreaty, now. Paris groaned. He walked back, collapsing onto the other side of the bed.

“Not all night. You cry in your sleep. I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this.”

“So do you,” Delta muttered in reply, already half-asleep.

Paris shrugged. The waterfall was quiet and reassuring. He could stay for that, if nothing else. 

~~~

@catnykit @snakebites-and-ink @scoundrelwithboba @whatwhump

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[furiousgoldfish]

I have this reoccurring problem where I feel like I've found a friend in someone, and then some time later, this person does something to hurt me, and rather than apologizing, they snap at me, act like I'm awful and a nuisance to them, and generally get very angry with me. First it makes me feel guilty, and I go over everything I did to see how I deserved this, but then I realize I didn't do anything, they just hurt me and snapped at me, made me feel like it's my fault. And then I get scared that this person could do that, because I can't even imagine doing that to anyone, it's so deeply unethical and shitty, but people do it like it's their second nature. Once I realize that this person scares me, I know I have to get distance and move away from the friendship if I don't want to live a very anxious and triggering life, so I do that. And thus I have no friends anymore.

Now for me, this occurred easily over 30 or 40 times with different people, to the point where I've started to wonder if I maybe draw this behaviour out of them. Because I will usually pick people who I believe would never do that, who seem to be kind, understanding, gentle, funny, easy going, I go for that almost every time, and still they snap at me. I'm wondering if it's because everyone in their mind thinks there's one person somewhere they're allowed to snap at, and since I'm very mild tempered, easy going and understanding, it feels to them like snapping at me couldn’t possibly have any consequences?  Again, I don't understand this, I would rather never snap at any person in my life.

My problem is that sometimes, I end up very bonded to these people, and I start building hope that maybe I could be normal, have friends, function in society, just because it feels for a bit like I'm accepted, I'm allowed to socialize and chat and joke around and tell things to someone, and this means the world to me. I've lived in an environment where I was not allowed any of that. So when these specific people snap at me, my hopes crumble to the ground, and I'm back into the place where I don't feel like I'm a person anymore. Even worse, I get triggered back into my childhood, where my parents screamed at me telling me how disgusting I am, how nobody will ever want anything to do with me, and how I'm the worst thing to ever exist on the planet. That's how I end up feeling when anyone turns against me, or abandons me. I keep it to myself, because I don't want the triggers affecting the friendship. But they affect me deeply.

That feeling of someone I care about finding me disgusting and awful and poisonous gives me so much pain I want to curl up and disappear. I want to not exist anymore. I would rather be alone forever than experience more of that. And that's exactly what I do; I curl up in my own little corner and don't socialize out of terror that more of this will happen, because it does happen so often and I still never see it coming.

I know on some deeply logical level, that people are snapping at me because it's easier for them to do that than to face that they've done something wrong, that they've hurt our friendships and acted badly towards me; they need it to be my fault so they'd feel better about themselves. Taking it out on me is just an easy route because I have zero vindication in me and probably won't ever snap back or get angry in return; I'll just withdraw. I'm always too worried I've genuinely done something wrong when it happens, I'll apologize a thousand times, I'll spend a while trying to figure out what's the truth, and then before I even think about getting angry, I'll be swallowed by pain and sorrow that this happened to me again.

Has anyone found any ways to have people not snap at you when they hurt you? What kind of change in attitude would achieve this? Do I just have bad friend-picking skills? Is this just a normal part of life that other people can handle because being snapped on doesn't make them suicidal? Is it considered normal that your friend will sometimes snap at you when they hurt you? Is it not a glaring red flag? In some cases people will not only snap but also gaslight me about what happened, and I know gaslighting is way over the line. Has this been happening to others? Please give me any opinions or experiences of this, especially if you found a way to deal with it.

[thepersonperson]

Gojo kind of sucks at being Megumi's dad but he’s definitely his dad. (An analysis of Gojo and Megumi's messy relationship.)

Notes before we start.

1) Read the light novels. They are the equivalent of Bleach's CFYOW for JJK. There is a fan translation (Book 1 & Book 2), but I will be citing the official translation from my own copies.

2) I will be mainly using the TCB scans for the manga because of their accessibility. 

3) Raws are from Mangareader(.)to.

4) Written as of JJK 263.

5) Read the light novels.

