#cw anger issues

[whump-card]

Forged Divinity Unnamed Sequel: Chapter 2

1446 words

CW: dead body, like a real nasty dead body, dissociation, memory loss, amnesia, anger issues, past TBI

Previous, Masterlist, Next

~~~

Enjolras decided, since Leannan was catatonic, that she need to investigate the body. Some sick, sorrowful part of her needed to know how Phineas had died, and Leannan wasn’t about to tell her. She took one last breath of fresh air before ducking back into the shack.

She avoided the body at first, opening a cabinet on the far wall. There were a couple small sacks of oats, but little else. She grabbed a handful out of one sack, letting it run through her fingers. It didn’t look contaminated, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t – Leannan’s Iowan immune system could handle a lot more than Phineas’ could have.

She cupped a hand under the tap of their water barrel, and dribbled some out into her palm. It looked clear. She couldn’t smell it, though, not with the overpowering stench of the corpse filling the room.

She tipped out the water and wiped her hand dry on her pant leg. Finally, reluctantly, she approached the corpse.

The bloat and maggots told her it had been around a week since Phineas had died. She couldn’t imagine what Leannan had gone through, how thoroughly he must have been in denial, to live next to a corpse that whole time.

She carefully pinched the blanket covering the majority of Phineas’ body and pulled it back. She immediately spotted what she was looking for.

Cloth bound their chest flat, as usual, but more strips were wrapped around their waist, strained dark with old, dried blood. Phineas had died of an injury – a slash or stab to the gut.

Enjolras threw the blanket beck over the body before she could digest any more details – the flies, the maggots, the no, don’t look – and covered Phineas’ mutilated face with it as well. Then she turned, and fled, stumbling out the door and gulping down fresh air, tears stinging her eyes.

If Leannan had been able to bandage up the injury while Phineas was still bleeding, still alive, that meant Phineas hadn’t died immediately. They had died slowly. The thought, the sight, the smell, it all made her nauseous.

Phineas was still a part of her, as horrible as they were. Rapist, arsonist, murderer, yes. Her little sibling? Also yes.

Her eyes settled on Leannan where he sat on the ground, and she quickly brushed away her tears. She couldn’t spare the time to mourn right now. She needed to get Leannan home, before anything else went wrong.

“Leannan?” She touched his shoulder. He was still… gone, his empty gaze resting on the ground. She scooped her hands under his arms and lifted him to his feet, then led him by the arm over to the pickup truck. This, finally, seemed to rouse him.

“Are we leaving?” he asked.

“Yes,” Enjolras said.

“Is Phineas coming with us?”

Enjolras’ heart sank. Something was really, really wrong with Leannan.

“Uh… Yeah. They’re riding in the back. Can you get in?” She opened the passenger door for him.

“Mhm.” He climbed into the cab, and Enjolras shut the door. Then she looked back at the shack.

A part of her wanted to do something – to bury Phineas, maybe. But the ground was dry and hard-packed, and full of rocks, and she didn’t have a shovel anyway. It didn’t feel right to just leave them there, to be scavenged by animals, but there was nothing she could do.

Then she remembered the gun.

She steeled herself, and went back into the shack and looked around. It wasn’t immediately visible, but there were only so many places it could hide. She found it soon enough, tucked behind the cabinet: the Barrett M95 sniper rifle. She slung it over her shoulder, not bothering to search for the ammo. She just wanted to have it, not to shoot it.

It was Mom’s. She couldn’t leave it there.

She stashed it in the bed of the pickup, and glanced back at the shack one last time.

She wished she could make it right. But things had gone wrong a long, long time ago.

~~~

Leannan slept as they drove, leaning his head against the window again. Enjolras couldn’t help but glance at him constantly, trying to take in every detail while still watching the road.

He still wore the clothes he had taken with him when he left Goat Island. They were weathered and dirty now, and too big on him. The scar on his left temple looked like a gnarled lightning strike or tree branch growing out of his hairline. The soles of his boots were peeling away from the uppers. He was tanned and freckled, and his hair was sun-bleached even paler than it had been when they first met. There was dirt under his fingernails, and crusted into the lines of his face.

They had been driving for about two hours when Leannan awake with a small yelp, and started looking around frantically.

“Hej, what…?” Enjolras started.

“Where’s Phineas?” Leannan demanded.

Enjolras couldn’t answer. She kept her eyes on the road, her jaw clenched.

“Where’s Phineas?!” shouted Leannan.

“They died, Leannan,” Enjolras said quietly.

“No! No, you left them behind! You left them behind on purpose!” Leannan was working himself up into a frenzy, “You promised! You promised they could come with us! You lied to me!”

“Phineas is dead.”

