#frontier has me relapsing so bad......

[bloodlyst]

[shes-fast-like-me]

i know how much it matters to you

i know how much it matters to you

AO3 Link

Pairing(s): Established Lifetane, Gibby x his boyfriend

Word Count: 1,791

Warnings: Mentions of childhood neglect and bad parents, discussion of mental illness and trauma, alcohol. (Tell me if you feel anything else should be tagged!)

may was borderline personality disorder awareness month (alongside being adhd awareness and mental health awareness month in general) so i decided to project onto my fave. the symptoms of it aren’t 100% being portrayed here but this is something i feel like a lot of us relate to so?? idk man emotional impermanence be like that

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"Here comes the big man himself!" Elliott called, twisting around in his seat to wave Makoa over to sit with them in the living space.

"Show us the ring!" Ajay beamed as the tall man made his way over to the other Legends gathered around their small makeshift coffee table. He held out his hand, a rather dainty bejeweled silver ring on his ring finger. Everyone cooed over it.

"You're so lucky, man," Elliott said, handing Makoa a beer as he sat down on the couch next to him, "congrats."

"Aye, thanks bruddahs," Makoa grinned from ear to ear. The man was always bright and full of smiles but Octavio swore he has never seen him this happy. He was almost radiant.

"When's the weddin'?" Ajay asked, sitting back against Octavio's side and sipping on her mocktail. She always hated alcohol so the drink was as fruity and non-alcoholic as Elliott could possibly mix up.

"Spring of next year," Makoa said, "We want some time on our honeymoon before the next season, so,"

Everyone nodded in agreement. The season breaks between spring and summer were a little longer than the autumn to winter breaks and since Makoa was proposed to this spring it gave them extra time to plan everything. Makoa and his fiancé had relatives all over the Frontier and would probably want to plan the wedding at a time when the most family members could attend. And the other Legends, of course.

"So," Octavio set his empty cocktail glass down and picked up a can of beer off the table. He could get a little drunk, it was only their first night back onto the dropship, the new season kicking off in two days. "Any idea for wedding gifts?"

He was loaded. He could afford pretty much anything they wanted.

"Ah, no, it's no problem, bruddah-"

"No, no, I insist," He decided to pour the beer into his empty glass anyway, not wanting to waste the ice cubes still sitting at the bottom, "anything you like, I got it."

Makoa laughed. "Just you showing up is enough for me."

"Alright," Octavio sat down into the headrest but still decided he was going to buy Makoa and his fiancé something anyway. After all, that's what you do at weddings, right? Octavio has been to many weddings before, many of them being his own father's, and the couple was always gifted a fancy car or yacht or something of the sort.

He mostly just tuned out the rest of the conversation. Talk of weddings always reminded him of his dad and how weddings were a near weekly occurance for him. He wanted to go for Makoa's sake, of course, and he would force himself to even if Ajay told him it was okay to stay home if it got too overwhelming. He'd just get blackout drunk at the party and probably just dissociate the whole evening, but he was willing to do that for his friend.

Later that evening, Octavio lay on Ajay's bed as they watched anime together on the small holo-TV provided in their temporary rooms. Octavio buried his face into Ajay's pink hair as they spooned, his arm around her waist. He would've fallen asleep if his anxiety wasn't keeping him up. If he had his legs on right now they'd be tapping away furiously, probably disturbing Ajay from watching the show altogether. Octavio kinda missed tapping his feet, he couldn't sleep without moving them and now that he didn't have them he'd imagine the sensation, like a ghost, and get sad whenever he realized it wasn't real. But that's such a small thing to get upset about.

His fingers grazed against the skin showing between Ajay's t-shirt and her sweatpants, tapping on the waistband as he worked up the courage to ask a question that has been itching at his brain all evening.

"Baby?" he said, uncertain of how to begin. She looked at him over her shoulder. "Have you ever thought.... about marriage?"

Instantly he cringed at the phrasing and tried to fix it. "I mean, not to me, necessarily. I'm just wondering- If you ever want to get married?"

She looked back towards the TV with a smile. "Depends who's askin'," she replied simply, "not at the moment though, I'm too busy. But it would be nice in the future."

Octavio bit his lip and really had the urge to tap his missing feet. The fear ached in his chest and he could feel his hands sweating. "I don't think I wanna get married," he said it quickly, almost afraid to hear her reaction. Verbally retracting as if he expected her to hit him or something. Why was that his instinctual reaction? No one ever hit him for speaking out.

She looked down at his hand and lightly brushed her fingers over his knuckles. "That's fine," she said but he couldn't pick up the tone. It made it feel worse. Was she upset? Was she hoping for a different answer?