(Click pictures for captions/citations.)

Preface

This was written with the assumption you've also read these other analyses:

The Tragedy of Gojo Satoru (aka how to read Gojo)

Gojo's Relationship to Toji

Please give them a quick glance at least.

And Remember Umineko: Without love it cannot be seen.

Gojo Satoru—World’s Most Okayish Dad

There's heavy debate on whether Gojo is a good dad or a bad dad or even if he is a dad at all to Megumi. I will argue the case for Gojo being an ok dad. Not great or terrible. Just ok.

The best way to do this I think is to start off with Megumi's biological father, Fushiguro Toji.

Gojo and Toji Parallels

Toji is objectively the worse father, but Gojo and him have a lot in common when it comes to handling emotions after your wife dies. Gege draws attention to the fact that Gojo is essentially Toji. Both in looks and function.

What fascinates me about this comparison is not only does it visually scream at you “HEY GOJO IS MEGUMI’S SEMI-DEADBEAT DAD”, it also solidifies that Gojo has never gotten over Toji. And perhaps even idolizes him to an unhealthy degree. He’s dressed up as the Ultimate Killing Thing. Toji can kill the unkillable—The Strongest. If he’s more like Toji, he can kill Sukuna.

In addition to foreshadowing the outcome of the Gojo vs Sukuna fight, this also drew attention to the fact these two had been completely dehumanized by Jujutsu Society, albeit in polar opposite directions. Both of them suffered extreme objectification by their clans and the people around them, leading to a general disconnect from others. Their strength is worshiped, feared, and used until it kills them. The difference between them is that Gojo was deified while Toji was demonized. 

Since these comparisons appear to be deliberate, I want to examine what makes their relationship when it comes to Megumi and coping with Jujutsu Society.

Breaking the Cycle

When it comes to generational abuse, trauma, and toxic beliefs, a single generation is typically not enough to break the cycle. Often victims can recognize what went wrong but fail to address the crux of the problem and carry a softened version of that toxicity onto the next generation. I think the differences between the Zenin Clan, Toji, Gojo, and Megumi when it comes to misogyny demonstrate this idea very well. 

The Zenin Clan operates on misogyny. Women are treated as servants and breeding stock by the men who enforce this hierarchy for their benefit. (Naoya is the youngest of many older siblings because Naobito didn’t stop making his wife have children until his Cursed Technique (CT) was inherited.) Violence towards women is acceptable and encouraged. When Toji broke free of his clan, he also left behind this violence towards women. As a victim of their cruelty, he recognized that inflicting it was wrong.

That being said, I truly believe the main reason Toji didn’t massacre the Zenins was him benefiting from their misogyny as a man. Even if just a little. Naobito offered him an indirect place in the clan through selling Megumi and Naoya respected his strength. As a girl, Maki was not afforded anything and therefore had nothing to lose. The only way forward for her was to burn everything to the ground.

And despite seeing first hand how poorly the Zenins treated women, the idea that they exist to serve men is a mentality Toji still held onto. He bummed money and childcare off women and was content to laze around while Tsumiki most likely handled housework at a young age. 

Toji was canonically a decent husband to his wife. He also canonically fell back to his unstable behavior and abandoned his children to gamble after she died. And though I acknowledge this as a tragedy, this too is another instance of misogyny. His wife was his sole source of his emotional wellbeing, a common burden thrust onto women in relationships with men. They’re expected to not only do physical labor in the relationship, but the emotional labor too, essentially becoming a personal maid and therapist. I’m not surprised he wound up this way, he wasn’t really taught how to care for himself.

Compare this to Gojo who is even less of a misogynist than Toji. He doesn’t expect women to do anything for him. His recruiting is equal opportunity when it comes to strength and he has not once disparaged his female students on the basis of their gender. He can even recognize that the Zenin Clan is a bad place for women. His issues are far more subtle—Gojo seems to deprioritize the women in his life, even if unconsciously. Gege has stated that Gojo can never fully be honest with a woman which would explain why he emotionally shut out Shoko after Geto left. It’s not like Gojo is open with men either, but when it comes to admiration, he always thinks of male characters first and foremost.

(It's also kind of telling that his other female student, Kiara isn't anywhere here either. Maki's face being blocked out is probably a coincidence, but it sure visually says something.)