“Fuck you!” Leannan shrieked, with a level of vitriol Enjolras had never heard from him before, “Fuck you! I hate you!”

Without warning, Leannan grabbed the steering wheel and yanked it to the side. Enjolras slammed on the brakes to keep them from careening off the road. While she was occupied getting the car back under control, Leannan flung his door open and jumped out of the slow-moving vehicle.

“Leannan!” Enjolras shouted. She finally got the car to stop and threw it into park, then jumped out to follow him. He was running back down the road towards where they came.

“Leannan!” She caught up with him easily, between her taller height, better nutrition, and better shoes, and grabbed his arm. “Leannan, stop!”

He swung around and punched her in the face. It was a pretty weak punch, but it surprised her nonetheless.

“I hate you!” he screamed, twisting in her grip, “You always ruin everything!”

Those were Phineas’ words. Enjolras would recognize them anywhere. She pulled Leannan close and wrapped her arms around him, pinning his arms to his sides, his back to her chest.

“I’m sorry, Leannan, but I need to take you home!” she said through gritted teeth.

Leannan screamed wordlessly in return, struggling like a wild animal.

“Don’t you want to see Shannon again?” Enjolras coaxed.

“Not… without… Phineas!” Leannan insisted in between attempts to twist himself free. Enjolras held him tighter.

“Leannan,” she felt a lump rise in her throat, “Phineas is dead!”

Leannan paused his fighting, panting hard. Enjolras could feel his thin body swell and deflate in her arms with each breath, rife with panic and anger. She felt the anger fade.

“I didn’t mean to,” Leannan whimpered.

Enjolras carefully loosened her grip.

“Didn’t mean to what?” she asked softly, already anticipating the answer.

“I just get really angry, sometimes, now, and I don’t know why, and Phineas was being a real jerk, and I just wanted them to stop…” Leannan’s words dissolved into soft, hiccuping cries.

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”

“Yes, it is!” Leannan wailed, “It’s always my fault!”

Enjolras released him fully, turning him around to face her.

“When did you start getting angry?” she asked.

“When I got hit… in the head,” Leannan gulped, his hand going to the scar on his temple, “Phineas says it made me stupid and weird.”

“Do you remember what happened?”

“No,” Leannan shook his head miserably, “Phineas says it was an accident.”

Enjolras tallied up the symptoms. Memory loss. Mood swings. Disorientation. A bad enough head injury, combined with some psychological trauma, would certainly explain everything.

“Leannan, I promise it’s not your fault.”

Leannan frowned up at her.

“You also promised you’d take Phineas with us!”

Enjolras sighed.

“I would have, I really would, if Phineas had been alive. But they’re not, they’re dead, they couldn’t come with.”

Leannan’s red-rimmed eyes drifted to stare past her. For a moment Enjolras was afraid that had dissociated again at the mention of Phineas’ death, but then he spoke.

“What am I supposed to do now?” he whispered.

“Come home with me,” Enjolras offered, “We’ll take care of you.”

He slowly shifted forward and, to her surprise, leaned against her, resting his forehead against her shoulder.

“You’ll take care of me?” he murmured, muffled by her shirt.

