#evidence for this being Will’s trauma show strikes again

[greenfiend]

Broke: Mlvn is endgame! Byler sucks!

Woke: Byler is endgame! Mlvn sucks!

Bespoke: El has always been an extension of Will. She is literally the gatekeeper alter.

People with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) create alters to protect themselves from facing their extreme childhood trauma.

Gatekeeper alter: an alter that controls switching to the front and access to the person’s inner world. Gatekeepers control access to specific memories or protected alters and can, in some cases, prevent unwanted switching. These alters aid in preventing traumatic memories from escaping from the alters who control them, thus throwing up amnesiac walls to protect the whole system.

[amuseoffyre]

Shame as a weapon

I got to thinking the other night about the way that shame is weaponised through OFMD. It comes from all directions, from characters who believe they are doing it for the right reasons like Ed’s mother and Jim’s Nana to the people who use it like a blade to control or maintain the status quo as they perceive it should be like pretty much every male antagonist.

The definition of shame is “a painful emotion caused by the belief that one is, or is perceived by others to be, inferior or unworthy of affection or respect because of one's actions, thoughts, circumstances, or experiences”.

From the word go, it becomes evident that shame and being shamed plays a large part in the story.

Our first culprit chronologically is Nigel Badminton: you were so soft and weak. He belittles Stede’s behaviour, his mannerisms, his interests. It’s very telling that after his death, Stede’s own self-doubt and fears about himself manifest in the shape of the man who had belittled and diminished him since childhood.

Then we have dear old Dad Bonnet, not gleefully malicious like Nigel but far colder and crueller. As far as I can recall, there was not a single positive exchange between father and son. Once again, Stede was shamed for failing to meet the expectation and demands that society placed on him.

There are so many other moments: Ed’s mother (“we just aren’t those kind of people”), the people on the party ship with both Stede and Ed at various points, Nana (“you only killed one of them?”) Calico Jack ("I didn’t know I had an audience with the fuckin’ pope”), Stede ("surely she should give up the dishonest title”)

The one I find most interesting, though, is Izzy Hands. He attempts to take control of a situation with Lucius in episode 5. The “oooh daddy” scene was meant to mock and humiliate Lucius, but the trouble is that he’s trying to belittle someone who sees nothing embarrassing about who he is.

He tries to shame Lucius again later in the episode, leaning in close and threatening “to spill all your beans” and implying Lucius’s promiscuity is worthy of shame. The glorious moment when Lucius kicks the proverbial legs out from under him by being completely unashamed and then turns it back on Izzy by bringing up his own embarrassing incident? Masterful. Showing simply and easily that “I see your little game. I see the weapons you’re trying to marshall against me. And babe, I can use them too and I can do it better”.

The contrast between this interaction and the “whatever this is that you’ve become” scene with Ed is so compelling. Ed’s vulnerability has been building and building. Between his layers of trauma from his childhood, his social class issues and how he tried to break cleanly from his old life to the way Stede abandoned him, he’s floundering, trying to work out who he is and who he wants to be. Izzy throws an emotional tripwire across his path.

Lucius armed himself to strike back at Izzy, gathering information and turning Izzy’s own tricks against him. Ed isn’t in any state to do that. Izzy’s just randomly slapping emotional buttons, aiming to get a response, and as he did with Lucius in the “oooh daddy” scene, it’s a very homophobic approach: while he was mocking Lucius’s flamboyance, here he’s scoffing at Ed’s softness and lack of masculinity and aggression by focusing on his clothing and ‘pining’.

It’s very telling that the thing that really shatters Ed’s fraying composure isn’t the mockery. It’s the mention of “your boyfriend”. Izzy doesn’t care about that part. He just sees the shaming has worked because “there he is”. There’s the violent angry man he follows.

We know Izzy has done tirades like this before. He’s done them to Ed’s face before and Ed just gave him a bemused look. But this time is different because all the chinks are open in Ed’s armour and for once, Izzy’s shaming slips in, cutting where it normally would just slide off, slicing across all the many layers or grief and trauma and misery. It’s a hard thing to lay yourself bare and now, here is the man who is meant to be your loyal friend threatening you after salting all your wounds.

Ed is already reeling from being abandoned by someone who he loved and who he believed might love him. Now it’s coming at him from another angle, from someone else he considered a loyal ally, who is reminding him of that first abandonment while also adding their own violent intent on top. Once again, he’s been shown and told he’s not enough as he is.

And when the moment is followed by the crew asking Ed for another song, even if people joke and laugh with him, how long before they joke and laugh at him? It’s happened before, after all. “Nobody laughs at me”, he said. Better to maintain the mask and the status quo where no one can see what’s underneath.

[maryonmega]

Twin Stars - Chapter 4

As you remenber (but really not?)

If the party had plans to split to look for itens, they were shattered the moment you joined. It's overwhelming, but you'll be blinded if you complain. 

 

At the same time you're grateful the whole "woe is us, wish craft amnesia!" thing allows you to get away with generic or vague responses and internally panicking over being very much aware of how little to nothing you know about being a sibling, let alone a similar-aged one. You hope that those things can be brushed off by, well, everything. Stars, you were a mess long before looping trauma. At least on that, you and Stardust can agree.

 

"I don't really have a place to settle, I've been on the road for a good time." Truth.

 

"I was out of Vaugard for some, so I didn't find out about the King business untill a couple weeks ago." Truth.

 

"It feels so surreal I'm kind of mad, not gonna lie. Feel sidetracked." Half truth.

 

"Stardust is because he came after me." Half truth. If you patted a bug off one of shoulders that's another thing. 

 

Good thing the Kid is as loose lips as their age can excuse. They're so clearly impatiente to get home. 

 

You think about an angry voice yelling about their home being frozen. You were stupid and ripped it away from them. This Kid forgave the Traveler, but would yours forgive you?

 

You had to go back to the place you had left the rest of your attire, thankful for the warmt your cloak gave you and that you still don't have a lot on you (careful with the alcohol bottles, they're unlikely to break but not impossible). Maybe a matching set serves as extra evidence? You're siblings, yes, even have the same "made with love" type of clothing. 

 

You don't feel... "things" thinking about this as much as you likely would before, but it's still there. How twisted is that? Grief pilled on top of grief?

 

You pull your hat down over your face untill the shopping is done and the group heads for an inn. At least you can do that again. 

 

In some odd luck strike, your the group managed to get rooms on the same floor. As you and the Researcher make yourselves comfortable, you could hear the Traveler and the Fighter if you payed attention, tho not what they say. Maybe it's better this way. 

 

You need to be careful. She might have accepted you, but that doesn't mean she trusts you. Stars, she might have offered to be your roommate because she doesn't trust you. 

 

"So, a third person from the country that got erased."

 

"Ah, third?" Well you be blinded, she's not sparing you here, is she? Good thing you're not biting your tongue in such a cliche way.

 

"Yes. It's a curious thing, considering how long ago it seens to have been."

 

She's trying to bait you. 

 

Don't let her.

 

"The other person didn't look like us, did them? I can't imagine the migrane if we turn out to be triplets."

 

The Reasercher shakes her head. It could be impression or wishful hopeful thinking, but you think she face could have softened.

 

Real or not, so did yours. You already knew she wasn't exacly like your Researcher, but this kind of reminder is just as painful. Better to take solace in her denial, now that would be messy.

 

"This is not about how your family tree branches, it's about a noted pattern. Sisyphus, do you percieve memory problems?"

 

Talk about not beating about the bush, eh? You should ask Stardust how the communication is going, when you get another alone time. Right now, tho, you have a bomb to difuse near your face.

 

You smile and clasp your hands.

 

"My, oh my, missy. Is that the impression you have of us? That we have terrible memory? I mean, I do have bad memory and used the royal we, but that's aside."

 

She showed with just her eyes that she listened, face hard to read. This still sens to be same. Fuck.

 

"Don't take it personally, Sisyphus. It wasn't intended as an insult to you or your ethnicity."

 

Right now, will extra details come across as a cover up? But silence wouldn't help with tension at all, it doesn't help that you can't foresee if she's going to slip into coldness or allow a bit of warmt out. 

 

No, silly, she won't be warm. Even if you have a human face again, to her, you're still a stranger.

 

You grab your pants under your cloak.

 

"Miss, please, I'm trying to wiggle back into a family I don't even know if I can still call mine. Can I have more than a few hours to breath?"

 

Truth. Maybe that's why she decided to surrender.

 

"Of course. But don't try to run, young one. This involves me now."

 

"I know."

 

Truth.

 

The bottle calls you like a siren song. You take it and offer to the Researcher, who looks at it but rejects, before taking a swing.

 

You think about sharing a wine bottle, but that tought gets fuzzy with the burning sensation running down your throat. Maybe the "no" was for the best. 

 

You only take off your cloak to prepare for bed, the heat in your gut more than welcome when it left your skin. 

 

Even under the fog, before your eyes drift close, you can't help but wonder if she waited so you wouldn't be cornered. 

 

The thought lingers as you allow nothingness to embrance you. 

 

~★~

 

Loop is sharing a room with Odile. In party it was because you couldn't muster up the courage to insist, but there was the part that chose not to for selfish reasons. You know madame wouldn't offer just like that for no reason and don't think you could face her glare if you did, sure, but wanting to share with Isa was another. Your only defense is that you've had a boyfriend for longer than a sibling, even if the extra time was less than a week. 

 

First hand experience is something new and your plays seen to have been packed with a good amount of lies, don't be too hard on yourself. 

 

Stars, you think about how Loop would know things inside the House and wonder how much they could know now, even if their body changed. 

 

Do they know about the daily breadowns in the time you were in bedrest?

 

You don't think so, but you didn't think they would help save you, either. 

 

"Sif? Siffrin?"

 

Isa's voice snaps you out of your thoughts. Even if it hasn't been that long, it's not hard to tell the new "we need to talk" tone. Sometimes you can't help but wonder if it's porpuseful. You turn away from your bag and towards him. 

 

"Yes?"

 

Isa has his arms over his chest, expression serious but not dark. Good sign?

 

"I was thinking, the sibling is yours, the trauma, too, we can't dictate how you deal with associating both."

 

You feel goosebumps in your arms. You didn't think about that. 

 

"But, that involves us, too, specially now. I really think it's important... No, it is really important for us to know how much you want Sisyphus to know. Or not know. I don't want to backslide your talking progress" even tho it's tiny and partly coughed out under mental duress "but I don't want to trample a boundary either. We can figure things out, I'm sure! But that depends on what you want."

 

You're already half panicked just with Loop being Odile's roommate. The thought of pretending like they know nothing is terrifying to the point you think you'll faint here and now if you say you don't want to tell. 

 

Well, you be blinded, you'll have to act like you're giving a newcomer special treatment. 

 

"I'll tell them about the loops. When we have an alone time."

 

"You will?"

 

"Yes. Ah, don't get it wrong! It's not because I trusted you less! I just don't want to stun even more, specially when it's already so hard."

 

"Sif." His gaze siftned "It's fine. I'm glad you will."

 

"I really think I should tell one on one, though."

 

"And I can leave the room so you can have privacy when you talk."

 

What did you do to deserve this man?

 

You don't see Loop when you leave the room for dinner. "Out like a light", is how Odile described. You can sympathize. You were tired, you can't imagine how they were. 

 

Besides, the little time it buys is welcome. 

(Mother of inner monologues? Actual stuff will happen soon enough, I swear!

Loop: I don't want to ruin my new skin *proceeds to attack their liver*)

[dangermousie]

Farscape rewatch - The Ugly Truth, 2x17

The Ugly Truth is an ep I enjoy a lot without having a ton to say about it (proceeds to say a ton about it.)

I find it entertaining how even without lying, the Moyans’ versions of what happen differ in subtle ways - Aeryn’s is most matter of fact and probably the closest to factual accuracy - between her past life of having to regularly give reports to superiors and her generally not being great at make believe - look at what a terrible actress she is when John wants her to put on a small act:

But also hers is the most believable and hardest to pick apart because once again, as military grunt she probably has more experience of telling most acceptable version within factual confines to her superiors.

In Zhaan’s, everyone is copacetic and wants to talk out their differences. In D’Argo’s he’s the center of the action with John and Aeryn as his backup.

And significantly, all Moyans present John as on their side. Moya does not have a leader but as Rygel complained about in Out of Their Minds, they do listen to Crichton the way they don’t do to the rest of themselves.

Other things - it strikes me again just how both hardened and broken John is. You can still feel waves of rage and loathing roll off him when he meets Crais again. Because his trauma has changed him on a permanent basis but also because he’s had no chance to heal even a little - they are on the run, he’s slowly going mad/controlled, terrible things keep happening. Forget having time and space to heal; new trauma keeps getting dumped on top.

And this Crichton has no desire to talk it out with the Plakovians (who he keeps calling Plakovoids and it’s such a small in character show of cussedness in John) or any hope or expectation it will help. Underneath it all, there is a terrifying dose of not giving a fuck nihilism if I die then I die in him. He is utterly unsurprised their trip and his life have gone to hell yet again, just sitting there grimly and angrily enduring, in expectation of something terrible.

The mystery of who fired on the ship is solved in the end, much too late to do any good, and I love that there is no good answer and also that Stark was innocent and was executed for nothing (and the irony of the worst arms dealers in the Galaxy supposedly so so so concerned with justice is as evident as the fact that they aren’t really looking for the truth, they are just engaging in confirmation bias - they are not sifting the narratives for the truth, they are sifting for them to confirm what they believe has happened.)

I said in The Locket, I love Stark and this ep confirms it.

On rewatch, I know he manages to come back but he does not know this here and is in fact thinking there is almost no chance.

And he still confessed to the action he did not commit and that will result in his execution, when it’s the only way to save the rest.

The scene with Zhaan with Stark’s mask - my heart!

In John X Aeryn news, love the way the ep shows them subtly and insistently as a unit.

And that last scene where he asks if she only concealed the truth because of Talyn (and not Crais) and it’s jealousy and uncertainty on his part and it’s clear to anyone with eyes that is what this for her but to him it’s too important and he’s too broken and too irrational about Crais not to ask.

And they look at each other in knowledge that what happened with Stark and Zhaan could happen to either of them and they live in a world of constant loss (and this is such a small preview of what is coming for them - ooof!)

PS when John says “cross my heart hope to die stick a needle in my eye” and I remember the next episode is Clockwork Nebari. Those writers were freaking insanely brilliant omg!

[crowofjudgements-blog]

Kaleidoscope

Astarion x OFC Halaena

Content Warnings: Exploration of past traumas, sfw, mentions of sex and seduction

Synopsis: basically the ‘mirror’ scene but better suited for my character!! Please please leave some feedback in the comments, especially on my characterization of Astarion. I’m working on character development and portrayal in my writing so any feedback is welcome and appreciated!!!

—————————————————————————

The moon hung its full smiling face high amongst the heavens, silvery strands of light danced across the clearing below as the stars themselves seemed content to watch over the enlivened encampment of mere mortals seeking refuge, comforts for the body is soft and easily bruised. Beyond the fire pit where hearth set ablaze dead centre of the camp, Astarion lounged, snow-white curls haloed in the firelight as he cast a pensive gaze across languid bodies lounging unbidden; for now, the looming fear of monsters in the shadows and curses round every corner had dissipated, enough that they were content. In those days, it was a scarce thing to let muscles relax and forget the blood and viscera that paved young adventurers’ path to absolution. Astarion scoffed as he sipped bloodwine from a crystalline goblet; how fragile peace is, shattered as soon as glass on concrete.

Copper lingered heavy on his tongue, choking almost. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt so- secure? It was a fragile, fleeting thing, but to be fed and cared for is to be changed. Gone were the empty recesses that lined his face, hollowing out distant eyes that stared unseeing, unknowing. In its place, resplendency curls silky smooth and oiled, skin dewy, lush and plump as he lost the baseness of his deathly pallor, lips pressed into a petulant purse- though it wasn’t like he could see the change, he still felt it. Even he had to admit, this was good, no matter how infuriatingly easy it came in this place.

The object of his ire was that explosive little wizard, Halaena. Even her name grated at his frayed nerves; how could someone like her, someone unbound to the weirdos and malforms that blanketed camp in their obnoxious presence, choose to come anywhere near any of them with a 50-foot pole? Let alone take care of them, offer shelter, food, and comfort? The premise was enough to pull a carted snort from his chest whenever he thought about it for a moment too long. She had no evident reason to protect them, which meant she likely had her own reasons, and Astarion knew just how dangerous personal agendas could be to the greater good.

Do not get it twisted; the pale elf had no interest in the greater good or the whole lot of them. If he had the means, he would have pursued this adventure alone, guarded; after all, the only thing he truly craved was release, freedom from his cruel master. But- often, he found himself in a rather precarious position. On one hand, he was smart enough to know he was in no position to lead himself to the promise of freedom. Most days, his mind was a complete muddle, too awash with his obsession in finding an escape that he’d likely end up getting himself and everyone else killed before they even made it past the threshold of the Gate. On the other hand, this wizard -strike one right off the bat- just showed up one day and whisked him and a whole band of misfits and strays on this wild adventure, and she seemed to be the one person on this earth that Astarion could not seduce.

Of course, it was in his luck to be stuck with the sexless zealot more interested in ancient tomes and spells over touch, connection. It’s not necessarily that he wanted to bed her; quite the opposite, the very thought of being intimate with someone like that again made bile rise in the back of his throat, made his hands tremble and gaze sharpen. No, he didn’t want to sleep with her, but it unnerved him that she didn’t want to, that she shot down his every proposition kike an arrow to his defences, to the very protection he feared he barely clung to.

She just gave without the expectation of anything in return- granted, she was a wizard, so her curious nature and ascetic ways led them astray much more than he cared for, but that irritant did not erase the fact that this lack of transaction made her presence, her care and light, conditional. If he couldn’t perform, couldn’t be a precious doll for her whiles and whims, what was stopping her from simply abandoning him on the side of the road? He’d be left for dead or worse- left a feast for Cazador and his vultures to pick at until there was nothing left but bone and marrow. It-

Scared him.

He raised his gaze from the brim of his goblet when he heard an underfoot rustle approaching; his gaze fluttered up as he caught sight of pearlescent curls and airy amethyst robes. Snowy lashes brushed against the chisel of his cheeks when he finally looked up at Halaena, and he immediately fell into his role; a placating smile curled at the line of his lips; he softened his gaze and watched with apparent rapt attention as Halaena made move to sit nearby.

“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” he cooed as she got settled a few paces away, earning a reproachful snort as she sank back on one of his plush pillows. An orchestra of cicadas and quiet nightlife accompanied them, but even the rest of camp seemed to fade when he looked at her. Seeing the soft vulnerability behind her gaze, a clenching twist in his chest tightened. Astarion found Halaena a trivial, enigmatic thing- one that he most certainly did not want to unravel, mind you. He had his own deals and devils to worry about without giving care to her or her big forlorn eyes, or her issues. Gods, just acknowledging her tasted like bile on his sharp tongue.

