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wraithdance · 4 months ago

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Stray Dogs | GHOAP x Reader

Synopsis: You never had a problem with strays, but you should have been wary of the rabid dogs begging to be leashed.

Pairing: Johnny x Avoidant!reader | eventual Ghoap x Avoidant!reader Note: AFAB!Reader, No physical description but reader has background story, no y/n use or gender terms for reader, Reader is LGBT (Bisexual) Content warning: Mature | brief mentions of childhood trauma, avoidant personality, therapy and allusions to mental health issues, passive thoughts of death

Prologue: Foxy Leaves

You told your new therapist that you like putting things into categories because it was fun.

It was half a lie, minuscule really and not enough to be of consequence. You suppose you could have been honest and said the process of grouping things made the endless dread you lived in just a little bit easier.

But you didn’t really like the pitying look Dr. Sanchez gave you when she went over your intake questionnaire. She’d looked down her glasses while you numbly repeated the same spiel about ‘what brings you to cognitive therapy’ that you’d been giving for the last decade.

You’d google her practice on your lunch break scrolling through the reviews and stuffing the last of your sandwich in your cheeks. In your car before the first session you silently prayed to the empty space that this time you could stick with her long enough to fix you.

You doubt it though because her bob bounces as she nods to your explanation of ‘The Chasm’ and how it came to be. The way that it bounces as she hums, being sure to signify her active listening. It really pisses you off.

The familiar sense of despair boils hot when you realize that even though this is an unfamiliar office half way across from town, she’s giving you the look. The one of interest, like she wants to crack open your skull and observe your chaotic wiring in hopes to understand what your fucking problem is.

It’s the same one every other therapist has given you since you were old enough to inevitably stop showing up to mandatory sessions without consequence.

It’s so habitually intolerable that you have a 'Therapist breakup’ text in your notes draft on your phone. It's simple, clinical, contains something vague about not thinking you were compatible as a client. It’s usually enough to keep them from doing a wellness check (or worse a call to your emergency contact.)

When you’re done talking, Dr. Sanchez reaches for your hand in some gratuitous act of extending comfort. Her cold fingers and the sensation of her half rubbed in hand cream, makes you want to vomit. It must not show on your face because she keeps talking and squeezing your hand.

“I think that it’s brave of you to come in and I think we can work on some of your goals.” She pauses accessing you before she says the thing that signs the death of your therapeutic relationship.

“Do you also want to work on mending the relationship with your parents?”

You ignore the receptionist when she asks if you want to make a follow up appointment. You’re combing through your drafts to find the breakup text when you think that you’re glad you lied about the category thing. Your control issues are yours, precious and responsible for your ability to focus on anything but the heavy weight of being. So fuck her and her stupid fucking bob.

Her contact gets blocked as soon as the message reads delivered.

When you were anxious the familiarity of nature documentaries, specifically the ones about apex predators, were a comfort. Duckie, your best friend of nine years, had been squeamish the first time she watched one of your favorites with you.

It was about big cats in the wilds. The man with the Aussie accent narrated with excitement that belied the violence of seeing a lioness take down a gazelle. From behind the safety of your throw pillow Duckie asked why you like watching stuff like that. You shrugged like you didn’t have an answer.

You did though.

It’s because predators in the wild didn’t hide what they were. They didn’t need to pretend to be anything but carnivorous and survival driven. Would never think to explain to the gazelle that they were sorry for hurting you, but they couldn’t help themself.

It would be even more insulting than being eaten alive.

You’re relieved when the lioness finishes the gazelle off, letting out a small sigh of 'finally' that earns you a wide eyed look from Duckie. The death was quick and even if the gazelle didn’t realize it, she was lucky. You’ve been on the end of an explanation for harm and wished you’d have the mercy of death instead.

But you couldn’t tell Duckie that. So instead you tease her about being a big baby.

For a few years now you’ve gotten into the habit of assigning everyone you meet an animal that reminds you of them. It satisfied both of your interests and it was fun. It’s how Duckie got her nickname. She’d crowed over the cuteness and tried to hug you before you threatened to bite her if she touched you.

It didn't matter the amount of time you'd known a person you grouped them. The scrawny teenager at the local Tesco was Giraffe kid, The high pitched woman next door with the ugly dog, Chihuahua.

You’re looking at your girlfriend of 3 months, Foxy, thinking how the name works for her better than Taylor does.

She’s beautiful even while spitting vitriol as she packs her Telfar bag to the brim with stray items she left behind at your apartment.

When she flicks her hair over a tanned shoulder you’re distracted, remembering how it felt when you gripped the long strands that morning, holding her still and demanding to be kissed. Instead of the soft look she wore then, she’s openly glaring at you now. You know your face is doing the blank thing she hates because she searches it for something. You suppose she doesn’t find whatever that something is because she’s yelling again.

“You make it so FUCKING hard to love you and I can’t do this anymore.”

You're frozen, caught off guard with the remote to the television still in hand as the nature documentary drones on. The ‘what?’ you blurt out is one of genuine confusion, you'd both been cuddled on the couch talking before whatever this was came to be. You wrack your mind trying to remember what the last thing you said was and come up blank. To your embarrassment, you'd been on autopilot the whole morning, so there is a gap in your memories.