"It's not," it took all his strength not to let his voice crack, assuming that she wasn’t satisfied with his answer. She turned to look at him properly. He tried to blink away the tears starting to form in his eyes.

"Babe, it's all fine. We don't have to get married. You don't have to get married, ever, if that's what makes you comfortable."

"But I want to," he said, voice trembling. "I want to make you happy if that’s what you want."

"I don't need marriage to be happy in life." She held his hand comfortingly and traced circles into it. "Besides, who says I'm gon' marry you?" She joked and he loved the way her nose scrunched up when she smiled at him. It lifted some of the weight off his chest and he smiled at the joke despite the tears.

"Okay," he swallowed and wiped the tears from his eyes, his fingers shaking.

"It's alright," she pushed the hair out of his eyes. He admired all the freckles dotting her skin. If Ajay let him stare at her for a while he could count them and maybe calm down a little bit, but that'd be weird of him to ask.

He let out a breath, "it's just," the tears were back but the tension of holding them in and bottling everything up was gone, "I don't want to be like my father."

"You're not." She whispered and studied his face as he continued.

"I don't wanna have kids and have them go through the same shit I did." Tears spilled from his eyes and down the sides of his cheeks. It hurt to think about treating his kids the way he was treated. He didn't even think his childhood had affected him that much until now. But it did, it hurt, it hurt to be ignored your whole life and live with no constants. He was constantly scared of everyone abandoning him, of things being taken away from him. Everything was so temporary to him, even Ajay. What if they got married and one day she decided she didn't love him anymore? How would he even handle something like that? He'd be crushed.

"You're not ya father," Ajay said calmly, bringing his hand up to her lips and kissing his knuckles, "and I've seen ya with my li'l cousins. You'd be a great dad. You said yaself you'd never want to hurt them the way your dad did, so you won't. Not intentionally."

"Do you think my father intended to hurt me?" He asked, his tone a little more passionate than he had intended it to be. "Obviously it was out of his control how I would react to-"

"Tavi, he did awful things to ya. You're allowed to be upset about it."

"But if I don't make excuses for him, how can I excuse my own shitty actions?" He covered his face and dug his palms into his eye sockets, blocking her out from his blurry view. "I'm even worse." His voice broke.

"You're not. You're ill. Ya just need some time and help to get things right. You're taking those steps. Your father never even considered that. That's what makes ya better than him."

It's true, he did have a therapist now, trying to help him manage the many disorders and issues he got stuck with. And he was trying so hard to be better, but it all felt so useless sometimes when he kept acting like this, being like this. Whenever he relapsed, whenever he split on someone, whenever he acted out or isolated or dissociated or cried. He always felt like he was taking steps backwards, not forwards.

"Listen, I know recovery's not easy for ya," she tapped her fingers on his chest and he moved his hands from his face to look at her as she spoke. "But you're pushin’ through it regardless. And I'm gon' be here for ya all the way through it, ya hear me? I'm not goin’ anywhere."

"Everyone says that." He sniffled.

"Yeah, well, I mean it," she said, "and I'll promise this to ya, that I won't leave ya alone no matter how hard it gets." She looked directly into his eyes, her soft voice calming his thoughts.

"Here," she said and took a beaded bracelet off her wrist. It was one of those kandi bracelets she sometimes wore, this one pink and purple with the word "LOVE" spelled out on it. "It's a promise." She held it out to him.

He looked at her hand, puzzled.

"It's like a promise ring. It should make ya feel better to have a physical representation of my promise to ya. I read that it helps with BPD to-"

He sat up and hugged her. "Thank you," he murmured into her shoulder. She pat his back and when they released each other he took the bracelet and put it on his wrist. "Thank you, " he breathed out again.

"Ya welcome." She smiled softly and honestly, her smile momentarily lit up the room. He was so lucky to have her.

"Now, can we finish the show? This next episode's the best one." She gestured with the remote to the paused screen. He hadn't even noticed when she paused it to speak to him. He smiled and nodded, laying back down on his side, her snuggling into him as she pressed 'play'.

"I'm sorry if I ruined the evening." He apologized.

"Ya didn't. I still love ya." She said and took his hand in hers, their fingers intertwined.

And after watching that magical girl show and breathing in her flowery perfume, Octavio finally found himself able to peacefully drift off to sleep for the night.

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Taglist: @herondaleatheart @brontophile @moontearchild @soulheartthewolf @hey-its-mika @xbeaxbeax (You may always ask to be added or taken off the list! Being on the taglist notifies you of whenever I post a fic so if you are interested, please message me!)