I don’t consider Gojo’s failure to be a good teacher to Maki a part of this. He just sucks as a teacher for everyone. So much so that Gojo had to beg Nanami to mentor Yuji and bullied Miguel into training Yuta. Someone who can’t even use Cursed Energy (CE) is far beyond his capabilities. (Note how Nanami thought Gojo was coming to him for Megumi. This guy can’t even teach his alleged successor properly.)

The main problem is how he treats Utahime. Gojo just straight up makes sexist comments towards her when he bullies her. He doesn’t do this to any other female character so I assume this is done to get under her skin instead of a deeply held belief. Since Gojo is otherwise not sexist, I think this may be a case of not being told this is outright discriminatory. For example, when Gojo is racist towards Miguel, he gets called out, immediately apologizes, and stops talking. Utahime doesn’t do that. She just tells him to respect her on the grounds she’s his elder—the very thing that Gojo is rebelling against.

Still there’s no excuse for this. Unmarried women over 25 in Japan face a lot of stigma as it is, Gojo antagonizing her over that is a terrible thing to do. (Unless this is a case of T4T banter where Gojo’s sexist comments are Trans Inclusive Radical Misogyny.)

I’m not sure where this puts Tsumiki in Gojo’s life. Gege has admitted to fumbling her character in the story. One of the biggest complaints of fans is that it doesn’t feel like Megumi cared that intensely for her because their relationship was hardly shown, so I’m inclined to give some leeway to Gojo here.

Gojo does care about non-sorcerer lives and will go out of his way to ensure their well-being despite otherwise treating them indifferently. When it came to Geto’s family he also took care of the ones that defected because they were important to someone he loves. I have no doubt he made sure Tsumiki’s basic needs were met. There could be a whole unique dynamic he has with Tsumiki that may or may not be expanded upon in the anime or light novels. 

But as it stands, he most certainly deprioritized her in his life. To what extent? And was it for being a girl or being weak? Who knows. She’s not in the afterlife airport scene and Gojo doesn’t think about her in death. This could be for a number of reasons. 1) He has no idea she’s dead. 2) He really did just limit things to his high school years. 3) He didn’t care about her at all. My point is I don’t know and he definitely screwed up here.

In all these cases, it seems that Gojo’s problem lies less with misogyny and more with his relationship to strength. Gojo has correctly identified that strict hierarchies are a problem. As an adult he does not tell others to put up with him because of his seniority, strength, or gender. People are free to insult him, smack him, and order him around without fear of consequence. But just like how Toji still sees women as a means to serve him without being violent, Gojo sees his strength as something that separates him from other people without abusing it.

On a fundamental level Gojo stopped seeing himself as a human because of the objectification he experienced as a living weapon. Other people to him are both precious and unreachable. His internal beliefs have him convinced this immense difference in strength means no one weaker than him can ever fully understand him. And once again, just like Toji, this is all related to unprocessed trauma.

When Geto abandoned Gojo, one of his reasons was their difference in strength. Geto straight up tells Gojo this to his face. They no longer can be friends because he’s The Strongest. Geto no longer understands him because he’s The Strongest. Gojo took that to heart it seems. If his best friend won’t be with him because he’s too strong, no one can truly be with him unless they’re as strong as him. 

I want to be clear. What broke their relationship wasn’t their difference in strength—it was exploitation at the hands of the higher ups. They kept those two separate and overworked until one of them snapped. Both of them failed to identify their work culture as the crux of their problems. Geto blamed non-sorcerers while Gojo blamed himself and only Jujutsu Society. And in the same way Toji tried to rely on women to fix his problems, Gojo went all in on strength. This is how Gojo can be correct in seeing the higher ups and tradition as a massive problem, while still overworking himself and putting his students in dangerous situations.

But despite all these flaws, Gojo did right by Megumi when raising him. Megumi is a Zenin by blood—misogyny should be present in every single drop, and yet it is not. Megumi is so divorced from sex-based hierarchies that he barely sees gender. When Todo asks a rather sleazy question about what women he likes, his answer is gender neutral and on the basis of them being a good person. He prioritizes the women in his life, respecting Maki as a role model and taking action in service to his sister’s wellbeing. His protectiveness of Tsumiki isn’t chivalrous either, Megumi extends the same prioritization to Yuji since they both meet his definition of a good person.

