#in my suicidal ideation i have found that there are two reasons that I flip between that i still havent killed myself | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

well-in-all-honesty-i · 4 years ago

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TW: Suicide

OKAY SO- I wanted to talk about Mafuyu and Yuki’s relationship and why it ended the way it did. I should preface this by saying that the majority of this, although somewhat supported by canon, is my own personal headcanon and speculation. I’ve been surrounded by a lot of people who I believe Yuki to be similar to, but I am not 100% accurate or well versed and this is mostly just from what I’ve gotten from those situations. Also, a lot of questionable grammar-I type like I speak, which doesn't translate well haha.

So I want to chunk this into 3 big pieces because I enjoy organizing things: Yuki’s childhood, how that affected his personality as a young adult, and how both of these lead to his eventual death.

Starting off with his childhood:

This one is heavy speculation (as most of this is-but this bit is particularly so) since there isn’t much canon to support this-or provide a lot of insight. But, what little we do know is that 1) Yuki’s father wasn’t present in his life-probably even before Mafuyu’s father had been jailed-and that, 2) Yuki and his father shared the same bull-headedness (?) and pride that Saeko believes led to his death.

I personally believe that Yuki’s father was someone who might have struggled with some sort of mental illness, as well as has had a problem with alcohol abuse. I also imagine that he probably disappeared or passed-either due to some sort of alcohol-related problem or suicide.

Saeko, from how she is characterized in the story, seems to be a very strong-willed and assertive person. In the aftermath of Yuki’s death, she's relatively composed and seems to have almost expected this to happen, although maybe not in the specific way it did. [Ex: When she tells Mafuyu that Yuki was always the type of person to die in a chicken race (a competition of pride, of sorts, that usually ends badly) and when she mentions him being similar to his father in that sense.]

In the flashbacks in the anime, when Mafuyu tells Yuki that his father beats him when he talks, Yuki’s response of ‘You know, a real father doesn’t do that.’ doesn’t sound like something a small child’s first response would be. It’s a bit of a reach-but considering that, as well as how prompt the response from his mother seemed to be (when Mafuyu’s father was jailed-not much time seems to have passed, and since both of their mothers are present, I've always assumed that Yuki's mother found out through her son and acted accordingly.),- it would make sense that Yuki might have some prior experience with this. Especially if his mother had gone through something similar-she probably would’ve warned him very strongly against the ideal his father had set, making Yuki want to be very far from that.

Speaking of which-I assume that Yuki probably had a very rough-if short-lived-relationship with his father when he was around. Given the stuff above, his father was probably someone who was emotionally volatile and tended to lose control when upset. If he had an alcohol problem, he might’ve caused a financial strain that fell onto Saeko as well.

Since his father was out of the picture and Saeko herself wasn't around as much as Yuki might've needed, it would have made him both very independent from his parents and adults in general, while also heavily reliant on Mafuyu (Hiiragi quotes both Mafuyu and Yuki to have been latchkey kids who found comfort in each other), both of which twist into the situation he found himself in later in life.

Leading into his teen years:

Yuki, as a young adult, is very independent-he works multiple jobs to pay for the expenses of being in a band, makes a point to avoid drinking, and is very affectionate towards Mafuyu. I'm not too sure about the reasoning behind why the four friends chose the high schools they did, but if Yuki's mother didn't directly influence that decision it's likely it was a choice made in direct relation to their band.

There's also very little interference from any adults in Yuki's life-namely, his mother. As someone who was probably very busy working as a single mother to support the two of them, her mentality was just to support him monetarily and let Mafuyu provide the emotional support in her place.

I think she also assumed her attempts wouldn't have been well received-most people noted how close Yuki and Mafuyu were and seemed to always assume that they had each other handled and that nobody had to worry about either of them because of it. In every way, it was simply easier to show Yuki she cared by not interfering and letting him hold the reigns of his own life.

A big indicator of this idea for me what when Saeko talked about how Yuki ordered his own ramen, the type he liked. It's a small thing, but it started me to read because it highlighted the amount of input his mother had on his life; which was very little. I don't know if he even used her money or chose to use the extra from his jobs to pay for it, but either way, it sort of put their relationship into perspective.

The impact it had:

Yuki probably had a lot of resentment towards his father, or, at the very least, a desire to turn out different. And oftentimes when a person is very strongly trying to avoid turning out like someone, they ignore or avoid acknowledging the similarities, rather than accepting and working on them to properly change. Without a strong parental/adult figure in his life, he wouldn't have considered insight beyond his own experiences. He's characterized to be moody and domineering, and Mafuyu is too soft-spoken to have brought up most issues until it reached its boiling point.

I believe Yuki might have had Borderline Personality Disorder to a mild extent. Some symptoms of BPD are mood swings, impulsivity, impaired social relationships, and a distorted self-image. They usually have thoughts of suicide or self-harming tendencies. When they feel insecure in relationships, in which they’re usually very, very invested, they tend to lash out or do rash things to keep them close.

Based on my relationships with the borderline people in my life, I've noticed that they usually bounce between having great confidence in themselves, to being incredibly insecure. It's hard to explain specifically, but they walk a fine line of being insecure and also maintaining a painfully strong ego, which makes them react very strongly when provoked, intentionally or not. Yuki and Mafuyu have a different type of relationship than I do with those people in my life which, for the two of them, means that Mafuyu probably had to provide lots of emotional support for Yuki, while also under the mild threat of Yuki coming to harm by his own actions.

Being with someone with these tendencies who is also unaware of them is very draining, especially for someone as mild and soft-spoken as Mafuyu is. Yuki tended to lead their relationship and was probably very noticeable when upset-and for someone who might not be used to speaking up or someone who has low self-confidence, it is difficult to bring up things. It doesn't feel safe if you don't know exactly how it would be received. Especially if they are the person you are closest to, it can be anxiety-inducing to try and bring up problems that don't seem to be incredibly important or unavoidable.

So, long story short-Yuki was closed off to receiving any kind of proper advice or criticism that would've saved him. Another symptom of BPD, as mentioned before, is suicidal ideation. So, if all these things are combined, it's a lot easier to see how he, surrounded by only his thoughts and ideas, would make the choice to take his own life when provoked.

It wasn't specifically that Mafuyu had caused his death, but more that he just sent him over the edge he had been teetering on for a long while. He was like his father in the sense that they had the same flaws that just came from different places. Yuki's pride came from the flip side of his insecurities and his own early independence, and his mental health issues as a whole are probably hereditary. The specificities of his death, where Yuki drinks after avoiding alcohol for his entire life, feels like he failed in his effort to avoid being like his father. He was different as a person but in the end, their flaws aligned and brought them to their end in parallels to each other.

Calling back to what his mom said-it doesn't feel unexpected. It is shocking, but not a surprise. Yuki was fiercely independent and wanted to learn and do new things, all on his own-including his own death and whatever follows after.

[I wrote this a while back and didn’t really like how most of it was speculation and hard to prove-but decided to post it anyway because I spent too much time on it lol.

Like I said before, most of this is just my head canons, but I hope it made sense! Feel free to add on with your stuff/arguments/headcanons :)]

#given #yuki yoshida #sato mafuyu #character ramblings #tw sui mention #mafuyuki #given manga #given anime #idkkk what do y’all think #i’m bad at Tags #also this is. severely unedited.#as in i wrote this a while back #found it and just went #huh this is a lot of words. let me skim it. sounds about right. time to post!#WIAHI

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deliberatelyvague · 5 years ago

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Worthless (lucifer x fem!reader)

Pairing(s): [lucifer x depressed! reader]

Trigger Warning(s): Attempts at Suicide, depression and all the feelings that surround that.

Author’s Note: I have a few requests that I have to get to, but I’ve been feeling pretty bad mentally the past few days, so I can’t really find it in me to do things that could be happy. I’ll get to them as soon as I can, I promise.

Looking for my Masterlist? Here it is (x)

————

You took a slow, deep breath in as you laid on your bed. You really couldn’t find it in yourself to do much of anything else. You felt really overwhelmed, like everything was just building up to being too much for you to handle.

You had homework that you could be doing, and you knew that every day you didn’t do it it was just growing to be bigger and bigger, which in turn made you feel overwhelmed, but you didn’t move from your spot.

You just laid there, looking at the stars plastered onto your ceiling. It hurt so much to breathe. No, it hurt to be alive. You just wanted to die.

It made you feel worse, because you knew there was no good reason that you should be feeling like this, but you figured everything would be much easier if you were dead. Whether or not you would just be sent back to the Devildom, or if you would actually make it into the Celestial Realm, you didn’t know, but you didn’t particularly care.

You could only imagine how the brothers would react if they were to find your dead body, you could only imagine that they might not care.

You were a pathetic human, only here because of the exchange program. They only cared about you so that Diavolo would look good. Lucifer only cared about you because of the exchange program and keeping up Diavolo’s image.

Thinking about the fact that Lucifer doesn’t actually care about you made your chest ache more. You grabbed your blanket and pulled it over you, curling up in a ball and facing the wall, closing your eyes.

You weren’t going to fall asleep, your chest aching would stop you from that, and one of the brothers coming into your room will eventually wake you up anyway.

How much would really happen if you died? Of course, your family and friends back home would be devastated, and you would miss them. But they knew about your depression and suicidal ideation, you had gone to a therapist and had medicine, but that ended when you came down to the Devildom.

Now it was a few months without the medicine or therapy sessions, and you felt the repercussions of it. But you didn’t bother to tell them, you didn’t want to bother Diavolo with issues like that, Lucifer had too much on his plate involving the brothers, much less having your mental health add to the issues.

The door to your room opened gently, someone flipping on the light switch. You didn’t move, you couldn’t be bothered to move.

“[Y/N], get up. You need to work on homework. Mammon’s in all your classes, I know how much you guys got.” You hear Lucifer scold you, which made the aching in your chest make itself known again and make a weird feeling in your jaw as you sit up.

“Yeah, sorry. I’m just tired, I guess,” You tell him as cheerily as you can, swinging your legs off of the bed and making your way over to your desk.

“You need to finish your work then you can sleep. Diavolo’s reputation is on the line, that should be your first priority.” You bit your lip, and nodded. Of course he couldn’t see through your facade, you had spent years working on it, so obviously it would easily be able to come back when needed.

“Okay,” you answer him and pull out your book work. He seemed content with that answer and he kissed the top of your head before leaving. The place where his lips touched your head felt warm, but it was quickly replaced with a dull ache.

“I’m going to start dinner, please be more attentive when it comes to getting your work done. Also, these grades do transfer to your home, so they also matter to your future,” he says and you just nod.

The last part didn’t really matter to you. How could you care about your future if you didn’t even see one for yourself? The entire conversation you just had with Lucifer left a bad taste in your mouth.

It made you feel worthless, like you weren’t anything more than a nuisance to him. He claimed he loved you- all the brothers told you they cared for you, but you didn’t feel it.

You finished the homework moderately quickly, only half paying attention to what you were doing. The bell for dinner rang soon after that, and you got up and took off the RAD jacket you had yet to take off and put on a pair of sweatpants, not bothering to take off the turquoise turtleneck that went under the uniform.

Dinner was as eventful as normal, all the boys seemed too caught up in their own problems to notice you being quieter than normal, not that you were complaining. You waited until everyone was finished before leaving the table, offering to wash the dishes.

“Less work for me,” was all Belphie said when you told him you would take over his chore, and he left the room.

You were cleaning up the dishes, scrubbing away at a pan when you felt two arms around your waist.

“Are you doing alright, baby?” You heard Lucifer ask.

“Of course, why?”

“I just noticed you being more quiet than normal. You can talk to me, you know that right, [Y/N]?”

“Of course, I’m just tired. There’s nothing else.”

“Nothing? So no demon had been bothering you? If so, you need to tell me so I can tell Diavolo. Nothing can go wrong with this program, not even that.”

Of course, he wasn’t just concerned about you. It could never be just about you, he didn’t care about you, he cared about Diavolo’s program. Nothing else. He only cared about Diavolo, which you should have warned yourself about the first time you even had an inkling about that being the case.

“No, nothing. The demons here have been fine. I just need some more sleep,” you told him, and he just nodded and took his arms off of you.

“Alright, well, be sure to get to bed soon,” you saw mental glint in the suds of the sink, a long blade peaking through. “Maybe you could spend some time with Belphegor to make you tired.”

You nodded.

“Maybe I should try that.”

Lucifer left with nothing else, and you reached for the knife, your palm gripping the blade, it cutting into your skin. You didn’t care, though.

How easily you could just plunge this knife into your chest, how quickly all the pain you felt would be over.

You positioned the tip of the blade between your breasts, digging it in slightly, feeling a trickle of blood run down your chest and stomach, before plunging it in all the way.

———

It was peaceful. You only saw white, that was all that was surrounding you. This wasn’t Heaven or Hell, or the Devildom. There was nothing.

“Hello?” You call out to the void. Nothing responded. You felt a twist in your gut, and an off sensation that you hadn’t felt in awhile. Almost the.. thrive to live? The need to continue breathing, it suddenly took you over, out of nowhere.

The feeling that now isn’t your time to die washed over you, and you refused to just believe that this was all there was for you. You wanted to live, you wanted to live, you wanted to live, you wanted to live, you wanted to live, you wanted to live, you wanted to-

—————

You open your eyes again, but immediately shut them. A loud pulsing noise came from beside you, and you cringed away from it. Why was it so loud? You slowly opened your eyes again, them adjusting to the brightness.

There was no one around you, but you could hear two voices talking, and when you looked out into the hallway, Lucifer and Diavolo were standing there, talking in a hushed voice, almost as if trying not to wake you up.

A feeling of dread came over you, and that need to survive was quickly stifled out. You felt the need to cry, so you did just that. Quietly, tears started to stream down your face as you laid down as far as you could.

God, what a mess you had probably made. How could you be so selfish? Who found your body? Thinking back on it, it was probably Beel, the most innocent out of all of them, how could you have done that to him?

Selfish, selfish, that’s all you are. How could you have done that and not even batted an eye about the repercussions? All you think about is yourself, selfish, selfish, selfish-

“[Y/N]?” You heard a gentle voice. You looked over to the doorway and Lucifer stood there. He took off his coat, leaving him in only a black shirt and pants. You didn’t respond. “How are you feeling?”

“I can’t feel the wound yet, so, pretty good,” you tried to joke with him.

“Don’t, don’t do that. Baby, why didn’t you tell me, tell someone? We could have gotten you medicine, allowed you to see your therapist, or a therapist.”

“I didn’t want to be more of a burden than I already was. But now, I guess I made that worse right? I’m sorry. I hoped it would work,” you tell him, and he just furrows his eyebrows.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve probably ruined the program, right? I’m sorry. I was being selfish, I didn’t take into consideration what me trying to commit suicide would do.”

“[Y/N]..” Lucifer started, but trailed off before hugging you, almost ripping you off of the bed. “I’m sorry if I made you feel that your only purpose in the Devildom was to be an exchange student for Diavolo. I know I talk about it a lot, and I’m sorry about that.

“I’m not going to try to come up with excuses as to why I do that, but you better know this right now: you are more than just an exchange student. To me, to my brothers, even to Diavolo. You’re more than that. I love you, and it hurts to see you think of yourself as less than someone worthy of being here.

“I know you’re not going to get better by telling you this, I know that it could take a long time to get better, to make sure you're in a safe place mentally. But I want you to also know that I will be right here, by your side, while you get the help you need.”

You had started crying halfway through his speech. You wrapped your tube-infested arms around him also, deeply breathing in the scent of him that you had missed so much.

“I want to get better, please help me. I’m tired of feeling like this again.”

“Of course, [Y/N]. First thing we’ll do is get you back on your meds and then schedule a therapy appointment, okay? You’re also put under suicide watch, so I’ll be staying with you until you’re granted freedom from that.”