“Oh, spare me. I see how you glare,” she giggled and shook her head, looking towards him with those eyes. He hated those eyes—big and bright, alighted with a hope that should have long been crushed. He just wanted to take her squishy cheeks in his palms and shake her head, see if there were any actual brains in there or if it was empty, like he suspected. “How is your daily brooding going, hm? Manage to bore a hole through anyone with your eyes just yet?”

“Ha ha, a wizard making fun of someone else for being broodsome? The comedy writes itself,” he retorted, voice dripping with his signature sarcasm and sass, and a fleeting sense of pride bubbled up in his chest at her cloying laughter. He bristled slightly, all ruffled up like a disgruntled peacock. At the same time, he laid back and followed her gaze, finding her eyes fixated where they usually rested: upturned towards glittering stars and the dark expanse of inky night.

“I suppose I can’t be the cat to call the kettle black; I’ll leave that to the poets, I think,” she mused as she looked down, seeing the little trinkets and baubles strewn haphazardly around. There weren’t many signs of Astarion scarce, even in his own space. Instinctively, Halaena reached out a hand to grasp an ornate handle sticking out from under some blanket or other. If her companion noticed, he didn’t move to stop her as she raised the glass to inspect her face.

The shattered glass reflected a kaleidoscopic view of her visage, distorted and wrong. She frowned as she inspected the thing, ornate in its construction, yet broken, unnecessary to keep around. She looked to Astarion then, seeing his eyes reflect a hunger that wasn’t obsessive or indicative of a desire to devour- no, they were bitter and longing, even though he tried to mask it behind a heavy brow. Her thumb brushed over the gilded applique decorating this beautiful thing- a mirror far more beautiful than anything it could ever reflect.

“Vanity is the fall of man, but it is nice to see oneself,” she finally said, not ignorant to the flare of his nostrils or how his shoulders tensed.

“Let it be-”

“How long has it been then? Since- you last saw yourself, I mean.”

Astarion stared at her so long she thought he meant to kill her with the viciousness brimming behind his eyes. His hands flexed at his side momentarily as he struggled to choke back a biting response, something cruel, something to make her feel. Instead, he swallowed down his words and looked at the mirror, gaze intense, before he opened his mouth to speak.

“Long before your mother first set eyes upon her precious babe, I know that much,” he bristled as he plucked his wine goblet from beside him and took a quick, placating gulp. Warmth flooded his senses, and before he spoke again, Astarion let out a grumbled huff. “Not since- well, not since Cazador turned me into this undead creature,” he scoffed, bitterness overtaking any warm lilt and the lingering saccharine taste that usually coated his tongue. She set the mirror aside with an almost wistful nod, her touch brushing against it one last time before her attention shifted back to the pale elf.

“I’m sorry.” The words almost made him snort; so simple and yet intangible in the grand scheme. A single apology didn’t erase two centuries of torment and certainly did not paint him a reflection. He watched her with baleful eyes, pale brows knitted tight as she moved to sit before him on her knees with her hands clasped in her lap. He felt the familiar crackle of the Weave pulsing in the air around them, a sudden shift in the nighttime chill. Halaena looked at Astarion as though her eyes themselves could offer an embrace, seeing into him as though he were pitch as glass.

Finally, she dropped her gaze to a pulsing manifestation of magic erupting from her palms, coiling up her arms as she raised her hand. Instinctively, the spawn jerked away from her magical light, an instinct borne from years running from the sun. But instinct quickly gave way to curiosity as he observed her weaving of magic. Even Astarion, for all his spangled sass and suspicion, could admit there was a kind of beauty in watching the stitching of Weave, especially in her well-orchestrated hands. He wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing, at least not until the energetic amalgamation of magic began to take shape.

Ghostly features took shape; a face moulded like putty in the air with the grace of embroidery, the planes and lines almost familiar to him even now. Pale and resplendent, but ghostly, hollow, a reflection of him written in the Weave. Upon closer inspection, he noticed it wasn’t exact- of course, it matched his essence. He was looking at himself, but the heaviness of his eyes was much softer than he would have expected, alabaster skin imperfect with lines that characterized this reflection with kindness so foreign to him it burned the edges of his ribs, cloying, clawing, even his mouth lacked its usual mirthless smirk, replaced with dewy lips pulled into what could only be a genuine, sweet line, almost a smile, no matter how faint. It wasn’t what he’d envisioned when he saw himself, no hard lines or rugged charm, there wasn’t the barest hint of seduction reflected back at him. This was undoubtedly a warmer, kinder visage. When Astarion’s eyes flickered tentatively, quickly, towards Halaena, he saw a face of curious wonder: pale lashes lined wide, inquisitive eyes, all smiles and bashful interest.

So, again, Astarion was faced with such a disdainful conundrum. She seemed so genuine; where pretty words lie, one cannot simply fake reflection. Quiet moments of introspection, studying dusky skin, wild, kindly eyes that shone back the Weave in reverence, disarrayed curls of near pearlescent white- how he despised the folly of man. His eyes snapped back to the spectral figure lingering in the air, a fleeting memory actualized. “That’s me?” He nearly laughed at how disbelieving he sounded to himself, but all the wizard did was nod.

“Perfectly preened curls and all,” she mused, a warm lilt in her voice as she casually turned the spectre in the air, slow and languid. She watched his visage a while, too- admiring the simple beauty crafted in the thread of her Weave. Such gentle intricacies and reverent touches sculpted into his face. It cast such a pretty purple glow across his features. “I know, in a way, what it’s like to have such a large part of oneself pulled out of them, worse than pulling teeth,” she quirked an edged grin, “I know time heals and all of that, but you know if we don’t have all that much time left I figured; you deserve to see your face at the very least.”

Astarion swallowed hard, his pupils darting between the spectral image and her face, meeting her gaze finally. Vampire and wizard stared each other down unblinking and estranged as though those eyes had anything further to scrutinize one another. After a long silence, Astarion’s mask returned all biting mirth and barely contained resentment. “Right, I get to see my face, that’s it? What do you get? What is it you see here?” His voice came out venomous as he stole his gaze back to the visage.

The quiet stretched like an expansive cavern between them; the crackling fire and bordering camp-wide chatter accompanied the pair before Astarion noticed the slight wavering in the fabric edges of his projection’s face. His brows pulled together as wide eyes sought the last traces of this magic’s hold before his face faded before blood-laced vision. The clearing dimmed, the faint glow of the firelight offering the only illumination as Astarion sank back on his haunches, a twinge of painful longing nipping at the hollow cage of his ribs. He noticed the Drow then, soft gaze fixed on him as she awaited his collected bearings.

“Most times, I just see you.’” Such simple words, simple, were they? If so, why did Astarion’s mouth go dry, and why did he feel the barest traces of a fluttered heartbeat echo in his chest? Such mortality was alien, near monstrous in his vampiric existence. Vulnerability quickly felt like exposure, and the man shot to his feet, eyes ablaze as he glared down at Halaena. His mind stuttered, entirely short-circuited, when he saw her big eyes staring up at him, not a hint of malice behind them- or thought, for that matter.

He let out a strangled sigh before he cast his gaze downward, a hint of melancholy briefly flashing across the furrowed planes of his face before the tension slumped from his pale form. Astarion straightened himself up, looking up at the starry night sky to avoid the wizard’s stare and the darkness that crept around them. “Right-“ he looked like he wanted to say more, needed to say more, but the little star lost its emboldened fury, replaced simply by Astarion, who stood there truly not knowing what he could do. He hated this helplessness, the confrontation of not just her but himself. Words felt biting on his tongue, rationalisation like razors. He was overwhelmed, and so, defaulted on what he knew best.

“I’d love to stick around and chat, darling, but I’m afraid I have rather important things to attend to before the night’s end,” he hissed with a tight-lipped smile and narrowed eyes. I’ll leave you to your conjurations; far be it from me to spoil the fun.” He was about to leave, flee into the forest to drain an unruly bear or something, when he heard her speak up, and he froze.

“The woods are a terror this time of night, Astarion. You can always find me in my tent for an easier meal.” She stood then, craning her head to look up at him. The pair stood together, bathed in a silvery wash of moonlight, and Astarion only nodded after casting his sights away once more. She didn’t push him to look at her, only smiled and nodded in return before she moved past him and headed back to the crimson-gold canvas of her tent set up towards the centre of camp. Astarion didn’t watch her go, instead looking over to the edge of the woods.

The forest beyond the temporary camp comforts called to him, a siren’s song away from the raw, gaping pain he felt incessantly in his chest. He ran a hand through snowy white curls, irritated, tugging on his pretty locks as he raked sharp fingers over his scalp. The trees and underbrush hid a veritable feast—succulent game would put up a fair chase. He could snag some birds for a crunchy snack or fight some big beast for the satisfaction of stealing away his meal, their lifeblood.

He looked over his shoulder towards Halaena’s tent, seemingly undisturbed as it stood sturdy amongst the shadows. He swallowed hard; he’d be a fool to deny that her offer didn’t intrigue him. But that part of him, the recesses of Astarion’s consciousness cautioned him against this inevitability. He’d supped from her before, finding the blood of a Drow quite delectable comparatively, and he’d be lying if he said there wasn’t a pull to that tent, to the tasty little morsel curled up amongst her silks and furs. Dry mouth and twitching hands, Astarion looked back to the forest once more. It loomed large, an imposition ready to swallow him whole. Furs and silks sounded more satisfactory than a romp in the mud for mediocre blood.

Decision made, the vampire turned on his heel and headed toward the centre of camp, where she lay reposed. He stepped upon his broken mirror, left discarded upon his blankets with a telltale crunch of glass splintering and crunching undertow.

[scoobydoo-ghoulschool]

The thing about the possibility of jealous Eddie in upcoming episodes is that like, Eddie is friends with Tommy. He ostensibly likes him quite a bit, he's been hanging out with him for weeks at this point, he's introduced him to Christopher, he's having deep enough conversations with him that Tommy actually felt the need to go to Buck's in the first place to help them figure the situation out. In the instances we've seen Eddie exhibit jealousy, there's always been some form of plausible deniability for his pettiness.

Abby? Well she ghosted his best friend and then showed up expecting Buck to risk his life to save her new fiance. I'd be a petty bitch too. Taylor? Well no explanation needed, but in their first real interaction she tried to exploit Bobby's trauma so... and Natalia? A little more of a stretch since they kind of only met on the one call, but she was treating Buck's death like some interesting side show attraction, and Eddie had 3 minutes 17 seconds memorized and running through his head since the Lightning Strike, so again I can understand.

But Tommy is different. Tommy is his friend. why would he possibly feel anything negative about Tommy and Buck being together? And with Buck's own jealousy over being excluded being brought to light so pointedly, Eddie would have a pretty hard time repeating the exact same mistake. He's going to have to immediately think about why he's having reoccurring moments of petty when he likes Tommy. He's going to have to reckon with these feelings fast.

And I don't see him ever risking having Buck thinking he's not 100% supportive of his coming out, and there's clear evidence of that from stills in 7x05. I just think that if we do get jealous Eddie, it's going to be different than what we've seen before, it's going to be private, and quiet, but like certainly (I'm looking at you 7x05 synopsis) it's going to be there.

[katyspersonal]

Honestly, not how I expected it to be resolved. I think I've seen what concept of coping in a human form would be like. After a long string of this person trying one way to blame me for everything after another and another and another. Back then in summer when A found out I vagueblogged about her, she tossed that "apology" at me and instantly blocked. In that message she claimed the reason why she threw us to Dr Eugene X and her horde of huntsmen was not something personal but her feeling morally obligated to provide any testimony she could in hopes to remedy situation. Like, showing truth rather than my self-defence or Dr Eugene X's exagerration (A's own words)

But this time, when I confronted her and she engaged in discussion, facade fell very fast and she admitted that she considered me deserving that backstabbing. That it was not a mistake like I started to think, not lack of psyop immunity, not twisted idea of her "duty" but intentional, calculated, malicious act with sole purpose to hurt me as a revenge for hurting her. That I deserved the whole arc of her pretending to have forgiven my paranoid outburst when she defended my stalker only to strike from the back. That I deserved backstabbing and that's why she did it. I was absolutely losing my shit and physically unable to think rationally from pain and fear, but she said I made a CHOICE to "start a war" with her, so I had no right to complain that she was "fighting dirty" (I am quoting her word to word here). Basically, A is Petrus lol

She said I used my trauma, mental illness and state of having been regularly stalked and slandered back then to "excuse" having hurt her by calling her brainwashed and two-faced, for defending THE person that reduced me to paranoid, aggressive mess to begin with. And as a final punch in the gut, she said that the way I reacted at her triggering my paranoia (even if not on purpose) was evidence that I haven't changed after what I was like 6 years ago. I asked how comes that the only way a person changes to the better is if they never make mistakes again or never have negative emotions again but got no response. Only attempt to rage quit on me for "pointless" discussion in the fashion of the worst narcissistic parent that just got their logical error pointed out. Not only a common Westerner L on not understanding how humans work, but also it was vile to use the biggest regret in my life against me like that.

I kinda.. trusted for that time that she WAS sorry for backstabbing me. But after sleeping for like 2 hours, in retrospective, from how much she bashed me for everythibg being entirely my fault, I assume she is only sorry because that action brought her more stress than it was worth. And she also considers herself more hurt out of us two after admitting that she completely forgot about me until I messaged her, when I haven't been able to stop hurting and crying because of her after half a year.

If you gonna carry out anything from another turn of my never ending downward spiral of epic fails, then 1) if someone's words are seriously hurtful and cruel and you didn't deserve them, obliterate the bastard verbally where they STAND! do not just conceal your pain not even once offering a chance to make up for the damage done, until you have a chance for revenge??? seriously WTF?! 2) however, if someone gets aggroed at you calling them two-faced to the point they have to plot revenge and victimblame, you've probably guessed right about them 3) paranoid outbursts and alike are not a calculated choice 4) some people don't know how humans work, just because someone tells you that you are an inconsiderate monster that can't stay in society without harming people and use your mental pain and trauma as an excuse to get away with it doesn't mean it is true (especially note it if you have BPD like me, I know yall have a toxic trait of hearing insane accusations about you and just agree with them) 5) for some reason my string of closures is stuck at "seeing ugly truth at last" theme. Can someone really good hurt me? Lol /j

It was still a valid point on her end that the way cruel, angry words I say without thinking can seriously wound someone who already has low self-esteem and depression. It is just better if I do not try to get close with people that have such problems until I can change my reaction to pain and fear from aggression to distancing. Not gonna happen soon because since early childhood it was anger that allowed me to persist at least somewhat against all the abuse within my family. Not crying, not hiding, not distancing. It is very hard wired in my brain to react at signs of danger by trying to destroy it.. so yeah, look, you've been warned. If you already feel like shit about yourself don't let me too close just in case, I am fine with emotional distance. Because when I get alerted or scared (of abandonment, being lied to, intent to harm me etc) I say bad, cruel shit that won't let you sleep for a while. I am sorry everyone who I already made feel unsafe with my outbursts.

[grace-aline]

Why I think Bob Newby had to die (part 1: a postscript)

On being consumed by the abnormal

It's difficult to name our last glimpse of Bob because the Duffers love themselves a good flashback. The fact that Joyce has several concerning Bob could be a whole other post. I could fairly confidently put 'extremely veiled allusion to Bob/Bob flashback' on my Season 5 bingo card, let's put it that way.

What I'm talking about, though, is the last time we actually see Bob linearly, as opposed to a memory of him. I's not a very pleasant moment; he's being torn apart by Demodogs. I'll spare you the GIF, although I do think it's a striking shot and a masterclass in practical and visual effects, because anyone who is familiar with Season 2 has that bird's-eye view of his desiccated body burned into their retinas.

In my last post, I talked about Bob's thematic value to the Duffers. I argued that he is the perfect candidate for a transformation from someone achingly, comfortingly normal into something abnormal, corrupted by supernatural trauma.

But by the last time Bob is physically present in the show, ravenous Demodogs have taken things a step further. Bob's face is still recognisable, but the frozen, dumbstruck expression on it is horrible and new. Because in the end, the Upside Down doesn't just traumatise him; it literally consumes him. He actually becomes a part of it, sustaining the supernatural ecosystem feeding off his body.

Horrible, I know, but also true, I think.

The conclusion that Bob was actually, physically kind of absorbed by the Upside Down is a bit whacky, I know. But just stick with me here, I think I might be onto something.

Reason 1: Bob's disappearing act

First and foremost, it is actually strange that after that haunting final shot of his corpse, Bob is simply no more. No funeral, no grave, no photos, no belongings in Joyce's house for her to come across and cry over. Sure, his ghost haunts the show through flashbacks, drawings, even in a news report; in any way that isn't physical evidence of his existence.

And what's even weirder is that after Season 2, no character ever mentions him again. He literally never comes up again, he's never directly mentioned or indirectly referred to by another character. No one even says his name.

And I know they would've cleaned out the Lab after so many people died there in Season 2, but hell, Bob Newby's death is arguably the goriest death in the whole show; which is quite the mantle, considering how violent ST can get; but when Hopper and Joyce return to that exact spot a year later, there is not a single blood-stained tile or indication that someone had died a graphic, messy death there.

It's fucking weird, is what it is. The way that any physical, tangible manifestation of Bob is just wiped from the show.

(Almost as if the Upside Down had consumed him, you could say.)

Reason 2: It's happened before, and it's happened since

Way back in Season 1, whilst searching for Will, Eleven comes across the body of Barbara Holland. We see her again an episode later, when Hopper and Joyce are searching the Upside Down version of Hawkins Library for Will. In both scenes, and without going into too much gory detail, the grotesque state her body is in is confirmation that Barb is definitely dead.

Now, you could argue that from a purely cinematic perspective, the inclusion of Barb's body is designed solely for shock value; it serve to scare the audience a bit, to up the stakes and tension for surviving characters, and of course, to tug on the viewer's heartstrings. That bird's-eye shot of Bob does a similar job.

From an analytical perspective, though, the deteriorated state of Barb's corpse can be read as a kind of fatalistic symbolism. Barb was also literally consumed by the Upside Down. Her horrific postmortem reappearance makes her a convincing part of the scenery in an alternate dimension otherwise inhospitable to warm, familiar forms of life.

And she's not the only one. This happens just about every time there's a supernatural death in the show. Shocking, Upside Down-ified imagery of their corpse, then the disappearing act begins, rinse and repeat. When the supernatural gets you, it seems to keep you.

Still not convinced? After all, so far I've put forward circumstantial, educated guess work. Nothing concrete, nothing canonical. Yet.

Reason 3: What we know about Vecna/Henry Creel

Enter a villain who tells everyone the details of his masterplan before he kills them.

Fast forward to Season 4. We're introduced to the Mind Flayer's "five star general" Vecna, who is systematically terrorising and murdering the traumatised youth of Hawkins (one thing that Hawkins never seems to be deficient in.)