Megumi has internalized Gojo’s disinterest in hierarchy so much that he has no interest in power either. When he’s made the head of the Zenin Clan, he immediately wants to give the title to Maki. A girl being more competent than Megumi is not something that bothers him in the slightest. Naoya could never. All that money and influence mean nothing to him. People and animals are all that matter to him. This violent cycle of misogyny ends with him.

Gojo also did good by ensuring both Megumi and Maki were never exposed to the feud between the Zenin and Gojo Clans. Megumi is only made aware of it in passing as encouragement for his growth. Since Maki massacred the rest of the Zenins, that generational beef is officially over too. Two violent cycles ended in part because Gojo rejected the strict hierarchies perpetuating the problem.

The only cycle Gojo didn’t break was the over reliance on strength and child labor. He did lay the groundwork to escape it I think. None of his students believe strength means they need to be isolated. They cooperate in combat and appear to be close friends that enjoy themselves when they can. Since the higher ups are all dead and Japan is in disarray, there’s a good chance they can do something truly revolutionary with this if they survive Sukuna.

Gojo sucks at parenting, but it is still parenting.

Demonstrating how Gojo has benefited Megumi doesn’t make him a father. After all, neither Megumi or Tsumiki take his last name and Megumi refers to him as Sensei. There’s also the underlying coercion in their arrangement, Gojo’s aid came at the cost of Megumi becoming a sorcerer.

I put the memories of their meeting side by side for comparison. Gojo's is probably more accurate since it's presented with more details and clarity. But little Megumi seeing Gojo as a strange and annoying aberration says a lot about their relationship.

So, I turn to the undisputed Mother of the Year, Geto, for comparison.

Gege has stated that Geto was a father to Mimiko and Nanako. He outwardly shows affection towards them as family and spends much more time with them However, Geto runs a cult whose aim is genocide and everyone in his cult is a family member. Geto’s daughters do not take his last name and call him Master. They participate in cult activities and murder operations as they were raised to be prejudiced. There’s also the underlying manipulation in how he recruited them at their most vulnerable. If Geto can be called dad despite all this, then Gojo should be too.

Geto is the better parent by far, I won’t dispute that. He pursued motherhood as a means to cope with his mental illness immediately at age 17. As a cult leader he had plenty of time to be a father since he didn’t have a real job. He set his own hours while being financed by donors, allowing him to be more active in his children’s life. Gojo was not nearly as proactive, he picked up Megumi after he started the first grade.

In Japan, children may enter the first grade in April after turning 6, therefore it can be assumed that Megumi is 6 here and the year is 2009 in April or later. Megumi is in short sleeves and the weather looks warm, so the furthest out the date could be is early September. Gojo was born on December 22, 1989 while Megumi was born on December 7, 2002, giving them a 13 year age gap that puts Gojo at age 19. Since Toji was killed in August of 2007 this means there were 1.75–2 years between his final request and Gojo acting on it. It is unknown how long Tsumiki’s mother was absent.

I do not fault Gojo for this since he could’ve never predicted their mother abandoning them. After Geto died and Nanami was in mourning, the higher ups pushed all that extra work onto him. It’s likely that Gojo had no time to pursue this until he forced the issue near the sale date. These work obligations no doubt strained his relationship with Megumi and Tsumiki as their caretaker.

Some think that this absence is proof Gojo is not a father. I think this absence is proof that he is.

An emotionally distant father who works all day, barely has time for you, and is a pain to deal with. Yes he may pay all the bills and give you a place to live, but you still kind of hate him for being an ass. Sound familiar? You probably know someone with this exact dad if he’s not yours. He even has a clear bias for the son he wants to grow up to be just like him! (I'm so sorry Tsumiki.) 

But that’s not what truly makes him a dad. Gojo couples his affection with cruelty. The way in which Gojo torments Megumi specifically is unique to him and no other student. With all his other students he is consistently, overly friendly. With Megumi? He bullies him in the way only a parent can.

If you aren’t a parent to a child, perhaps you own a pet that you consider your child. I have yet to meet a pet owner that doesn’t mess with their baby to get a reaction out of them.

And since Gege storyboarded Jujutsu Strolls, this video clip is in a state of probably canon.

I can’t think of anything more dad than deliberately embarrassing your child to mess with their love life.