Taylor, upon your continued silence makes a sound that can only be described as a screech.

“You always have an excuse why I can’t meet your parents!” She cries exasperatedly, “If you’re ashamed of me I’d rather you just say that over leading me on for God’s sake!”

Your body flinches only slightly when she throws her hands up. You’re still defensive when you bite out a sharp rebuttal that makes her frown and drop your spare key on the coffee table. You don't admit to yourself that you can't remember exactly what you say over the cotton in your ears and the dark corners that sink into your neck at the first display of conflict.

It still stings when she leaves though. You spend the next day crying under your blankets, the pillow she slept on still smells like her perfume. The scent clean and floral, one you'd gotten used to seeking out when you did the laundry.

Fuck, you really did like Foxy. But you suppose you’re going to have to call her Taylor now that she's your ex-girlfriend.

Duckie laughs at Taylor’s comment when you tell her over brunch. Your effervescent friend’s giggle tumbles out of her uncontrollably, whilst her mimosa in hand, threatens to spill in her lap. She slaps a hand over her mouth when a loud snort escapes against her will. She shoots an apologetic smile to the couple at the table adjacent to yours when they ask her to keep it down.

You glare until they turn back to their lunch.

Duckie straightens when she takes in your stiff form, having finally realized she’d stepped on a landmine and right into your ire.

“Darling, you certainly don't make it easy to be close to you, you're a bit…”

She pauses in thought, shifting her glasses on her nose and placing the glass flute down on the table. Today her spectacles are fire engine red with rhinestones on the brim. You’d asked her if she was nearsighted or farsighted once and she’d told you the lenses weren’t prescription. She only wore them to seem a bit older and worldlier when out and about.

You don't like how long it takes for her to search for an adjective and say so when she still doesn’t finish her sentence after several moments.

“I just mean that you're purposely closed off,” She makes a panic flapping movement with her hands when your eyes narrow even more “Oh come on! You like it that way!”

“Duckie, what are you talking about?” You grit between your teeth.

You're pushing your half eaten club sandwich out of the way to lean across the table, waiting to hear her explanation. You’d lost your appetite.

Duckie shirks from your unblinking leer and sniffs indignantly.

“It took me nearly a year to get you to call me your friend and I swear I still feel like I don’t know you.” she gives you a pointed look, “If it weren't for the fact that you’re like that to everyone, I’d think you hated me sometimes, so I really do have to empathize with Taylor in this one.”

She’s waiting for you to say something, you can tell by the way she brings her shoulders up to her ears as if gearing for some great big reaction.

But, that wasn’t your style, never had been. So you still don’t know what’s expected of you. To negate her statement?

You suppose you could tell her that's absurd, she was your best friend in every way. Had been since the day she’d laughed at one of your more tasteless jokes during an intro to Psychology class in undergrad. You were softer for Duckie, more than you were- well really anyone.

Your own mother only knew enough about you to identify you on a morgue table if it ever came down to it. But you don’t tell her that.

Instead you do what you do best. You leave.

You’re pushing up from the table gathering your purse and throwing back the last of your mimosa like a tequila shot, before you can think twice about it.

Duckie tries to reach out to you but you flinch from her touch.

“Wait Darling, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, please don't go!”

“I’m just going to the ladies.” you mumble flatly over your shoulder. At least that's what you hope comes out because your throat is closing up with the effort to hold back the stupid tears in your eyes.

You slam into the restroom startling the barista applying lipstick in the mirror. Her owlish eyes take one look at your dark expression and she pops the top back on her lipstick, skirting past you. You check to make sure the bathroom was truly empty before locking yourself in the biggest stall.

As soon as the lock clicks the dam breaks and it makes you so angry it hurts. The level of intensity of your crying is absolutely repulsive. Your jaw aches with the efforts to muffle the sobs that thrum through your body like a struck chord.

You’re pacing the small enclosure with tears running down your face, feeling like the lioness in the nature documentary after it’d been captured. You feel the gut punch of self loathing as soon as the thought comes up. It's insulting to compare yourself to the deadly beast when you’re trying not to get snot on your dress sleeves.

Duckie comes to the restroom after a while tapping on the stall door, begging you to open up.

You feel only half guilty when you tell her to fuck off. She’s quiet for a while and you know she stands with only the thin door between you, you can see her colorful converses from beneath the gap in the door.

You want to let her in. Figuratively. Literally.

What a relief it would be to just let her crawl into the hole you’ve made at rock bottom and let her be there with you.

You want to laugh imagining her taking the time to do that rocking thing she does when she's trying to get comfortable in the decorative chair in your office. You always remind her it was meant for aesthetics, not comfort when she huffs out the same grouchy complaint about the hardness. She scoffs in mock offense anyways.

“Really Darling, you make enough money to get rid of this thing. Ooh let me send you the link to the bean bag I saw on Wayfair, one sec!”