As it turns out, Vecna was always there, pulling the strings side-stage. A dominant force in the Upside Down's hivemind complex, it's implied that Vecna was aware of, and even somewhat responsible for all supernatural deaths in the show to date. Following the Hawkins Lab massacre, Vecna lets Eleven in on a rather morbid little secret: "With each life I took, I grew stronger. More powerful. They were becoming a part of me." The implication here is that Vecna kills, not only to "restore balance to a broken world", but to transform the lifeforce of the victim into energy. (A theory confirmed once again by Brenner's initial studies of Henry in The First Shadow, if I recall correctly.)

Vecna's powers allow him to tamper with, but not erase memory. As far as we know, Vecna has no interest in, and in any case no ability to remove the drawing of Bob Newby, Superhero from Joyce's fridge. Nor to prevent memories of TV dinners and Cheers from resurfacing every time Joyce finds herself alone on her couch after her boyfriend's death.

And yet. As we've established, Bob's physical imprint; his body, his name; is banished from the show post Season 2. Vecna may not be able to erase memories, but he can erase people. Because people seem to give him energy, power, and above all, a way to frighten and taunt the living.

In other words, Vecna couldn't leave it at permanent abnormality and a slap on the wrist for Bob Newby.

He had to die, to be consumed.

[thecathulhu]

I am carnally obsessed with the qualities our culture wants people to hate.

We live in a hostile universe, even under a hundred miles of protection the radiation alone will kill you. (Don't forget your sunscreen!). Our society, this system we built, it sustains itself by consuming young lives and spitting out broken corpses at such incredible volumes that multiple nations are experiencing population loss for the first time since the invention of antibiotics. Even wars, even total wars, struggle to even compete with this rate of consumption of human life.

So why are people so afraid of getting old? Gray hair, wrinkles, these things are medals on honor earned on an eternal battlefield, be proud of them. You survived! Literal decades, 30*, 40, 50+ years in a world where so many die young. That's an achievement! Every new sunrise is a victory earned in bloodshed! I look forward to being old enough to see laugh lines, crows feet, gray growing at my temples when I look in the mirror. The very thought gives me hope!

Why are you ashamed of being fat? That belly is proof that you not only survived but thrived! Its real physical evidence that you lived through a good time, a healthy time, where food was abundant and disease was scarce. You are beautiful, wealthy in the only way that matters, yet prepared for when times are hard again. When drought and famine (and our system's complete inability to handle even mild perturbations) strike again.

Stretch marks are just more of the same, beautiful stripes, each one a mark of honor, showing that you grew, that you changed, that you were alive to do so! I earned my belly, I earned my stripes. I never want to go back to being a skeleton wrapped in skin, no matter how many super models and actresses walk into frame with their ribs exposed. No matter how many people say that I should be like them.

Oh and scars, I fucking love scars! Now, I won't deny anyone the right to process their trauma in whatever way is best for them, I am strictly talking about our culture's rotten standards of beauty. Whether it be violence, an accident, or disease, something or someone tried to fucking kill you and you survived! You lived! They failed and you succeeded! Each and every mark, gunshots, punctures and lacerations, burns, surgeries, uneven ears, bumps and divots around knees and shins, all the others I can't think of right now, every one a victory inscribed on your very flesh.

These things and more like them are unfathomably attractive to me, because they are proof that the person baring them is alive, and that they have lived. They are the heralds of eyes that have the light of life in them, of smiles that shine with joy, of laughter like music. They are the marks of not just being a cog in the machine (listen, money doesn't grow on trees), of being something more than a cardboard cutout, of being something more than a walking advertisement, of a person who is a person. A person who can not only give love, but accept it in return.

*I know 30 isn't old, but I wanted to include those that start graying early.

[seijorhi]

Reminiscent

i’m (semi) back, y’all, and i come bearing a fic!! fhdjhfjdk it’s for oikawa i won’t apologise

Oikawa Tooru x female reader

TW non-con, drunk/drugged reader, forced infidelity, emotional manipulation, angst, past trauma, coercion, mild(ish?) smut, nsfw

“F-fuck, cutie! Just like – hah– just like that!”

You weren’t the clubbing type.

Not usually, at least – but exams were over and one of your friends was fresh off a bad breakup, one night letting loose wouldn’t hurt.

Walking is… difficult, your steps are sloppy – there’s an arm wrapped around your waist, your own slung over a stranger’s shoulders. Why are you outside? Where are your friends – they… they promised they wouldn’t leave you. 

“She good, dude?”

A soft, pretty laugh rumbles at your side, “Yeah, she’s gonna be just fine.”

And you remember the bar, the overpriced cocktails and the saccharine sweetness of strawberry liquor on your tongue. The dizzying lights and the bass that thumped so loudly you felt it reverberate in your chest. You knew the rules; they’d been drilled into you since you were sixteen years old.

Stick together, don’t accept drinks from strangers, and watch the one in your hand like a hawk - it doesn’t leave your sight.

A tongue between the valley of your breasts, long fingers curling up inside of you. 

“You like that, huh pretty girl? You gonna cum for me?”

They wouldn’t have just abandoned you, right? Maybe you told them to go. Maybe they thought you wanted it; to go home with the handsome stranger.

You never had the guts to ask them, never spoke about that night again. Not to anyone.

Pain. Something thrusting inside of you, splitting you open while he moans and pants atop you. It hurts so much and you want it to stop. 

Please stop. Please. Please. Please.

You’re begging, at least you think you are, but the words come out jumbled and wrong, and he just laughs, hiking up your thigh so he can fuck you deeper.

Why won’t he stop?

When you wake up, bruised and sore and all alone in your bed, it feels like a bad dream. You know it’s not – not with cum still seeping from between your thighs, the scent of the stranger’s cologne clinging to your sheets.

And you scrub your skin raw in the shower, but it isn’t enough to rid you of his touch.

—

It’s nothing like what they show on tv.

There’s no sympathetic detective to pat you on your shoulder while you break down, swearing that they’ll find the man who did this and you’ll get your justice.

You don’t go to the cops because you’ll know what they’ll say. You were drunk, drugged, and even if you could remember what he looked like (his eyes were brown, you think, and there’s a flash of a smirk in your head but the moment you try to focus on it it slips away like smoke) any evidence of rape washed down the drain the moment you stepped into the steaming shower.

At least… that’s what you tell yourself. It’s easier than admitting you’re terrified of judgemental eyes. 

Or worse; pitying ones.

So you pretend that nothing happened. You show up to your classes and throw yourself into studying, make the time to get coffee with your friends, you even pick up a part time job – it’s good to keep busy. 

The nightmares are just that; nightmares.

And things are fine, until they’re not.

—

“Baby, you’re here!!”

There’s barely time to drop your bags before she’s pulling you into a warm hug. “Hi mom,” you reply, squeezing her back.

When she draws back to take you in, one hand cupping your cheek, she frowns, “You look tired sweetheart. Have you been sleeping enough?”

“Yeah, just tired from exams and stuff.”

She looks unconvinced, but mercifully doesn’t push the issue. Of course, you don’t tell her that you missed your last two exams because you’d walked past some guy wearing that same cologne and just choked – that instead of finishing off your semester strong, you’d spent the day alternating between throwing up and crying in bed.

She doesn’t need to know that, because of that, you’ll probably fail both classes and have to retake them again next semester on top of an already full course load. It’s fine; you’ll figure it out.

For now, you work on matching her enthusiasm at having you home, grabbing your bags to bring them inside and into your old room.

“Oh, wait–”

Abruptly, you pause, gazing in confusion from the doorway of your bedroom. There’s a duffle bag lying open and empty atop your bed, a tangled jump rope, some weights, an empty bottle, a sweat towel – even what looks like a spare workout tee scattered haphazardly across the sheets.

“… I didn’t take you for a gym junkie, mom.”

She stops behind you, sighing. “It’s not mine it’s– Tooru said he was going to tidy it up, sorry sweetheart.” She sweeps past you to start tidying it up, but not before you catch sight of her wide eyed, deer in headlights expression.

And you can’t help the lone eyebrow that rises, falling back against the doorframe, arms folding across your chest. “Tooru, huh?” you grin, “And who might Tooru be?”

The flustered, almost guilty look she sends you makes you want to laugh – this is easy, comfortable, this you can do – but you restrain yourself. Just. “Tooru is… he’s– well, he’s the man I’m… seeing.”

She admits it like she’s confessing to a crime, eyes all wide and nervous; anticipating your reaction. And you suppose it’s not unwarranted. As far as you’re aware, she’s been alone ever since the day your dad walked out on you both – raising you was always the priority, or maybe the excuse. But you’re not fourteen anymore, you don’t need another father figure or every spare bit of her time and attention, and she doesn’t need your approval for this.

So you smile at her, “Is he nice?”

She lights up, her features – almost a mirror image of your own – softening as she beams, “He’s amazing, honey. I honestly don’t know how this whole thing really happened, or why he’s even interested in someone like me but… I lucked out with him.”

And so it goes, you prying little bits of information about the mysterious Tooru as the afternoon passes.

She tells you that they met a few months back, at the bakery she likes in town – and how she kept running into him; at the grocery store, and then at the park, and then on her way back from yoga that one night.

She tells you that he’s a terrible flirt, all smooth and charming with warm, pretty brown eyes, but he’s a good man beneath it all and she’s never met anyone like him. 

It strikes you, as you watch your mom animatedly talk about him, that you’ve never seen her look like this before. 

Happy. 

She can’t stop smiling, and when you look at her, really look, she’s almost a different person – younger somehow, a bit more care-free. It suits her, and you wonder with a slight pang in your heart how you never noticed how lonely she was before.

And she’s adamant that they’re taking things slowly, that he still has an apartment of his own in town – which to be honest, you really aren’t gonna judge her on either way – but it is kind of funny simply because whether your mom realises it or not, it’s clearly a lie.

The subtle reclaiming of your bedroom aside, there’s traces of Tooru scattered all around the house; the extra toothbrush and aftershave you’d spotted in the bathroom, the men’s  shoes and the jacket by the door, red wine in the cupboard when your mom’s only ever indulged in white.

You haven’t been into her bedroom, but at this point you’d hazard a guess that there’s at least one drawer full of Tooru’s clothes, probably half her closet cleared out for him as well.

“He’s coming for dinner, but I just wanted today to be just us,” she says, reaching across the couch to squeeze your hand. And you’re grateful for it, because you’re happy for her – you are – but you’re not so sure how you would’ve handled meeting the stranger holding your mother’s heart first thing. At least, not after the last few days.

Not when you still feel all… brittle. 

—

Tooru arrives a little after seven, and to say that he’s not entirely what you were expecting is kind of an understatement. 

She’d gushed about how tall and handsome he is – though personally, you think pretty’s the more accurate word, what with his soft, delicate features, perfect cupid’s bow lips and all. What she’d neglected to tell you was that the man in question, stepping through the front door with a faint smile on his face, has to be at least ten years younger than her, mid-thirties at most.

Suddenly, your mom’s initial reluctance to bring him up starts to make sense.

“Hey, sorry I’m late,” he murmurs, stopping by your mom to drop a fleeting kiss to her cheek before warm brown eyes turn to you. 

Your heart stutters.

“Sweetheart,” your mom begins, slipping an arm around his waist and relaxing into his side, “this is Tooru– Oikawa,” she corrects herself.

He smiles at you, friendly and charming, “It’s great to finally meet you, your mom’s told me so much – all good things, of course!”

You force yourself to smile in return, “Yeah, you too.” 

There’s nothing overtly wrong with Oikawa, age difference aside – your mom’s clearly head over heels in love with the guy and on a surface level he seems nice enough, but you find yourself glad for the fact that he doesn’t make a move to step closer, try to shake your hand or god forbid hug you or something like that.

He’s nothing but a gentleman as your mom steps back into the kitchen to finish off dinner, setting the table without being prompted, pouring a glass of wine for your mom and one for himself before he offers a glass to you. 

“Oh, no I’m alright, thanks.”

You don’t drink so much anymore. He shrugs, like it’s no big deal but your mom pouts at you from the kitchen. “C’mon, sweetie. We’re celebrating tonight! One drink won’t hurt.”

“We’re celebrating?” you ask.

She throws you a wink, gaze softening as she turns to glance at Oikawa, already diligently pouring you a glass, “Of course we are. It’s not every day my girl comes home, and it’s nice having you both here with me.”

Oikawa’s fingers brush against yours for a fleeting second as he passes you the glass, and you have to fight to keep yourself from ripping your hand away. It’s nothing, you just– you’re not good with strangers touching you, and as nice as he is and as much as your mom might be infatuated with him, he is still a stranger.

“Absolutely,” he agrees, a playful twinkle in his eye as he clinks his wine glass against yours. “So you’re at uni, right? What are you studying?”

Uni’s the last thing you want to be thinking about right now, but whether or not Oikawa genuinely cares, he’s obviously trying to make an effort to get to know you. For your mother’s sake, grinning innocuously in the kitchen as she adds the last little touches to dinner, you suck it up, plaster a smile across your face and ignore the twinge of discomfort in your gut.

You can handle one night of small talk.

—

You wake the following morning to the sound of voices carrying down the hall.  

Not your mother’s – both are too deep, and your mom left a few hours ago for work. Figuring that one of them at least is likely Oikawa, you pull on a thin, satin robe over your pajamas, tying the sash in a loose knot before you slip from the room.

Those suspicions are proven correct; you round the corner to find Oikawa sitting up at the kitchen counter, a warm cup of coffee in his hand. There’s another man, a touch shorter, but imposing with dark, spiky hair and olive green eyes standing on the other side, hands braced on the marble top, glaring at Oikawa.

They both look up at the sound of your hesitant approach, the stranger abruptly straightening up, while Oikawa merely grins.

“Ah, you’re up,” he observes cheerfully, taking a sip of his coffee.

Your eyes flicker between him and the stranger – clearly comfortable enough in your home and with Oikawa, despite the faint, lingering irritation still visible on his face – and as your cheeks warm, you find yourself wishing you’d put actual clothes on before coming out to investigate.

“I- I heard voices…” you trail off, awkwardly folding your arms over your chest. “Is mom–”

“At work,” he supplies. “Do you want some breakfast? Coffee, maybe?”

You risk another glance at the other man, watching you now with an unreadable expression, dark eyebrows furrowed. You swallow uncomfortably, shifting slightly as you shake your head. “No, I-I’m okay.”

And in an instant, a flash, something like recognition passes through those olive eyes. 

 Oikawa chuckles smoothly, finally tearing his eyes away from you to address his friend, “Iwa, stop being so rude. You’re scaring the poor thing.”

The stranger, Iwa, just scoffs. “You’re a real piece of shit, y’know?”

If he’s bothered by the scathing insult, Oikawa doesn’t show it, merely shrugging before turning his attention back to you with a smirk. “Ignore him, he’s just pissy this morning.”

You’d have to be a complete idiot not to sense the uncomfortable tension between the two of them – and now you. This is your home, but it feels like you’re intruding, like you’ve stumbled into a conversation you have no business hearing, but even if you wanted to leave your feet are rooted to the ground. 

“Besides,” Oikawa continues, “he was just leaving anyway, weren’t you, Iwa?” It’s almost a purr, the way he speaks, but even the silken words can’t entirely mask the razor sharpness that lies beneath. 

Goosebumps prickle along your arms.

Staring at you, Iwa opens his mouth like he wants to say something, but seemingly thinks better of it, snapping it shut with an audible click. He huffs, shaking his head. “Yeah, fine, whatever.”

He spares you another glance on his way out, standing frozen by the hall. For a split second he slows, his scowl softening just a fraction–

“Iwa.”

It sounds like a warning, but he only rolls his eyes and huffs again. You think he’s going to walk out without another word to either of you, but he pauses once more, lingering by the entryway.

“You look a lot like your mother, anyone ever tell you that?”

He’s out the door before you can even think to reply, letting it slam shut in his wake. And you flinch at the harsh sound, something uneasy settling into the pit of your stomach–

“Hey,” Oikawa’s there by your side, his fingers entwining with yours. You hadn’t even heard him move. “Come sit, don’t worry about Iwa. He’ll get over it.”

His voice is soothing, you don’t pay attention to the words themselves, the implications there. You forget for a moment that you’re still in your pj’s, that you really don’t know him that well either, and mindlessly follow when he leads you to the couch and sits you down, taking the seat next to you.

And while your head’s still spinning, an uncomfortable feeling gnawing in the pit of your gut, Oikawa seems entirely unbothered by the turn of events, sighing contentedly as he stretches his long legs out, one arm sliding along the back of the couch behind you.

“Do your… friends usually just drop by like that?”

You don’t know where the words come from, or why that’s the first question on your mind, but when you glance over at him, Oikawa’s just watching you, an odd little half smirk playing on his lips. “Sometimes.”

His answer does little to soothe your unease. It’s really not a big deal, you know it’s not. Officially or not, this is his home too – you’re the one out of place. And if he wants to have people over when your mom’s not around, that’s fine, he can do whatever the hell he wants, but… 

You came home for peace. To hide away for a few days and pretend that everything’s just fine and you’re not one breakdown away from shattering entirely. You wanted your mom and the comfort of your old bedroom and safety and it’s fine – great, even – that she’s found somebody who makes her happy, but this– him and the weirdness with his friend and everything is just too much, and–

You don’t realise that your leg’s bouncing until Oikawa’s hand comes to rest on your bare thigh. It’s enough to make your stomach flip, an icy chill trickling down your spine as his thumb slowly strokes across the soft, plush skin. “Relax, cutie,” he coos, chuckling softly when you visibly flinch and squeeze your eyes shut.

“P-please don’t call me that,” you choke out, fighting against the wave of nausea rising up your throat. And it’s just like last time, his cologne, notes of vanilla and cedar and spice, swirling thick and heady around you. That phantom touch, the warmth of hands gripping too tight, unwanted kisses hot and eager against your skin. 

“No?” he asks, cruel amusement dripping from his tone. “Why not? I think it suits you, cutie.”

You want him to stop, to push him away, slap him – do anything really, but you’re frozen in place, shaking as the memories you’ve fought so hard to shove down come bubbling back to the surface. You can’t think straight, not with his hand sliding between your thighs, the warmth of his body pressing too closely against yours.

“Iwa was right, you know,” Oikawa murmurs, smoldering brown eyes drinking you in as you childishly shake your head, willing him away. His other hand catches your cheek, drawing your face back to him as tears well in your eyes, stubbornly clinging to your lashes. “She does look so much like you, the same eyes even.” 

He whispers it like a secret, nuzzling his nose against yours like a lover would as he sighs sweetly, “It’s the only reason I could stand it.”

And then he’s kissing you, the tenderness of his lips belied by iron fingers digging into your jaw when you whimper and try to wrench yourself free. 

It’s not like the nightmares that startle you awake in the middle of the night, gasping for air; hazy, broken recollections that fade the moment you try to reach for them. No, every touch, every moment of his assault passes in stark clarity.

The feel of Oikawa’s mouth as it trails greedily down your neck, his hand sliding under the cotton of your sleep shorts, even his pleased little hum when he realises you’re not wearing panties. “Such a good girl for me. Fuck, I’ve missed this.”