Fathers like these tend to have children that want to destroy them in some capacity. It can serve as a strong motivation for their growth. Protag with crappy dad they might hate while also seeking validation from them? What popular Shounen doesn’t have this? We’ve got Baki the Grappler, Full Metal Alchemist, Bleach, Hunter x Hunter, etc. (Hey look 2 of those are works Gege is heavily inspired by.)

As stated in CFYOW, JJK Thorny Road at Dawn, Chapter 5: At the End of a Sidewalk, Megumi is motivated the most when he imagines destroying Gojo.

In summary, Gojo fits the typical emotionally distant dad bill. A little bit misogynistic, a little bit racist, and trying to live out his failed dreams through his child who he bullies due to unprocessed trauma. (And holy fudge the amount of anime dads that have a kid specifically to surpass them.)

Megumi considers Gojo family even if he won’t outright state it.

Given how Megumi treats Gojo, it may be difficult to believe that he sees his sensei as anything other than a nuisance. But that's kind of how Megumi treats everyone, including his sister. How Megumi is with Tsumiki specifically can give us insight into his behaviors when he's around family vs non-family. Using her as a reference, it can be inferred how he categorizes Gojo.

Tsumiki (and Yuji) vs Gojo

We know that Megumi values his sister greatly because he prioritizes her well-being above most other people. But this motivation is never directly spoken to another character. Megumi keeps his feelings on the matter so close to his chest that Nobara and Yuji are shocked to learn he even has a sister. I don’t think seeing them together would indicate their closeness either. Outwardly Megumi often treats Tsumiki coldly, refusing her affection and even picking fights with her.

And despite his internal dialogue being less harsh towards her, it can still be quite biting. While he recalls her on the verge of passing out, Megumi refers to Tsumiki as his バカ姉貴 (Baka Aneki) or Stupid Sister. Believe it or not, this is actually affection. Sukuna uses similar phrasing for his mother and this Twitter user explains why that's actually a kindness.

Thankfully, Tsumiki and Yuji can see through Megumi’s stand-offishness for what it is. They’re good people who are willing to look past his flaws so Megumi treats them the same way. In this regard, these two act as a blueprint for reading Megumi. For the people he values most he’ll treat them harshly and barely mention them. His expression of love is unspoken devotion and downplayed admiration.

But without that context, Megumi constantly smacking Yuji and the following passages from CFYOW, JJK Summer of Ashes, Autumn of Dust, Chapter 1: Kyujitsu Kaisen would make you think that he hated him.

All of this is why I believe Megumi's taciturn behavior towards Gojo is his strange way of showing he cares and perhaps as family.

I want to draw attention to the extras where Megumi responds to the question: What is Gojo Satoru to you?

The VIZ translation has Megumi answer: "Well, I guess I owe him my life. I guess…”

The original Japanese is: "一応恩人です......一応"

This is an extremely inaccurate translation as this Tumblr user will explain:

一応 (ichiou) is “for the time being”. 恩人 (onjin) is “benefactor” or “patron”, generally someone that care for his well-being or who he’s indebted to. So it’s “for the time being, he’s my benefactor”.

If we translate back the VIZ version to Japanese, it will be 命の恩人 (inochi no onjin) meaning someone who has saved your life, which is usually used in the context of a literal life-and-death situation. For example when Gojo saved Yuuji from his execution.

Megumi calling Gojo his benefactor greatly downplays all that has been done for him. And his expression is very similar to when he speaks of or around Tsumiki. I think it’s safe to assume Gojo means more to Megumi than he's letting on.

Though Megumi claims he's protecting Tsumiki because she's a good person, I believe there's an additional reason. He owes her a great debt. When their parents abandoned them, she was the one who looked after him first. When Gojo wasn't around to directly care for them, Tsumiki took charge. Megumi's devotion to her is an expression of gratitude for all her efforts.

When Megumi says Gojo is his "benefactor for now", it sounds rather callous. I believe this can be interpreted as something much more benign. In the same way Megumi is returning the favor to Tsumiki, this could be him hinting he plans to one day repay Gojo for his aid.

Gojo is the first person Megumi goes to for help.