“Thank you, Luci.”

“Of course, [Y/N]. I love you.”

————

This was written by me in no way trying to romanticize mental illnesses. I try to write what I feel would help me in the moment. I completely understand that mental illnesses don’t just ‘disappear’ when you’ve figured out that someone loves you or someone helps you once- that’s why I don’t write what happens after in most cases. If you are struggling, please reach out to anyone you trust, or call a hotline.

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natusvincere · 3 years ago

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A Talk to Remember || Morgan and Vic

Who: @mor-beck-more-problems and @natusvincere Where: Morgan and Deirdre’s house When: Current What: Vic wants her dagger back, Morgan wants to chat first. Warnings: Mentions of suicide ideation

It was a familiar trip to Morgan’s home, but somehow, each time Vic made the journey there, the unfamiliar anxiety associated with the journey swelled a bit stronger. Today was no exception. She kept telling herself that the only reason she was even taking such a journey was to get her dagger back, but even she wasn’t so disillusioned to think that was the whole truth. The multiple spare daggers she had back at home weren’t the only thing that proved it. The things Morgan had been saying had been swimming in her brain, and she didn’t know if she wanted to hear more of it or set her friend straight for good. She’d been mulling over it for weeks now, exhausted at the back and forth her mind was constantly flip flopping between. One minute she’d be convinced Morgan was wrong and ready to write her off and the next she’d be drowning in guilt at the idea of Morgan being right. The latter seemed to be happening more frequently. After several moments of internal struggle, she found herself rolling her eyes as she buzzed the doorbell, switching her weight back and forth to quell the anxiety. Her face remained blank when the door opened, but her stomach flipped uncomfortably. There was so much she wanted to say, but “I was in the area” was all that came out of Vic’s mouth.

Morgan knew Vic had too much pride to come straight to the house as soon as they made their plans and too much pride to never show up at all. But it still came as a surprise when the doorbell rang and her friend, or once-friend, appeared on the other side. Morgan took several moments to process the woman’s presence and decode whatever Vic was hiding under, I was in the area. Maybe nerves, maybe agitation, but hell if Morgan knew what for, exactly.

“Uh. Hi.” She said at last. “Can I help you…?”

The silence between them was loud, and Vic was sure she’d squirm right out of her skin if Morgan didn’t say anything soon. And then she did, and Vic wanted to squirm away even more. She looked between Morgan and her car, contemplating if she should just turn and run back. Instead, she said, “You have my dagger. Did you forget?” There was something keeping her from holding Morgan’s eye contact, her gaze instead traveling from her chin to the doorknob to the plants she kept on her porch. “I just want it back. Then I’ll leave you alone.”

“No, I remember,” Morgan said, smirking. “Come on in, have a seat in the kitchen. I have to grab your knife from the shed anyway, so I can get stuff for a blood cocktail while I’m at it. Your kind can still taste stuff, right?” As frustrated as she was with Vic, she got some satisfaction in confounding her as often as possible. “That wasn’t a request. You’re gonna deal with my rusty southern hospitality or you’re not getting that knife back. How’ve you been, anyway?”

Vic couldn’t suppress her eye roll at the sudden change of plans. She had not expected to be invited inside, and it threw her off completely. At the invitation, though, she stepped through the door, her eyes quietly searching for evidence of the girlfriend Morgan spoke so fondly of. “That wasn’t the deal”, she said, hanging by the doorframe of the kitchen. “First it was I have to come by to get it, now we have to chit chat?” She blinked, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’m not thirsty, thank you. And I’ve been great, just dandy, Morgan.” No existential questions coursing through her brain at all hours of the night. None at all. Her voice held a bite of sarcasm that she usually shielded Morgan from. “How about you?” She hadn’t planned on being cross, and yet here she was pushing away the only person who’d been patient enough to listen for years. She wanted to rip her own hair out.

“In Texas, it’s rude to turn down hospitality, Victoria,” Morgan said. “But, if you must know, I’ve been doing alright. I’ve recently become the guardian of a really great kid, I’ve just managed to hold onto my job for another semester, and my girlfriend and I are like, pre-engaged. I don’t know if that’s a word, but I don’t know what else to call deciding we want to get married but wanting to wait for a better time to do some fancy proposal stuff. Don’t know what we’ll do about the cats whenever we eventually honeymoon but--oh!” She squealed as Moira padded up and butted her head against her legs. Morgan laughed and picked up the little cat, smiling indulgently. “But we’ll figure it out. It’s a long ways away.” She held out the cat to Vic. “Do you wanna hold her while I get the stuff? She’s real friendly and with how much me and Deirdre carry and cuddle her, she’s used to cold bodies. Doesn’t bother her a bit.”

“We’re not in Texas. But I’ll be sure to remember to never relocate there. It sounds horrible,” Vic answered, though she was slowly losing the bite and bitter tone she had first entered the home with. She blinked in surprise at the new information, letting herself leave the doorframe and enter the room further. She was intrigued, admittedly, and desperate to know more. “A guardian? For a child?” She couldn’t imagine how something like that just fell into someone’s lap- even someone like Morgan with all her southern hospitality and gentle charm. The next bit of information Morgan fed her was perhaps even more intriguing. “Engaged to be married?”, she asked, wishing to clarify. The term was so different now than it was when she had been engaged. Barely anyone was betrothed anymore. Instead, young people of all classes and creeds had a choice in who they spent their lives with, and even freedom to leave when things became unbearable- and with barely any societal backlash.

She had been deep in thought when the cat was held out to her, and so she leaned back suddenly, looking at it in front of her with her eyes nearly crossing to refocus. She wasn’t sure if she trusted that the cat wouldn’t hate her- she smelled like dog and death and any cat worth her salt might be wary of such a thing. She looked up at Morgan hesitantly before she reached out to it, pulling it against her chest immediately. “What’s her name?”, she asked, scratching behind the small beast’s ears and pressing her lips against its head. “And where are your w- Deirdre and child?”

“Well, a grown child but, yeah,” Morgan said with a shrug. It still felt weird to say, and her results were definitely mixed at best so far, but playing nonchalant while Vic sputtered to catch up with what a woman’s life could be in this time gave her a shot of confidence. “And, technically not engaged because no rings, which we both want, but, I guess we have what you used to call an understanding?” She put on her best BBC voice as she said the word. “We’ve done the grownup part, but not the romantic, fluffy part. You know that’s a thing two women can do now, right? We don’t have to surrender our happiness by default, and we don’t have to hide it either.”

Her voice tapered off, softer, as she watched Vic handle the kitten. The vampire already knew where to scratch, and how to hold her, and Moira was curious and interested as ever at the prospect of making a new friend. “Her name is Moira. She’s only a year and a half old right now. Still a big baby.”

As she backed away, ready to give Vic some time to get a little less tightly wound, she couldn’t help but choke down a snort. Did she just try to call her family her women? “Uh, Bexley, the girl I take care of, is out with her girlfriend. Deirdre has a thing. Which means you’re stuck with me. When I get back in a minute, at least. I’m sure you’ll find a way to manage, right?” She winked, then backed her way out to the garden yard. She intended to take just a little bit longer than she needed to. She wanted Vic to have the chance to feel like a person and she didn’t know if there’d ever be another one after her sort-of-friend went home.

“However did something like that fall into your lap?”, Vic wondered curiously. There was no way the government could just place a teenager with a stranger to be raised unless they asked for it, right? Had Morgan been seeking out raising a child all along? Had Vic been too self-involved to even realize that it was something so important to her? Her focus was brought back to Morgan, and she had to press her lips together to suppress a smile at Morgan’s silly voice. “An understanding”, she repeated with a nod after she pulled herself together. “It seems that that’s what most young people come to these days before engagement. I know- I remember when the law allowing people to get married as passed”, she recalled nonchalantly. In truth, she had sat by her television with rapt attention that day back in 2015, unable to focus her attention on anything else until she knew what the ruling would be. “Have you ever hidden it?”

“Moira”, she whispered, pressing her forehead into the cat’s. “You’re rather funny looking”, she remarked, giving the beast another scratch behind her ears. “Winnie is 5 and still a big baby. I doubt she’ll ever grow out of it.” Vic had been wishing to see both Morgan’s new teenager and her… betrothed, for lack of a better word, but for now she’d just have to settle for groveling for her own dagger. Her shoulders seemed to drop when she was left alone with the cat, as if tension had physically escaped her body. She let Moira on the table, holding up a hair elastic she had in her pocket for her to swat at.

Moira rolled onto her back, lazily grabbing at the elastic and the tips of Vic’s fingers, eliciting a small chuckle from the woman. “How lucky you are to live without worries”, she whispered, playing tug of war with the cat.

Morgan left Vic’s questions linger in the air for when she got back. She wasn’t sure if ‘fallen’ was the right word, or how to tell what had happened without sounding a little conniving, even desperate. And then the other thing. She shouldn’t have been surprised that Vic assumed she’d always been out and confident. Vic seemed to think the best and worst of everyone, whichever way kept them as far away from her as can be.

She plucked the knife off its shelf in her shed and wrapped it up in a nice cloth and put it in the bottom of a basket, which she then piled with some bottles and then filled with blood from the murder shed. No death should go to waste, not if she could help it.

She lingered in the entryway when she returned, beaming as she watched Vic play with Moira. Animals had a funny way of revealing people, and Moira was showing a version of Vic that had been hiding for years. “Am I interrupting?” She said, beaming. “I’ve got everything right here, but that doesn’t mean there’s any rush.” She passed Vic a bottle of blood to make her point. Relax, make yourself at home.

“Also, I owe you some answers: the twenty-something kid is…complicated. We weren’t actively looking for each other, but we had similar social circles, she was my student for a semester, and she was staying with me here for a while before anything became even semi official. We just sort of…fit. Little by little. I feel kind of unfairly lucky to have her around.” Morgan shrugged it off, not wanting to get into her shortcomings. This talk wasn’t about her. “And as for the other thing: yes, I hid myself a lot and very well. The area I grew up in wasn’t kind to people like us, but thanks to ignorance, most assumed that a woman who likes flowers and dresses could never be one of them. And I say this casually now, because I’m out and I’ve slept around and dated, and now I’m this—” She gestured vaguely to the house, the frame of her life. “But that doesn’t mean those years didn’t kill little parts of me every day, parts that’ll never grow back. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t lonely and dark, or that I didn’t ever wake up hating the world almost as much as I hated myself. It just means the hurt has scarred over, and I get to be a whole person now. And I need you to know that you can be a whole person too, Victoria.”

“Yes”, Vic teased, albeit pulling the elastic back from the creature, choosing instead to scratch behind her ears again. She gazed inside the basket, her eyes searching for the dagger. When the bottle was placed in front of her, she closed her eyes and swallowed, only opening them again to gaze at Morgan. “Was this harvested ethically?”, she asked, her hand wrapping tentatively around the bottle.

She didn’t feed in front of people- she didn’t much like to feed at all, truthfully. It felt animalistic and vulgar and monstrous to do it so callously, but Morgan seemed to expect her to drink right here, as if they were simply eating lunch in the park together. Didn’t she see it was so much more horrible than that?

Her hand flexed and tightened around the bottle as she listened to Morgan explain. “A found family”, she clarified with a nod, having heard the term more than once but never really grasping what it could mean. “Is Deirdre also comfortable with this arrangement?”, she wondered. Her explanation of her youth was a lot easier to comprehend- a life hidden and masked was definitely something she relate to. “How old were you?”, she started. “How old were you when you decided to let people know?”

She looked away as Morgan concluded her speech, leaning back in her chair in shaking her head. “I’ve been hiding parts about me and letting them die since long before I realized I’m attracted to women, Morgan”, she explained, her eyes distant as if she were remembering some far away memory. “It’s not just… that. It’s not as simple as you want it to be. I can’t just undo who I’ve become. Not after 400 years.”

“It’s not human if that’s what you mean,” Morgan said with a roll of her eyes. “What kind of person do you take me for? It’s a very nice deer from yesterday, hit by a truck and left by the road. A fine vintage in the world of animal blood.” She watched Vic wrestle with this knowledge, or maybe just being treated as a person and a vampire at the same time, and sat back, making herself comfortable.

“Deirdre’s fine. She’s...we’re not doing this particular thing together, per se, we’re in different places as far as that’s concerned, but she doesn’t resent me or the girl and she does care for her well in her own way. I don’t know what more I could ask for.” She sighed, feeling the space between all she knew she could have and all she wanted and all she dared not ask for.

Vic’s next question took her out of her thoughts. She straightened and looked at the woman, her expression plain, her voice frank. “I was eighteen when I told my mother, because I thought my gayness was causing the literal curse that brought suffering to my family, that it was the reason my dad had died driving me to work. And I was twenty-four when I went to my first women’s only gay bar. And I was thirty, when I stopped being too scared to let women get close to me at all. It’s not something that happens all at once for anyone, I don’t think. So even if it is simple, or straightforward if you prefer, it’s not easy. A lot of straightforward things are really, really hard and that’s why we come up with complicated ways of getting around them. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try, Victoria. You can always make new choices.”

With a lick of her lips, Vic let herself fully grip the bottle at the new information, her fingers fully wrapping around it as the need to study it dissipated. “Okay”, she said hushed and tentatively. Her eyes watched Morgan’s as she brought the bottle to her lips, but she put it down before she let herself take a sip. She didn’t like to eat in front of anyone because for one, not many of the few people she let into her personal life actually knew what she was. It was easier to keep it a secret, because the opposite would most likely mean losing them anyway. But two, there was so much wrongness associated with it. So much death and hurt and pain and… shame. It made her feel vulnerable in a way she didn’t appreciate, and vulnerability in front of anyone was a recipe for disaster.

And then there was the issue of fangs and red eyes while she was feeding.

It was too much, especially for Morgan to see her like that. Like the monster she was deep down inside. She let go of the bottle, choosing to cross her arms casually on the table instead as Morgan explained more.

“She seems incredibly understanding”, Vic remarked, sitting back a bit in her chair. She wanted to ask ‘Do you think she would like me?’, but it felt childish to ask something so frivolous. It felt childish to care.

As she listened to Morgan, her expression crumpled into one of sympathy. “It must have been an incredibly awful burden to feel that way, Morgan. Of course it wasn’t, you know that now, right? I mean… to me it seems…”, she paused, gesturing around Morgan’s kitchen, “that all of this is because of who you are, not in spite of it.” Morgan had a way of waxing poetry with her words, an artist in her own rite. But her poetry couldn’t bend reality, not always.

“New choices, like putting an end to turning vampires in to hunters?” She knew this is the conversation they’d been dancing around all along- the reason why she’d attacked Morgan in the woods and the reason she couldn’t face her after. She knew the whole truth now, besides the details, and it was clear she didn’t approve. “I decided after ten years that I’d make up for the monstrosities that come with being who I am now forced to be. And the only way I know how to do that is by doing what I’m doing, Morgan. Who am I if I just let myself be one of them?”

Morgan saw Vic’s hesitance to drink and met her eyes sympathetically. Apropos of nothing, she rose when the woman finished, saying, “I think I need a snack too, actually.” One Pyrex of brain balls later, she was back, and nibbling on them with the help of a kebab skewer. After some more silence, she found the words she was looking for, or at least the only ones she knew she was going to find.

“It was terrible, yes. And even after I found out that, no, we were cursed because my great grandmother Agnes pissed off the wrong witch, eighteen years of hating myself didn’t just disappear. Sometimes I wondered if the curse made me gay so I could suffer more, and worse. That isn’t true either, but my point is: it took time and therapy doing things differently for me to figure that out. And yes, I think not conspiring to murder every vampire you meet might help you figure things out. I think not lumping yourself in with the people who wronged you would help. What I really think will help is admitting that every sapient vampire is as different from each other as you and I are. You are smarter than reducing your world to a flat simplicity for the sake of convenience. And I think you can be braver than that too. I think you might even want to be.”