This time there’s no drugs in your system keeping you pliant and helpless, but that doesn’t make a difference. Not when his words echo in your head, playing again and again until every awful, sickening piece falls into place.

Long, nimble fingers stroke at your folds, and you can’t help the shivery gasp that leaves you when the tip of his middle finger sweeps over your clit. 

“Please– please don’t do this,” you sniffle.

Oikawa presses another fleeting kiss to your shoulder, “Shh, none of that. Let me help you, baby.”

“N-no, I don’t, I don’t– Stop!”

Knocking away the hands that try to push him back, he hooks his fingers over the hem of your shorts and slides them down your legs, your pitifully weak struggles only making things easier for him. It’s only when Oikawa reaches for his own zipper that panic truly strikes home.

You can’t just lie here and let this happen again. You won’t.

And like a switch flipped, you start to trash like a wild thing beneath him, the scream you’ve kept buried inside of you for months ripping itself free from your throat–

Only for the fingers that had been toying with your pussy to be shoved down your throat, cutting you off with a choked gurgle. As you gag, fruitlessly try to tug yourself free, Oikawa leans in nice and close – except this time there’s no gentleness to his expression, nothing but viciousness as he grins and bares his teeth. 

“You wanna yell, pretty girl? Want the neighbours to come running, let them see me fuck you?” He grinds his hips against you, his breath shivery as he pants at the friction of his half hard cock against your side. Nausea twists at your gut, acrid and bitter – you want to be sick, to cry and beg with him to stop but with his fingers still stuffed in your mouth, his thumb digging into the soft underside of your jaw all you can manage is an unintelligible whine. He hums, kissing away the single hot tear that spills down your cheek, “You think if you cry loudly enough, mommy’ll come home and save you?”

And it’s like time stands still as he laughs, cruel eyes glinting when he presses down on your tongue, warm saliva pooling around his digits. “Such a little whore, trying to seduce her poor, innocent boyfriend the very moment her back’s turned. Tell me, cutie,” he coos, “who do you think she’d believe?”

Your breath hitches, another sob catching in your throat – even if you wanted to answer, you can’t and he knows it. “She’s in love with me, you know. It’s almost a little pathetic how easy it was to manipulate her into bed – so lonely… desperate for love, for somebody – anybody – to pay attention to her, take care of her,” he sneers, distaste curling at his lips. “Wouldn’t it just break her fragile little heart to know she’s fallen for the man who raped her baby girl?”

Another garbled cry slips past his fingers and you can only watch in frozen horror as his other hand drifts back to his zipper. “You want to protect her, don’t you?”

His grip relents just enough for you to jerk a shaky nod.

“Pretty girl, so good for me.” Another kiss pressed to your cheek as the quiet hiss of his zipper fills the air around you. “It’ll be our little secret, hmm? She doesn’t need to know just yet, let her be happy a little while longer…”

Sliding down his briefs just far enough for his cock to spring free, he strokes it for a moment with slow, leisurely movements, his tongue darting out to wet his lips as he watches your eyes widen. 

And when he pulls you forward, guides your mouth towards it, pre-cum beading at the tip, withdrawing his fingers so you can quickly gasp for air, you just… let him.

The fight’s gone, as quickly as it had come. 

You let his fingers curl through your hair, use it as an anchor when your lips part to force his cock between them. And he moans, low and shivery as your tongue slides along the underside of his shaft and you try not to gag around the sudden intrusion. 

You think that there’s no room left inside of you for shame, but as his other hand creeps back between your legs, teasing at your cunt, you burn with it, clinging to the pyre of your own humiliation and disgust.

And still, you kneel on the couch, letting him fuck your mouth, letting those long, pretty fingers curl up inside of you – moaning around his cock when they stroke that perfect little spot.

“I wanted to – shit – take this slow,” he tells you as his hips jerk upwards, shuddering in breathless delight when his cock hits the back of your throat and it convulses around him. “I wanted to make you want me.”

Wet, messy, gags sound with every unwitting thrust – you’ve no choice but to swallow him down, let him fuck your throat like you’re nothing more than a toy for his pleasure. There’s saliva coating your chin, dripping down the length of his dick, pooling around his balls. You can barely breathe, a task made even harder when Oikawa decides to add his thumb into the mix, teasing your clit while he fucks you apart on his fingers.

It feels so fucking good, and you’ve never hated yourself more.

Your throat burns, hot tears stinging in the corners of your eyes, and yet he’s intent on driving you to the brink of your sanity with every calculated flick of his wrist. Something tightens in your belly, a spring coiled too tight, ready to snap, and you can’t help it when your hips chase his fingers, the needy, shameful little whimpers that leave your lips (still wrapped around his thick, twitching cock) as you search for the pleasure to temper the discomfort.

“You don’t have a clue what you do to me, do you? I could barely sleep last night–” 

You choke back a moan, your pussy clenching around his digits, sucking them deeper as white spots pepper your vision and you shudder out a moan.

“So pretty when you cum for me,” he pants, but you don’t care – can’t, not when you’re riding his fingers, tongue lolling out as he gives you a moment’s reprieve to bask in the rippling afterglow of your orgasm before everything comes crashing back down around you. 

Oikawa lets you fall back against the cushions, breathless, trembling and dazed. You’re not stupid enough to believe that’s the end of it, not when his cock’s still hard, throbbing against his toned stomach when he gives it a slow, cursory pump.

“Lie back, cutie,” he whispers, keeping his eyes fixed on you as he pushes himself up off the couch to shed the rest of his clothes.

And as you shuffle obediently downwards, heart hammering in your chest, you find you can’t tear your eyes away from him either.

Tall and handsome, she’d said, but the words truly don’t do him justice. A body corded with lean, powerful muscle, golden, sun-kissed skin, a light smattering of dark hair trailing from his navel down past the well defined V of his hips… 

“See something you like?” he teases, smirking when you squeak and childishly jerk your face away, cheeks burning. “It’s okay to look, you know. I don’t mind the attention.”

It feels too soft, too intimate for what this is. 

This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. He’s not supposed to be attractive, or to make you enjoy your own assault, and you– you’re supposed to fight it, fight him instead of just lying there and taking it… 

But when he climbs back onto the couch, easing your still trembling thighs apart to settle himself between them, his touch is nothing short of reverent, dark eyes wide and adoring as you squirm uneasily beneath him. 

With one hand braced on the cushion beside you, his cock resting just above your aching sex, he leans forward, easing your top up past your tits. “Perfect,” he murmurs.

And it’s enough to make a fresh bout of humiliated tears spring to your eyes. Your hands curl into useless fists at your side as he settles back onto his knees and takes his cock in hand, hissing in pleasure when he glides the flushed, leaking head along your slick folds.

“Fuck, cutie. I don’t think I’m gonna last,” he laughs, biting down on his bottom lip as he watches hot, fat tears slip down your cheeks. With an agonisingly slow pace, Oikawa lines himself up with your cunt and presses in – even with how wet you are, one orgasm already wrung from you, the stretch burns and you can’t stop the choked gasp that leaves you.

His eyes flutter shut, head thrown back back as inch by inch his cock sinks into your pussy until finally he bottoms out with a satisfied groan. “Perfect for me, so fucking good,” he pants, and you barely have time to drag in a breath before his hips are drawing back, another desperate, strangled mewl escaping you.

Bruising fingers dig into your waist, Oikawa cursing as your plush little cunt flutters maddeningly around him– before he eagerly slams his cock forward, stuffing you full once more.

And as you sob and whimper between every wet, obscene squelch of his dick fucking into your soaked pussy, that all too familiar, shameful heat begins to pool in your core.

“Gonna cum for me again, cutie?”

[s-brant]

Pirates and Princesses (8/8)

(gif: @beccs) (PART SEVEN) (SERIES MASTERLIST)

Summary: JJ must confront his childhood trauma when returning home for the first time since his dad went to jail and prevent it from sabotaging his new relationship. Meanwhile, something sinister happens at the Chateau that brings Y/N face to face with her grief over John B’s death.

Word Count: 13.4k

Warnings: Angst, implied sexual content, strong language, parent/child abuse, mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, grief, and fluff.

A/N: Welcome to the final chapter of Tokens! This one has a little bit of everything in it, but it also has detailed scenes about JJ and his dad, so proceed with caution if you’re easily triggered by that topic. The love you guys show this fic warms my heart so much, so thanks to anyone who stuck with this story until this chapter. Hope you enjoy it!

Now that she has been sentenced to both punishments, one as a consequence of the fight with Kacey and the other as a consequence of the stunt she pulled with JJ to break out of ISS, Y/N can confidently say that out of school suspension is superior to in-school suspension by a long shot. Instead of sitting in a humid room with Alec for the duration of multiple school days, she's allowed to stay home, go out surfing, and do whatever she wants in lieu of doing classwork.

She promised herself not to make it a habit, promising the invisible presence of John B that she likes to pretend follows her around that she will never get herself into trouble again, but she sees no problem in enjoying her suspension while it lasts.

For the first few days of her suspension, JJ skipped school to spend it with her. Their memories of the conversation they had at three in the morning on Sunday were fuzzy, but not missing entirely. She noticed a difference in his behavior for the first few hours after they woke up under the tree together for the second time in one week. It wasn't a difference in their relationship or how he treated her, it was a difference in him.

He was quieter than usual as they cleaned up cans of beer and tossed them into the recycling, sending pictures to Kie while she was in class after she made them promise not to throw them in the trash. Rather than cracking jokes or making casual conversation with her, JJ made his way around the yard with the recycling bin in his hands and his head in the clouds. It disappeared as the day progressed, but for a little while, he wasn't completely there.

Today, he went into school instead of ditching to spend extra time with her in between shifts at work and time spent with their friends. Since they can't exceed three consecutive absences without a doctor’s note and he doesn't own a printer or laptop to forage the header from a doctor's office, he had no choice but to part from her this morning.

He bites his lip to contain his smug facial expression at the recollection of her wake up call for him. The hand holding his locker door open for him to lean on in the midst of his not-so-wholesome thoughts of her squeezes the metal hard enough to turn his knuckles white.

The curtains weren't shut all the way when they fell asleep before midnight last night, allowing a shaft of sunlight to shine in and land on his face. But that wasn't what woke him up from the dream he was having. In fact, the reality he opened his eyes to was a hell of a lot better than any dream he remembered.

Most of his memory of those moments spent suspended between consciousness and unconsciousness consisted of feeling her pressing a kiss to his shoulder, then her hands rubbing up and down his waist to slip lower and lower until they settled on the waistband of his underwear. It was then that he woke to find her looking up at him for permission from where she peppered kisses along his chest.

Their eyes met right as she kissed the edge of his nipple with this pleading, needy look that he took pride in causing without actively attempting to. She woke up on the brink of coming undone from a pleasant—to put it tamely—dream about him. With a glimpse at the time displayed on the alarm clock, it didn't take much for her to roll over to wake him up.

It ended with her beneath the sheet, finishing what she started Friday afternoon until he was clutching the pillow beneath his head in the midst of his orgasm. It happened so fast, a fault of how hot he found it to wake up to her wanting him so badly, but it felt slower than it truly was in the early morning haze of exhaustion they felt.

The memory as he relives it is as heady as it felt the first time around. He sees it in fractions; her eyes looking up at his, warm palms finding the familiar planes of his muscular body with the exploratory touch of someone who's never traveled it before, and the intense sensations he felt at the end...It's easy for him to stand here and lose himself in it. Despite the class he has to go to, he bargains with himself for one more second spent in the paradise of his memories before he has to come back to reality.

Reality, as his shitty luck would have it, comes in the form of a familiar feminine voice chirping from behind his back as he replays his morning bliss.

"It's good to see you're alive and well, Maybank."

He decides, based on who he knows he'll see when he turns around, that he might invest in a sharpie to write "Bang head here" on the inside of his locker door for instances like these where he'd rather suffer brain damage than speak to someone he can't stomach the presence of.

When he turns to see Kacey with one arm still stretched to hold his locker open, he doesn't bother concealing the genuine reaction from his face for the sake of her feelings. Any care he had for her and her feelings was thrown to the wind as soon as she decided she could steal from and put her hands on his girl last week. However, after a second of thought, a condescending smirk finds its way to his face.

He says, jerking his chin to vaguely gesture at her bruised up face, "Purple really suits your complexion. It makes your eyes pop, don't you think?"

Though the swelling of her black eye has deflated in the days since the fight that’ll soon tally up to a week, the verbal jab hits right where it intended to if the light leaving her eyes tells him anything. She bounces back after a second, though, ever the relentless pest they've come to see her as.

She offers a sickeningly sweet, yet fake smile to mirror the one gracing his striking features and spins so her back meets the locker beside his, allowing herself to invade his space further.

A collection of Y/N's stickers decorates the inside of his locker door that he briefly entertained the idea of designating as a place to bang his head against. They range from girly, glittery ones to those he willingly picked when she gave him the choice. Whenever they're at his locker together, she sticks one on the inside, and the evidence of the habit catches Kacey's wandering eyes.

Her fingertips brush against the surface of the sticker-covered metal while she ignores his protest of, "Can you not touch my stuff?" to inspect them. Since one of the Pogues in particular is famous for her endless supply of stickers, her expression sours at the thought of the girl responsible for them.

She spares him a quick glance out of the corner of her eye as she continues to analyze the sticker collection against his instructions not to, asking, "Why weren't you at the bonfire?" A failed attempt at a seductive look in his direction makes him fight not to roll his eyes. "After how last year's ended, I thought you wouldn't miss it for the world."

JJ doesn't bother to take a second to think things through before he reaches to slam the door closed with her hand still outstretched inside of it. Watching her pull it away just in time to avoid jamming it in the locker probably pleases him more than it should, but he can't help it. His hand catches on the edge of the door, halting it in place right before it closes where her hand previously rested.

She doesn't look too happy with him when he opens the door with no harm done except for the drop of her stomach when he initially pretended to swing it shut on her bruised knuckles. She didn't get many shots in on Y/N when they fought, but apparently it was enough.

He doesn't bother with the fake niceties she's giving him after the disrespect she showed him, his friends, and, most importantly, his girlfriend. The fact that she thinks she has any right to breathe in his direction, let alone flirt with him, after she stole JB's bandana is criminal. 'Cause not only did she mess with Y/N, she messed with John B on multiple levels, and his loyalty to his best friend hasn't disappeared with death. Kie and Y/N told him everything she said about their departed friend in the locker room last Thursday.

But he's smart enough to know what'll hurt her more, so he doesn't go for the general scolding he imagined giving her in his head. Since he was told everything about the encounter in the locker room, he knows she's still holding their history together near and dear to her heart.

"We stayed home," he says, casual and cool as always, with added emphasis on the first word, "You know how it is, my girl doesn't like parties. Especially not ones with kooks."

Hook, line, and sinker.

She scoffs, "Your girl?"

Looking at her now, he wonders if she was always this stupid, or if this is a new development she's had in the year since he last spent more than a minute or two at a time with her. It’s easier to trick her than it was with Kie and Y/N a few days ago, and those poor girls flew into that trap like moths to a flame.

"That's what I said, isn't it?"

The ire is visible in the way her face tenses up in places, her lips pressing together a little more firmly and her forehead creasing between the brows.

"Doesn't your, um, history bother her?" she asks, and he's gotta give her credit for being a sneaky little shit when given the chance. The girl takes every possible opening she can to strike for a potential weakness. "No offense, but you kinda get around."

He shrugs this time, deciding to drop his casual act and aim straight for the jugular.

"She likes having someone who knows how to fuck her right, actually, but I really appreciate the concern."

Much like Kie's reaction to their matching tattoos in the hot tub the other night, her jaw is unhinged to meet the unswept hallway floor they stand on. It makes him wish Y/N weren't suspended in order for her to see the gobsmacked reaction Kacey has to the harsh dismissal. Though he wouldn't want to incite an extra round of the Kacey vs Y/N WWE showdown by having her watch another girl flirt with him and essentially call him a slut upon rejection, he knows she'd get a kick out of it.

This one's for you, baby, he thinks with a quiet laugh to himself and turns his focus to the sticker collection she so lovingly crafted.

There are plenty of summer themed ones left over from the same pack he gifted her for her birthday with the surfboard sticker she used to tease him, as well as a newer genre of Valentine's Day stickers she started using the closer they grew since first getting together. They're mostly different colored candy hearts with corny phrases ranging from "U SXY THING" to the classic "BE MINE" and one printed with "ANGEL" on it—his favorite by far.

However, others are random ones from her endless stash built up over the years from birthdays and holidays deemed worthy enough by her dad to stop by Dollar Tree for a new pack, so the one he sets his attention on is likely meant for teachers or coaches to give to their students. The opportunity appears too good to be true to him when it clicks, but it isn't.

He peels the sticker off of the locker door, careful not to disturb the ones around it, and leans in closer to her to place it on the front of her tank top.

"Leave us alone or I won't stop her next time," JJ says lowly, past the point of civility, then backs away to slam his locker shut for real this time as his voice raises back to a normal volume, "And keep John B's name out of your mouth, got it?"

All she can do is look down at the sticker placed on her shirt with squinted eyes to try and read it while he walks off in the direction of his next class. It tears away from the fabric with a soft noise, and when she finally reads it, she rolls her eyes.

“Good Try!”

​​Walking out of school to see the Twinkie parked in the usual spot Y/N takes when she isn't suspended is a delightful treat he didn't know to expect after a rough day in class and his run in with Kacey. His head was hung low on his way to Kie's car to hitch a ride to his house before going home to the Chateau, since he had some things to pick up with his dad out of the picture for the near future, but then he heard her greet them.

JJ's body melts into hers upon contact, and he nearly pushes her up against the closed passenger side door of the van with how hard he hugs her. Though he doesn't want to acknowledge it, his dad has been living in his thoughts more than usual today. Ever since he texted him goodbye, he's been withdrawn inside of his head more and more, and after today's inconveniences, the rising anxiety of his plan to visit home has him two seconds from losing his mind.

Her eyes widen at his zeal, meeting Kie's concerned gaze from over the shoulder she rests her chin on. She stands with her keys swinging around her finger as she watches the couple embrace one another. In an answer to the silent question Y/N asks her in their stare, her lips mouth the words, "His dad," to her.

Deep down, Y/N had a feeling.

It began with his impromptu request to run away with her a few days ago and extended into his uncharacteristically reserved attitude the next morning that receded somewhat, but has yet to fully disappear. There is a part of her that's upset that he hasn't come to her to talk about it, to communicate the way they swore they would, yet she also knows it isn't that simple.

She has to remind herself that she knew what she was getting herself into with him. That's not to say that dating her must be a walk in the park for him, it isn't.

She knows based on the amount of times he had to hold her as she cried, or the time he curtailed her panic attack in this very parking lot, that she hasn't made it easy for him in the aftermath of John B's death. But it's because she knows how it feels that she has such patience with his communication issues.

It's not a conscious choice most times, it's an involuntary blockage preventing the words from being spoken no matter how desperately they long to be. They may have made a promise, but she won't chastise him for succumbing to the same pitfalls as her. It’d be hypocritical.