“Yeah,” she patted his back, “We will.”

~~~

Previous, Masterlist, Next

Taglist: @angst-after-dark, @sunshiline-writes, @flowersarefreetherapy, @thecyrulik

[darksideofthemoonbot]

Khorne

Sorry Khorne fans, but for me he is last of the big four. That doesn't mean I don't like him, love all the chaos gods, but here's why. Unlike my Nurgle and Tzeentch explanations, this will be a bit heavier like my Slaanesh.

THE GOOD

Khorne is a lawnmower. There's something satisfying at times to the simplicity of, lets go with Kharneth, I like that name better. Something delightfully simple to screaming "BLOOD FOR THE BLOODGOD" and going to hit something with a sharp piece of metal. Its almost therapeutic sometimes.

Also, as he cares not from whence the blood flows, Kharneth is thus clearly the god of [menstruation joke goes here]. And yes, I am... familiar with the Leman Russ quote. Though in a way I sorta do want a Norscan slang to be "the time of the hound".

Completely unrelated, I promise, but also Valkia the Bloody. A lot of love for a queen who gets told she's been selected as a Slaanesh daemon prince for concubinisation, and answers by killing him and marching into chaos to deliver his head to Kharneth personally.

THE BAD

Khorne is a lawnmower. Much fun as it is to skull for yon skull throne, I can find Kharneth a bit one-note in that respect. Which isn't bad exactly but tends to make him better in measured doses, you know? I like variety over the long haul.

THE UGLY

Here's where it gets heavy. Like Slaanesh, I relate to Kharneth well. Unlike Slaanesh, it is not a mixed bag of good and bad. It is just bad. It is parts of me I do not like.

Among my mental/emotional concerns for which I get medication and therapy is anger. Not strong enough a word. Rage. Fury. Berserkergang perhaps.

Times where the world has become a long red tunnel with ThingsThatNeedToDie™️ at the other end. The strength is unbelievable, though I pay for it after. And I don't just mean raw physical force. The absolute purity of purpose in such a rage is the greatest clarity I have ever experienced.

And that is a bad thing.

It is like an addiction. It may well be one, but I am not a biochemist so I won't conjecture. All it causes is harm and the sublime clarity doesn't last beyond the fit of rage. I miss it. I shouldn't but I do. And I have started trying to direct it in healthier ways. Promoting justice, if there is such a thing, or perhaps more accurately fighting injustices. Turning the furnace of anger toward productive ends.

That, however, leads me to the even less useful and harder to justify emotion I relate to with Kharneth: hate. Unlike the conflagration of fury, hate is the bitter coals that endlessly hunger for spiteful destruction.

I have stared into the abyss of hate. In some areas I have fallen into it. Most notably misandristic thinking. I hated men. Another trauma response, given who has hurt me in the past. And I know that it is wrong, I have made real progress with it. Unlike anger, I do not miss it. It is seductive, offering clear and simple answers to complex issues. "X is bad" with no other qualifiers can be unbelievably tempting in some cases. Complex is troubling, while simple is easier. Hate is so much easier than understanding. But I do not miss it. The toxic fumes from those ever-smoking coals is poisonous to mind, body, spirit, and society.

It is not rage, it is contempt. It is spite and venom. A desire to see something ruined or destroyed, not out of passion, but out of bile. And my susceptibility for it is a part of myself I really do not like. But to mention my fibromyalgia again: it is easy to hate the world when the world causes you nothing but pain.

Understanding is counter to hate, maybe not perfectly but I found it helps. After I was assaulted a few years back by a hired driver, I was aware how easy it would be to fall into hate because of that. So I threw myself into learning about his religion. Harder to paint all adherents of a faith badly when I knew more about it, was my thinking. It worked. I even gained an appreciation for the art common in that belief system, that I had not known about before, and learned some interesting history. Which helped me remember: it is not all of a demographic, it may be too much of a demographic, but not all. He was just a jackass.

Sorry to end the big four on a heavy note y'all. Here's a picture of cathartic destruction.

[thebettermccoy]

(I'm not one to really talk about my mental health. But holy shit is in the gutter. On the physical side of things, my blood pressure is high enough to give me a headache. I'm literally making myself sick with rage.)

(I really need to find my zen before I lose myself.)

[j0celynh0rr0r]

.

[thereigning-lorelai]

I think you're working for McGinnis.

[ineffabells]

hey, you know what's a fun thought?

what if one day, pre-ascension, Mobei-Jun was beating up Shang Qinghua as usual, but this time when he threw him, SQH hit his head on a jutting out piece of rock or wall in just the right place

and instead of crawling onto his knees and doing his over-the-top wailing and begging for mercy routine that MBJ had come to expect, SQH just lay still.

and a dark pool of blood, impossibly big and horrifyingly still pouring, spread from skull, on the floor aroud him, soaking through his sunny, ink-stained an-ding robes,

as Mobei watched, a cold horror settling over him. and SQH didn't get up.

[borderlinejessie]

Fuck you for confusing me.

Fuck you for telling me you loved me.

Fuck you for acting like you cared.

Fuck you for making me feel special.

Fuck you for lying the entire time.

Fuck you.

[shiutsu]

"Your stances on humanity are sick!! You should tell a psychologist about them!!!"

-someone who disapproves being shitty towards own abusers, not defending oneself when attacked by an asshole & has "be nice & kind uwu" in their bio

Yeah sure, I'm the weird one.

[an-indecisive-nerd]

People who don't hold grudges, or don't think they do, sometimes think it's easy to see what a grudge looks like. They think it's about plotting revenge, brooding in corners, and despising those who wronged you.

It's not. Not for me.

For me, it's a tally.