Another long, thoughtful bite of brains.

“Who is it that you think you’re being forced to be? You’re in control of your own choices, what monstrosities are there for you to ‘let’ yourself do that you don’t want?”

There were two deliberate blinks from Vic; the first one of confusion, and the second of understanding. Morgan was showing her that it was okay, in her own way. Their diets weren’t all that dissimilar, and neither was the way of acquiring them, she supposed. Was hers really all that worse simply because she was a vampire? This wasn’t a question that would have even crossed her mind a month ago.

Letting out a slow breath, she built up the courage to grip the bottle again, taking a sip before she had the mind to stop herself. Her eyes changed rather quickly, she was sure, and she could feel the fangs sprouting from her mouth; always so ready to reveal what she truly was. Her mind flashed back to the early days after she was first turned, when she would stubbornly stare into mirrors for hours at a time, as if looking long enough might change the lack of reflection that stared back at her. Later, when she’d finally succumbed to feeding, her sire taunted her with the description of how she looked during (a punishment, she was sure, for her insistence that she would see her own reflection again). She spent years smashing every mirror she found after that.

She hoped Morgan wouldn’t bring attention to it.

“But the curse… is it over now?”, she asked, concerned. Morgan was right that years of self-loathing didn’t just go away because you wanted it to, but the thought of going to therapy about such a thing felt so foreign to her. “I’m not murdering anyone. I’m a middle man”, she insisted, her body becoming rigid. “Do you think hunters are murderers?”

“Forced to be a ...vampire, I mean. I didn’t ask to become this, Morgan. I would have much rather… I was so close to d-...”. Vic swallowed, closing her eyes before taking another sip from the bottle. “This wasn’t who I was meant to become. This isn’t the Twilight, Morgan. We do not sparkle in the sun and attend high school classes. You wouldn’t believe… the thoughts that ran through my head when I was first turned. The ones that do now if I don’t feed often enough. They’re not natural...they’re not right. And what if stopping all vampires I can is the only way I can stop myself from becoming who those thoughts want me to be?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s very over. Witch magic fades after death, so after the ghost-girl who cursed us killed me a year and a half ago—” Morgan made an open gesture. “No more curse. No more magic. Just one zombie girl. Also, I would like to point out that I said conspiring to murder. Which, you have to admit fits the bill, right? And yes, I think hunters are murderers. All of them. Even the ones I like. If they intentionally kill a sapient being, they’re murderers. Some murders are…’necessary’ for lack of a better word. Because some people will refuse any solution that doesn’t end in death. But just because Vampire Serial Killer Number One won’t stop until they make someone stop them, doesn’t make what happens to that vampire anything but murder. If you’re going to extinguish a life from this world, you need to admit it and carry it. And I say that as someone who has murdered several people.” The soft humor her words had started with faded as she went on. By the time she stopped to pause, she could barely keep her eyes on Vic. This was bad, bad, dangerous shit to be admitting to. And even though she could fight, even though everyone knew where she was and who she was meeting with, Morgan’s cold blood prickled into ice under her skin with fear.

She swallowed a lump in her throat (guilt; even if she didn’t have regrets for all of her crimes, she definitely had guilt) and pressed onto everything else Vic had brought up. “What you are isn’t who you are. And I get it, I do. I didn’t ask to be what I am either, and I spent a long time wishing that I hadn’t. That I had just died. It wasn’t a bad death. It was better than whatever’s waiting for me now. And it would have hurt so much less. And I didn’t feel like Morgan Beck, witch and teacher and chronic mess. She died, and I—this person who used to be her and will become someone else—woke up. But who I am, Morgan Beck the Second, the Undead, is not defined or limited by what I eat or what happened to me.” Slowly, she reached out a hand for Vic’s. “I don’t know if you know this, but zombies are born starving. And when we starve, the world is…small and clear. There’s one feeling, something strong and powerful and good and sick, and all you have to do is try to satisfy it. The ground is just a path to feeding. The wind is just a hindrance, or something that carries the smell. We don’t even think, really, we just do. And the early cravings…sometimes, I could feel it coming. Like having a second voice in my head, another shadow, something that took people apart like they were pieces of cow at the butcher, something that remembered what parts taste best, after brains, of course. And I live in fear of that…impulse, that piece of me. But I also live knowing that it isn’t me.” Reaching out farther, in earnest now, she looked into Vic’s eyes, pleading, “Is there anything you thought when you were young and lost and hungry that’s so different from what I did? And—-who told you that exterminating someone else will change something that’s a part of you? It won’t. You can’t change yourself by killing or erasing other people. You can’t change yourself with all the hatred in the world. You’ve had four hundred years; if it was possible, that would’ve happened by now. So what if—what if the way to become someone you like and can be proud of is to accept that you’re a real person who can be kind of wonderful when she gets out of her own way?”

“Oh, it was her who-... That makes sense.” Vic blinked, processing what Morgan was saying to her. After a long pause, she responded. “I suppose, if that’s the sort of cut and dry definition we’re using, that would make me a murderer, too.” She didn’t break eye contact with Morgan until the other woman looked away, and even then she still studied her face. “In the beginning. I didn’t know there was any other way to be. And, well- ...I suppose I murdered my sire as well.” Her eyes fell back to her hands at that, as if she could witness herself doing it all over again. There was no shame associated with what she did to her sire, but her stomach did flip flops at admitting it outloud. How sweet it had felt when her thirst for revenge was finally satisfied. How sick she felt to revel in that sweetness. With a look back up at Morgan, it appeared she might have been experiencing a similar back and forth about her own murders.

It would have hurt so much less. That was a thought that Vic had never heard articulated into words before. Wishing for death felt so morbid and wrong, but had she been allowed to succumb to it, the hurt could have ended right then. And for so long, she was sure she was alone in that feeling. There were thousands of vampires and zombies walking around as if everything were perfect- like they were happy their life had turned into an afterlife. Vic couldn’t believe how affirming it was to hear someone share her sentiments. She looked down at the hand that settled into hers and listened and listened and listened as more of Morgan’s experiences seemed to mesh with her own, mixing and swirling like paint on a paper, until you could no longer differentiate between the two unless you tried your hardest.

She looked up into Morgan’s eyes, fresh tears prickling at her own. She shook her head at the question posed, though it was slight and small, and if Morgan blinked, she would have missed it. Nothing was different about their origins, not really. Not when you dug deep and looked at them transparently.

There was a long, teary pause before she finally answered again. It was a collection of composure, more than anything. “I wouldn’t even know how I would begin to stop what I do, Morgan. I’ve hurt… so many people. And interacted with so many slayers who would do the same to me if they found out the truth.”

“I know,” Morgan said, coming around close to Vic and pulling her into a hug. “I’m not saying it won’t be hard or that it won’t hurt in its own way. But I am saying that it will be better than where you are right now. And you are a person who deserves a chance of happiness and peace and love. And you can be forgiven. And you can choose different for yourself. I’m saying you’re worth trying for. Okay?”

Against her better judgement, Vic let herself melt into the hug. She let Morgan’s words cover her like a blanket, warm and reassuring and hopeful. She wanted to believe what she was saying- that if she tried hard enough, everything could be okay, somehow. It seemed much more likely that Morgan was wrong, but in that moment, she didn’t care. She was seen. Her experiences, as wild as it sounded, weren’t only her own. And as she and Morgan held each other, Vic realized that that might have been the biggest evidence of hope she could ask for.

“Okay. I’ll try.”

#suicide tw #p #p:morgan #p:attr

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greenwaterskeeter · 4 years ago

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i finally have a coherent personal narrative, and here it is. It’s quite long, but i think of some interest, and might be encouraging!

-Mentions of suicidal ideation, emotional and financial abuse, emotional incest, fatphobia, misogyny, capitalism. Whatever the qpr equivalent of romance is. Ends happily-

I felt for a long time that i should have died when i was 20. Not in the sense that i deserved to, but in the sense that by then i’d accomplished as much as i ever would and was therefore obsolete– taking up resources unnecessarily.

When i was 13, i felt forced to choose between my parents. My bus driver/karate teacher, a kind person who i very much admired, advised me to flip a coin and then, if i didn’t like the result, pick the other. I chose my mother and (privately) pledged absolute loyalty to her (I was obsessed with LOTR at the time and felt that it was the purpose of my life to be a Sam for somebody).

While she was single and struggling to keep the farm and raise my brother (a toddler then), that devotion was used and rewarded. There were times i thought with satisfaction that i might as well be her husband, as well as a parent to my beloved brother. I was proud. I felt righteous. The joy of supporting and protecting her was real. The intermittent anguish of being a minor who could legally only do so much to help was also real. (I believed in laws then).

When I was 17, she remarried (a perfectly nice, wealthy man, as devoted as me and much more powerful) and i went to college. I slowly imploded across all four years, though I didn’t realize that until nearly the end. I think now it was because nothing i could offer her was needed anymore. Every time she treated me like a child instead of the valued partner i had been, i was crushed. Emasculated. i began to feel positively Tortured without understanding why. It sounds like a villain’s origin story, doesn’t it?

When it started affecting my performance, i could only think the trouble was that i was pining for a married professor, as you do. I had fallen in love with him, and made myself his best student (and then his TA, and then began to feel gross about it, quit, and started avoiding where i knew he’d be, all without telling anyone). Once my decline became known and answers were demanded, this was all i could offer in explanation.

I didn’t blame anyone consciously then, but i think now i felt betrayed by how my friends and family reacted. They all thought i must have seduced him (or vice versa if they were generous) to be so torn up. It was too foolish to become suicidal over a crush. They didn’t believe me, or accused me of grandiosity, when i said the professor didn’t even know how i felt. I have always struggled to keep in touch with people, and once my oldest friends gave me the Adultery is Bad talk, it was hard to keep trying.

Everyone did their best and we were all very young. I didn’t understand any more than they did. But still, i can acknowledge now what it would have meant to have just one person who believed in me regardless of understanding. On a deeply hidden level, i felt that my mother, at least, owed me that, after years of faithful service.

But horribly, once it became clear my suicidality was almost entirely passive, she turned on me. She was very frightened. I guess she had also been thanking her lucky stars all that time that i wasn’t turning out like my dad, but here i revealed myself at last to be a freeloader, just like him. I was supposed to go to medical school. I had been the pride of the extended family, the eldest and purest of my generation, a marvel of the local intelligentsia, and i wound up dragging myself back home inept, directionless, cringing, the same as so many unfortunate young cousins and neighbors who’d used to have me pointed out to them as an example. Who would my brothers look up to now?

I endured living at home for a few years. My mom couldn’t keep up the punishment constantly, so although there was no telling when she would start in on me again, or whether she might finally go through with evicting me, there were beautiful things too.

I worked for her husband’s business for no pay, which i understand now was abusive, but i have always enjoyed working with my hands, and when they left me to it, it felt like the old days, like i had a use, even if it was now peripheral. My brothers weren’t sure what to do with me, but we still had fun when we could. The animals comforted me, and it’s special to be able to give affection and gentleness to a creature who depends on you. The woods and mists and early mornings and silent moonlights were still beautiful, and gradually i could appreciate them again. When i was with people, i felt my disgrace abjectly. But on the farm there were many chores to be done alone.

The more i recovered, the more trapped i felt. I even, very alarmingly, spent about two hours one afternoon silently consumed with resentful feelings towards my mother (this hadn’t happened since i was 10). I began to be afraid of losing control and doing something desperate (I totaled two different trucks during this time, on roads i knew well, for no apparent reason). I had given up my spot at a medical school i would not get into twice, and the obvious escape was to reapply elsewhere. I attempted this, and sabotaged it, multiple times.

I got a job at a nursing home, which was hard on my back but full of wonderful people, and was forced to quit when it made me late to my shift at my stepfather’s business too many times. By this i understood that a local job was not getting me out of there. I asked for money to get an EMT certification and was refused. I applied to many online jobs, none of which i had enough time to make money from. I called up one or two branches of the military, and was rejected for being too fat, thank God. I applied to medical school again, and managed to not sabotage it enough that i was accepted into a master’s program instead. It was across the state, five hundred miles away.

And still it might have come to nothing, as i had no conscious plans, actually, of staying away once i was done with this master’s program. The expected thing would be to go on to medical school, but i was only anticipating the first day of being free and couldn’t imagine anything more than a week in the future. I looked at the amount of debt i was taking on for this, knowing in my heart that i would not get a job that could pay it back, and was only relieved that they hadn’t caught onto me and i could still get loans.

There are a lot of things in my story that aren’t what they say is healthy or proper. I shouldn’t have romanticized my own parentification, i should not have had feelings for a 50 year old man, i should have kept trying with my friends, who have good hearts and only made one mistake before i ghosted them, i should have kept telling the truth, i shouldn’t have taken moral injury from things that weren’t my fault, i should have been properly angry with my mother at some point, i should not be grateful that my tendency is to harm myself rather than others.

One person alone should not have been able to save me.

In the second month of my year away, i was in a study group with my roommates and some of their acquaintances, and i laughingly shared some anecdote or other that i thought was harmless. I don’t remember whether anyone else laughed, but one person said: “That sounds kind of fucked up.”

“Oh,” I said, embarrassed. “Eh, well.”

Nothing more was made of it, and we went on studying. Later, this same person saw me sitting in the cafeteria alone and came to sit with me. We met to study again, just us two, and they showed me a video about white tears and watched me closely for my reaction. We compared ideals and found them the same. We came up with a project to collectivize flashcard-making for our class and had to meet frequently to carry it out. “We’re colleagues,” my new friend said, firmly, when people asked if we were together. We discovered ethical problems with the program and protested them, formally and informally. We were accused of being too insular. We talked about our families, and they said things like: “That’s not okay, you realize that, right” and “I think if more people loved the way you do, I’d have a reason to smile in the morning.” It became normal for my eyes to be sore from crying.

Neither of us got into medical school that year. We got an apartment together after graduation, and worked together too until i was fired (I was new to challenging authority and not very subtle in my distaste for our bosses). My friend’s parents wanted them to quit too, to come home while they reapplied, but they said: “Not without Autumn.” So after some negotiating, we went to live with their folks for a while…

We’ve been together for 5 years now. At first I did the same as I’d always done, but my partner made it clear they don’t want self-abnegation from me. I started trying to have boundaries, paradoxically, to make them happy. I’ve dipped into therapy as money allows. I’ve been reading and thinking and writing. Above all, I’ve been loved.

And all this time, I’ve still been deeply ashamed. I’ve spent the last ten years in some degree of emotional pain 24/7. But somehow, two weeks ago, another thing happened that shouldn’t, and i suddenly knew that i was a human being like any other.

I still feel that I should have died when I was 20, but now it’s in the sense that people say, “You shouldn’t have survived that! What a miracle!” Still existing feels like a bonus. I might live a long time from now and i might not. Either way, I’m incredibly lucky to turn my face to the world and know that i am a creature in it, like other creatures. I am well. It’s good that I’m alive.

#by auti #hopefully this is something good for someone :)#long post #yikes i hope this isn't just me rubbing it in that i hit the jackpot #idk i feel good about it so i'm posting it #please watch dr. gabor mate btw #that's part of this #and the untamed is part of it too #i still have problems lol don't get the wrong idea #but still everything's different now #the euphoria has worn off a bit but #it's like... it's like i'm meditating all the time?#it's not painful to be present is what i mean #i have the distinct feeling of being un-nerfed #feel free to rb!#although adding commentary might be weird #still i can imagine certain kinds that might not be so. your call!

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whentommymetalfie · 5 years ago

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Breathe Again -Chapter ten

-Are you there-

prologue//one//two//three//four//five//six//seven//eight//nine

Chapter summary: Alfie witnesses first hand how bad the nights are for Tommy, and tries to help.