"Bad day?" she asks.

Her voice is tender with him, prodding gently for a clue as to why he pounced on her on sight. He sinks further into her arms at the sound and lets the sanctity of her touch sway him into submission. Everything about her sets him at ease, if only for a second. Her hand lifts the beat-up red hat from his head to allow the other to brush through his hair.

There's a hum of agreement that she feels vibrating through the center of his chest into hers, and her arms pull tighter around his shoulders in response. This time, when she looks up to see Kie there, she's waving a quick goodbye and setting off toward her car, clearly giving JJ the space he needs.

"We can go to the beach," she says softly, "I have a towel in the back of the van, we can just lay there and talk about it if you want."

The idea of her kind offer to him should add to the comfort he finds in her embrace. It should make him nod and whisper his gratitude to her for being the one person that knows him better than anyone, but it brings him back to the gloomy headspace he was in before seeing her.

It started as a minor distraction when he first arrived at school after carpooling with Kie. It followed him in the quieter moments, only making appearances when he wasn't distracted with more pressing matters. It began as that and built the closer the day came to ending. The sooner his inevitable visit back to his childhood home came, the more he lost himself in his fear, reverting back to a state of helplessness he now occupies with no small amount of shame.

His bottom lip trembles with the urge to cry.

"Can we stop somewhere on the way home first?"

The last place she expected him to drive the Twinkie is here.

As they made their way down each street, taking each turn necessary to bring them closer to the house he seldom let her go to over the course of their lifelong friendship, she felt her heart begin to race. And now, as the van rolls to a stop in the yard in front of his house, she has swallow back the lump in her throat at the sight of it.

She has only been here a few times.

The first time, she was seven years old.

It was a sweltering summer morning in the Outer Banks for her and John B as they set off to retrieve their friend after he missed their plans to meet up at the Chateau for a day of having fun, riding bikes, and playing on the boat. Pirates and Princesses was her favorite game to play with them because JJ would switch roles with her halfway through when she grew tired of being the damsel John B had to rescue from the most cruel and vicious Captain Jesse James Maybank.

The HMS Pogue would rock beneath his feet as he marched across the deck of the boat and took her place as the kidnapped Princess Routledge. He handed off his "sword" to her, a stick he found in the yard, and stood at the edge of the boat with his hands behind his back as though he were a tied up damsel in distress for her to hold captive. The sun setting behind them laid a picturesque backdrop that made the scene all the more vivid to their imaginative young minds.

The boat floated in the afternoon current as John B approached the pair with his best pretend face of worry for the fair Princess Maybank, who had the sharp sword of the pirate queen pressing into his throat with the threat of death should he have tried to escape.

Sometimes, she'd let John B advance on them and tie make believe rope around her wrists and ankles while he and Princess Maybank claimed their victory. Other times, they'd get backed up until the heels of her sneakers hung off the edge of the slippery deck. One move from her brother would have her yell something along the lines of not taking either of them alive, then she'd let her and JJ fall back into the marsh together with gleeful laughs infiltrating the humid air upon their return to the surface.

On the day he didn't show up, none of that happened. She and John B rode their bikes together along sidewalks until they pulled into a driveway marked with the address number he remembered from the other time he sought him out to play before.

Y/N didn't understand what they were hearing when they pushed their kickstands down and called out for their friend, but John B's little face blanched at the sound flooding out of the opened windows of the dilapidated yellow house. It was a combination of banging against the walls, glass shattering, and childlike shouts of frustration and pain. Her big brother placed himself in front of her protectively when the front door opened and smacked against the side of the house, but it wasn't his dad storming out of the house, it was JJ.

His eyes widened at the sight of the siblings standing there, and his heart dropped to his stomach at the realization that they heard it. Maybe not all of it, but based on how the girl peeking out around John B's shoulder looked at him, they heard some.

The van is parked in the exact same place their bikes once were, the exact place she and John B stood years ago when they were first confronted with the harsh reality about their best friend's home life, and he looks like he has fully backpedaled into the state of mind his childhood self inhabited. Even when he turns the key in the ignition and lets the rumbling engine sputter down in silence, he sits in the driver's seat with his lip drawn between his teeth in thought.

Yet as soon as she summons the courage to say something, he takes a deep breath and opens the door without a warning or the typical instruction for her to stay in the car. He doesn't tell her to follow him in, nor does he order her to stay out as he used to when his dad still lived inside. He gives her the choice to make on her own, and, when faced with the opportunity to support him or stay outside like the confused little girl she once was, she chooses the first option.

Her swift steps kick dirt up from the earth onto her ankles as she follows him out of the van to the front steps of the house. She tries not to make her concern for him as evident as it'd be without her intervention on her way up the porch, but it's impossible to erase every sign of it from her face.

It isn't a particularly special or scary house. It's a normal home that'd likely look more inviting if JJ were still living here to mow the lawn and tend to the household upkeep his father saddled him with since he was old enough to be put to work. But she knows better than to trust the street appeal. As he takes her hand to lead them through the threshold of the haunted structure, she is overcome with a sense of creeping trepidation that she can't shake.

"You're sure he isn't here?" she asks.

The entryway is crowded with stacks of mail his father wasn’t bothered to open, as well as empty cardboard boxes that once held cans of beer that are scattered, empty, in various places around the house. Her question is answered by the state of the rooms they breeze past in the direction of his bedroom, but she needed something to say to fill the silence. With them, they usually don’t feel uncomfortable not speaking to each other, but this feels different.

The way he stares out in front of him with his hand squeezing hers hard enough to cut off circulation unnerves her more than the tainted energy of the house itself. He isn't himself. He's a shell of the JJ they know and love, the JJ who is most comfortable tucked away in the safe walls of the Chateau with their friends, not here. If anything, how he is while he's here is the antithesis of his behavior while living with her.

Ever since John B died, he's practically moved in with her. When they're hidden away in her house without the reminders of his home life in sight, he's usually the caretaker of the relationship. It comes naturally to their dynamic, both with him being slightly older and his promise to take care of her, but everything is flipped here. It's an alternate reality for him, or, perhaps, actual reality smacking him in the face after a carefully constructed two months in utopia with her.

They come to a stop in front of his closed bedroom door.

"He's gone," he says, not even sparing a glance at her for reasons she can't decipher, "He texted me a few days ago to say goodbye."

With that, he turns the doorknob and lets the door swing open to reveal the bedroom she only saw one other time.

The second time, she was thirteen years old.

It was a Friday.

Since his dad was supposed to be at work, they stopped at his house on their way home from school exactly like they did today so he could share with their friends what he got from his cousin the night before. Being the good girl she was, she didn't even know what he was showing her when he dug it out of the backpack in the bottom of his closet.

Her brows furrowed at the ziploc bag, more specifically the contents inside of it. She was knelt down on the floor in front of the opened closet door with her shoulder pressed up against his to inspect it. The dried green cluster of a plant didn't look like anything she'd seen before, and she couldn't help but ask him what the hell it was rather than react the way he knew the others would.

"What is it? It looks like dried up moss."

JJ laughed and pulled another bag with rolling papers and a grinder stowed inside.

"It's weed. My cousin Ricky gave me a discount since—"

He halted mid-sentence abruptly enough to startle her, his head turning in the direction of where he heard a trunk pulling up to the front of the house. Her stare was still set on where he was holding the plastic bags in his hands, and she noticed, after he stopped speaking in reaction to his dad coming home, that his hands began trembling. It was so minimal, she almost didn't catch it until she saw the bag wavering under the light coming in from his window.

Before she could open her mouth to say anything more, she felt his hands on her shoulders shoving her into the closet. He followed in closely behind her and crawled in until they were both crammed into the confined space together. With the closet doors shut in front of them, he clamped a hand over her mouth, whispering in her ear for her to be quiet.

She stands with her arms crossed over herself in the center of his room, and though nothing has yet to be said or done to convince her anything is wrong, that's the exact reason why she feels so unnerved by the entire experience of coming here.

He's silent.

The closet doors are wide open as he stuffs the rest of the clothes he had yet to bring to the Chateau into the biggest bag he could find. He rips through his belongings in a fit of melancholy driven anger. His thoughts are swirling with similar memories to the ones she conjures from being here again, but his are tinged with a darkness hers don't have, even with hearing him crying in pain as a child and hiding in the closet with his hand smothering her mouth to evade his dad.

JJ visibly grimaces at the memories he's forced to relive in flashes with every glimpse he gets of the room he spent so much time hiding in. It used to be more tolerable to be here, or at least easier to suffer through. At least he was used to it before, but he got so accustomed to life somewhere else that the second he was confronted with coming back, he started to fall apart.

Whatever he can't live without, he finds space for it in the bag and prepares to leave the rest behind. But every object he touches and step he takes around the room brings him back to the person who he spent his adolescence simultaneously fleeing and wanting more from. More notably, it brings him back to the train of thought that has been nagging him ever since he texted him over the weekend.

The third and final time she came here was over the summer.

It happened right before Hurricane Agatha waged war on the island, when none of the Pogues heard from JJ for two days after he said he had to go home to help his dad with something. She didn't want to track him down to his house after they went over twenty-four hours without a single message. She didn't want to have to go back to the house that gave her chills to think about, let alone go to again after they hid in his closet when they were younger, but he gave her no other choice.

What was she supposed to do except go check on him where he last said he'd be? After all, if she lived in the hazardous environment he did, he'd do the exact same for her. If their friends were involved in her thoughts at the time, they would've gone out on a limb to say he would've gone beyond what she did to protect her if the situation were flipped. If he knew someone was hurting her, he would've come in swinging first and asked questions later, but, in her defense, he strictly told her to never come back to his house. By walking over in the first place, she was breaking one of the fundamental rules of their friendship.

Nevertheless, she found herself crouching around the side of his house to find his bedroom window and check if he was in there. Kie and Pope weren't aware of what was happening with his dad yet, but she and John B accidentally found out years ago, so she wasn't wondering why he wasn't answering them, she was wondering if he was alive.

Part of her truly thought underneath it all that Luke might've killed him. He might've been too drunk or high and went too far when beating him, too far to the point where he didn't want to risk going to jail to take him to the hospital for help. She couldn't live with herself if she didn't check, and if he got pissed at her for showing up against his wishes and didn't want to speak to her ever again, she could live with that.

She knocked on his window in a cadenced beat loud enough for it to heard through the room but not any further. After the first series of knocks, no one came to the window. It ripped her heart to pieces to wonder if she'd see him again as she continued to knock and allowed the sound to increase in volume in hopes that maybe he was asleep, but it didn't bring anyone to the window.

It wasn't until she turned back around to go to the front of the house again that she bumped right into the solid wall of his chest and was pushed back up against the house. The question of what she was doing there was on the tip of his tongue, but she said something that stopped him from asking it.

Her arms were thrown around his shoulders in a desperate bear hug.

"Oh God, JJ, you scared me half to death!" she cried into the front of his shirt, "I thought he killed you!"

He can't help but think of it as he packs his belongings away for a final time to bid his hellish childhood home goodbye: What kind of life are they going to have together if they can't get off this island? Running away may have been an idealistic drunken fantasy for him to entertain after his conversation with Pope got him to admit his true feelings for her, but they both know his consistency can't be trusted.

One moment, he's planning to tell her. The next, a day like today comes along, sweeps his legs out from beneath his body, and he's questioning whether it's worth it to force her to put up with his fickle commitment to her. It isn't fair to her, is it?

Right now is just about when he'd normally start to hyperventilate with an oncoming wave of panic, and he does, but he can't let it fully sweep into him with her here. He fights the urge to smack his head with the heel of his palm, as if that'd forcibly remove the poisonous thoughts infiltrating his mind and ruining the careful work they've done together to remedy their issues with communicating their feelings.

Just like you ruin everything, a thought whispers in the corner of his mind. What made you think this would be any different?

His actions around the room have turned somewhat aimless and distracted, which she notices as soon as he starts to disintegrate into a mess of heavy breaths and self-sabotaging thoughts. She picks up on the shift in his energy as soon as the anxiety starts to wash over him, and she'll be damned if she continues to stand here quietly to let it happen.

It's one thing if he's being silent because being here upsets him, or if he simply doesn't know what to say, but she refuses to let him tailspin into a mental breakdown without doing something to stop it. Whether he knows it or not, after what they went through with him trying to push her away last week, she knows what's occurring within his mind right now.

He flinches at the feeling of her hand grabbing his shoulder to turn him to face her at first, and when she reaches again with her other hand to try to hold his hand as he cries, he shrugs off her touch.

"JJ..." she lets the solemn sound of her own voice murmuring his name trail off, "it's just me."

His head shakes at her consoling words. Everything else inside of his mind is so earth-shatteringly loud, he can't drown it out with logic or reason to bring himself away from the memories of his dad. Those intrusive thoughts keep attacking him with doubled, then tripled force the harder he tries to resist them, and he's so exhausted from it. All of it—the memories, his dad going to jail, and his inability to accept her love to its fullest extent without convincing himself she'll abandon him—is exhausting.

This time, when she rests her hand on his shoulder, he swats it away as the frustration of today crushing him with the force of an avalanche. Not to hurt or scare her, but to get her hands off of him before he bursts out of his skin with the sickness it stirs in his stomach. So detached from himself, he anticipates pain from every touch she gives him, and he knows it hurts her.

JJ hardly recognizes his own voice as he backs away from her a step and says, "Don't."

He can tell it hurts her based on how she looks at him immediately after, but he can't handle being touched right now. How did this happen so quickly? It was overwhelming when they first parked outside, but as soon as he stepped foot inside, it was as if a switch was flipped inside of him and all of the buried feelings he kept hidden over the past two weeks exploded into this.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"You need to leave. I just-I can't breathe and"—He still refuses to look up from the ground or see her face as he paces around the room with no real intent in mind—"You can't see me like this."

That is what breaks her out of her soft spoken, timid attitude to handle the situation the way it needs to be handled. Their natural dynamic worked best for him to take charge when she had her panic attack because JJ acts first and thinks later. He saw that she was in distress and jumped in to help her before things got worse rather than allowing her to keep him at an arms length where he couldn't do anything about it.

Taking a page from his rule book, she takes action.

The room surrounding them is in a state of disarray from him searching through it for the items of clothing and objects now stashed in his duffel bag. There are multiple obstacles in her way as she steps between them like navigating a minefield to reach him after he backed away in instinctual fear, but they don't stop her from reaching him. Nothing could.

Y/N walks right up to him and reaches to grasp his face between her hands, forcing him to stop pacing around and actually look at her for the first time since they arrived her so he hears what she says. To say the least, the way he looks right now is enough to make her cry. There are tears welled up to the brims of his blue eyes, his lips are downturned with his sobs, and he's staring at her like she's about to strike him.

She says it as slowly and clearly as she needs to get it through his head, "He's not here," and before he manages to squeeze out another word of doubt between his rapid inhalations, she cuts in, "Take deep breaths."

He isn't listening to her.

The movement of his chest that hits hers from how close they stand to each other has yet to settle into the familiar pace she remembers from nights of falling asleep with the rhythm of his breaths beneath her head.

Her eyes search his face frantically, from left to right and top to bottom, for any sign of the person she's known for years, but she doesn't see him. Instead, she sees the same panicked child her and John B saw the first time they visited this house. It's uncanny how similar the expression in his face is. It feels to her as if she's been hurled back in time to the moment itself, and when she tries to think about what would've worked with him back then, she doesn't know what else to do except help him escape.

So, with the helplessness of having to watch him turn into a sobbing, incoherent mess, she decides to step into the darkness with him and do what seven year old Y/N would've done. Just like their games of make believe, of pirates and princesses, she assumes the role John B would have and rescues him from what holds him captive. It’s his own mind in this case, but, in the physical sense, it's the house.

She drops her hands from his face and takes his hand in hers to drag him out of the room. The packed bag sits on the floor in their wake as she pulls him back through the bedroom door and into the living room, not caring about what they came here to do.

It doesn't matter anymore.

The various rooms of his dad's house pass by them in a blur as she leads him down the hallway to the front door with one sole objective in mind: get him out of here. If he wants his stuff to bring back to the Chateau, she'll go back inside and get whatever he needs her to, but she isn't letting him inside of this house again. Not under her watch.

Thankfully, since he is undeniably stronger than her and she wouldn't have stood a chance, he doesn't fight it. He stumbles after her guiding hand the same way he always has, just like how he followed her back to the Chateau after she and John B saw him that day when they were kids. She led the way as he sat on the handlebars of her brother's bike, and he watched her hair flutter in the wind with the momentum of their bicycle spokes until the tears dried up.

He watches her drag him out of the home until they've reached the safety of the yard at the bottom of the porch steps, and as soon as the soles of her shoes meet the dirt, she feels his hand slipping out of hers.

"JJ?"

She turns around to see him clutching his chest, rubbing his hand along the front of his shirt over his heart as though it'll loosen up the tightened muscles preventing him from catching his breath. His body weight is leaned onto the railing of the porch steps for support. He's partially slumped on it, looking at her desperately, like she somehow knows the answer to every question screamed inside of his head, and she has never felt as useless.

"You're gonna leave," JJ says through the gasps and cries that leave his cheeks stained with tears.

When she reaches out again to help him remain upright without leaning over the railing, he doesn't shove her hands away as he did inside of his bedroom. It's a small battle won, but she takes it as a win nonetheless.

"What are you saying? I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere—"

"You're gonna leave! Everybody does! My mom, John B, my dad, and you"—his head falls to look at the ground instead of her, and she watches him work through it in his head—"I mean, look at me. You don't want this."

"Don't tell me what I want," she says.

Her voice remains as steady and calm as she can force it to be amidst the turbulent situation, but the way he said it...It takes her right back to sitting in the back of the Twinkie with him at the Cherry Bowl, except it's ten times worse. That felt like a break up, but based on what he's saying, this is one. She hasn't prepared herself for the heartache she feels in response to it.

"You don't want me, you just think you do 'cause I was there after John B died, but you don't. You're gonna go off, find some perfect guy that isn't as fucked up as me, and have a great life somewhere else, but it ain't here," JJ says, his breathing evening out with the distraction of the argument to keep him tethered tor reality, "And it won't be with me."

He can see it every time he's looked at her and debated saying those three titular words that have been floating around in his head since he first met her.

How could she want someone who can't walk into his childhood bedroom without breaking down, or someone who still has years-old scars from cigarette burns on his skin when she touches him? Her bright future contrasted with his pre-designated fate on the Cut, her personality better matched with someone more similar to her, her life continuing on whether he's there or not—it's his worst nightmare, but he's prepared to see it through.

What he doesn't expect is for her to hold her ground.

"You honestly think I'm buying into that bullshit?" she asks.

"What?"

She doesn't put it softly, she states facts with as much harshness as his cruel fantasy had, "You're trying to push me away and I won't let you."

Her typically sweet, soft features have hardened into a bitter expression he's sure he mirrors. The arms holding his waist to keep him upright move to climb up his chest and cup his face between her hands with all of the gentleness her face and voice don't have right now.

She sees right through him.