I like to think that I'm fairly slow to anger. I don't fly into a rage at the slightest annoyance. But when I do get angry, I get very angry.

I've never let anyone see the full extent of my rage before. No one but myself. And that's a good thing, because if anyone ever did see me truly angry, someone would get hurt.

I'm slow to anger.

I feel anger intensely.

I'm quick to suppress it.

But I hold a grudge.

Every time someone angers me, even if only slightly, I add a tally. I have little boards in my mind, one for every person, and every time they anger me, I add a tally.

Some boards are so red with tallies you can't even see the material they were made from.

And the people I love most? Well, their boards are some of the most covered.

I don't erase the tallies out of love. I don't pretend they aren't there. I can't. I can't let it go.

So instead, I draw little hearts around each tally. I paint them as character flaws, the negative qualities that I love about them.

And every time they start to anger me, and every single previous tally swirls around in my brain, I pretend that the red I'm seeing is just the colour of my sunglasses, and as soon as the sun goes behind the clouds, I can take them off.

But I can't. I have to wait till I'm alone and pry the red from my eyes. Bleed them dry.

And then I mark down a new tally.

Then I go back as if nothing happened.

And I draw a heart around it.

But how do I know if those hearts are deserved? How do I know how many tallies are too many if I can never bring myself to erase any, no matter how small?

I don't. I don't know.

That's why I let him stay and let her go.

That's why I don't talk to her anymore, but he does no wrong.

That's why there are just as many tallies on my skin as there are on his board, but not anywhere near as many hearts.

Because I can never erase those tallies.

[ventingblogofmarcus]

i hate you anger issues.

[the-crystal-femmes]

hi !

sorry if this is a personal question !

but what's it like with anger issues ? genuine question !!

i think my sister has anger issues and i would love to understand it more so i could help her more !!

i mean she could have anger issues or something else but so far i think it's anger issues !

also i could go search online but i thought that getting firsthand experience would benefit more !

but i am so very sorry if this is too personal !

It's okay. I usually don't talk about it, but I suppose I could this time.

It's a burden. I don't know why I'm so angry, truthfully..? I think part of it is trauma, partly how I'm not able to regulate emotions correctly, and more reasons.

It depends on the individual, but mine are.. Bad. I constantly have to stop myself from reacting in violent ways, and it's constant that I get so angry. I don't know if I have specific triggers, or it just happens.. I'm more prone to getting angry when I'm overstimulated, tired, upset, in pain, or really any negative emotions.

I also deal with severe mood swings, so my mood can switch up quite fast. I may be happy one moment, and the next I'm screaming at someone to fuck off, or throwing and destroying things. This can also be tied to my autistic meltdowns, but sometimes it isn't.

It makes me feel like an animal in a cage.

[theswedishcatlord101]

Vent

My oldest sister just yelled at me and my middle sister very loudly and complaining yelling at me to put the dishes in the dishwasher which I can only with glove since I have sensory issues and when she yelled at me bc of it so I cried and couldn’t stop the only one who felt like they truly loved me was my middle sister. I just wanted to watch bluey and eat oranges. Is that too fucking much to ask for? Thanks, sister. For ruining my day.

[slugass]

hi why did i have a meltdown over a small inconvience while building something

???????????

something being kinda annoying is apparently something to have a screaming crying violent meltdown over

?????????????????????????

what the fuck????????????

[smolfrosted]

I’m the devil now apparently

Apparently he hangs on my shoulder

If he does then he has been there since I was born

[gnzma]

Why are you angry, Guzma?

I just am, he says to himself-- to the reflection in front of him, that broken copy of himself in the dusty glass of the abandoned minimart -- knowing well that wasn't going to be an acceptable answer.

It wasn't when he said that to others who would believe his lie, it's not going to be when he lies to himself. It's an easier line to repeat, one others can understand, one that doesn't force him to focus on the details, the stupid reasons behind his frustrations, the whys and why nots.

I'm just angry is the easy way out. It's the one that doesn't hurt. The one that makes him look at his reflection - the bags under his eyes, the baseball bat held a little too tight, the fact that he lost weight despite all the shit he ate; his hair are a mess, his clothes are a mess, he's a mess - and makes him say, you're the problem, you're the reason I'm angry, all of you.

I mean, you're at least half right.

His copy almost sounds smug, and that's ridiculous. You're me, you can't sass me. Guzma frowns, the baseball bat moved ever so slightly to take the measures for the incoming swing.

Hating himself is easier to admit that he feels stuck. He feels stuck doing nothing, he feels stuck because he can't do nothing, nothing but making things worse. And nobody fucking listens to him, or respects him, or is intimidated by him. He's the fun guy, the jokester, the Boss who can't protect his Team, that makes things worse, that listens to her, a goddamn Mareep in Lyranroc's clothing nobody gives half a shit about.

A side character in his own pathetic life.

You're angry because you're back to the start, don't you? Because your anger is the norm. It isn't something people are worried about. It's something people pity or ignore.

You miss the worst side of you, don't you? When you were more than a JOKE.

-the bat hits his reflection, shattering it in pieces.

He's just angry. He's just angry.

[buggiecrossing]

nalu needs to stop reading stuff that makes hyr mad. friendly reminder to protect your peace and to not let your emotions overcome you to the point you sink to the opposing side's level. la paz sea contigo