Pairing: Alfie/Tommy

Warnings: hallucinations, disordered eating, suicidal ideation

Wordcount: 5000

“-and when I asked what was the matter, answered, she didn’t know; but she felt so afraid of dying. I imagined- Oi, Tommy, you listening over there?”

No, Tommy isn’t listening. Alfie’s almost finished the first chapter of the day when he has to face it. He’s been staring at the same corner of the living room for the duration of the time, eyes glassy and unfocused, fastened miles and miles away. Or at something that isn’t really there. Alfie lays the book to rest on his lap, spine up, and studies him. Waits for him to notice that he’s being watched, despite knowing it’s futile. Looks from between Tommy, to the corner, and then back again.

”What do you see, eh, Tommy?” he finally asks.

Tommy doesn’t react. Not surprising, because it’s been a bad day. He has those. Well, to begin with there were bad days and worse days. But now there’s something that Alife may hesitate to call gooddays, but at least deem… not disasters. Yesterday was one of those. He took Tommy for a walk despite the rain from earlier in the week still hanging above them in thick grey clouds, and Tommy’s eyes seemed a little brighter, more present. At dinner he even picked at a small slice of apple that Esther set out for him, and though he never actually ate it, even paying attention at all to solid food is a step in the right direction, at least if Esther is to be believed. And then he fell asleep in his bed before migrating out to the living room again. That, that’s what constitutes a ‘not disaster day’, which truly is a sad state of affairs all things considered.

Today, however, is not good. Tommy’s eaten all of one teaspoon of honey for breakfast and Esther took Alfie aside afterwards to tell him she found him wandering the hallway in the middle of the night again, so he must’ve slept poorly too. Granted he never seems to sleep well.How could he? Alfie still finds him out in the living room every single morning, and say what you will of the quality of his furniture but an armchair is only good for short naps. Sometimes he’ll come out to the living room before Alfie himself has even gone to bed. But at least he sleeps more than those first disastrous days, when he laid catatonic in bed

But he’s far away today.

He keeps staring at the corner, unaware of Alfie speaking at all, and Alfie nearly reaches out, to put a hand on his arm. Touch always works. But for some reason he finds himself hesitating. Maybe since he crossed that line the other day and grabbed his fucking hand… He uses the book to poke him in the arm instead, wondering how hard he can push before Tommy finally pays attention to him. Apparently quite hard. Tommy finally turns to meet his eyes, the blue surface oddly dimmed. Alfie puts the book down and takes a drag on his pipe instead.

“What do you see?” he repeats and nods towards the corner. “Because it sure as hell isn’t just books, interesting as my collection may be.”

Tommy just blinks slowly at him. Alfie takes the cigarette packet from the table and fishes one out. Tommy’s eyes follow it when he holds it up, and then finally reaches for it, fingers trembling ever so slightly.

Alfie lights it for him once it’s between his lips.

After the first drag, Tommy finally answers: “Nothing.”

“Yeah, see ,Tommy I might’ve believed that. That you’re just lost in your own head, because I know you tend to go on walks in there from time to time. But don’t think I’ve forgotten that whole crow incident.”

“Nests,” Tommy says and nods to himself. As if that fucking means something.

“Yeah, yeah, sure, but do you remember that thing I told you?”

Tommy furrows his brow and he grits his teeth before adding as calmly as he can, “About the crow?”

Tommy nods slowly.

“Stuffed.”

“Yeah, yeah exactly,” Alfie sighs. Back to one worded answers again apparently. “And I know this was a while ago, but you absolutely thought it was real to begin with. Which, I have concluded, means that you’re seeing things that aren’t really there.”

Tommy stares down into his lap, his hand trembling when he moves the cigarette from his mouth and exhales the smoke. “No.”

Alfie snorts, “Yeah you fucking do. So now I’m just wondering what in that corner has you so incredibly occupied that you can’t be bothered to spend any time among the living.”

Tommy reverts to shaking his head, letting the cigarette fall into the ashtray. In fact, all of him is shaking, forehead glimmering with cold sweat and eyes growing wide. This time, this time Alfie catches the signs before he just fucks everything up. He could keep pushing. Feels the urge like an itch he desperately wants to scratch. Wants to cut Tommy’s head open and look inside. He could, that’s the thing, and it’s a terrifying power to have. Learning what buttons to push to provoke a response out of him, other than the hazy stares and the clipped one worded sentences. But is it worth the price of prying Tommy’s bloodied fingers away from his head and pinning him down as he breathes so harshly it sounds as if his lungs may collapse?

“Fine then. If you say so, mate,” he says and shrugs, taking another puff of smoke and opening the book again. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Tommy relax just a fraction. His eyes are still dimmed, glazed.

He very carefully avoids looking to that corner.

Alfie settles the glasses back on his nose and begins searching for the right page in the book. But Tommy’s presence is so unnervingly anxious and tightly wound that he can’t seem to focus, so he gives up and closes it again, scanning the room in search of ideas. Solutions. His eyes fall on a box on the opposite bookshelf.

“Have you ever played chess, eh, Tommy?”

He has to use the book to poke at him again to catch his attention and Tommy shakes his head.

He doesn’t bother nagging him about talking today.

“Would you like to try? See, I reckon you’d really enjoy it.” He wanders over to the shelf and lifts down the box, wiping away a thin coat of dust before setting it down on the table in front of the armchairs, unfolding the board to reveal the little wooden pieces. “See, these pieces, they all move around in different ways, alright? And the goal is to move them around in the most clever way. Outsmart your opponent.”

Tommy at least keeps his gaze fixed on the pieces as Alfie lifts them up and places them in their proper positions. He makes quick work of explaining how they’re are allowed to move, hoping to keep Tommy’s attention for long enough for any of the information to register. Then he moves one of his pawns two steps forward.

Tommy just stares at the board. Alfie waits.

After several minutes, throughout which he’s used up all of his patience, Alfie reminds him of how the pawns are allowed to move. Two steps at first, and then just one step. Might as well start off simple. Tommy doesn’t even seem to hear him. Finally he picks up a piece, the knight, unsurprisingly, eyes fastened on it as he lifts it off the board. He pulls his knees up against his chest and just sits there, staring down at small, intricately cut horse head. His gaze flickers over to the corner and he clutches the chess piece close to his chest.

Alfie gives him a moment.

Then another.

“Well, Tommy,” he finally says. “The pieces have to actually be on the fucking board, don’t they? But if I were you, just to help you out here, I’d take that and put it right there, see on G three, yeah?”

Tommy looks fucking crestfallen and that look is enough for Alfie to give up on this whole venture.

“Know what, maybe we should wait a bit with this?” he says and picks the board up. “Let’s just… put this over here, eh and you could- Well, you could just put that back whenever you’re ready, alright?” He sets the board down on a chest of drawers, pushing a lamp and a vase he can’t remember ever buying out of the way until they balance precariously on the edge.

“It’s a bloody confusing game, so it’s best to take it slow,” he says. An attempt at reassuring that he doesn’t understand himself. “And it’s not like we’re in a hurry.”

Tommy’s knuckles have turned white.

Alfie considers reaching out. Try loosening his convulsive grip around that chess piece before it fucking splinters and cuts his hand…

Instead he just sits back down in the armchair with a sigh and cracking joints, letting silence fill the room.

Thankfully Esther enters moments later to bring some levity to the situation, carrying a tray with teacups and the paper. She gently tries to coax more honey into Tommy, but ends up leaving the spoon on a small plate and giving Alfie a look that clearly states he should give it a try later. But he’s honestly had enough for now. He picks up the paper instead and flips through it, glad to have something to distract him from Tommy and the way he’s begin quivering ever so slightly, still wide eyed and curled in on himself.

On the centre fold he finds a familiar face, the pale eyes staring back at him somehow looking blue despite the photos lack of colour. ‘Still no sign of Thomas Shelby. The MP remains at mystery location vacation as-‘He scans the entire article but it contains a frustrating lack of new information and can really be summed up by the headline: Tommy is on vacation to rest up according to his family, but no one cares to confirm where. There are speculations about covering up an illness but nothing concrete. All in all the article is entirely useless. His eyes linger on the photo instead. It’s a fairly recent one. He recognizes the haircut, the hint of weariness seeping through the cracks in that steely gaze. Still, it’s a far cry from the person sitting next to him right now. The cracks have taken over entirely. He quickly turns the pages until he lands himself on the crossword puzzle.

Out of the corner of his eye he notes that Tommy has started rocking back and forth ever so slightly and the cold, heavy fucking stone in the pit of his stomach makes itself known again. Starting to feel like an uncomfortably familiar thing by now.

“Cross words truly are the most unnecessary bloody invention,” he says. “Must definitely be for people with too much bloody time on their hands. Funny to suddenly be one of those people, don’t you think? Listen to this, ‘occupation frequently treating the back’. Now that’s bookbinder, innit?” He snatches a pencil from the table and fills in the letters. “And this one, right, this is something for you, ‘a horse’s gait’ six letters. See that-“ he shoves the paper in front of Tommy and finally, Tommy blinks, looking down. “Why don’t you give that some thought, eh?”

He leans against the armrest and puts the paper down on top of the table in front of them both, arguably getting into Tommy’s space, and starts reasoning out loud whether a flightless bird is an ostrich or a penguin. “Or it could be a chicken I suppose…”

A few words later, Tommy has shifted in his seat to lean towards his armchair, elbow settled on his armrest. Arguably, this is far too close for comfort, but fuck it, Tommy has finally stopped rocking back and forth, Alfie just values the peace and quiet, doesn’t he? Can hardly be blamed for wanting to keep it.

He does the entire crossword with continuous monologue. By the end, Tommy still hasn’t said a word, but at least he’s stopped shaking. And by the final word, the familiar bony fingers are back clutching Alfie’s shirtsleeve, and the chess piece lies forgotten in his lap.

Small comforts.

….

“Out of the question, Sir” Esther says. Out of the question.What has he done for his own staff to believe themselves to have any right to use a tone like that? And she looks at him, scandalized. As if he’d asked her to fucking… smother Tommy with a pillow, and not simply take over the duty of bedtime storyteller. He just needs some space is all. It’s a reasonable fucking request. Been an exhausting day, trying to keep Tommy off the fucking ledge by providing endless hours of distraction by any means he can. Namely solving the crossword of every single old newspaper in the house when reading proved to be insufficient.

So, yeah, it’s been a fucking trying day and he’s all around just very tired and need some bloody space. But Esther is a fucking brick wall.

“I do apologize, Sir, but if we’ve finally found one thing that makes him feel safe enough to fall asleep, then we’re sticking to it,” she says and puts her hands on her hips.

“Oh, he’ll be fuckinfinewith you reading. He bloody loves you. Always follows you around the house like a lost puppy-“

“He needs the routine, Sir,” Esther says, sharpness creeping into her tone. “I’m not taking that away from him.”

And that’s the end of it. Because he knows, of course, that she’s right.

Tommy comes out of the bathroom just as Alfie walks through the bedroom door, hair wet and cheeks rosy underneath the stubble. Esther has equipped him with Alfie’s pyjamas -rarely worn as he regularly just sleeps in his pants because he runs fucking hot and that’s what blankets are for, and Alfie would’ve smiled at the sight if he’d been in a better mood. The lack of bulk over his shoulders makes the already slightly too long sleeves fall over his hands, and you’d think he’d tire of seeing Tommy in various pieces of too large clothing, but no.

And it does tug at his heartstrings, he can’t fucking help it. He can, however, deny it to his dying breath.

Tommy looks warily at him as he climbs into bed and hides under the covers, that blanket of his piled on top of the others and pulled up to his nose as usual.

“Well, I figured we’d take a break with Wuthering Heights tonight -very much a downgrade from Emma, if you ask me- and try something different,” Alfie says and plops down onto his side of the bed.

Tommy turns on his side and curls up under the covers, watching him almost expectantly.

He has to resist the instinct to pet his hair, which is an odd one. He taps the cover on the book instead.

“This, see, this is Sherlock Holmes. Ever read it? No, I suppose not. But you might like it. Mysteries camaraderie and light hearted fun.”

Alfie shoves a pillow in behind his back, sets his glasses on his nose and starts reading. This time, Tommy seems to be listening.

Only two chapters in, he falls asleep. By some grace of God. And even though Alfie’s longed for some alone time all day, now when he actually has the chance at some, he finds himself lingering, The mattress is soft underneath him and the sound of Tommy’s slow, even breaths pulls him into a sleepy daze. He blinks, eyelids heavy. Tommy’s hair has fallen down over his face. It’s quite long, that part on top of his head, curling a bit at the ends. Alfie would like to keep him like this. Peaceful. Safe. Far away from all the things that plague him when he’s awake. In his dazed state, thoughts like those are harder to keep at bay, they just float through his mind. Don’t have to mean anything, of course, they’re just strange things that occur to him for one reason or another. Like the thought of jumping off a high bridge simply because you pass over it. The thought of reaching out to smooth back those dark curls from Tommy’s forehead…

Tommy sleeps with his hands tucked under his chin. And all curled up, the way he likes to sit.

One’s allowed to have strange thoughts. Lord knows he’s had his fair share.

It doesn’t have to mean anything.

….

Alfie wakes up at the sound of a heart wrenching whine. Neck stiff and eyes gravely, he blinks and tries to kick his muddled brain into gear. The sound feels as out of place as the heat from the body that’s curled up right next to him, until he realises he’s not in his own bed and that it’s Tommy lying there, trembling and making those godawful noises. Alfie shakes him roughly.

“Come on, Tommy, quit that.”

Tommy doesn’t, no instead his entire body convulses in a spasm and he starts to scream. These hoarse, absolutely fucking terrible sounds.

Alfie hits him. Hard. But he shouldn’t have done that because Tommy’s eyes snap open and he bolts upright in the bed, still screaming, and scrambles backwards on the bed. Alfie just barely manages to latch onto his wrists before he falls onto the floor and pulls him back onto the mattress. Pins his wrists against his chest and squeezes them hard.

“Fucking hell, Tommy, it’s just a fucking dream!” But Tommy just keeps screaming and squirming and his eyes fill with tears and the screams break into sobs.

“Don’t let them take me I promise, promise I’ll be good, I’ll be good don’t- don’t let them-”

Alfie grips hard enough to bruise but it does little to help, instead Tommy just chokes on his own frantic breaths and looks so fucking afraid that he begins to fear his heart will actually burst in his chest and Alfie would give just about anything to make it stop.

He releases his wrists and falls down onto the mattress when Tommy scrambles out from under him towards the edge, only just managing to wrap his arms around him instead. One tightly around that far too skinny waist and one around the back of his neck and then he crushes him against his chest and just holds on.

“ ‘s alright, Tommy, ‘s alright,” he whispers, even as Tommy continues screaming with what little voice he has left. “ ‘s all fine, you hear me? All fucking fine. ‘s always worst at night, innit? Yeah. Nights are shit, I know-“

Tommy squirms weakly. Sobs. Alfie keeps holding him.

“But the thing is, they end, don’t they? Yeah. Sun comes up and it turns out it was just the dark playing a trick on ya’.”

Tommy’s breaths come in hot puffs against his chest, and his heart seems to hammer so hard it vibrates into Alfie’s bones. But there comes a moment when instead of fighting, those arms wrap around his back and clings tightly to him, fingers clenching around the fabric of the waistcoat he’s still wearing. And Tommy buries his face deeper in his chest, presses it hard, hard against it and sobs-

Alfie lets him go. Calm enough now, isn’t he? But Tommy in turn refuses.

“Please, please stay, stay you’re never here- please don’t leave-“

As if by their own volition, his arms find their place around Tommy again and he hushes him, resting his chin on the top of his head.

“Who’s leaving, eh, Tommy?”