Megumi prioritizes Tsumiki and Yuji in part because they need protecting. He sees himself as their guardian and expends a lot of effort ensuring their safety. No such thing occurs for Gojo because he’s The Strongest and the caretaking adult in their relationship. Megumi prioritizes Gojo in a completely different way—he’s the first person he goes to for help with difficult things.

I think this is significant because Megumi otherwise does not seek direct help from others. Sure he'll train with and borrow things from people, but there's a distinct lack of vulnerability he's willing to show.

When Megumi is near death, Gojo’s memory and lessons are his crutch. He does this in his rematch with the Finger Bearer, its aftermath, and before he summons Mahoraga against Haruta. The only other people who have consistently been on Megumi’s mind near death are Tsumiki and Yuji.

And who else grew on the brink of death? Gojo. These two even make the same kind of faces as they flip out during brutal fights. Megumi rarely smiles and its a bit concerning he seems at his happiest when he's in the throes of battle like his sensei.

This could just be a Zenin thing since Maki, Mai, Noabita, Naoya, and Toji will broadly smile when they are obliterating the enemy. But I find it fascinating that Yuji and Yuta did not develop this habit at all despite being personally trained by Gojo. It's possible that Gojo's influence made this aspect of Megumi worse.

What I like the most about Megumi seeking Gojo's aid is how eager his benefactor is to give him whatever he wants when he asks. Gojo is not stingy with his money at all. Megumi’s physical needs are so fully met that he inadvertently shows how spoiled he is when interacting with Yuji and Nobara.

Not only does Megumi recognize higher end fashion, he has strong opinions on it. He also sees Yuji and Nobara react poorly to the price point so he offers to pay a little more. But as you can see, he is so disconnected from average people's money situations that he thinks ~$800 to be put towards a ~$2,500 shirt isn't a big deal.

This indicates that Gojo dotes on Megumi more than other students. Megumi seems to be in such a special category that other characters pick up on it. In other words, Gojo really is acting more like a parent spoiling his favorite child than a teacher here.

Sukuna recognizes how much Megumi values Gojo.

Megumi resisted Sukuna as a vessel by lowering his CE output before the bath. If this affected Sukuna’s ability to obtain his true form post-bath, I do not know. Kenjaku and Yorozu make the claim he could change it, but Sukuna acknowledges full control over Megumi’s body requires Tsumiki being killed first. Sukuna also says that Megumi’s face is better for fighting other sorcerers. He reverts to his true form in his fight with Kashimo, conducting only 2 battles with Megumi’s face on purpose. …If Sukuna is to be taken at his word. 

If Megumi’s resistance prevented the change, that means his soul wasn’t completely broken until Gojo was dead. If Sukuna intentionally manifested his true form after Gojo’s death, that means the two were close enough to be used as a strategy in the same vein as Yorozu/Tsumiki. Either reading suggests a close bond on par with his sister.

Why this dynamic sucks for them both.

The tragedy here is that Gojo and Megumi likely never communicated these feelings to each other. If Megumi can’t even tell his sister he cares directly, there’s no way it’s happening for Gojo. And given how Gojo keeps everyone at arms length because of his own personal hang ups, I doubt he’d ever express it either.

Gojo can’t call Megumi his son, that would be a weakness. Megumi won’t call Gojo his father, he learned how to keep his distance from the best.

Gojo’s avoidant attachment style seems to have reinforced it in Megumi. He was already pretty distant with Tsumiki as a young child, but it appears to have worsened with age. He regrets it himself in basically the same way Gojo regrets failing Geto after he’s gone. Megumi learned from the best you know. Her revival after a coma lasting 1 year and 7 months isn’t enough for him to stop doing this either—he continues to play it cool, just like Gojo.

Gojo on some level is aware he has screwed up royally with Megumi. There’s good reason Nanami thought Gojo was coming to him for help with Megumi first. He does try to make up for this in his own little Gojo way. He gets him friends his age, he tries to have him do normal kid activities, he gives him attention when asked.

But Gojo will never be open about why because he clearly doesn’t know how to address his own hang ups or grief in a healthy manner. And unfortunately Megumi has inherited his bad habits like sons tend to do. He internalizes his trauma, seeks no emotional support, and shows no signs of distress until it breaks him.