[heoneyology]

Hearts on the Line: Ch.5

A/N: I was going to post up Hongjoong’s next chapter, but popular demand requested Wooyoung LOL. I promise the next couple of days I’ll focus on our leader! Mentions of drug abuse.

Pairing: Wooyoung x Reader

Genre: action, angst, romance, outlaw!au

Word Count: 2820

Summary: You’ve got a debt to pay, and Wooyoung has an agenda of his own. But for your help with just one last scheme, Wooyoung is willing to allow your debt to drop off—unknown to him, though, you also have your own agenda, and a loyalty to an unspoken Other. With hearts on the line, you each will end up having to make a decision that may risk what you both thought was simply just a game.

The suffocating pressure in the room has lifted. Whatever darkness it had been that had overcome Wooyoung with such a ferocity it had wiped clean coherent thoughts, was now gone. But instead of feeling relieved, you felt drained. Where you sat on the floor, leaning against the side of the bed, you stared up at the ceiling. Despite the pressure being gone, there was an intensity that still lingered in the room, a white noise in the background.

Not long after completely losing himself, and then somehow grounding himself again, Wooyoung had fallen asleep. You’d offered him the bed, but he’d refused and chosen his corner on the floor. If you felt drained, you couldn’t begin to imagine what it was that he was feeling.

Your lip stung, and hadn’t stopped since the events that had unfolded just hours before downstairs in the dining hall.

A constant, stinging reminder of what you’d been put through, and what you’d somehow gotten yourself into. Seonghwa’s warning from the night before taunted you, silently sneering that you shouldn’t have gone about things the way you had.

You knew he was right, too. A part of you regretted digging under Monica’s skin, regretted agreeing to Wooyoung’s plan to drop your debt—and, most of all, regretted the hug from earlier. It hadn’t meant anything, in particular. You’d noticed that he was losing himself to a savage anger inside that you’d never witnessed before, and you’d become desperate to pull him back. You needed answers, ones that he needed to give to you. Your life was literally in his hands at that moment, and you couldn’t go around blindly lending him your trust if you were going to be playing around in a snake pit.

It had stirred emotions in you that you were barely aware of. “You may not be mine, but I’m yours.” For as long as you could remember, since Wooyoung had been so brash about the entire situation from the start, Hongjoong had pushed you into Wooyoung’s care. You’d hated it at first. He had a way of making you seem unworthy, at the start. He’d never said or done anything to specifically say so, nor to hurt you or offend you in any way—but it was the way he interacted with you. Standoffish, with a habit of disregarding you and implying he could desert you when it was convenient for him or his job.

But you still spent most of your waking hours with him in the first few months to year with the gang, until Hongjoong deemed you worthy enough to trust and let you move about freely on your own. You knew the consequences, of course, if you deserted. It was a risk you weren’t willing to take, and so you stuck around, living as freely as you could manage. But as Seonghwa had pointed out, ruining that fake little bubble of blissful ignorance you had manifested towards the men of the gang—they’d never mistreated you. Even Wooyoung, who annoyed you half to death and strung you along, using you whenever it was convenient for him—had never once hurt you, or put you in a position where you’d felt threatened in any way. He’d left you in plenty of uncomfortable situations where you’d questioned why it had to be you, but looking back on it now, he never actually had deserted you.

In fact, he’d come back for you plenty of times, in plenty of those situations. Although, you figured, it was his responsibility. He’d put you in them in the first place.

You didn’t have feelings for him. You couldn’t. You knew better than that. It was just the many years of being together, being at his side, being his partner in crime for just about everything he did. Whether you liked to admit it or not, as frustrating as he may be, he was your companion.

Glancing over at Wooyoung’s sleeping form, you frowned. The motion caused you to flinch at the sudden pain at your lip, lifting a finger to dab at it slightly. A droplet of blood came back on your fingertip. You grimaced.

Just who was Monica? And what kind of history did the two of them have? You were quite certain it wasn’t the type she had intoned. At this point, you felt as though you’d known Wooyoung long enough to figure out some of his patterns. He didn’t risk associating himself with loose-lipped women, that of which you felt Monica was. But her comment that she had made him who he was tripped you up a bit. He hadn’t been with ATEEZ very long, but through interactions, it felt as though he were indebted to Hongjoong—the two of them were quite close, despite Hongjoong having known Seonghwa and the younger Mingi for much longer.

“Admiring me, love?” Wooyoung’s chirpy voice, thick with sleep, breaks through your thoughts.

You realize, then, that you’d accidentally zoned out while staring at him.