“Everyone,” Tommy sobs, a hiccup cutting off his harsh breaths. “Everyone leaves-“

He’s not awake. Not really, because he never says things like this when he is, as if sleep and the nightmares unlocks something in his head. Alfie holds him and rocks him back and forth as if comforting a small child. For want of better solutions.

“Well, not sure if I’m good enough but… I’m here, alright?” he whispers and runs his fingers through dark locks of hair. It’s a strange instinct but Tommy… Tommy needs it and he’s willing to try anything at this point. Only a fool would turn down perfectly viable options simply due to stupid principles. And Tommy continues whimpering and breathing harshly against his chest and he’s shaking so fucking hard. But he’s stopped screaming at least.

“ ‘s alright, eh, Tommy,” Alfie mutters. “I know things’ve been… they’ve been bad, alright. Don’t know in what way, granted. Jus’ that they have, eh? But here in Margate even bad men like us are allowed to rest. Hear that? No one’s guarding the gates with some long list of all your past misdeeds, no, here you can just come as you bloody well are. And you can just… rest. Easier said than done for someone like you I reckon. But you’re allowed to, see? And that’s the huge difference.”

Slowly, the shaking subsides. Tommy’s breathing calms and the sobs die down to whimpers. But Alfie doesn’t let him go. He definitely should. But how can he, when Tommy holds onto him as if it’s the only thing keeping him from drowning?

So he keeps holding him.

…

The pale, unforgiving morning light pierces through the curtain and through his eyelids. Alfie squeezes them tighter together, trying to shut it out to no avail. Head full of wet cotton and every joint stiff, it takes a while before he can fully register his surroundings. There’s an unmistakable shape of a small body is pressed up against him and soft hair is tickling his face. He opens his eyes just a sliver, squinting in the grey light. In his dazed state it takes a while before he can puzzle together all the pieces. Because it’s a quite bizarre feeling, waking up with Tommy Shelby in your arms.

His first instinct is to push him out of the bed. Which he just barely resists through some miracle. Fuck, fuck,this is all around incredibly bad. But he forces himself to just stay right there and figure out what to do.

He glances down at the figure huddled in his arms. Can’t see much except the dark chock of hair and the glimpse of a pale cheek. Long, dark lashes. And he’s still asleep. In the bed.

Yeah, however bad of a decision this was, something good seems to have come of it. Alfie did this. He pulled Tommy out of the blackness he was drowning in and now he’s here, in his arms, finally calm. And yeah, Alfie may be a bad man with urges to constantly pick him apart, pry and see how far he can push him but this? This is… better.

Tommy shifts a tiny bit and lets out a soft little sound.

As carefully as he possibly can as to not wake him, Alfie pulls the arm out from under his head and gets off the bed before Tommy can wake and turn this into even more of an awkward situation.

…

A bit later, they’re sitting across from each other by the breakfast table: Alfie with his nose buried in a paper and Tommy picking at his breakfast. Thankfully, if he remembers the events of last night, he shows no signs of it.

Well, Alfie thinks he might be looking at him in a strange way, but that could be in his head of course. So he just focuses on the paper and leaves Tommy alone to peck at his apple slice like a fussy bird.

And if Esther noticed that Tommy stayed the entire night in his bed, she doesn’t say anything either. However Alfie is absolutely sure she’s giving him looks.

Which he chooses to ignore too.

….

That night, Alfie opts for the chair next to Tommy’s bed when he sits down to read the mandatory bedtime story, no matter how uncomfortable it is. And when Tommy starts dozing off (he can always tell -he starts blinking in an attempt to keep his eyes open, and curls up tighter under the duvet. Pulls the blanket up all the way to his nose) he puts the book down and resists the urge to groan when he gets out of the chair. Doesn’t allow himself to linger today. The floorboards creak under his feet as he leaves the room, so he barely hears the quiet voice.

“Stay.”

He pauses and looks towards the bed, where Tommy has turned around to face him, the light from the bedside lamp catching in his eyes.

“Please,” he whispers.

He shouldn’t. He really, reallyfucking shouldn’t, all logic tells him no. And yet, a moment later, he’s sat down on the bed next to Tommy, shoving a pillow in behind his head.

“It‘s gonna have to be here, then,” he mutters. “Because that bloody chair is absolutely killing my back.”

Letting out a quiet sigh, Tommy closes his eyes. He thinks of picking the book back up but he’s left it on the dresser next to the door and moving from the bed is out of the question. So he just sits there. Tommy is curled up on his side, and his eyes catch on his scar. Can’t help himself.

“Why did you do that to yourself?” he asks

Tommy’s eyes twitch, but he doesn’t open them.

“Did it all become too much at last?”

Still no answer, of course. Why should he expect one? Why is he even bothering asking? Well, because Ollie’s failed miserably so far when it comes to digging out any information about the situation, and it’s hard for a dead man to have too much of a hand in the matter. Which leaves Tommy as the only source of information on what exactly happened between the botched assassination attempt and him showing up on Alfie’s steps.

Which makes it highly unlikely he’ll ever find out.

“See, I’ve got a theory, right, and do stop me if you disagree,” Alfie begins quietly. “You got this idea don’t you, that you answer to no one. Not God. Not even yourself. But that’s not true, innit? See you tell yourself that, and you act as if it’s true, when in fact it’s a bloody lie. And I think you finally stopped for one moment too long and realised that you do in fact fucking answer to yourself. That maybe you even…care. And you couldn’t carry that weight.”

Tommy flinches at the words, as if they physically hurt. And Alfie wants to draw all the pain out, wants to open his head up and piece together what’s left of his brain, take away all the bad parts and somehow help him and it’s utterly fucking terrifying.

“But I suppose you’re as dead as me now. And the thing when you’re dead is that all your past sins are absolved. So perhaps you could put down that heavy rock you’re dragging around.”

Tommy shakes his head.

“No?”

“Nothing can do that.”

“Is that right? Eh, Tommy? You think you’ve done things so terrible that not even death would be payment enough?”

Tommy stays quiet.

“Because as far as I can see, you’ve certainly suffered enough for it already,” he mutters. “Sure, that may not be how it fucking works what with… doing penance and asking forgiveness from the people you’ve hurt and fucking what not, but that’s how works for people like you and me innit? Think I walk around here, wallowing in guilt every day?” Across from the bed, the embers glimmer in the fireplace. Alfie gazes at them. “Nah, see I’ve made my peace with the fact that I’ve done plenty of ungodly things in my day. However, by my death and resurrection I have- well, I reckon there’s no point in dwelling on them. What good does that do?”

Tommy has begun running his fingers along his scar, and he’s been too lost in his own mind to notice.

“I just wanted it to stop,” he whispers.

Alfie hums.

“And did it stop?”

Tommy curls himself up tighter, tensing. His fingers curl, and this time Alfie catches onto the signs before it’s too late and moves Tommy’s hand from his scar and instead cradles his head with his own hand. He presses his palm against the scar and holds it there. Just lets it rest on Tommy’s head, heavy and sure. Tommy settles, paralyzed, the way rabbits become when you turn them on their back. And here, in the dark, it’s easier to see clearly somehow. Suddenly so fucking simple. Tommy just wants to be close.

The scar feels jagged underneath Alfie’s palm. Must’ve been fucking painful. Then again, supposedly ripping a bullet halfway through your skull must be a painful experience regardless of the scarring afterwards.

He imagines that the heat from his palm would seep in between those jagged edges and somehow mend all the broken bits in Tommy’s head. Or maybe he could just crack it open and pick them out? Make Tommy go back to that arrogant little bastard that waltzed into Alfie’s bakery like he owned the place and looked at him with those big blue eyes across the desk, mind moving quicker than a train engine on fire, and fucking… batting those long eyelashes at him.

Those eyelashes rest against his pale cheeks now, just as long and dark. Even if that engine seems to have completely burnt out.

“Silly boy, why did you have to go and do this to yourself, eh?” he whispers even though Tommy isn’t a boy anymore. “Wasn’t it enough that you let that fuckin’ priest bash your head into little pieces? Hm? Head like yours, you should be careful with.”

Tommy just shifts a bit closer, until Alfie can feel his breath against his collarbone. He should move away, right? Get out of this bed, leave the light on and the door ajar and go to his own room. That’d be the right and proper thing to do.

But Tommy just wants to be close.

And it’s been so fucking long since anyone wanted to be close to him. Since someone needed him like this. It’s not really something he’s thought about right until this moment.

And so, he stays.

#alfie x tommy #Tommy Shelby #Alfie Solomons #peaky blinders fanfiction #TW: suicidal ideation

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cuthian · 4 years ago

Text

Dancing in the Rain Chapter Five

Hi again guys!

Thanks for sticking around so far :) I imagine this is the chapter everyone has been waiting for.

Please, read the tags again before reading this and the next chapter. Please feel free to DM me about any concerns you have!

As always, much thanks to @juuls, who has helped me make this entire series a reality!

Lots of love, Annaelle

Chapter Five

UNKNOWN KIDNAPPERS LIVESTREAM THREATS TO REBECCA BARNES

Just a little before midnight today, several social media platforms and news channels picked up on an online video feed that went live with footage of Rebecca Barnes – former U.S. Army Captain, former ambassador to Asgard and S.H.I.E.L.D. liaison to the Avengers – tied to a wooden chair in a non-descript room, clearly beaten and roughed up as several unknown men taunted her and the viewers.

The video ends abruptly after three minutes and forty-seven seconds when a commotion behind the camera leads to said camera being knocked over before the feed shuts down after what seems to be a gun is fired.

The kidnappers seem under the impression that the Avengers were also watching the footage and uttered a threat specifically addressed to Captain America in the name of a Nazi-cult Captain America fought and died to stop during the Second World War, named Hydra.

[…] Barnes attended a charity gala with close friend Captain Steve Rogers earlier tonight. It is currently unknown how and where Barnes was taken. All we know at this time is that around ten p.m. a sudden, unannounced thunderstorm hit New York city that intensified abruptly during the broadcast and has yet to let up. […] weather experts have no other explanation for the storm than Thor’s potential and likely influence—not without considerable provocation.

[…] no official statements from the Avengers or S.H.I.E.L.D. yet, although many of the Avengers’ and Barnes’ fans have already picked up on the footage and are running through it with a fine-tooth comb and now have started launching large-scale search parties. […] several independent sources have also picked up the footage and are calling into question the authenticity of the video.

—P. Adams, “Rebecca Barnes Kidnapped by Hydra?”, Daily News Online, 3 April 2016

----------

Avengers Tower, New York, Manhattan, New York State, U.S.A.

12:14 a.m., 3 April 2016

Tony

While Steve was off trying to find the nearest uniform to squeeze himself into, the Widow sidled up to him and handed him a flash drive. He eyed her before frowning at the flash drive in distaste. “I don’t like being handed things,” he said reflexively, but he didn’t set it down.

If she made a point of giving it to him, there was a good reason.

“Look at what’s on there,” she said. “I haven’t told Steve. I don’t think we should until we’ve got Becca, at least. He can’t take much more, I don’t think.”

Tony shot a glance at the hallway, and J.A.R.V.I.S. chimed, “Captain Rogers is currently in the team locker room, changing into his suit and retrieving his shield,” before he could even ask.

God, he loved J.A.R.V.I.S.

Tony slotted the drive into the nearest USB port and blinked at the onslaught of files that popped open as soon as his computer recognized the drive and accessed it. There were dozens of documents, pictures and graphs, and the more he read, the sicker Tony felt.

Phrases like, “destabilized mental health” and “suicidal ideation encouraged” stood out to him, and he jerked away from the screen as though it had physically hurt him, turning back to Natasha incredulously.

“What is this?” he demanded shakily.

“I don’t know,” Natasha admitted, and Tony was unnerved to see she looked scared. “Steve never—he never told me about any of this, I don’t think he told Becca either. But if this is real…” She shook her head and leaned her hip against the table. “They either have someone who looks a hell of a lot like him, or they have Bucky Barnes himself. And they used him against Steve.”

Tony blinked.

“Bucky Barnes died,” he said stiffly. “Seventy years ago.”

“Yeah,” Nat said softly. “That’s what we thought about Steve too.”

Tony opened his mouth to… to say something, anything, because this was horrifying, but then Cap walked back in and Tony hastily collapsed the screen, because Natasha was right.

Cap wouldn’t take this well.

He’d nearly flipped out just by the mere mention of Bucky Barnes’ name. Tony had no idea how he’d respond to the possibility that Barnes was actually still out there. Let alone what he’d been up to.

“You ready?” Cap asked Natasha, who uncrossed her arms and nodded at him.

“Yeah, let’s go,” she said, striding over to him and leading him out of the room.

As soon as they were gone, Tony opened the screen again. “Fuck,” he sighed. “Fuck.”

------------

Brooklyn, New York State, United States of America

12:23 a.m., 3 April 2016

Loki

As always when Thor unleashed the thunder, the air reeked of burnt ozone. He waded through the rain-soaked streets of New York, each clap of thunder so loud it reverberated into his very bones. He knew the storm that raged was Thor’s doing—how could it be anything but, when the air was saturated with so much seiðr that he could very nearly taste it.

There had always been an intrinsic quality to Thor’s seiðr that Loki would recognize anywhere, even amidst the chaos of the most turbulent battle.

He could not deny, even to himself, that its familiar feel was… comforting, in a sense.

He had spent the past five years in isolation, hidden away from the mortal world in one of the few sacred places that was left on Midgard—a small island, hidden from mortal eyes, off the coast of Norway near Älesund. The land was still infused with seiðr, its roots tucked into deep, primal wells of power that Loki had not yet been able to unveil—he had, however, used said power to hide himself from Heimdall’s all-seeing eye.

He’d assumed that, as long as he refrained from using his own seiðr for more than the menial, his presence would be entirely undetectable underneath the land’s stifling presence.

Considering he had not yet been dragged from his little hiding place by Einherjar, he felt it rather safe to assume his little plot had worked.

He had spent his time there trying to learn more about the origins of the universe and the stones that he knew Thanos sought and was willing to commit genocide for. He had not learned as much as he would’ve liked, but his knowledge on the subject was, he thought, likely more extensive than most other scholars except Thanos himself.

It would, hopefully, serve him well.

Not, of course, that his knowledge of infinity stones was going to do him much good now.

He surveyed the scene before him with some disdain and refrained from shaking his head. While he may be a god of mischief and chaos, he did so dislike pointless violence and fruitless chaos. He had been summoned here, unable to deny its insistent call, and had transported into what appeared to be a small underground chamber with bodies littered across the floor, bleeding everywhere—he glanced disdainfully at the puddle of blood beneath the closest man that inched closer to his shoes—and noise.

There were two men left, fighting hand to hand with a speed that might have impressed him if he had not been forcibly removed from the comfort of his home, where he had been taking a break from his endless research to watch a few episodes of a wonderfully bloodthirsty, morally ambiguous television show called Game of Thrones.

It really was quite inconvenient, being called here just as he’d been rewatching the previous season to prepare for the new episodes in a few weeks.

“Loki.”

He glanced around until he found the source of the voice that called to him, and barely repressed a sigh. He should have known, in hindsight, that the only living being with enough sway over him was his brother-betrothed’s favorite little mortal.

He did owe her a life debt, after all.

He had also not been quite so far into isolation that he had not heard of his brother’s scandalous and lengthy affair with the mortal. It’d been easy to pretend, when he had been alone, that it did not bother him so much that Thor had been able to move on quite so easily.

It was much harder, he found, to pretend when he was standing before her and he could see the evidence of her affair with his brother-betrothed with his own eyes. She lay collapsed against a far wall, a small trickle of blood running down from the corner of her mouth to her chin, one cheek bruised rather heavily, both hands cradled protectively around her swollen belly.

There was a rather lengthy, deep wound on her upper thigh that had been crudely wrapped.