You’re still crying when you consider that she's really the only person who makes the effort to visit you at the office.

Or anywhere really.

You'd gotten accustomed to only hearing from your family when there was a crisis or need for quick cash to keep them afloat.

If you weren’t stuffing tissues into your running nose you’d scoff at the thought of your parents caring, much less visiting. They were still content to be fuck ups well into their retirement age. You’d long stopped bothering to call to make sure they were still alive after the first year of college.

Maybe if you told Taylor that she would have stayed.

The emotional despair rot you call ‘The Chasm’ deepens and you question if you’d ever really gotten used to the loneliness of having no parent to turn to. The years of casual disdain and dismissal. The resentment for being half a child and reluctant third parent to children that weren’t yours. Their desire for all of you and none of you and back again in an endless loop.

Ceaseless demands of a gluttonous beast you could never please, even when you’ve flayed yourself bare.

It stings, the reminder that you’d been living on scraps and toughness disguised as love long before you met Duckie. Long before Foxy- Taylor- or even the parade of friends and disappointed exes, who’d simply had enough of whatever caustic matter made you, you.

Yet, Duckie is the only one who keeps coming back. Time again she comes back to your side with a smile, like she likes to be with you. Like watching nature shows with you on the couch, eating whatever snacks she brings because she knows you forget to eat, acting like it’s the highlight of her day. Never an inconvenience to care for you the way others had said it was. It makes you cry harder until you can’t breathe because you’re trying not to let her hear you.

Duckie in all her color and too big glasses, has always acted as if she can see that weak part of you peeking out from behind the thorns and quick rebuttals bordering on mean. She still stands waiting for you even now, even when you told her to fuck off in public restroom at your favorite brunch cafe.

It’s staring at the graffiti-ed dick on the stall door when you think you can honestly say you love her and it hurts your feelings that she doesn't know that.

You think you can be honest and tell her that it’s not about Foxy or even Duckie’s laugh at your expense. It’s about the revolving door of disappointment that still keeps you up at night. That landed you under the microscope on a a faceless therapist's couch for emergency sessions and the mementos of non-slip socks in your dresser drawers.

The half guilt turns into full fledged self loathing just thinking about how you really needed to get a cushion for your office and let her in. After a beat you think you’re in control of your crying enough to reach for the lock inside the stall. Of course, as always the universe is having a laugh at your expense.

“Darling, I'm going to go back to the table now okay?”

You know she's making that nervous face scrunch she does when she’s anxious, waiting for you to reply. You can’t, you’re frozen in place as always.

“Don't want them to think we skipped the tab, so just come back when you feel a bit better, yeah?”

She says something about her getting the bill and you can talk when you come back. You don’t hear her really because ‘The Chasm’ calls to you first. You keep it together long enough until the scuffling sounds of her shoes quiet before allowing the tide to take you under again.

Eventually, when you’ve stuffed the feelings back into the pit, you’re able to leave the stall. You never go back to the table. Texting Duckie a simple ‘sorry’ along with a money transfer for your portion of brunch. You leave the restaurant for the safety of your home, wondering if this will be enough for her to leave you too.

You half hope it is because it was exhausting loving someone else.

An hour later there's a timid knock on your apartment door. It’s opening to peer down at a shuffling Duckie on your steps, with flowers and the expensive bottle of wine you like, that you know that it’s not. Enough to keep her from coming back that is.

She follows you inside like a chick behind its mother and toes off her sneakers in the hall next to your rows of shoes. She takes your general wave her way as a sign of ‘go ahead’ when she asks if she can put the flowers in water.

You’re sitting on the couch with your knees to your chest, staring listlessly at the nature channel. You know Duckie is taking in your bare face and faux casualness. You know you look pathetic in your too big hoodie and headscarf. You at least hope you've gotten enough of your makeup off to not look like a drowned raccoon.

'Pathetic', The Chasm says.

Duckie carefully tiptoes over your outstretched legs to scrunch herself small on the other end of the couch. After a few episodes of the documentary, this one about penguins, she slowly makes her way to your side and cautiously gives you a half hug and a tearful apology.

“I’m sorry for being a bitch, I shouldn’t have laughed.” She doesn’t turn from the t.v's glow. You’re secretly thankful she doesn’t look at you because you’re embarrassed for crying again.

With gentle prodding she asks you to tell her how you really feel about Taylor leaving. You tell her. You also tell her about your parents and why it was such a big deal introducing Taylor to them. It’s more than you’ve admitted to any therapist and she has the foresight to not make it a thing.

Duckie just hums quietly, listening. As she sleeps on your shoulder, drool wetting your sleeve, you think you can carve her a spot beside you in rock bottom. Maybe another inside the space where your heart should be, just big enough for one. It’ll just be you and Duckie for as long as she wants it that way. You’re satisfied with the thought, drinking the last of the wine.

As always nothing you ever want matters for very long.

Because Soap doesn’t give you a choice when he barrages into your life and demands you make additional space for him and his stray dog.

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#okay slay not tagging this much cuz its more of a personal project #wraith king #simon ghost riley #johnny soap mactavish #mr clean

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