When he tries to look away again, to avert his eyes to make what he's trying to do easier on himself by not having to look at her when he does it, her grasp on his face holds firm. Her hands guide his chin back up so they're face to face, and he realizes what a mistake everyone makes in assuming her this dainty, broken girl whose only source of strength came from the brother she lost. She's a forest fire.

"You're not hearing what I'm saying—"

Y/N interjects, "I am hearing what you're saying, I'm just saying it's bullshit."

She refuses to let him off the hook, and though it frustrates him on the surface, deep down, it makes him fall in love with her all over again. Her insistence against his speech about her leaving him proves him wrong more than anything else could, 'cause he gave her the perfect chance to dip and she shot it down instantly.

The house looms behind them as a menacing presence that threatens to take control of him again, but she doesn't let it. She keeps his eyes on her no matter how many times he tries to look away and doesn't let anything get in the way of what she says next.

"You think that if you push me away and get me to leave you right now, it'll hurt less than it would if I did it later, and I don't accept that. I won't take the bait and let you torture yourself anymore, okay? I can't speak for anyone else, but I know I'll never leave you. Not willingly, anyway."

She looks into his eyes, and this time its softer, more loving, and he's never felt as understood as he does when she continues to speak.

"I'm in love with you. Whether it scares you or not, it's the truth, and I'll never stop saying it. If you think that your issues with your dad are gonna change that for me, you've officially lost your mind." Their noses brush as she leans in to ghost a kiss over his mouth and pulls away a second later to whisper, her forehead pressed to his, "I love you, JJ. Stop being so stubborn and just let me."

His next breath in trembles as he lets her words sink in, and he's stuck at a crossroads inside of himself without a clue of what to do.

The breeze blows her hair away from her face, the afternoon sunshine painting her golden, and when he sees her hair flutter in the air like it did so many years ago, he can't help but feel as calm as he did during their bike ride home. The further away he got from his dad and the house where it all happened, the calmer he grew, and it hits him at this moment that he's so taken aback by her confession to him, he forgot why he was so upset.

It's sobering. The intoxication of his panic hurtled him back in time to the frightened, childlike state of mind his dad's violent abuse often sent him to, but it was hearing her say those words he's feared for weeks that brought him back. Like the jolt of a defibrillator, he's roused back to life with more clarity than before.

She loves him, but, perhaps more importantly, she said she'd never leave him, and that is what he needed to hear more than anything. That is the statement worth more to him than the four letter word he has agonized over endlessly. No one else every attached the promise of "I love you" with the stipulation of it lasting forever. They said the empty words and contradicted it with their actions, but she hasn't done that. Her actions spoke the words long before her mouth did.

He sighs.

It's a deep, yearning sigh that sends him melting into her with the acceptance of what he's denied for too long. He savors the hands cradling his head, as well as the body pressed up against his that he has memorized down to every beauty mark and imperfection, and makes the right choice.

It isn't like it was the night at the Cherry Bowl, or the night he spoke to Pope about it. It still takes more bravery than he possesses to form the words, but there isn't a physical incapability stopping him anymore. It's just him against the trauma beckoning him into its trap again, and he won't let it lure him back into that house.

"Alright," JJ says to her through a sniffle in acceptance to her command, as if he were agreeing on afternoon surfing plans rather than something as monumental as allowing someone to love him, then continues onto with a timid tone, "I love you too."

Before he can watch for her reaction, she's surging forward through the few inches of space left between them to connect their lips in a kiss.

It's vastly different to the kiss they shared in the hallway at school last Friday. In contrast to that one, the reigning emotion within him that drives the kiss after the hesitant beginning doesn't lead them into increased intensity, it gets gentler. It doesn't explode into chaos and passion, it's a tired kiss that he never wants to retreat from. It's the physical manifestation of his feelings for her underneath the guarded exterior he uses to protect himself: gentle and yielding, yet undeniably powerful.

He feels her smiling through her tears against his mouth. In the face of everything that happened this afternoon, he doesn't feel like he should be smiling back at her, but he does. He smiles while kissing her with tears streaming down his face, still reeling from his traumatic response to coming home for the final time, and wonders how a person can feel such contradicting emotions all at once.

Y/N is the one who starts to pull away first, though it's only to check in on him. If she had it her way, she could stay here with him until the sun sets, but he did just come back from the brink of a full-blown panic attack, so she can't in good conscience ignore his well-being for the momentary bliss of their love confessions.

Her thumb brushes over his bottom lip, her smile drooping with worry as she asks, "Wanna spend the rest of the day on the boat? You always say being on the water makes you feel better. Maybe it'll make it easier to talk about it."

His Adam's apple bobs with how he swallows the lump in his throat.

"Can we maybe take baby steps for now? I don't think I can handle telling you all that shit yet."

It was already enough to allow her to follow him into the house, watch him break down into a fit of panic no one else has seen him in, and tell her he loved her, but it'd cross the line into uncharted territory to talk about everything between him and his dad so openly. Between the minor annoyance of dealing with Kacey to this hellish visit home, he thinks he's reached his quota on feeling uncomfortable today.

She nods in agreement.

"Baby steps."

Drawn back to each other by a force stronger than gravity, they collide again, but it isn't a kiss this time. It's a hug charged with all of the previously unspoken emotions they've buried inside of themselves for years, the same hug she gave him the last time she came to this house with the fear of his potential death lingering in her thoughts.

She throws herself at him with the same desperation she did that day and relishes the feeling of his muscular arms returning the embrace until their bodies are tangled together. She'd usually never refer to something as inherently affectionate as an embrace as violent, but it's the closest she can come to capturing how it feels as their bodies meet. It makes her lose her footing on the bottom step they stand on together, teetering on the edge she'd surely slip off of with the force if not for him keeping her steady.

He's about to say something, a thank you to her for calling him out on his bullshit and not letting him go that easily, when the grating sound of her ringtone blares from the back pocket of her denim shorts.

The contact popping up on the screen along with a series of frantic messages when she pulls away from him to answer shows Pope's name.

Pope You and JJ need to get back to the Chateau ASAP!!

The van doors slam shut behind Y/N and JJ as soon as it rolls to a stop in front of the Chateau.

Under the assumption that something dire happened, as in injury or death or catastrophic damage to the house itself, they bolted off of that porch faster than they knew they could move. She only turned back when she remembered the packed back of JJ's things they abandoned on his bedroom floor and, not wanting him to reenter the house, she brought it back to the Twinkie in record time.

They're preparing to trample up the porch into the house like a stampede of animals when they hear Kie calling them over to the backyard and change direction.

"No one's hurt!" she shouts, knowing that was likely where their minds went after everything they went through during the summer, "You have to see this though, I don't know who did it!"

Sticks and fallen leaves crunch beneath her feet on her way around the side of the house. Her mind races with the possibility of what could've happened that didn't hurt their friends but necessitated a series of texts and calls as frantic as the ones she received at JJ's house. She drove over here in defiance of the speed limit, something she rarely does, and prayed nothing terrible was happening.

It gave her flashbacks to when she found out John B and Sarah died in the storm. The pedal beneath her foot brought the van to an uncomfortably swift speed, then she remembered the sound of Shoupe's voice when he gave them the news. JJ warned her to slow down, then she remembered how it took multiple people to help her restrain him from attacking the new sheriff for letting his men drive their friends into their deaths.

At first, she doesn't realize what's wrong.

Kiara and Pope are standing and waiting for them across the grass near the large tree that sits as a centerpiece to their yard. Based on the body language screaming their frustration and the tears in their eyes, she can tell something bad did happen, but it's not clear what it is until she looks past them to the tree. More specifically, until she looks at what's on the tree.

"Oh my god," she whispers to herself.

Her hand is already up to cover her mouth and conceal the instantaneous frown besmirching her previously relaxed face. They both are stopped in their tracks halfway to where their friends are standing, and she can’t hear JJ's reaction over the rising volume of her hysterical thoughts.

Spray painted in red on top of their memorial for John B are the words "COP KILLER" in bold letters that conceal what they burned into the tree trunk for his gravestone. It sticks out from the beauty of the greens, browns, blues, and swathes of other earthy tones composing the scenery around the Chateau like a thorn amongst flowers, so much so that she wonders how she didn't instantly see it when they rounded the corner to come back here.

Yet that isn't the only thing amiss in the peaceful sanctuary they call home, there are random things strewn around the ground around the tree. An old t-shirt spray painted with the word "murderer" on the front, four ripped up envelopes, and a gorgeous mahogany jewelry box...broken on the grass.

The freshly turned dirt they had the contents of the box buried beneath is scattered around the trashed area as well. It clicks with her a few seconds late that whoever came here to do this must have seen the pinwheel she put in the ground to mark the "grave" and dug it up to add insult to injury.

She moves forward without consciously realizing it and stumbles until she reaches the first object of the debris field. Before this, she was doing a masterful job of holding in her cries, but as soon as she crouches down to pick up the pieces of the jewelry box, the lid snapped clean off the hinges to separate it from the bottom section, it comes rushing out of her against her will. The first unrestrained keen is the first thing to snap JJ out of his shell shocked trance.

He walks after her as fast as his legs will take him without breaking into a run, but she isn't letting him get close before she puts the box back down and shuffles forward to collect the torn letter remains. She doesn't want them to get blown away by the wind anymore than they already might have been, so she scrambles to gather the pieces until they're cupped in her hands to protect them.

"Why?" she asks and looks up at Kie and Pope with tears dripping down her face, "Why would anyone do this? Who would do this?"

Pope says, "My guess is as good as yours. We didn't see anyone leaving when we got here, so it must've happened before school ended. This is all we saw before we called you guys."

For a second or two, JJ is grasping at straws for why this happened and who did it like the rest of them are, but then something Pope said makes it click into place. It sets off a domino effect in his mind as he brings back the memory of a certain offspring of satan being absent from gym this afternoon despite being at school earlier, since his encounter with her before Physics made him, unfortunately, aware of her existence again.

His face is set in anger, jaw clenching with the tension of him grinding his teeth together, and he takes his hat off to fidget with it between his hands for a second. Their friends are too focused on her crying to see him contemplating it, but as soon as he speaks, they look up to see him setting his hat back onto his head in preparation to leave and track Kacey down.

Y/N's head snaps up from the torn letters in her hands to the sight of him storming off across the yard with his only goodbye being the words, "I'm gonna kill that bitch."

Her and Pope stare after him in shock, unable to put the pieces together about who that "bitch" is, but Kie doesn't miss a single beat. While Y/N is crumpled over on the ground in tears, she's rushing after JJ before he can approach the bike parked in front of the house. He doesn't even make it five steps before he feels her hands latching onto his wrist to stop him.

She asks, "Who the hell are you talking about? And why would they do this?"

His eyes narrow at her. His unreleased frustration for the situation in general and having to watch Y/N cry after an emotional afternoon together comes rushing out when he snaps at her.

"Kacey. She talked shit at school and I put her in her place. Now, if you don't mind, I'm gonna pay her a little visit."

He yanks his arm sharply towards himself to free it from her grip, but she's a step ahead of him. Quicker than he can think to stop her, Kie swipes the keys hanging out of his back pocket away and throws them to Pope, who, bless his heart, can't catch to save his life. The key ring jingles with its contact at the dead center of his chest, and she mouths an apology to him before turning back to face JJ.

"What the fuck, Kie?"

He makes to stomp past her and retrieve the keys from Pope only to be stopped by her hands reaching out to grab his shoulders.

"Listen to me, you can't go anywhere. Look at her," she whispers lowly enough to keep Y/N from hearing, pointing behind her to where she sits on the ground with Pope knelt beside her, "I wouldn't put it past Kacey to pull a stunt like this. I'm just as mad as you, but revenge can wait and you know it. She needs you."

The fury visible in his expression is subdued by looking past Kie's shoulder to see Y/N crying softly to Pope about the vandalized memorial.

The last time he saw her so distraught over something, it was the day they made the memorial and buried the box in the first place. She sits on her knees with her mom's broken jewelry box between them, shuddering with the sobs she has no control over, and pours the torn paper into the empty bottom half of the box. Exhausted to the core, she looks more like a sullen, kicked puppy than she does herself.

It makes his anger-fueled instincts that urge him to hunt Kacey down and do something, anything he can to make her feel the pain they do right now bubble down into sorrow. It's visible in his eyes when he looks at her.

Kie knows she's gotten under his skin when he sighs, sparing a parting glance to the bike in the driveway, and nods once at her before setting off back to where they're sitting in the grass.

Meanwhile, Y/N is stuck staring down at the disarray of her backyard with nothing but pain aching through her to the bone.

Her brother did wrong things sometimes as a consequence of being human, but never this, never something worthy of having his name dragged through the mud and being branded a murderer after his death. He stole scuba gear from Ward and broke dozens of laws in their hunt for the gold, but he never crossed that line into moral bankruptcy. Rafe did, and it kills JJ to see someone like Kacey do this to his best friend while hanging off of Rafe and his friends like a leech.

The fabric of his worn t-shirt is tarnished by the dried paint clinging to the front of it to the spell the lie written there, and her vision blurs with tears for what feels like the millionth time in the span of an hour. First, it was JJ. Now, it's John B, and she can't help but wonder if the heartache will ever end. It began to feel better over the course of the week, her grief for him slowly beginning to slip from her mind until now. Until the storm clouds converged again to batter her with another wave of it.

Through the deafening volume of her mind racing with thoughts and feelings to process what's happened, she hears Pope shuffling around to stand on his feet. Then, another person sits down in his place and scoots closer until their bodies are touching, and she knows it's him. She doesn't have to wait to hear his voice or look to see his face, she can tell based on the feeling of his touch and the smell of him she's so intimately familiar with, yet couldn't describe it aloud if she tried.

He doesn't smother her. He sits close enough to touch her and doesn't push it any further.

The background of the pale, cloudless sky frames him in the foreground like the subject of a painting—a living, breathing painting that she could study endlessly. The other trees planted in the yard's leaves flutter distantly behind him and try to draw her gaze away, but she keeps her eyes on him.

Maybe that's how it is, she thinks.

Maybe it'll get better and worse in a dance that'll only stop when they're no longer here to agonize over it. Maybe this is what moving on from John B will always be like. It'll feel like they've made strides in the right direction, then something will come along to shatter it to sharp pieces that'll reopen their stitched up wounds. If that's the case, at least the four of them have each other to lean on when it gets worse again.

JJ sits with her and lets her crawl onto his lap, resting her head on his shoulder, until the sun sinks below the horizon.

The gentle bobbing of the HMS Pogue at the surface of the water steadies her amidst her eddying thoughts. It keeps her present to the moment the way the ropes tying the boat to the dock keeps it from floating adrift into the marsh. It's a motion engrained in her from the start of her life until now from countless days spent on the water. Whether it be for fishing, swimming, or playing make believe with her boys all those years ago, it's as much a part of her as her personality or body itself.

JJ was right about one thing: being out on the water makes it easier to think.

He hasn't followed her out since she woke up before sunrise and snuck out of bed to come here. Despite her efforts not to wake him, he woke up when she disentangled her body from his, silently cursing the fact that they always cuddle so closely, and he tried to pull her back to him with a whine of displeasure in his groggy, half-asleep state. Sleep finally found them after hours of staying up together to talk about what Kacey did, unable to relax from the chaos of yesterday, so he wasn't prepared to wake up that soon.

"Go back to sleep, angel," she whispered as she hovered over him, brushing a chaste kiss to his lips that he was too tired to return.

That was the last time she saw him since this morning, and now that the sun has risen to its peak in the sky without her moving an inch from her perch atop the bow of the boat, she's begun to wonder if he's awake yet. It isn't uncommon for them to sleep in for half of the day when there isn't school or work, so it isn't surprising to her that he's just now waking up when she hears the back door to the Chateau opening and closing.

Unbeknownst to her, JJ has been awake the entire morning since she left bed.

They were so attached to each other yesterday night, he didn't have the time to put it together without her seeing and ruining the surprise, but once he heard the door to the porch close to signify her leaving, he kicked the blankets off of himself and got to work. He wasn't originally planning on starting so early, since they stayed up late into the night together, but once he woke up to the feeling of her sneaking out of his arms, he was too awake to fall back asleep.

The sound of his footsteps on the dock warns her of his approach, but she doesn't raise her head from where she rests it in her palms to stare out at the water.

"I was wondering when you'd finally wake up," she says.

There's another few steps, then the boat jostles with his weight stepping onto it.

He doesn't say anything to her in response. The only clue she gets as to what he's doing are the footsteps on the deck that lead closer to her until she feels him sitting down on the bow next to where she is. And she's about to open her mouth to ask if he's okay when he sets something down in front of her.

It's a shoe box.

Y/N turns to see him, eyes flickering over his tired face, and looks back at the box with furrowed brows.

"What is this?"

His hair is messy, exactly how it was when she left him in bed this morning, and if she weren't more focused on the mysterious box he plopped down in front of her, she'd be combing through it with her fingers. He's gotten used to those casual displays of affection from her; how she runs her hands through his hair on mornings before school when he forgets to brush it, or when she fixes a button on his flannel that he missed.

JJ's lips are tipped in a smile, and she can't help but blush with how he looks at her. She never used to see it, but he has always looked at her like this. Like he's hopelessly, utterly in love with her. Even before they lost John B, back when he'd expend all of his romantic and sexual attention on girls he hardly knew, he still looked at her this way.

He gestures at it and says, "Open it."

The lid of the box is coated in a freshly dried layer of blue paint to match the shade of the sky overhead. She knows instantly that he must have dug through the arts and crafts box she specifically labeled with a warning for him and John B to stay out. It's painted with aimlessly sloppy brushstrokes and stickers placed at every corner of the cardboard box, all of which she recognizes from the stash she kept under her bed alongside the India ink he borrowed last Friday.

As she gives him a skeptical look and reaches to lift the lid off of the shoe box, she makes a mental note to rewrite the label on the arts and crafts box without the warning for him to keep out. Since John B isn't here to steal anything from it and JJ never follows that rule anyway, it's redundant at this point.

Any skepticism is washed away from her face as soon as she flips the lid open to reveal what's inside. It leaves her speechless as she looks down at it all.

"JJ..." she murmurs in awe.

Sitting at the bottom of it is a folded up t-shirt she saw JJ wear multiple times, but never again since John B died. He refused to glance at the shirt his best friend gave him the year before they never saw him again, let alone dig it out of the corner of her closet where he keeps his things...until now.

But that's a scratch on the surface of all of the things about his gift that stuns her to silence. The next thing to catch her immediate attention is a picture she hasn't seen in years.

It's one that Big John took of the three of them together right where she and JJ are sitting. She was much younger in it, flashing a toothy grin with her arms thrown over both boys' shoulders. To her left, John B was leaning his head on her shoulder. To her right, JJ was wearing an eyepatch they crafted out of an old black shirt he stole from his dad. It was cut with the kitchen scissors and tied around the back of his head in a knot.

She brushes her thumb over John B's face, then sets the crinkled photograph back down atop the folded shirt and moves her attention to the last surprise.

Letters.