Loki had, of course, known that his brother-betrothed had done the impossible and impregnated the twit.

The pregnancy announcement had made international newspapers, and while Loki had been rather shocked—and quietly dismayed—to hear of it, he had also been entirely unsurprised at the same time.

Thor was a fertility god, after all.

If anyone would be capable of procreating with someone they should not be able to procreate with, it would be Thor.

Of course, knowing was different than seeing.

“Rebecca,” he said smoothly, strolling towards her with an ease he did not feel. The two men that were still fighting did not seem to see him, and that suited him fine—he was here for her, after all.

“Help us,” she panted, looking up at him desperately. “Get us out of here.”

The request was, as he expected, dreadfully vague.

“Are you seriously injured?” he asked, eyeing her contemplatively.

“Only a little,” she said shakily, rubbing her hand over her stomach nervously. “I don’t think—he hit me and kicked me out of the chair, I twisted my ankle, and they kicked my legs out from under me when they took me, cut out the tracker in my thigh and smashed it… My knee—it hurts, but—the baby… it’s not moving so much, but I don’t think anything’s wrong. I don’t know. I’d know, right?”

He nodded lightly, although he was altogether unsure if that were true, and bent down to set his brother-betrothed’s intended on her feet. She wavered briefly, unsteady as a newborn fawn, before grabbing hold of his arm and steadying herself.

“Very well,” he said. “I presume we are to go without arousing suspicion. Shall I dispose of those as well?” He nodded towards the two men that were still fighting, although he noted that one seemed to be tiring rapidly.

He supposed that would make things a lot easier for him.

“No!” she shouted abruptly, wavering on her feet again, startling both him and the two men. Both men turned, eyes widening when they saw him.

“What the fuck?” the shorthaired, armored man shouted, but before Loki could act, the other man, lanky and longhaired, his eyes dark and filled with shadows, snatched a weapon from one of the dead men and fired a volley of shots towards Loki—all meticulously aimed, but dodged easily nonetheless—before he turned to the man beside him and hit him square in the face with his left, metal arm.

The armored man crumpled into a heap on the floor.

Loki looked the man with the metal arm warily up and down, but he did not move against him again. “Uncle Bucky,” Rebecca said from beside him, and it took him a moment to realize she was talking to the longhaired soldier. “Bucky, it’s okay, he’s going to help us.”

“What the hell is a Bucky?” Loki uttered under his breath, but both humans ignored him.

“He’s coming too,” Rebecca told him sternly, transferring her ironclad grip to the sallow-skinned soldier’s arm, as though Loki was in any position to refuse her. He sighed again but eyed the other man curiously—there was something… oddly familiar about him, although he was certain he had never met him before.

“Well then,” he nodded, dismissing the thought. “I haven’t all day.”

He held out a hand at her and wiggled his fingers insistently.

Rebecca swallowed thickly, blinking slowly at him as she rubbed the side of her belly before she finally reached out and placed her hand in his, keeping a firm grasp on the other man’s arm. “Take us to the Tower,” she said, biting her lip lightly. “Please. I need—we need to go back to the others.”

To Thor.

She did not say his brother-betrothed’s name, but she did not need to. Thor hung heavily between them without his name needing to be spoken aloud anyway.

Loki nodded silently.

Perhaps it was long since time for him to reveal himself to Thor and to also trust that Thor would protect him from Odin. He lowered his gaze to Thor’s mortal’s swollen belly and swallowed. Perhaps it was time to face the consequences of the choices he had made.

“To the Tower,” he repeated, curling his fingers over hers. “Hold on tightly. And close your eyes.”

------------

12:34 a.m.

Tony

Thor, his friends, Steve, Natasha and the twins were still searching the city block by block, able to cover a lot of ground with Pietro’s superspeed and Thor’s ability to fly. Clint still sat ensconced, himself, in a far corner with three laptops, a tablet and a phone and had declared he was more useful contacting everyone he knew to see if there was anyone who’d heard anything.

He only looked away from his screen to glare balefully at his apparently-not-so-dead husband, who had set up operations with Fury on Tony’s conference table. Natasha had eventually gone with Cap to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid—which was probably for the best—and Bruce was quietly going through several of the files Natasha had collected earlier.

Pepper had been here for a little bit earlier, but Tony had managed to convince her to go back to bed. At thirty-two weeks pregnant, she was uncomfortable all the time, and Tony knew their doctors had specifically told her to take it easy and to avoid very stressful situations.

He had finally convinced her to go back to bed by promising to keep her in the loop on everything, and to let her call in her various contacts to see if she could find out anything more.

He was pretty sure she was talking to Rhodey now—who was flying back from his conference in Germany immediately—and he felt a little better about leaving her while she was talking to their boyfriend. Rhodey would be able to keep her calm while Tony and the others combed through the city to find Becca.

“If this is Hydra,” Bruce said quietly from his corner, looking rather green around the edges, “it’s not going to be easy to figure out what’s going on. These records go up to the highest level of the government—they go up to the World Security Council.”

“Well, when have we ever done things the easy way?” Tony said, mildly hysterical, wringing his hands together. “J.A.R.V.I.S., are you done yet?”

“No, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. intoned politely. “But you do have an incoming call from Peggy Carter.”

Tony frowned. “Aunt Peg? Put her through.”

He could do with the distraction, and he felt a little bad that he hadn’t even thought to tell Aunt Peggy and Aunt Becky what was going on yet. “Aunt Peg,” he said jovially when J.A.R.V.I.S. sounded an upbeat little beep to signal he’d connected them. “Good that you called, I’ve got—”

“Stark!” someone who was very much not Aunt Peggy barked. “It’s Sharon! Aunt Peg told me what happened—we saw the video online—you gotta—is Brock with you?”

Tony frowned. “Shar,” he said slowly. “No… I thought you were sick? Brock said you w—”

“He knocked me out and locked me in the basement,” Sharon interrupted, and Tony’s jaw dropped.

“He—what?”

“Tony, I don’t have time,” Sharon spat impatiently. “We’ll be there in ten minutes. It’s Brock—this is no fucking coincidence—track his fucking phone, it’s gotta be him.”

“Are you sure?” Clint blurted, having dropped his tablet to his lap, staring at Tony with wide eyes.

“Do you think I’d be accusing my fiancé if I wasn’t fucking sure, Barton?” Sharon barked irritably. “Go track his fucking phone, I’ll be there in five.”

She hung up.

The silence in the conference room was deafening, and everyone stared at each other for a long, stunned moment before Tony jumped into action. “J.A.R.V.I.S., notify Thor and Rogers, get them back here ASAP, and track Brock Rumlow’s phone and hack into it. I wanna know everything, where he is, how long he’s been there, what porn he last Googled—just get into his phone and find everything.”

“Yes sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. said.

Fury cleared his throat and said, “Rumlow should be on a two-week mission with STRIKE. His personal phone will likely ping in his locker at HQ.”

“Then get me access to his work phone,” Tony said impatiently. “You heard Sharon—it’s probably—”

“Pardon the interruption,” J.A.R.V.I.S. cut in. “There is a mild disturbance in the lobby. I suggest your presence right away, sir. As well as Clint and Director Fury.”

Tony blinked. “What? What do you mean a disturbance?”

“It appears…” J.A.R.V.I.S. said slowly, “…a rift opened up, and Becca Barnes, Loki and an unknown third man have stepped out.”

-----------

12:36 a.m.

After the tensest elevator ride ever, the doors opened up into the lobby.

There was a tight ring of security guards surrounding their unexpected guests, and Tony wondered if any of what he was seeing was real. Loki was dead and Becca had been kidnapped less than two hours ago—neither of them should be standing in his lobby like nothing had happened.

Well… Becca did look paler than he had seen her in years—possibly even paler than she had been when he had blown through the metal door in the dank little prison cell they’d kept her in in Iraq.

She’d been hit, clearly, with dried blood running from the corner of her mouth down to her chin, and dark bruises were forming on one side of her face. She was leaning rather heavily on the dark-haired man clad in black under-armor, fingers white-knuckling in the black fabric, and she looked like she was about to throw up. There was a crude, bloodstained bandage around her upper thigh and Tony felt nauseated—they’d cut the tracker out?!

Said dark-haired man had a gun pointed at one of the nearest security guards with one—was that metal?—arm, the other around Becca’s waist, keeping her upright.

Loki—what the actual fuck—looked rather perturbed and was frowning at her.

“You said you felt fine when we left,” Loki said accusingly.

Well. Tony blinked and glanced to Clint, who stood to his left. He certainly sounded like Loki—but then again, Loki had been dead for five years.

“I’m just nauseated,” Becca said, wavering where she stood. “My leg hurts.”

“Becca,” Tony hissed impatiently, worriedly, raising his gauntlet to aim at the man with the gun. “Let one of the guys help you and get away from them.”

“No,” Becca refused immediately, tightening her grip on the dark-haired man’s shoulder and drawing a highly reluctant Loki closer by his hand. “He saved my life, Tony. Both of them. They’re on my side.”

Tony opened his mouth to protest—why, why did the people in his life have no sense self-preservation whatsoever—when the doors behind the trio burst open and Cap, Thor and Nat burst inside, stopping short as soon as they spotted Loki, Becca and Rambo.

Said trio turned slowly to face the new arrivals, and the metal-armed man stiffened as his eyes went wide beneath the poor excuse of eyeliner, and even Loki seemed at a loss for words. Thor looked like he was about to burst—whether into tears or laughter was unclear, and Cap looked like he’d been punched in the face.

Tony moved slowly around the group, making sure he was positioned a little in front of Rogers, Thor and Romanoff and facing Becca and her new strays. The metal-armed guy looked at Rogers in a way Tony couldn’t quite decipher though, but that looked like Rogers was both the cause and solution to every single one of Terminator’s problems, and...

Yeah, Tony commiserated with a shrug. That probably sounded right.

“Steve,” the man growled, though it looked like it hurt to speak at all, and Tony was entirely taken aback by the sound of the shield falling to the tiled floor behind him.

Cap let a sound not unlike a fucking whimper fall from his lips, and choked, “Bucky?!” and...

Oh. Oh. Shit.

Tony looked again, and yeah, now that it was out there, he definitely saw the resemblance. Barnes’ face scrunched up when Steve spoke, shaking his head jerkily as he glared at Steve.

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

Oh. Well... Tony grimaced at Becca.

That wasn’t good.

——————

Start from the beginning:

In Hell We Stand By You:

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

Never Feel Alone:

(1) (2)

Decisions: (1)

Dancing with a Limp:

(1) (2)

Chances:

(1)

Starting Over:

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

Dancing in the Rain:

(1) (2) (3) (4)

Or read it HERE on AO3 :D Find the next chapter HERE on Tumblr in two weeks :)

#ihwsby sequel #dancing in the rain #ditr #stucky #thor #steve #bucky #becca barnes #avengers family #my writing #lisa writes

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hiddenscorpioopposition · 6 years ago

Text

Astro 101

Evaluating Birth Charts...

For my First chart example I decided to focus on Kurt Cobain. Yes, his chart comes up lot in zodiac circles but I chose him because 1. He shares my sun sign. 2. He is one of the most fascinating celebrities I know of, and know more about than any other.

I do not claim to be a Cobain genius. I just find him to be a interesting study. And due to his tragic death you might say there is a limited yet vast amount of what you can learn about his life as well as a open interpretation into his death.

Cobain's chart

Some Notes

Kite configuration with Pluto and Uranus as the apex.

A grand Water Trine.

Third quadrant emphasis

Sun and mars are in the first decan of one degree

Moon is in its ruler in the critical degree.

Chart ruler is Mercury. Mercury is detriment but in its natural ruling house.

There is a mutual reception between mercury and Pluto.

Pluto and Uranus are conjunct the Ascendant.

6th and 7th are the most active houses.

Mars is in the 2nd, sun in 6th, Jupiter in 11th.

7th house stellium of chiron, venus, and Saturn.

Moon is in 10th.

Uranus is in 1st.

There is a fire and air void.

Sun and moon are unaspected

Sagittarius and Gemini are on the midhaven axis.

Key aspects

mercury conjunct venus and pluto

mercury opposite A.C., Pluto, uranus

Venus opposite Uranus pluto

Sun square neptune

mercury square jupiter

midhaven square mercury, Uranus, Pluto

sun trine mars

mercury trine neptune

venus trine jupiter

venus trine neptune

Conclusions

Kurt Cobain is a pisces sun virgo rising. Which is not always obvious in ones appearance but I think can be seen within him. At five foot nine kurt is often depicted as short with a slouch or rather spineless stance such as the fish. And the iconic "grunge" style Kurt is often depicted wearing is nothing other than turning a conservative virgo look and flipping it on its side. The Uranus rising influence or hard chart opposition perhaps. With Uranus on his first house ruling his 6th house. He was very self aware. Rebellion suited him. He may have felt outlasted at an early age.

In Cobain's early years his parents were divorced. His father remarried and his mother troubled. Kurt spent some of his teen years being fostered or moving place to place. In the birth chart it has been noted that the sun and moon or mother and father show no relation. Instead sagittarius marks his fourth house. Which might explain the nomad tendencies and occasional religious upbringing. In favor of Kurt's father the moon lies in the 10th house and there is a positive aspect between sun and mars.

With Mars in 2nd, Sun in 6th, and Jupiter in 11th. There is no surprise that Cobain became a world wide success. Sun and Mercury in 6th demonstrates a strong work ethic and focus on everyday affairs or goals. With Mars squaring Jupiter there is a natural ability to overcome obstacles to reach personal goals. Jupiter in eleventh knows what those goals are and Mars in 2nd won't stop working towards success. The second house ruler tells us he may of required his success through the relationships he had. Moon in 10th also puts is private life on public display.

The midhaven is in Gemini. Both the A.C. and M.C. ruler is shared by Mercury in its ruling house. Mercury co ruling with Pluto shows an equal influence of communication and power. The midhaven form only three squared major aspects. It squares Mercury, Uranus and Pluto. This adds to the controversy Kurt Cobain experienced thuroughout his life. The public eye may have viewed his progressive thinking (Uranus and Mercury) as transformative (pluto) his generation. He often felt misunderstood. Was forced into the role of being a voice of a generation. A role he didn't want.

We see a focal point opposition on his ascendant axis. The outer planets on his rising - how people view him - and his personal planets in his 7th. As a high pisces influenced individual Kurt is sensitive especially to those around him. It is within the pisces nature to lean towards escapist tatics under pressure, In his case heroin addiction. Kurt claimed abnormal stomach pain had drove him to his addiction. Uranus his 6th house ruler sitting on his ascendant could support either case. His 8th house mars in scorpio could also indicate his interests in delving into drug use and becoming fixated. Especially the semisquare to Uranus.

In the 7th house we find Chiron, Venus, and Saturn with Mercury conjunct. In other words Kurt spends a lot of his energy on relationships. He wants peace and balance with those around him. But because the two karmic astral bodies Saturn and Chiron are here conjunct venus this tells us Kurt had a lot of turmoil regarding his relationships with women. Saturn is here to teach us life lessons. In this case lessons in relationships and contracts. His marriage did not end well. And Chiron shows us where our personal wounds are. If we are lucky we can transmute these wounds and heal others. Chiron being conjunct Mercury could be why people found healing In his art, in his lyrics. The 7th house ruler Neptune might also suggest deception from his romantic life. Though he needed his partners to believe in him, and support him. The opposition here shows us how his relationships always had to juggle issues of Nonconformity/rebellion and power.