“As if.” Immediately, you scoff and glance away, pursing your lips and flinching.

“You’re bleeding again,” Wooyoung notes, and he sounds a bit more awake this time. You hear him shuffle through the saddlebags off to your side, but you refuse to make any eye contact with him or acknowledge him. You’re still a bit upset over everything.

But when you hear footsteps against wood, you turn back and are met with Wooyoung sitting down in front of you, cross-legged, one of the clean rags by the wash basin in one hand, and a flask you recognized he carried whiskey around in held in his other. He sets them both off to the side for a moment.

“C’mere,” he says, placing a hand on either of your shoulders and pulling you forward to sit up from where you leaned against the side of the bed.

“What—” But before you can question further, he’s unscrewing the cap of the flask and pressing the cloth over the mouth, tipping the flask upside down onto the piece of cloth. Realizing what it is he’s doing, you start. “You really don’t have to, I’m fine—”

“Shh.” And with the simple sound, he blatantly ignores you, setting aside the flask and taking hold of your chin with a gentle touch, tilting your head up and to the side a bit. You brace yourself as he lifts the cloth, dabbed with whiskey, to your lip. It stings even more than before, as though it’s on fire, and he find yourself tensing against the pain. Wooyoung keeps the dabbing to your lip gentle, soft, and you feel his thumb ghosting over your jawline in short, soothing strokes.

“I’m sorry, again.” You think this is the most you’ve ever heard Jung Wooyoung apologize, let alone apologize to you. In reply, you just let out a hum from the back of your throat, afraid of speaking and splitting your lip open again.

“For someone who was so pissed at me earlier, you’re awfully quiet now,” Wooyoung muses, glancing down at you. His gray eyes are clouded with an emotion you’ve never seen in him before—uncertainty. “I figured you’d be burning with questions.”

“I’d prefer you not relapse into whatever that episode earlier was,” you admit, rather bluntly, and you can see him frown, before letting out a long sigh.

“Now that I actually know she’s here, I’ll be fine. You caught me off guard with that earlier,” Wooyoung admitted, dropping his hands from your face. There’s an odd sensation where his fingertips had danced along your jawline. It’s enough to distract you from the throbbing coming from your lip, though you take note that the pain isn’t as bad as it was before. “Some… unwelcome memories came back.”

“Who is she?” If he expected you to ask questions, you figured you should ask them before he changed his mind.

Wooyoung sighed then, discarding the rag to the side and leaning back, bracing his hands on the floor behind him and staring up at the ceiling. “Someone I thought I could trust. A traitor. A mentor,” his voice comes out wistful, distant memories clearly coming back to him. He straightens, turning his attention back to you when he adds, “All in that exact order.”

What? The question blurts into your forethought, but before you can ask aloud, Wooyoung continues on.

“Long story as short as I can make it, she was an orphan—or so my family thought. I don’t quite remember the details on how she joined the family, really. This was years after we’d immigrated here and made our mark. My father struck it lucky in California early on, was on a council seat to head an up-and-coming town in California that’d just struck it rich with some gold. My father, while on the council, doubled as a foreman. Her father supposedly had a nasty infection he passed to while out there mining. Her mother died in childbirth—it was just the two of them.”

Despite yourself, you listen intently. Wooyoung has never once spoken of his past to you, let alone mentioned anything that might hint at it.

“She became like a sister to me. My father felt a responsibility to take her in since her own father had died under his care, or that’s what he believed. That being said, we were teens, so it wasn’t like we raised her from childhood. But my parents put a lot into treating her just the same they treated me. Well, like I said, I thought I could trust her—and supposedly her father died. Turns out neither of those were true,” there’s a bittersweet deadpan in Wooyoung’s tone.

“If the town succeeded, it was set to be an urban frontier because of its prime location. Or, so they said. While there were some good men on the council, most were just waiting for the moment to strike it rich with a vein—as soon as that happened, they were set to take the gold and bounce. My father had popular vote to become founder. That made him a target. She tells me she was promised to be reunited with her father if she helped someone—” Wooyoung eyes you then, quirking a brow though it lacks the usual exuberance of his charming personality. “—she had a debt to pay, much like you. She’d been poisoning us from the inside, as soon as we let hehr into our family. Mom was actually, literally poisoned. I saw it with my eyes, some herb slipped in her morning tea. But when I tried to tell my father…”

Wooyoung shakes his head, letting out a sigh. “It was a downward spiral, from there. While she wanted my mother out of the picture, she intended to make me useful and off my father, just as requested. She’d been slipping high grade morphine into whatever she could that we consumed. Small doses, until we were addicted. I was numb to everything, an addict. When I tried to tell my father that she’d killed Mom, he’d lost it. She was giving him higher doses of the drug and had been cutting him off drastically—so he, in comparison, was an angry addict. Went on a rampage, took it out on me. Beat the living crap out of me.”