As an aside, Gojo is posturing here when he pretends nothing is wrong with Sukuna. …But like I’ve said, he’s not the best dad in the world, so him getting lost in the fight and forgetting about Megumi isn’t out of character. It’s just another trait of his that makes him even more like Toji.

(And since Megumi's name means Blessing, this also doubles as them forgetting about their blessing.)

Gojo didn't want any of this baggage for Megumi. He didn't just want Megumi to be strong—he wanted Megumi to be better than himself. During that training session after the baseball game, Gojo tells Megumi not to sacrifice himself so that others may succeed since sorcerers die alone. He recalls this conversation when he dies, making Megumi the first person he thinks about in death.

As shown by JJK 261, Gojo could not follow his own advice when it came to self-sacrificing. He sacrificed his life and body so that his students could survive. This is a part of that cycle Gojo couldn't break himself, but trusts the future generation to do so. He laid the groundwork for it knowing he'd likely never live to see it fulfilled.

And still, Megumi is even more traumatized than Geto. His only saving grace is Yuji’s refusal to give up on him. Gojo tried to be a dad to him and he failed. Megumi is paying the price for that dearly. Their relationship had problems that were never going to be addressed until the very nature of Jujutsu Sorcerer work changed. Gojo didn’t have the time to process his own grief let alone raise 2 children properly because of overwork. Their messy father-son dynamic isn’t uncommon or unexpected. Like I said, you probably know someone with this type of dad if he isn’t yours.

In Conclusion...

Gojo is an ok dad and Megumi is definitely his son. Whether or not they use those labels for each other is ultimately irrelevant. Geto's words to Kuroi Misato, the maid who looked after Riko when no one else would, put it succinctly:

[defective-trash]

i dont typically share anything personal and just reblog on tumblr but i wanted to share this vent art with someone so here ig

[zukosdualdao]

a wound to close, the whole thing open

zutara month, day 2: journal/diary.

summary: when katara searches the attic of ember island, she comes across a journal, hidden away on an old bookshelf.

warnings: implied/referenced child abuse wrt ozai's treatment of zuko. what's referenced here is emotional abuse and i would say at show-canon levels.

other notes: title is from gracie abrams' "camden". also, this fic is very much 'picture taken moments before mild disaster', because i imagine after the end, katara still finds ozai's baby picture, thinking it's zuko, and her thought process is 'well that was sad but look at cute baby zuko!' oops!

Katara knows she’s wrong to snoop, but it’s just so hard to resist now they’re somewhere a young Zuko once lived for stolen weeks of golden summers at a time. For so long, she’d never wondered about him much at all—she’d had, after all, no reason to want to know the boy who chased them around the world in his pursuit of capturing Aang—but things are different now.

First, there had been the catacombs of Ba Sing Se, and she’d caught another glimpse of that boy, another side of him. Wearing Earth Kingdom robes two sizes too big for him, with grief and sympathy that matched hers shining in his eyes, saying strange things about destiny and curses and seeming so lost.

Katara had spent long weeks after the fact wondering whether any of it was true as she struggled to capture sleep on that stolen Fire Navy ship. 

Of course, that was far from the only anxiety on her mind. Wondering when Aang would wake up, if he would at all… Sokka’s growing plans for the invasion, and what it could mean for all of them… being with her father for the first time in years, how half of her wanted to light up at the comfort of it but the other couldn’t dare because he went away and what if it happened again?

And Zuko…

She would turn to her other side, her chin resting on a flat hand, and wonder about him. He’d seemed so sincere, but Katara had wondered often how that could be the case when just moments later, he was catapulting rage and fire in her direction. 

But then he’d come to them and begged for a chance to prove himself. 

And even before she wanted to, far before she felt ready for it, she’d started to come to know things about him. How he would get up at dawn every morning—rising with the sun, she’d thought bitterly—to practice his own firebending forms before his lessons with Aang. How he’d sometimes frown when making the first batch of tea for them around a campfire and then make a second and always seemed to light up when their meals had a little extra spice to them.

How he would sometimes squirm just a little and hesitate a beat and sometimes even bristle before smiling shyly when the others teased him, as though it took a moment to steady his footing and catch up to the fact that it was only teasing.

She had started to know him, to really know him, before she’d wanted to, before she’d forgiven him, before she decided it was safe to let the distance between them shrink.