Kurt as we know really struggled with his public image and depression. Being a heavy water person, his chart had no grounding energy. He went with the tides of his emotions. Without fire energy he struggled to crawl himself out of depression. Without air he struggled to balance out his feelings with logic or reason. With earth the traditional grounding element being placed in non grounding planets had little help. Only his Mars and Neptune were in fixed signs (only his beliefs and his instincts/impulses remained ridged). With Mars ruling his house of death we might conclude it to be the planet describing his demise. Though the Mars placement had drive and focus it was constantly being challenged. This placement I imagine can make you feel hopeless when you work hard and something always in the way (there I said it). If you consider that, with a history of depression, and drug use, mars in a fixed placement, and the unpleasantness of Uranus going against the grain we might start to understand where the suicidal ideation came from. I don't wish to say that Kurt's death was 100% suicidal without an outside involvement, nor do I conclude a birth chart could provide us with such absolutes. Only saying we can understand the possibilities of his final days.

R.I.P. Kurt Cobain

#zodiac #astrology #astrology signs #pisces #birth chart reading #birth chart #kurt cobain #nirvana

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lavendermenaceart · 6 years ago

Text

Atlas Touch

Summary: Spencer never thought the universe held him in high favor. Trauma after trauma stacked on top of him as the years went by. He fears he’s reaching a dark place he’ll never recover from. 2,324 words.

Warnings: Angst, trauma, Knives, mentions of drug abuse, mentions of suicidal ideation and death, etc. It gets fluffy!

Pairing: ReaderxSpencer Reid

A/N: This was a request from @allmyawesomeness Enjoy! Here’s the song this is based off of

When will I feel this as vivid as it truly is

Spencer Reid remembered almost every second of his life in vivid images. He remembered every word he ever read, every face he’d ever seen, every motel and hotel he had been in. Spencer Reid remembered every kick, every punch, every second spent bound and tied. He remembered every moment even when he was high out of his mind on Dilaudid. He remembered every gun, knife, and any other weapons that had been pointed at him, used on him, or someone he loved.

Fall in love in a single touch

And fall apart when it hurts too much

He remembered the exact face the love of his life made as the bullet ripped through her brain. He remembered the tearful smile on her face, and the fear trying to hide in the depths of her eyes. He remembered trying not to recount exactly what happened to the body when the brain was damaged, shot clean through, as he fell to his knees. He remembered the blood that pooled around his feet and knees. It wasn’t even purely hers, as her killer had committed suicide with the same bullet.

Can’t we skip past near-death cliches where my heart restarts

As my life replays

He remembered being tied to a chair after being ambushed in a cornfield. He remembered the face of the man who had held him captive and gave Spencer peace through syringes filled with Dilaudid. He remembered dying, feeling like he was suspended in a warm pitch black abyss. He remembered being ripped through the abyss and back into life. He remembered the split second of anger. Please, let me go back.

All I want is to flip a switch before something breaks that cannot be fixed

He remembered the countless hours spent at JJ’s house when one of their team had died. He remembered sitting in his bathtub full of cold water, trying to keep himself from heading outside to try and find a new supply of Dilaudid or anything that would take the edge off, to find peace and slow his mind. He remembered the anger and betrayal when the team was finally told that Emily was alive and well. He remembered feeling an irreversible rift tear open between JJ and himself. The rift repaired itself slowly, as did the rift between all the members.

I know, I know the siren sound

Just before the walls come down

He remembered finding out his mother was only getting sicker with age. Soon she would no longer remember him and he wanted so badly to reverse it. He remembered feeling angry that he took this course in his life, instead of doing something with medical research. Maybe he could have found a cure for dementia and schizophrenia if he had. All he could do was research and look for solutions. Those solutions led him to a woman in Mexico that gave him medicine unapproved by the FDA that would help his mother.

Pains a well-intentioned weatherman

Predicting God as best he can

He remembered people bursting in and for a split second he thought it must be police or government agents but something wasn’t right. He remembered waking up next to the woman’s body, a gash in his hand and blood all over him. He remembered the months spent wasting in jail as his team scrambled to find the answers his mind couldn’t procure. All the restless nights, the death of his one friend, and the pain he caused when he poisoned the drug supply that ran through the prison. He remembered the beatings and the isolation. He remembered the joy he felt when his team had managed to clear his name and spring him from prison. He remembered the joy being sucked away when he had to go back to interrogate Cat Adams after she had kidnapped his mother.

The infuriating frustration of dealing with a narcissistic psychopath could never be topped. His team and himself got her back safely, though. Catherine had been manipulating a previous victim, pretending she had feelings for the younger girl so she would do her bidding. That broke the whole operation apart when Lindsey heard the Cat was pregnant.

But God I want to feel again

Rain or shine

I don’t feel a thing

Just some information upon my skin

When he was captured by Merva he felt vehement hope and faith in his team. Even when the knife was pressed deep into his throat. Something changed when he heard the gunshot that tore through Merva’s side. Spencer felt the jolt of shock and all the pressure of having another body pressed against his was relieved as the old man fell into the grass and dirt.

When that gunshot went off, he remembered every moment he had been shot, tied up, kidnapped, beaten, cut, high, and hurt. He saw Maeve’s steely gaze as she tried to be brave her death. He saw his mother’s open mouth, screaming “I hate you!” He felt the sting of her slaps on his cheek. He felt the ropes used to restrain him and the pinprick of a needle entering his skin. He felt relief that Garcia was going to be okay.

But he felt no relief to still be alive.

I miss the subtle aches when the weather changed

The barometric pressure we always blamed

All I want is to flip a switch

Before something breaks that cannot be fixed

After that case, something in Spencer broke. He felt a rising bitterness towards his job. For the remaining year, he stayed at the BAU, not having the guts to quit and his team not having the heart to fire him, he couldn’t apply himself as he usually would have. He cared people were hurting, but he felt that he was losing faith in the fact that what he did mattered. He was a cog in the machine, and as soon as they knew he was rusting they would replace him with a new one. He was nothing to anyone if he didn’t care and if he didn’t apply himself.

And Spencer Reid wanted that.

Invisible machinery, these moving parts inside of me

Well they’ve been shutting down for quite some time

Leaving only rust behind

Spencer Reid wanted to be hated. He wanted to feel the contention between him and his team. He wanted to force Prentiss’ hand so she would have to fire him. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. No matter how depressed and numb he got, he couldn’t manage to give up his life’s work on his own. When the time came, Emily look him in his eyes and told him, “I know what you’re doing.” and then more softly, “I’ll let you free”

I know, I know the siren sound

Just before the walls come down

His life, from that moment on, began a terrifying free fall. He got what he wanted, but he still wasn’t happy. Instead, he fell deep into a stagnant pool of heavy depression. He barely read, barely ate, very rarely went outside. He stopped taking calls, responding to texts and emails, and never answered the door. It wasn’t until his best friend, Derek Morgan, broke down his door with tears in his eyes and wrapped Spencer in a hug that knocked the air out of him, that Spencer accepted he truly had a problem.

Pains a well-intentioned weatherman

Predicting God as best he can

But God I want to feel again

Oh god, I want to feel again

After that day Spencer worked hard at his recovery. A week into his first therapy sessions he ran into you as you left your last session of the day.

“Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry. “ You huffed, reorganizing the pile of reference books and journals stacked in your arms.

“Oh, it’s no problem. Don’t worry.” The low raspy voice sounded familiar.

“Dr. Reid?” You looked up from your books, blinking in shock. You had seen him at many conventions and public speaking events. You were a fan of his work, both what he did with the BAU and his medical journals and papers.

“Uh, Yes. Have we met before?” He glanced from you to the door, shoving his hands in his pockets. You couldn’t tell if he didn’t like you for some reason or if he just wanted to leave.

“Oh, no. I’m just a fan of your work. I’ve read most of your medical journals and papers. It’s helped me a lot in understanding some of my clients.” You smiled, trying to appear more friendly, something you still needed to work on.

Your smile seemed to relax him, as he smiled back. “Thank you, that...means a lot to me. It’s not very often I meet uh, fans of my work.”

“Oh, I feel like that’s the case with a lot of people in our field.” You shrugged, a silence falling between the two of you as you both left the building side by side. You thought it was odd, but for some reason, it didn’t feel awkward. It was just...synchronistic. “I’ll see you soon?” You asked as you were ready to split from his side to go to your car.

Dr. Reid seemed shocked by this, stammering for a moment before nodding and saying “Yes, most likely. See you soon.”

And you went your separate ways until his next session. From then on, it became something of a habit. You met with him after his sessions and you both talked on your way out until one day you got the nerve to ask if he’d like to meet for dinner the next day.

“What, really?” Spencer was looking better, his face shaved and you noticed he was filling out his clothes more than he had when you first met him.

“Yeah, if you want to. I don’t know, I just thought...we were friends, you know?” You looked all around his face, just not in his eyes. You were too afraid, too scared to be let down.

“We….we are. We are friends.” You caught the crinkles in his eyes and realized he was smiling. You couldn’t help but grin, blushing in embarrassment. Your outburst of insecurity made you feel like a teenager again. “Yeah, I would love that, Y/N.”

You both went over the place and time, a nice Italian restaurant that was between where you both lived. It was warm with low lighting and the food was delicious. Spencer looked amazing and you both felt an unfamiliar warmth in your hearts as you looked over each other's outfits and the way your features were exaggerated in the warm candlelight. The conversation was an easy flow, Spencer throwing out his facts and you digging for more. You wanted to know more. You wanted to map all the pathways in his brain.

There were moments during the dinner where your eyes would meet his and maybe it was the candles, maybe it was the venue, but you felt bolts of lightning strike your nerves. A few times you wanted to jump in your chair. Meanwhile, Spencer was having trouble keeping his mouth under control. As he heated up in his suit, his eyes constantly locking and unlocking with yours across the table, he couldn't stop talking about the physiology and psychology of love

From then, it was all uphill. Spencer was making his recovery by your side. There hard days, but he was strong enough to get past him. He spilled most of his hardships to you, never going very in depth but stating basic facts. He went to prison because he was framed. His ex-was murdered in front of him. He was kidnapped and fed Dilaudid. He used to be an addict. He had been shot and kidnapped multiple times. He had gotten anthrax on a case. The trauma piled higher and higher and you stayed by his side through every breakdown and every insecurity.

He was there for you as much as you were for him. He danced with you when the mood struck you, drank coffee by your side every morning he was off from his new job as a professor and public speaker. He held your hand during the dinners with his old team, as the jokingly interrogated you over delicious pasta.

It was 3 years. 3 years exactly when you proposed. You were afraid Spencer would never ask, so you decided you would do it yourself. You went to his favorite bookstore and then his favorite coffee shop. You took him on a long ride, only stopping when you found a field and you could see the stars again. After you ate and a comfortable silence fell between the two of you, you brought out a dark purple velvet box with a simple golden band with a clear engraving on the inside.

“This is how galaxies collide.”

Down my arms, a thousand satellites suddenly discover signs of life

Your wedding attire contrasted with his. Black and white. Yin and yang. You could hear soft chatter from the small crowd around you, mostly a mixture between Spencer's friends and family and your own. His old team and new co-workers mingled nicely though there was an obvious difference between the two groups. One was weathered by endless years of trauma while one was tired from grading papers all night.

As you spun in slow circles, your cheek rested against Spencer's shoulder you could hear his heart beating wildly in his chest. You tilted your head back, meeting his eyes with yours. You felt that same jolt of energy you did 3 years ago. He was focused, but not on the dance or the crowd of people encircling them under the night sky and beautiful string lights.

“What are you thinking about?” You whispered softly, watching his vision clear as his eyes locked onto your face, lit warmly by the lights twinkling above the dancing pair.

“You. Always you.”

#fanfic #fanfiction #spencer reid #my reider #my fanfiction #writing #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds fanfiction #self insert #self insert fanfiction #spencer reidxreader #reader #cm #cm fanfic #cm fanfiction #reider

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aquarianlights · 6 years ago

Text

Life is great, guys. :) (It really does get better.)

So I just wanted to talk about this for a minute coz for those of you who don’t know, this blog isn’t like an aesthetic blog or whatever; it’s a personal blog. I’m usually flooding it with verbose text posts, vlogs, selfies and whatnot. I haven’t been able to do that since finally pursuing my passion of medicine because the field is all-consuming. But I’m back for like another week or so, kind of. Lol. I’m going to be writing up an update on what’s going on and why I disappeared for so long and all that because I’m doing some REALLY COOL STUFF! :D And I’m excited to share it with everyone! :) I really missed you guys and I missed my blog. I may not get that text post up tonight, but here’s this one. Lol.

I know I have said I beat my depression before, but even now as I have slipped back into a depressive state and even seriously had points where I considered suicide, life is still really great. I even had a night where I relapsed for the first time in 2 years and gave myself exactly 3 cuts and had pills laid out ready to OD and you know what? The decision to text my next door neighbour (who is turning into a good friend) to come over and chat instead of going any further with all of that was SUCH an easy decision to make.

You all know how impulsive I am. I’m on the extreme end of the borderline personality disorder spectrum. I’m as impulsive as they come. Even as depressed as I can get sometimes, overall, I’m still happy. And I want to illustrate how that can be so that everyone with depression can understand exactly HOW it gets better and what you have to look forward to in life.

There was a time when I was having a total breakdown on my closet floor. Like, panic attack and all. Couldn’t breathe, felt like I was legitimately going to die, had my phone on 911 with my thumb over dial because I really did feel like I was dying from the panic attack. As I laid there, sobbing and gasping for air, torn between “I wish I would just die” and “I should call 911 coz I feel like I’m dying”, my panic attack began to subside. As it did, I laid there sobbing unable to get up, unable to even move. But what was the very first thing my mind thought at that moment as my mind began to clear? Normally, I would think “God, I just want to die” or maybe thinking of ways to kill myself or ways to justify killing myself. But no. I didn’t. The very first thing I thought was “Wow, I’m so glad I’m alive. My life is the best it has ever been, it is so wonderful and I am so happy. I wouldn’t want to lose it.”

In that moment, after a horrible breakdown, all I could think about was how happy I was and how great my life was.

And even now, despite me being more depressed and suicidal than I have been in 2, maybe even 3 years now, I feel more motivated, driven, content, in control of my own destiny, powerful and like I really enjoy the life I’m waking up into than I ever have in my entire life. For once, I don’t mind waking up into *my* life. Sure, I would change it in a fucking heartbeat if I could. I think everyone has at least one thing about their life they would change. But I’m now one of those people that wakes up and feels motivated and excited to take on the day more often than not, instead of waking up with pain and this unbearable weight holding you down in bed not allowing you to even get up. I’m no longer that person that wakes up and just instantly bursts into tears and does everything in their power to go back to sleep. Those days are finally over for me... I dare say for good.

I don’t know what I did to deserve being happy. . . but I’ve worked so goddamn hard to get to this point. I’ve taken all the right steps over all these years and I guess it has all paid off. I’ve gone through a decade worth of finding the right combination of medications. I’ve finally found the right psychiatrist/psychologist team for med management and therapy. I’m exercising every day, I’m starting to do a bit of yoga, I’m trying to eat right and *trying* to learn to cook (even though it isn’t going well lol), I’m not starving myself anymore, I’m going to physical therapy once a week, I’m keeping myself busy, I’m exercising my mind constantly, I’m doing all the “homework” my therapist sends me home with every week...

After ALL the trial and error of sorting through therapist after therapist... I FINALLY found which “kind” of therapists work for me and which don’t so I can INSTANTLY tell from almost the very first session now if they are going to work for me or not. If I can’t tell, then by the end of the month, I’ll know for sure. I know all the coping mechanisms in the book and I now utilize every one that works for me. And when my therapists ask me what I need from them, I know exactly what to tell them.

I have worked SO. GODDAMN. HARD. ...and it has paid off. It has FINALLY paid off.

I Pavloved my brain honestly. And it worked.

See, my VERY FIRST psychologist as an adult told me I had “Learned Helplessness”, which I did, due to my mother, who is still trying to inflict it on me. It had caused a *LOT* of my depression. This psych had suggested to me that I do corrected thinking, which I’m sure a lot of you are familiar with.