Torn up pieces of paper painstakingly taped back together sit one on top of the other, some missing pieces here or there, and it makes her mouth part in shock. Her hands shuffle the letters apart to see each one and recognize the handwriting: Kie's bubbly, swirling letters, Pope's neat cursive, hers, and JJ's chicken scratch writing that she's able to decipher from years of proofreading his essays.

She pictures him at her desk all morning while she was sitting out here, ripping tape off of the roll and arranging the puzzle pieces of the ripped letters until he was sure he got it right. It made him want to rip the hair from his scalp, but he sat there and pushed through the frustration to make it as perfect as he could for her. The missing pieces were primarily from Kie's letter, which fluttered away on a balmy breeze when Kacey tore it up and threw it to the ground, but the one he wanted her to have the most wasn't missing more than a single piece.

Y/N looks up from the letters held like a precious treasure in her hands to see him watching her with that same classic JJ smile on his face, but he doesn't let her get a word in yet.

"Go on," he says, leaning closer to pull his letter to John B out and place it on top of the pile for her to read, "I want you to read it."

"You didn't let me read it when I asked before though, are you sure you—"

He interrupts her before she can worry herself over it, "Dude, just read it. I promise I'm fine with it. I want you to."

The letters crinkle under her touch as she looks back down and smooths them out on the deck enough to read through the clear tape. With one last confirming glance to him for permission, she takes a deep breath and reads the first line.

Dear John B,

You really know how to keep a guy on his toes, don't you? You really outdid yourself on this one. I was so sure we were gonna make it, but I guess you had to go all Romeo and Juliet on us, huh? As long as you and Sarah are happy macking on each other in heaven, it's okay.

In all seriousness, I fucking miss you, bro. I miss you more than I realized a person could miss another person. Whenever I need to talk to you again, I don't know what to do. I guess that's why it's good that Y/N made me write this.

Also, I'm really sorry for—

"What does it say there? There's a whole chunk missing," she murmurs.

He scoots close enough to her that she can feel his body warmth radiating onto her through the shoulder of his flannel. Sunlight reflects on the silver rings decorating his fingers as he holds one side of the paper to tilt it enough for him to squint at.

"Macking, I think. It's supposed to say "I'm sorry for macking on your sister."

—macking on your sister. You can totally kick my ass for it, but before you come back from the grave to murder me, let me defend myself, okay? She isn't just another girl for me, John B.

I think you knew it before I did.

Last summer, you asked me straight up if we were hooking up behind your back after I kissed her in front of you on the porch. I laughed in your face, but you were right.

You saw everything before me, man. You knew I loved her since we were kids and waited for us to come to you about it, so that's gotta mean something, right? I hope it means you wouldn't be mad at me for this.

I swear I won't fuck it up with her, but you already know that. That's why you asked me to take care of her,. I didn't know why at the time but I do now. I won't let you down.

I'm keeping my promise.

- JJ

P.S. Don't miss me too much. We'll be shotgunning beers together up there before you know it.

There are tears blooming in her eyes when she lifts her gaze from the tattered paper to look at him again, but they aren't sad. For once, the tears slipping down her cheeks are happy tears, not born from grief, sadness, and pain, but bittersweet happiness.

They're caught staring at each other for a second before he asks her shyly, "It isn't too sappy or anything, is it? 'Cause I thought it—"

"C'mere," is the only thing she can get out before she's tugging him forward by the front of his shirt to kiss him.

JJ stumbles a little with the unexpected force of her pulling him to her, but he takes it in stride. He steadies himself and lets his hands shoot out to grapple for purchase on her waist, keeping her pressed up against him tightly as he kisses her back.

And it doesn't get much better than this, does it? This is it for him. He meant what he wrote to John B, he won't fuck it up with her, especially not because of his trauma with his dad getting inside his head and sabotaging his relationship with her. This is what makes everything worth it.

It brings happy tears to his eyes too.

She can taste the salt of them where their lips meet in the middle. It makes her smile, wrapping her arms around his neck and clenching the letters he mended for her in her fist to keep them from blowing away in the wind, and they both start to laugh into each other's mouths at the poignant feeling they both share but can't quite place.

They pull away from each other to catch their breath after another moment of it, and she can't help but stare. How could she not when she feels like this? It’s less like he’s her boyfriend and more like a piece of her soul has attached itself to his with no hope of letting go in the near future.

"You're the best thing that ever happened to me," she whispers to him.

Plain and simple. No room for disagreement or a bashful rejection of the compliment. She's pulled back from him enough to hold his gaze and make sure he sees her seriousness, and there isn't anything he can do to refute her statement.

He brushes his nose against hers affectionately, dipping down to kiss her again, but when he leans back to see her face, he can't help himself.

"Ditto."

The rest of the day after their moment on the boat, locked away in their own little world where none of the monsters chasing them could sneak through and ruin it, melts away peacefully. After another half hour spent looking through the box together, of her thanking him over and over again, he hops off of the HMS Pogue onto the dock and extends his hand to her in the most gentlemanly manner possible.

His lips are curved into a smirk as he kneels down on one knee as though she's a revered royal and bows his head in subservience, "Princess Routledge."

Her hand fits in his warm, calloused palm as a perfect match, and she steps off of the boat onto the dock beside him with an expression to match his.

"Captain Maybank," she says in her most regal royalty voice.

Her stellar performance breaks into a laugh they share as he stands and throws his arm around over her shoulder to walk back to the yard. The cardboard box is tucked beneath one of her arms while the other slips around his side to hold him back, and her heart feels full with both the presence of JJ and John B alongside her.

They bury it together.

Tag List: @gabiatthedisco, @fangirlvoice, @black-syren, @apparrio, @particularcth, @planetdemon, @idk-ijustworkhere, and @krisphann

Also, now that it’s over, let me know what your favorite part was in the comments or tags if you’d like to :) I’m curious.

[slasherhaven]

The slashers reaction to their child mimicking them killing someone and the child responds with "I want to be strong like you."

The Slashers reacting to their child mimicking them killing somebody:

Thomas Hewitt

Thomas wanted to keep both you and his children away from all that violence but that just wasn’t realistic and he knew it.

You and even his kids would eventually see something at some point. No matter how hard he tried.

So yes, you’re child had seen the violence that happens on occasion.

But Thomas isn’t please with this. You’re child mimicking the violence they’ve seen their father commit.

He’s torn by the gesture.

He doesn’t want to encourage them into violence at all. 

But “I want to be strong like you” absolutely melts his heart. They want to be like him? Why? He doesn’t understand but, god, does he adore his child with his whole being.

Michael Myers

Unfortunately doesn’t see the problem with the child mimicking him.

You know Michael Myers raising a child isn’t exactly ideal but you love him and you love your child, not matter which parent that start to take after more...

“I want to be strong like you” Yes, their father is strong. Well done for noticing that...okay, fine, he admits that it was kinda cute! Are you happy now?!

But he’s not an idea, a murder scene isn’t a place for a child, even he knows that, and he’s not about to take his child out on the kill with him.

That’s your problem to deal with...

Jason Voorhees 

Jason tried to protect your child from all this bad stuff but it was bound to happen.

You and you child going for a walk in the woods, running into their father as he killed somebody.

But the child was never afraid of him, he never gave the kid to a reason to be.

Not a fan of the child mimicking the swing of his machete, he wanted to protect them from that no participate in it.

He won’t get mad at the child, of course he won’t, but he will discourage the behaviour.

“I want to be strong like you” will make him falter. Not in a bad way. It’s just so precious! He could never be mad at his child, especially for something they unfortunately learnt from him.

Brahms Heelshire

It was a one time thing! Somebody broke into the house, Brahms dealt with it...your child happened to see it.

And instead of trauma, they just thought it was great that their father was protecting them and you.

It wasn’t long after that, that your child starting mimicking the action

When you asked why and your child responded with “I want to be strong like Daddy!” Brahms was smiling like an idiot.

See, Y/n! Even your child can see that he protects you!

You’re going to have to deal with the consequences. Both discouraging the behaviour in your child and wiping that grin off of Brahms’s face.

Bo Sinclair

Bo does do his best to keep his child as far away from the dark truth of the town as much as possible, he knows it’s no place for a child and they’ll learn about it eventually.

But it’s a small town and people show up unexpectantly. Which is how your child witness their father killing a man. 

Honestly, it freaks Bo out a little bit. He never thought he would be a good father and this is just like evidence of that.

But he makes sure they aren’t scared, told them that it’s just something they have to do for the town and the family. It’s all okay.

It’s a couple of days later when you both witness them mimicking that they saw Bo do.

He already knows you’re glaring at him and he’s apologetic, he just isn’t going to say that.

“I want to be strong like you!” It catches Bo off guard more than it does you. He’s still questioning his fathering abilities but they must think he’s doing alright if they want to be like him!

Still, he nods along when you mention that you should be discouraging that as much as possible.

Vincent Sinclair

Vincent does want to keep your child as far from the darkness of the town as much but it’s nearly impossible.

Your child is completely allowed in their father’s workroom, as long as he doesn’t have a victim there.

But this time a victim escaped and headed for the house, were you and his child where. He had to protect you both so he caught them and killed them, completely horrified when he realised that his child had witnessed that.

It was you that sat down to explain it to your child, knowing that Vincent was beating himself up about it.

Vincent was also horrified when your child started mimicking the action.

“I want to be strong like you!” your child claimed with a bright smile.

Vincent melted at that. They wanted to be like him? God, he loved them so much. But there were much better ways to be like him than to hurt people, he’ll work on teaching them that.

Lester Sinclair

It’s not often that Lester actually had to kill a victim himself and one of the few times it happens, your child just so happened to be around. To be fair, they attacked him first!

Brushes it off to your child as “it’s just something we have to do for the town, just protecting ourselves, okay?” but also adds a very serious “Don’t tell your mother/father”.

But then the mimicking began, explained by a “I want to be strong like daddy!” so Lester wasn’t getting away with this one. He can’t even lie about it, he looks too guilty because he knows he messed up.

Don’t worry though, Lester is just as eager as you to discourage this behaviour and not have your child mimicking a murder.

Bubba Sawyer

Bubba is so used to the violence normalised in the family that he doesn’t see a huge issue on the effects it could have on your child but he does really want to shelter them from it all as much as he can.

When your child starts mimicking his actions, he gets concerned.

He doesn’t want them to hurt anyone and he doesn’t want them to get hurt.

“I want to be strong like you!” Oh okay that is cute...they want to provide for the family like him! But no, this is wrong, doesn’t matter how cute it is...

Works extra hard to keep your child away from all that bad stuff in the future, with your help of course.

You both just want what’s best for your child. 

Billy Lenz

Like Brahms, it was a one time thing! He was protecting his family from an intruder! He was doing the right thing and it wasn’t his fault that your child saw it!

He knows you’re going to kill him when he first sees your child mimicking, and tells them to not do that around you. 

They do though and Billy is looking anywhere other than at you.

“I want to be strong like you!” okay, you both can admit that’s cute but it’s still not good!

Admittedly, it does get Billy smiling. His kid wants to be like him and he thinks that means he’s doing a good job!

You still have to discourage the behaviour, even Billy can see the issue here.

Otis Driftwood

It’s impossible for your child to avoid what happens in that house, it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.

Otis is way to supportive until you remind him why he should no be supportive of this.

Is still secretly supportive of it.

But even he has enough sense to not actually encourage the child to harm a person...that’s something that they have to decide to do in their own time, and when that time comes Otis will be a proud father who will teach them how it’s done.

You knew what you were getting into when you got involved with this family!!!!

Baby Firefly

As I said, it’s impossible for your child to avoid the shit that happens in the Firefly household! It’s a reality that you are going to have to come to terms with as parents.

...not that Baby is very concerned about it. It’s a family thing! What’s wrong with it?!

Is pretty supportive and proud of your child picking up her bad habits.

Calls you a ‘party pooper’ for suggesting that maybe it’s not great for your child to be mimicking killing someone.

Won’t force your child to do anything but if, in a few years, your child wants to join her in hurting someone...she isn’t going to stop them...

I said it one and I’ll say it again, you knew what you were getting into when you got involved with this family!!!!

Yautja (Predator) 

So proud!

Obviously, in this case, this isn’t your child mimicking some stabbing motion and pretending to kill an innocent.

It’s your child doing their best to mimicking their father’s combat stances and strikes.

Will happily teach your child combat.

But he knows that they’re still too young to actually take on a hunt.

Soon though!

Don’t you worry, Y/n, he’ll take care of them!

You trust him with your child’s life and know he won’t put them in any real danger. He’s just proud of them!

“I want to be strong like you!” Yes child, your father is strong! See, Y/n, they can see that he is strong as well! He’s going to teach your child to be strong just like him, just like they wanted.

You’ve never seen your mate so proud.

[omegansamurai]

You know what ticks me off about what Bryke did to Aang?

They basically didn’t let him interact with the other characters to make him grow into a better person. It was always about Katara.

Like there was when Zuko and Aang went with each other to the Sun Warrior Island, but all of a sudden in TSR, “Zuko’s bad, and we have to make him bad to let the audience know that he’s not a right match for Katara!”

...Like, didn’t Zuko have a redemption arc? And now he’s bad again? ...Clearly I’m missing something here.

I mean, what about other characters? This show is about character growth, so why not let Aang grow into a better person. I’m not saying he isn’t, but he’s clearly a child with a child-like view. Unless the person LIVED through the whole trauma of a genocide, then you don’t listen to what that person preaches about forgiveness and not kill and whatnot. He hasn’t seen or DONE anything like that. Like he could’ve talked about fighting with Sokka, even Suki. They would tell him how they’d strike first and whatnot and make sure the enemy is down. That would make him question his morals a little bit. I mean, he could just knock them out, not really kill them(kind of like Batman, you know?).

Oh, and Toph...come on, Aang, she’s your age, at least talk to her a little bit! She’d even gone through some tough crap that you can probably ask her about....(and maybe develop a little crush on later) 

But it was always Katara...it’s like, dude, you got other friends, ask for their advice that isn’t LOVE advice. You’re freaking twelve, your mind isn’t that advanced yet to think about actual true love. But of course, romance(!), because Bryke can’t think of anything else interesting.

Honestly, I’m really seeing the flaws with Canon Aang now. We tend to forget that he’s portrayed as a 12-year-old boy in ATLA, when we really think he’s this all-knowing kid that...ran away, got frozen in an iceberg for 100 years, and the next thing he thinks after being awakened is penguin sledding with a cute older girl that he, for the first time, sees after being released in the iceberg? Not only that, but he really didn’t fully control his Avatar State. He didn’t even mention it to anybody else, BUT Katara. And he mentioned it just two times, TWO TIMES, to her in season 3(I think). 

Man, the writing quality on season 3 of ATLA is jarring, and it’s sad that nobody notices it. They automatically say it’s the perfect show. I’m sorry, but from all the flaws in the writing of s3(and believe me, there are FLAWS, not only in Aang) and wasted character interactions that Aang could’ve had with the other characters, BESIDES Katara? You’re just gonna ignore that? Granted, you don’t think about it the first time you watch it, but when you watch it again...and a third time...and maybe a fourth time...you can see the flaws.

And while on the topic of Bryke, apparently, they think the show is about romance. And honestly, I’m starting to believe Aang is a self insert of Mike. He doesn’t even hide it in ATLA and LOK(which I will never watch), without the tattoo on his head, his facial structure is there. As you may know, I hold no high regards to Bryke, especially Mike, but Aang is really becoming evident that he’s nothing more than Mike’s super 13-year-old fantasy self-insert of being the hero who gets the girl. Believe me, I had that phase happened to me too...when I was 13. I mean, granted I wasn’t winning a girl at the time, but I watched a lot of Dragonball Z...yeah, take that to account. X( 

Either way, this fandom has gotten so toxic now on how they think Aang was right and is such a hero, when...they just forgot about HOW his genocide was started(him running away), that he’s just 12 in a war-torn world that only held on to his simple child-like belief that everything would be a-okay if we just forgive and hug and hopefully they won’t stab us in the back, and on how his obsessive feelings with Katara is so unhealthy. And it really is, people. He has a world to save, he doesn’t have time to score a girl, especially at his age. 

And as for him finding someone else who isn’t Katara down the road in life...well, hey, Toph’s right there! And I’m sure she would grow up too to be an even better person in life! I mean, kids mature and age, people! You think Aang is really gonna focus on ONE girl? Come on, Aang is clearly a guy, he’ll grow up and find other women attractive. I mean, look at Suki! XP 

It’s just...s3′s writing later on and maybe in the middle of it is so contrived and unrealistic, it needs to be questioned. 

Oh, and don’t tell me that the Air Nomads didn’t fight back against the Fire Nation Army when they attacked their temples, which three things on that: 

1. When the Fire Nation attacked, what do you think the Air Nomads were gonna do; sit down, drink tea, and negotiate a bit? 

2. I honestly think there had to been MORE Air Nomads laying low in the Avatar world, but that wasn’t explored...thanks Bryke. -_-x 

3. And saying that the Air Nomads were a ‘pure race’ is such a pile of bullcrap. If that’s the case, then Aang escaping from his duties as Avatar the first time around wasn’t so ‘pure’, was it? Since, you know, doing this caused an Air Nomad GENOCIDE. And again, the temples where the skeletons of the dead Air Nomads indicated that they FOUGHT the Fire Nation to the death, which skeletons of FIRE NATION SOLDIERS were littered across the floor!? Gee...sounds kind of pure, doesn’t it?

Okay, well, this is a long rant, so I’ll stop here. But I hope you all get what I’m saying with all of this. Aang needed to grow. He needed to be challenged. He needed his morals and beliefs questioned. It makes him more of an interesting character. Yet Bryke...chose the lazy, uninspiring, and quite frankly, cowardly way out of telling Aang is right and no one questions him on it. He didn’t have guidance from his other friends, just his love for Katara to guide him. Which is NOT good enough, I’m sorry. It’s just selfish. Plain and simple as that. 

Bryke(or Mike to be precise) wanted to be the Hero...but at what cost?

[deadprocess]

Hide Away Part 2 (The Trickster x Male!Reader)

//Hi there! A lot of you requested more Male!Reader and I had some Inspo. Enjoy!

T.W: NSFW, Violence towards Reader, mention of alcohol//

Your mouth hung open, fists gripping soft lilac locks as the popstar bobbed his head. Ji-Woon's eyes were closed, cheeks flushed and hallowed with every upward movement, gagging softly when you pushed your hips forward to force more of yourself into his mouth. God, he was beautiful sucking your cock on his knees in some elaborate black harness getup, makeup smudged and hidden away behind a clothing rack back stage.

It started six months ago when he first shoved you into the wall, kissing you with such vigor and desperation that you were instantly hooked. You understood the secretiveness. The hiding in the shadows, a quick rendezvous in your dressing room, the private meetings in a tinted limousine with the driver being bought into silence. You were very much so his dirty secret and you really did feel some ounce of sadness deep down, but it never managed to surface.  You couldn't find it in you to care too much when he fucked himself on your dick or had your legs high on his shoulders.