But now they’re friends. And with the comet looming in the coming days, with things a little tense and strange between everyone since that disaster of the play, and with the vestiges of Zuko’s childhood right here, it’s hard not to be curious.

And, as she reasons to herself while setting the cooking pot of solid silver atop the bookshelf, at least she has deniability. 

The shelves are lined with old books, with gold thread traced through their spines, and old scrolls with white parchment coloring yellow, with shiny maps, and…

Katara’s brow scrunches as she catches sight of what seems to be an old journal, bound by leatherskins, poking out from behind one of the old tomes, clearly meant to be hidden away.

She reaches for it. It’s such a small, delicate thing, really, but it feels heavy in her hands.

When she flips to the first pages, she recognizes the symbols for Zuko’s name, written out in a long, intense, careful scrawl. She’s never seen his handwriting before, but it matches what she might’ve guessed it would look like, teetering between bold and delicate.

Katara flips past the first pages, which seem to mostly consist of Zuko practicing his letters, and comes across what seems to be a draft of a letter he’d written to Iroh, certain lines crossed out or words respelled after an ink-permanent error. He asks after when Iroh will return from the war—and she shudders to think that the kindly old man who'd helped them on more than one occasion had once been much different, the terrible Dragon of the West, laying siege to Ba Sing Se.

But in another line, Zuko writes to his uncle about a festival and paper dragons. Her heart swells to think he was once so young and even playful.

Atop the right corner of the page, there is a tiny, shaded-in sketch of a blooming fire lily. Katara smiles.

She flips through more pages, most of which are much the same as the first several, but then pauses. On this one, there are dark patches—the kind that she can tell came from water drying on the parchment, and it’s now wrinkled. Once, she might have been able to salvage the page with her bending, but the water has long-since dried up and left only deterioration in its wake.

It’s…

The page is tear-stained. He’d cried when writing this.

Gulping, Katara squints her eyes to read his small script, so much shakier than the previous pages had been. She can’t read most of it, for the smears and the wrinkling of the page, and she’s not sure she even wants to, anyway, because what she does manage to scan through makes her feel a little sick, her stomach clenching.

—don’t know what I can do, he had written, and it’s all too easy to imagine a much younger version of her friend with tears in his eyes, sobs wracking his shoulders, a lonely figure in a dark attic. — to better, to not so weak. 

There's a series of words Katara can’t make out, but she does catch Father and love.

And then, one shining beacon of hope:

But Mom says—

The writing stops there. She will never know what his mother used to say.

She flips through the rest of the journal, but the pages are hauntingly blank. There are no more entries after that. 

Katara places the journal back where it was tucked and has the vague sense that she’s back where she started.

A strange guilt gnaws at her. Somehow, she thinks she understands Zuko both better and worse than she did before.

[serenityquest]

[goemon-fan]

This was easily one of the best Lupin episodes

[kingoftheu]

This should not be funny.

But by God it is.

[alvie-pines]

i kinda agree with you, but what if a person writes pedophilic/csa texts? i don't think it should be allowed. even if it's fictional it's still cp and it pisses me off so much when people say it's fictional so it's fine

sigh.

look dude, do you know the person? do you know why theyre writing it? do you know how they feel about it? do you know who they are outside of their writing?

no, you probably dont. you dont know if this is someone writing about their trauma, or sexualizing their trauma (which is a legitimate way to cope with it, dont argue with me just because you have icky feelings about it). you dont know the author's intent (and you cant ever know for sure). you dont know if someone is exploring their fear. there are a million and one reasons for someone to write a story about a dark topic.

furthermore, fiction doesnt inherently hurt anyone. it just doesnt. there is no moral value to writing a story where CSA occurs because none of those characters are real and not a single real-life person has been harmed.

can it be triggering? can you find it disgusting? can you avoid it like the plague? certainly. i do. its a trigger for me.

but my trigger is my responsibility. i dont read stories involving CSA in any way shape or form. i ask people to tag it. and i never have to see it. crazy how simple that is. thats not sarcastic, i actually love how simple it is.

[marxism-transgenderism]

..

[screaming-sparrow]

i forgave everybody, i gave up, i got drunk. (captain jack harkness and his relationship with alcohol)

[ramayantika]

So Barbie was man hating but Animal should be taken as a movie