You flinch, wondering briefly if those were the memories that had attacked him so suddenly back when you had mentioned the name Monica.

“More morphine for the pain, of course, supplied by her. I was too out of it at that point to know what happened, but apparently after his rampage, he went on a rampage through the town. One thing led to another, and he was gunned down. I was drugged up and submissive. She betrayed me, but I was so reliant on the one thing she had…” You watch has Wooyoung wrinkles his nose into something akin to a snarl.

“Disgusting. I was disgusting, and did disgusting things. I followed her around blindly, an orphan myself at that point. Even after killing my family off, her loan shark got whatever the hell it was he wanted out of that town—and out of me, I guess—but never gave her what she wanted. For a while, it was the two of us stuck in a cycle of attempting to pay off her debt. She was good at what she did, even though her loan shark kept stringing her along. I learned how to be just like her. A conman. A grifter. A thief. Whatever title you may, we made out with money and I made out with bounties for the lives. She made me into the perfect criminal. But she taught me how to survive, as much as I loathe myself for it.”

It’s difficult to find your voice in the midst of his long story, but you do, studying him as you ask, “You joined ATEEZ two years before I did, right?”

Wooyoung gives you a small nod. “Had a run in with Hongjoong. We were after the same hit on an armed government transport. Monica was determined it was our last job. One mishap led to another and I left Monica to the law, making out with Hongjoong and the boys. She didn’t know it, but I’d slowly been easing myself off of the drugs, as much as I could sneak away from it. He gave me a choice, and I somehow had enough of a conscience to say yes.”

You frowned at him. “There’s something off, though—if you left her to the law, after all that time and everything it sounds like you’d done…”

Wooyoung quirks a brow at you, and suddenly you see the usual glint in his eye return. “Why is she free, eh? That’s my question exactly.”

“Someone used your parents for you, back then,” you’re thinking aloud, but as you do so you attempt to piece together some missing holes in his story. They’re holes you’re sure aren’t from the substance abuse, either. “Why kill off your family, set to head the town, but leave you an empty shell? And why did Monica never get her pay?”

“These questions, love,” Wooyoung lifts a hand to pat your head fondly, returning to his usual ways  and seemingly proud of your deduction skills. “Are questions you’re going to find out the answers to, for me.” “How, exactly, am I supposed to do that? She knows we’re together, now.”

“But she doesn’t know the extent of our relationship. Do whatever you can to get information out of her, even if it means you have to betray me briefly. To her, I was only ever property,” Wooyoung drops his hand, his expression taking on a more serious note. “She got upset with you because she’s never once seen me as free—I was an item, to be toyed with. Presented to her by whoever she’s working for; that whom of which I think has it out for me. More specifically, I think there was a grudge against my father that just carried over.”

“And now you’re just too good at what you do, yourself, that they have no choice but to hate you,” you tease.

Wooyoung flashes you a grin. “Exactly!”

You roll your eyes, though there’s a part of you that’s relieved that his mood seems to be picking back up. “So you want me to spy on her?”

“She’s settled here for quite a while, from the intel I’ve gathered myself. But she’s got an intricate web of connections in the town—and they all seem to know me, and the guys, in some way or another. Of course I suppose it doesn’t help that we’re wanted,” he gives a nonchalant shrug. “So I think her bossman is in the general vicinity, too.”

Curiously, you tilt your head to the side, studying him for a moment. In that moment, he seems so determined and genuine.

“You want answers,” you suddenly find yourself blurting, “not necessarily revenge…”

A flash of surprise passes over Wooyoung’s face, though he’s quick to suppress it. He gives another shrug. “Whichever comes first.”

You purse your lip at his indifference, surprised to find that your lip doesn’t hurt quite as much any longer. “One last question.”

“Shoot.”

“Why is Hongjoong going to be so upset over this? Why does Seonghwa not approve?”

Wooyoung frowned. “They had to pick up the pieces of the state she’d left me in. They’re also afraid of a relapse, and they know her. Her sheer amount of connections is dangerous in of itself.”

You could only imagine, of course, the state that he had been left in wasn’t pretty. It made sense, now, as to why the job needed to be done fast, but efficiently. If Hongjoong came back to a mess to clean up, he wasn’t going to be pleased in the slightest.

Of course, you weren’t truly aware of how big of a mess this all was going to turn in to.