It was the thrill, the passion and the pleasure. The whirlwind that is Ji-Woon and his lifestyle.

xx

"Do you love me?" The question knocked the wind out of you as your thrusts came to a stuttering halt, balls deep with the Korean man nearly bent in half under you. Your face stayed buried in his neck as you caught your breath, trying to decipher if what you heard was correct.

"What?" The popstar pried your face away from his neck, forcing you to look into his eyes. Today's colored contacts were an icy blue.

"I said do you love me?"

Your face must have been a mess of emotions as you thought about the question. Panic, shock, confusion...you hadn't really thought about the relationship between you two. Neither of you had even brought up the subject of dating, but you did have feelings for the other man. With a few months of constant touching and flirtatious behavior, who wouldn't? You two spoke nearly everyday either in person or on the phone except for the few times he would inexplicably disappear just to come back, apologizing for the lack of response before cheerily announcing he has a new song in the works.

"I...yes. I love you." you said dumbly, unable to place the emotions inside your heart which quickly began hammering in your chest as a grin broke out on the popstars face.

"Of course you do, how could you not!" his cocky laugh rang out and you shoved him hard into the mattress and scolding him for springing that on you, his laughing turning into a high pitch moan when you rolled your hips. You set a brutal pace, burying your face in his neck once again to hide the disappointment and shame evident in your expressions. He didn't say it back.

xx

He wanted it rough most days. His requests went from mild to hardcore within the following month. He wanted to scratch your back hard enough to draw blood, hear your screams, be choked till he passed out, chain you up and whip you...It was manageable for awhile before the the final straw came.

"No," your eyes narrowed and focused on the blade in his hand, "you're not coming near me with that."

"Come on, I promise you won't even feel it! You'll be too busy feeling me bounce on your dick to notice!" you closed shut your eyes, releasing a shaky breath. You could imagine that feeling.

"I said no."

When you opened your eyes again you were face to face with the other man, clear anger splayed across his face as his pink contacts seemed to glow brighter with said displeasure. You'd seen him mad before, of course. The long hours in the studio, the plummeting sales, the meddling executives weighing in on his creative freedom...but you had never seen that anger directed at you before.

"You can't say no to me, you stupid boy," his hand fisted the front of your shirt into a ball, the knife glinting in your peripheral vision, and for once a genuine feeling of fear struck you, "you love me, remember?"

Ji-Woon was dangerous.

"Of course, sweetheart," you kept your tone level, loving and gentle, bringing your hand to cup his face. You brought the k-pop star close, beginning to rock side to side, "I do love you. How could I ever say no to you?"

A sweet kiss was enough to temporarily disarm Ji-Woon and the minute his grip loosened around the knife, you ducked out.

You sprinted out of the unlocked front door, scrambling to make it down the stairway, the sounds of furious screaming and clattering behind you as the other man gave chase. You barely managed to disappear within the crowds once you stepped out of the building. Your saving grace was the flood of paparazzi that swarmed your pursuer, blocking his path.

You would see a disheveled Ji-Woon on the front page of Seoul's popular tabloid within the next few days, questioning headlines about why the popstar was half undressed in the front of his apartment building and cursing at the top of his lungs. Most popular speculation was drugs.

You would claim it was an unofficial breakup after that day. You resigned from your position as a dancer for The Trickster, sold your apartment and moved to the states. You never told your folks or friends what happened, not that they would have believed you anyways. You left it all behind and never spoke to the hurricane of a man again.

Well...you at least never answered back. Ji-Woon messaged you at least twice a day. From simple "hey, how are you doing?" to short snippets of his cock deep in some girl's pussy.

Other messages were aggressive. Telling you that he could easily find where you ran off to and it would be nothing to drag you back to Korea by the hair. But the ones that truly dug into your skin were the audio messages. Most were of similar nature: conversational, lewd, abusive...then there came the desperation. He would audibly sob into the phone, pleading with you to come back or at least answer him once. Listening to his wailing almost broke your resolve.

You deleted the past chats and every new one that arrived from then on. The only message that made you pause before erasing was a virtual invite to his performance for the Mightee One committee; a VIP spot and a first class round-trip plane ticket scheduled for next month.

You obviously didn't go and when the news broke that a mass murder had taken place at said concert, you could only feel a pit sickness forming deep inside you.

It was reportedly a slaughter, all victims in attendance were confirmed dead. However, the bodies Yun-Jin Lee and Ji-Woon Hak were not amongst  the confirmed dead. They were nowhere to be found.

You did manage to move past those terrible events within the following year. Hell, it was somewhat easy to now that Ji-Woon wasn't ringing your phone everyday. Part of you had always wondered if he was acting the entire time, only messaging you so he could be sure that you wouldn't forget him. Another part of you thought about his disappearance.

Was he alive? Was he okay?

You swirled your drink, sinking deeper into your couch. The tv played some old show but you couldn't be bothered to pay attention. Your mind replayed some old memories that crushed you with a peculiar emotion you couldn't place. Allowing yourself to drop your head back against the top of the cushions, you tried to relax and move past those painful times.

Flashes of Ji-Woon interrupted your peace. Your body entangled with his, hands delicately tracing patterns in your skin and noses touching from the close proximity. The city's colorful lights peaked through the window blinds, illuminating his figure to you. Yellow contacts piercing in the dark as you held each other, mumbling sweet nothings.

Your eyes closed, bleary with the drunken reminiscing of the past.

You didn't see the fog rolling through your room.

xx

"Did you love me?" you gurgled out.

The Trickster kneeled to your level as you sat crumpled against the rotting wooden palette.

Your body seized slightly as the trauma to your head began to override adrenaline, your eyes trained on him to the best of their abilities but the darkness began to seep through. A hand reached out to tilt your head back up. The killer (your killer) held your stare, admiring the horrific beauty of your broken iris caused by the harsh strike to the side of your temple.

"Of course, you stupid boy." The Trickster chortled, thumb softly tracing circles into your cheek. You were fading fast, but there would be no relief or solace in your fast coming death, "I still do."

You closed your eyes as he leaned forward, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

You didn't want to see him. You didn't want to see those yellow eyes.

"If I didn't, you wouldn't be here. I loved you so much that it brought you to hell for me."

The abyss took you and all you could do was accept the momentary peace of transition before you were thrown back into his hands.

There was no more hiding. No more prying eyes nor spotlight. Just him and you, interlocked permanently in this game that even death could not do you part.

[toosicktoocare]

ya’ll ever dissect a brief two-second clip in a trailer for a season of a show that hasn’t come out yet and concoct a small story around it that turns into an almost 2k-word fic at almost 2 am in the morning? no? just me? 

anyway, i’m obviously hung up on that brief clip in the 911 season 5 trailer where Eddie falls. Is he panicking? Maybe, and that’s definitely what I wrote about. though, halfway through writing, when I was just watching a gif set for the clip, i had a thought that maybe he was poisoned instead. but, well, I was in too deep by that point. 

Trigger Warning for Panic Attacks. 

There’s panic, Eddie thinks, when he’s on the job. Panic that strikes a chord against the adrenaline thumping in his blood. Panic that drives his muscles and activates the sheer need to act and save in his mind.

This, Eddie thinks, is not that type of panic.

This is the panic that pools at the bottom of his stomach, always there and always waiting to accumulate, to feed on his fears, to expand upward. This is the panic that slides past his rib cage in the background until it’s snaking around his lungs, constricting slowly until he suddenly can’t suck in a deep breath and thus panics harder.

This is the panic that chips away at his brain, replacing the known with the biting edge of the unknown. Burning away the calm and revealing the trauma that’s been tucked away. This panic nips at his heart and eats at his nerves until he succumbs to it, the icy trace of its presence bringing with it a cold sweat that slips down Eddie’s temples.

He tugs at his collar, his pulse pounding hard against his neck, but it’s not enough. His breath is trapped, unable to sneak past the panic molding over his lungs. His hand falls to his side limply, and for a moment, he stares at the ground, his vision swimming, the faint background sounds becoming lost to the roar of his heart.

He doesn’t realize he’s falling until his back hits the ground, the air trapped in his lungs pushing out with a low wheeze. The pain that erupts along his back is numbed under the weight of bottled memories, of the gun shot that ripped through his arm, of the blood painting his world in a thick, deep red that drowns him.  

“Eddie? I heard something fall.”

He’s no longer on the floor, instead lost in a hazy limbo, what he fears most unfolding before him. He’s gone, and Christopher is grieving. His son is shutting everyone out, his voice muted under the pain. The 118, once a solid foundation, cracks, and Buck? Buck screams his voice raw. Buck punches at a brick wall, over and over until his knuckles tear and bleed. He swings when Bobby tries to stop him, and then he crumbles.

“Edmundo!”

As quickly as it comes, it’s gone, and Eddie gasps, the single breath a mountain to climb over. He’s at Ana’s. It’s their date night, and she was finding a pair of earrings she received as a birthday gift a few years back. They were set to leave for their dinner reservation in just a few minutes.

His shirt is damp against his skin, and he trembles the entire way to his feet, each muscle wobblier than the last.

“Edmundo, what happened? Are you ill?”

Ana’s frantic at his side, and she palms at his forehead, the worry across her face evident even through his fuzzy vision. He shakes his head, and she pulls her hand away, lips pointed downward.

“You’re ice cold,” she worries, one hand sliding down his arm. “What’s wrong?”

He shakes his head again, unable to speak around what little breaths he’s able to take in. He’s on autopilot when he’s helped over to Ana’s couch, and he fades in and out of the present, eyes squeezed tightly shut as he struggles to recapture his breathing. His hands are fists at his knees, and he hunches over, curling in on himself, shielding himself.

He stays this way until a hand tugs lightly at his wrist and a voice calls out his name gently. He’s slow to lift his gaze, but when he does, Buck crowds his vision, blue eyes impossibly worried before him.

“Buck?” He croaks out, and Buck nods sharply, his fingers pressing to the inside of Eddie’s wrist.

“It’s me,” Buck reassures calmly. “I’m going to check your pulse, okay? Keep your eyes on mine.”

Eddie can only nod, the lump in his throat keeping his words from him. He trains his gaze to Buck’s. He knows Buck is counting silently to himself, and yet, Buck’s gaze doesn’t waver; his concentration doesn’t fold in the slightest. His eyes are sharp, focused, and after sixty seconds, his face relaxes a fraction, and Eddie’s lungs deflate with a low sigh.

“You’re okay,” Buck whispers, leaning forward until his forehead knocks lightly against Eddie’s, warm compared to his Eddie’s clammy one. His hand finds the side of Eddie’s neck, cups it gently, and Eddie holds the position, pulling all his focus toward the weight of Buck’s hand, the heat spreading across his forehead and down to his cheeks, his neck, stopping at his heart.

“I’m okay,” he finally repeats, voice low, cracking slightly, and only then does Buck pull away, frowning.

“Ana called.” Buck keeps his voice quiet, just a breath above a whisper. “She said she found you on the floor.” He opens his mouth, prepared to press further, but Eddie shakes his head sharply.

“Not here. Where’s Chris?”

“Kitchen with Ana.” Buck rises to his feet and steps away from Eddie’s view. “Sorry, I didn’t want to leave him—”

“—It’s fine,” Eddie mutters, his ears perking up to hear Christopher and Ana talking nearby. Christopher giggles quietly, and the furrow of Eddie’s brow smooths over slightly. “I need to postpone our date,” he adds, more to himself, and Buck extends a steady hand to help him off the couch.

“I’ll get Chris settled back in the jeep. Will you be okay to drive your truck back, or should I arrange to get it for you later?”

“I can drive,” Eddie mumbles weakly, and then Buck crowds his vision again, worry painted down every inch of his face.

“Try that again. If I still don’t believe it, I’m taking your keys.”

Eddie sucks in a deep breath. His chest still hurts, the panic still a nagging sheet of ice burrowed deep in the base of his stomach, but he’s able to hold air in his lungs until he exhales slowly, the line of tension across his shoulders breaking.

“I can drive.” He repeats, stronger, and Buck nods, his own body relaxing.

“I’ll see you back at your house, then. Be careful.” Buck turns on his heel, a smile playing across his lips as he rounds into the kitchen with Eddie close behind him.

“Chris! Do you want to put the band-aid on your dad’s arm?” Buck turns to lean in close to Eddie, whispering, “I told him you fell and hurt your arm.”

Eddie mouths ‘thank you’ at the same time Christopher shouts, “Yeah!”

Eddie plants a smile across his lips, forced against the lingering, nagging edge of panic, and he rolls up a single jacket sleeve halfway up his arm. He crouches down, points to an unmarked spot on his arm, and Chris carefully, almost delicately, spreads a Superman band-aid across his arm.

“All better?” Chris asks, and Eddie nods as he gets to his feet. He ruffles Christopher’s hair, his own smile warming across his lips.

“All better,” he repeats. “Thanks, bud. You okay to go back to the house with Buck? I’ll meet you there?”

“Yep!”

Christopher offers multiple goodbyes before he and Buck slip out the door, leaving Eddie to work around just how exactly to explain to Ana that he’s not sure he can do this right now, that he’s succumbing to the issues he’s been too stubborn to recognize over the last couple of months. That he would be miserable company for he’s too wrapped up in a gut-wrenching fear that bears its fangs when he least expects it.

“It’s okay, Eddie.”

Her voice is impossibly soft beside him, soft but classically genuine, and he turns toward her, frowning.

“Ana, I’m so sorr—”

“—Don’t,” Ana interrupts, stepping toward him and brushing a feather-light kiss to his cheek. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” Her breath is warm against his skin, her voice delicate, her words knowing where to step and where to tread gently. When she pulls away, Eddie almost feels guilty at the relief, at the weight that drops from his shoulders.

“Talk soon?” He asks, and she nods, a small smile tight at her lips.

“Whenever you’re ready.”

“Thank you,” he tells her, and he means it. Every inch of him means it.

---

When Eddie pulls into his driveway, he turns off his truck, but he doesn’t rush to get out, instead sinking against the exhaustion that’s been creeping over him his entire drive home. He’s drained, emotionally and physically, and he tips his head back, his eyes fluttering shut. He doesn’t look when his car door opens at his side; he only sighs.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hi.”

Buck’s being careful, Eddie thinks. He can tell by the way Buck’s tone almost tips up into a question, just not quite reaching that pitch. He’s leaving an opening for Eddie, and Eddie takes it. His eyes flutter open, and he rolls his head toward Buck.

“I’ve got some issues,” he says, and the laugh Buck lets out is nervous, worried.

“You don’t say.”

“I’m not sure what to do,” Eddie admits, twisting around until his legs are hanging out of the door. “Tonight was a lot.” He can see Buck taking in his words, dissecting them in a way he does best.

“You look exhausted. Do you want me to go—”

“—No!”

Buck’s jaw snaps shut at the force of Eddie’s single shout, and Eddie slides out of the car, slumping forward, his forehead dropping against Buck’s shoulder. “Sorry. No, I don’t want you to leave. I don’t want to be alone right now. My thoughts are—”

“—dark?” Buck finishes, his hand slipping to the small of Eddie’s back. “Not you,” he continues. “Scary?”

“All of the above,” Eddie mutters, and Buck’s hand presses against his back, pushing until Eddie’s flush against his chest. He wraps his arms around Eddie’s back, and Eddie returns the hug, melting against him.

“It’s going to be okay,” Buck whispers. “I’m going to be here, and I’m going to help you.”

Though Eddie knows Buck would quite literally bend over backwards for him, the ease of Buck’s tone, the determination laced within Buck’s words, cracks the icy panic that’s nestled in his stomach. It surprises Eddie still—just how much Buck is willing to be there for him no matter what.

“Thank you,” he mutters, and for the second time in a single night, every entire inch of his being means it.

[saltypiratepunk]

Weird (sort of...?) take.

I've been thinking about some people saying that all the lines in season 4, vol 2 of Stranger Things about Hopper not being fat anymore are kind of fatphobic.

Warning ahead, I'm not here to convince you otherwise, I'm not really sure myself what those were supposed to mean (if they had a meaning, ofc).

Nevertheless, that was not what I saw while watching. It seemed pretty much in character to me, for Hopper at least, I don't know where my opinion stands on Mike' contribution, tho.

Look, two times out of three it was Hopper himself who mentioned his weight loss. It doesn't mean anything yet, yes, but stick with me, I'm getting to my point from here.

To understand what I'm trying to say, you need to remember what kind of a person Jim Hopper is.

He is a protector, a guardian. He'll do everything in his power to protect people he loves from any sort of pain and suffer, even if it is his own pain.

Moreover, Jim Hopper doesn't do feelings. He is a very closed off person. We see proof of that throughout the whole show. We know by now how he reacts when it comes to his emotions.

Doubtless, those scenes with said lines were emotional to him, all three of them.

The first time he joked about his 'new' appearance was after reuniting with Joyce when she sees him without a shirt and asks him 'what did they do to you?'. Meaning scars all over his body (cause, you know, I'm pretty sure she already noticed his weight loss by now). At this moment you can clearly hear an immense amount of pain in her voice, see it in her eyes and across her face, which obviously catches Hop's attention.

And what does he do? He acts according to his nature — he activates his usual protective mode and tries to change the subject, to joke it off like it does not matter.

In addition to it, you can see by Joyce's reaction not only the evidence of her disapproval of his statement but that she also knows what he's doing. She knows him that well, knows that he is trying to shield her and himself from a terrible pain he's been through. She knows he's not ready to talk and decides not to push him on it just yet.

The second time it was absolutely the same, but instead of Joyce it was his daughter, his babygirl. The one he's supposed protect, not the other way around.

In their reunion scene she hasn't even seen his scars and was already worried sick about the way he looked — like he's fading away, tired and beaten up. The second she tries to mention it, her fears and worries, he immediately interrupts her, turns this whole situation into a joke, and once again activating his protective father mode.

Because that is what you do when going through trauma, at least that's what someone like Hopper does — someone who had difficulty sharing his feelings long before his hellish time in prison and a nightmare of a 'life' he had there, someone who most of the times would acknowledge his emotions and feelings only when it's almost if not too late, someone who never let's anyone take care of him.

As to why exactly I read that in said lines —I relate to this situation and character in particular a lot. I'm also not a feelings person. I, myself, do the same thing when it comes to my disorder or previous trauma. As soon as someone mentions my condition I too immediately shut down. I make a joke out of it so to avoid discussing this further, because it's uncomfortable and way too much on it's own. While some people would pity you, others would be filled with worry. Thus, I think Hopper did what he did for the very same reason — to as always protect everyone around him from pain and to avoid dealing with his own pain.

As for Mike, I don't know whether or not it was fatphobic, but his joke sort of aligned with their whole dynamic regardless.

So, when I first saw vol 2, those jokes didn't strike me as fatphobic ones. That part looked like an example of one of the most common ways of coping with trauma. It looked like Hopper was just not ready to talk about it and, who knows, maybe he never will be, and, yeah, he jokes about it so it would not hurt anyone any more than it already did.

I really hope that is what they meant with those 'jokes', because I can't be disappointed in yet another show like this.