It’s where every time you have a negative/bad/degrading/those kind of thought(s), you *immediately* correct it in your mind and if possible aloud, as well. I thought that was stupid back when I was 18. I thought everything was stupid back then. That psych tried so hard with me and kept me for a year before she finally had to discharge me for noncompliance after I refused to speak for like.... 10 sessions. Idk why she tried so hard for so long, honestly.

Fast forward like... at least 5(?) years from that time.

I was living with my parents after one of those many traumatic break ups I had. Idr which one. But it was one that reminded me of my learned helplessness. And I was in with a new psychologist and they told me the same thing and I was like “oh”. So I started doing it.

Fast forward like a year later. It’s now a habit. I’m now doing it subconsciously without me even realizing it. But the bad thoughts are still the primary thought and I’m still having to correct myself. It’s just that I’m not consciously doing the correcting anymore.

Fast forward to that moment in the closet. That was the first time I realized that my negative thoughts are no longer the primary thoughts anymore. The corrected thoughts are now the primary thoughts. Those were things that I had been telling myself over and over to try to convince myself to believe it. “Fake it till you make it.” My psychs had always told me “even if it isn’t true, if you tell it to yourself enough times, you can make yourself believe it”. Now, studying medicine, I know why. It all makes sense now. Conditioning is so real. And it works. It changed the entire way I think and go about life. My outlook on just about everything has totally changed and the way I do things has just flipped. Things that would have sent me to a psych ward for a suicide attempt in the past in like 0.2 seconds are now motivators for success for me and give me reason to keep doing what I love. It’s unreal what positive conditioning can do if you just change your entire outlook by devote yourself to correcting all your negative thinking every single time until your brain starts doing it on its own.

I’m going to buy a clicker that they use on dogs and click it every time I feel motivated because that’s something I still sometimes struggle with more than happiness and I need motivation more than I need happiness, honestly. (I had to pick one or the other; Can’t pick both, you have to focus in on just one when doing this.) So I’m trying to sort of...bottle motivation, if you will. If I can just click it every time I feel a rush of motivation, which is at random throughout the day multiple times a day, in about a year or two time (I hope, maybe longer), I’ll be able to click it and get a rush of motivation from the sound. :)

ANYWAYS.

I know I post a lot about my journey with mental illness, so I just wanted to let you guys know that, uh... it hasn’t changed. My “it gets better” posts are still happening. It did get better. It stayed better. Just because I feel suicidal or depressed sometimes doesn’t mean it isn’t better anymore. It is still very much better and I am still very much as happy as can be. I am allowed to feel suicidal and depressed within my bubble of overall happiness. That’s what a lifetime of major depressive disorder and suicidal ideation can do to someone. I still feel like I beat depression even though it is a bit more prevalent in my life now than it has been in a long time. I feel I beat it because I can deal with it so much better than I ever have been able to do before. It’s so much more than sadness, but it’s not something that is going to ruin me and kill me like I was in danger of prior to this transformation, if that makes sense. I’ll kill it before it kills me.

So.

I’m going to write up that update post on what is going on in my life. Why I just disappeared off the face of the planet all last month and a little before that and a little after and so on and so forth. I’M DOING SOME REALLY COOL THINGS, YOU GUYS, AND I’M SO EXCITED FOR THE COMING FALL SEMESTER!!!!!! :D

Be sure to read that whenever I get it posted up! ...maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. Idk. Probably tomorrow, honestly. [shruggy emoji] I’ve got a lot going on right now, but everything is so much slower paced than I’m accustomed to at this point so I feel like I have so much free time. Haha.

Anywayyyyys...

It gets so much better, you guys. Just hold on till it does. And if you ever need anyone to vent to, just hop on in my inbox. Anon is always on! I don’t wanna lie, but chances are, I probably won’t answer you for like... weeks to months at a time to be totally honest coz I’m hella busy, but know I’ll read them! I always do. :)

-KQR

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hellforcertain · 7 years ago

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i like how one of the few reasons i can pinpoint when about i got sick is that i can use snowmageddon (late 2014/early 2015) as a starting point

this is really long and i’d appreciate you not reblogging this but i don’t think i’ve ever written any of this out, and i would keep it private somewhere else but i kinda want to feel idk. validated? i never really put it into words like this until now. would also appreciate if you respond to this in some way (either a like or a reply) if you read it.

[cw for suicidal ideation in one part; skip the paragraph that begins “at some point that spring...”, after i talk abt my grandpa, if you don’t want to read it. it’s referenced in the next paragraph too. idk if there’s anything else i really need to warn for, but tell me if i do.]

i injured my knee thanksgiving 2013, when i was a sophomore. i was hiking in the hills around my parents’ house with some of my cousins, and it had snowed recently so everything was slick and slippery, and at one point my feet slid out from under me and i tumbled down an incline until my right knee connected with a tree. that thankfully stopped my fall but like, at what cost.

it was so bad that jo had to half-support me walking the couple blocks from our dorms to tufts to have an x-ray done in december 2013, which had been recommended by emerson’s health center (which was a joke; when i saw... i think an NP, she had to flip through a book until she found the “knee” section before she examined me). i couldn’t attend several classes of one of my courses the rest of that semester bcos it was in the building furthest from my dorm and i could barely walk there; i barely made it to the final. i never heard from the health center about the x-ray, so i figured that at least it wasn’t broken. it still bothered me but it became more manageable than it had been (not entirely tho bcos iirc i failed or didn’t complete two courses spring 2014, but that was also bcos of the undiagnosed adhd).

i moved directly into the studio from my sophomore dorm in may 2014, and lived there until june 2015 (which encompassed my junior year until i dropped out in november 2014).

my parents wanted me to fly down to spend a week in florida with them in august 2014, and i think this is what happened: the morning before i left on that flight i rolled off my futon badly and banged my bad knee against the (hardwood) floor really hard. i was in pain for a lot of that trip -- flying certainly didn’t help matters -- and when i got back it didn’t get better so i bought a cane a couple weeks before classes started back so i could get used to it before i had to use it to get to class.

(at the end of that trip, my mom forced me to let her clean out my ear with a qtip, jabbed it in too far and fucked up my ear, and then the next day i got on a plane back to boston and the issue got so bad i couldn’t walk down the street without holding onto a wall. i don’t think my eardrum burst or anything because it was better by the time i actually got to see a specialist about it and i haven’t suffered any permanent effects from it as far as i can tell, but at times it felt like it.)

i bought a cane in mid august 2014, and i know bcos i ordered it off amazon. the florida trip might have been in mid august, so there’s a possibility i banged my knee on the floor before the florida trip, and bought the cane when i realized i wouldn’t be able to walk in florida without it.

i know i reinjured my knee in august 2014, and i know i bought a cane then, and i know i also damaged my eardrum in august 2014 when i was in florida (well, my mom damaged it). i’m not sure exactly what order those took place in.

it got worse as the semester progressed, and i started doing less and less well in my courses, because not only was i dealing with the still-undiagnosed adhd, i was also in a lot of pain all the time. i remember making the conscious decision to stop going to my spanish class bcos the professor would have us stand up and walk around the class and talk to each other a lot and i couldn’t manage standing up for even that long, and i was so scattered and so fucked up from middle & high school that i couldn’t ask for help and the easier option was just to stop attending. i made the decision to go on medical leave late that semester -- probably in november or december 2014, i can’t remember which. there was the death of a family friend who i had been close to around that time too, and i was in too much pain and too swamped with trying to catch up on all these courses i hadn’t been attending to fly to florida and attend her funeral, which was another stone on top of all the others weighing me down (when i told my parents i had dropped out, i told them that it was her death that sent me into a breakdown, which wasn’t entirely a lie; i just didn’t tell them i’d been having a breakdown for months up until then).

i started getting sick and feeling pain that i couldn’t explain at all -- sure, i knew why my knee hurt, but i didn’t know why my joints were stiff and painful, and why i was hurting randomly separately from the joint pain. it got so bad that some days i had to crawl to get to the bathroom, and it was only a handful of steps away from my bed. i stopped doing my t shots bcos it was too much effort when i hurt so much already -- it got to the point that my periods started back up again, though i only had them very rarely. i think the only thing i managed to do was go to my shifts as desk guy in one of the dorms on campus.

when i went to visit my parents at some point, my mom thought it was just bcos i needed to get in shape and lose some weight to lessen the stress on my bad knee. tbh i don’t know when that happened, i just knew it was when i was still a student bcos i went to the gym once with a friend and it was really fuckin painful and terrible and just made everything worse. she might have said that when we were in florida, actually. idk.

living in the studio meant i lived totally alone, but jo was there a lot bcos i had an extra bed (i’d bought a loft bed bcos i wanted one and had never had one as a kid and this place had high ceilings, but i’d also bought a futon for cheap off a guy who was moving out of the building, which turned out to be a real blessing when i couldn’t make it up the ladder to the loft bed; when jo stayed at the computer labs late working on projects, they’d come crash on my loft bed bcos my building was near campus and by the time the labs closed, the t had stopped running) and i made kinda-friends with the security desk guy

that fall and winter i’d say i saw delivery guys more often than i saw my own friends (bcos i literally couldn’t handle the walking that grocery shopping would have required, and i didn’t know abt grocery delivery services at the time. idk if they were even a thing at the time). all “groceries” were bought at the cvs down the block, bcos they had things like butter and shredded cheese and tortillas (i ate a lot of tortillas that year) and pre-cut fruit, and the walgreens across the street from cvs had frozen burger patties that i think set off the smoke alarm every time i cooked them; anything else i ate was from delivery guys. i dissociated a lot that year, very very badly, and some delusional tendencies i’d had in high school came rearing back up.

bcos i couldn’t do much else i threw myself into this site (esp on one of my sideblogs), and if you look at the amount of stuff i reblogged/posted then vs now you’d see that i had p much no other life. which was... not good but i also made some really good and valuable friendships then -- including em so like, not everything from then turned out bad. sadly, a lot of irl friendships stagnated, and it wasn’t the other party’s fault. i also played a lot of skyrim bcos it was one of like. two games i owned for my ps3, and even though the rest of me hurt a lot, my hands were surprisingly okay.

(i also went through a series of nb identities and pronouns that never really fit bcos that was the heyday of tumblr’s whole “if ur a trans man ur evil for wanting to be a man, u should be nb instead” phase and i was far too concerned with all that bcos like i said, i didn’t have much of a life outside this site at the time.)

i don’t recall much of thanksgiving or christmas breaks at my parents’, except that i got my name legally changed during i think christmas break 2014. iirc we had to reschedule my flight back to boston bcos i had to wait an extra day to be able to get everything done that i needed to, and bcos we needed to change the name on the flight. i remember crying at some official bcos they said that they couldn’t get me a new... driver’s license maybe? until a couple days down the road, but i had to be back for college by then and i have everything else done please just let me get my license today. and since it’s a small town in the south they totally folded, thankfully. i was just very stressed at that point, i hadn’t even meant to cry at them.

then snowmageddon happened in early 2015, and classes were cancelled and roads were closed and the t like, half shut down until like may. it was especially bad for me because most of my friends were in allston and they couldn’t exactly get downtown to hang out with me much. iirc, my friend who was an RA left college around the same time i did, maybe a few months before? i think i was still working desk shifts when they left, so it had to have been before i did.

march 2015 was good and bad: during jo’s spring break (and what would have been mine if i had still been in college), we escaped the snow and took their car on a roadtrip down the blue ridge parkway (well. that was the plan but it was closed thanks to the snow, so we drove down I-95 and ended up in asheville nc like two days after our leisurely road trip started. i turned 21 on that roadtrip, and so no longer had to rely on my friends to buy me alcohol, which was nice. we celebrated it at this local restaurant in whatever town we’d stopped at that night, and all i remember is that you could buy steaks from a counter at the front, and the drink i ordered for myself was incredibly orange.

my grandpa also died that march; he’d actually been dying since february, but i didn’t go to see him then; jo and i were in knoxville tn at one point, and my parents wanted me to drive up since knoxville is only like three hours from my hometown, but by then he was p much in a coma so it wouldn’t really be visiting, would it, and also it would have been mega unfair to drag jo into that mess. iirc his funeral was that april, bcos there was a funeral service at my parents’ church where he occasionally preached at, and then one at the mennonite church he attended after moving in with us, and then they had to get him to ohio for the big service (which was the one i attended).

(this was the grandpa who thought i was possessed by a demon for being trans so like. lmao. didn’t mourn him much then, and still haven’t.)

at some point that spring, after the spring break roadtrip and grandpa’s funeral, my dysphoria got really really really bad, bad enough to trigger the most suicidal episode i’d had since middle school/high school. it was a culmination of the negative thoughts and feelings i’d been having since i moved into this place (which had only worsened as i got sicker and when winter hit). i didn’t do anything, but i had to call a friend every time i left the building for like a week so that i didn’t walk into traffic.

i moved out of the studio at the end of april or may of 2015, and went back to live with my parents for a bit because the lease for my text apartment didn’t start until september 2015 (since i was living with friends/former classmates who were still in school and weren’t going to be in boston until classes started back up in september). moving out was an Ordeal bcos my dad came up to help me and brought my sister, who hated boston so much that she was on the edge of a panic attack the whole time, which made her impossible to deal with. at one point we got into a fight over something super minor and it escalated and ended with her screaming at the top of her lungs, in my empty echoey studio that had the door open so god and all my neighbors could hear, that she wished i was dead. this was not the first or last time she expressed this sentiment, and was tame compared to some (like the time she said she’d stab me in my sleep). i told her i’d been suicidal weeks earlier and she left the building to go take something to the car and when i didn’t follow her (bcos i was cooling off), she freaked out and had a panic attack all over our dad. she didn’t tell him why, or that she was at fault, and when i came down a few minutes later he ripped into me until i stopped and told him what she had said. so, yknow. a fun final memory of that apartment.

i think that was when my mom finally acknowledged that my pain wasn’t just a weight thing, and that i should actually see someone when i got back to boston. my symptoms got worse too: i started having horrible pain in my hands, to the point that i couldn’t move them, and none of us really knew what to do. i found some compression gloves online and begged my mom to let me get them but she kept refusing because she was worried i’d mess my hands up worse with them, and i still don’t entirely understand that train of thought, because i was like, screaming crying at them because i was hurting so so much, and some compression gloves couldn’t have been worse than that (and i finally pointed out that they were gloves; i could take them off if they were hurting more than helping). they finally relented, thankfully.

june 2015 was the first time i met em in person; i decided, almost on impulse, to take a week and drive down to florida and spend the week with them bcos they were living with their grandparents at the time and their grandparents were going to be out of town for like a week. they played a lot of fnv on their ps3 while i played don’t starve on my laptop. the place had a guest bedroom that was technically mine, but i don’t think i ever used it except to get changed; we tended to pass out in weird positions on em’s bed. we didn’t get much else done bcos i discovered that florida weather + my joints wasn’t a great combo, but it was still an amazing week.

that same summer i also got fitted for my knee brace. i think that same summer i got some treatments from a sports medicine doctor my mom is friends with. possibly steroid injections? i’d have to ask her.

i moved into the medford house with some friends in september 2015, and dear lord was that a mess. the roommates were great, don’t get me wrong, but the house had mice we had to take care of, there was a gas leak at one point bcos the stove’s knobs didn’t work right and didn’t shut off the gas when we turned them off, the boiler was a broken leaky piece of shit that would shut itself off every like two days bcos the water level got so low (contrast the place we’re living in now, where we had to go put more water in the boiler maybe like. three times all winter), the landlord and his wife were total creeps and freaks -- he would only respond to my email even though my roommates tried to open lines of communication at various times, and one time i woke up with her in my bedroom bcos she was checking the radiator (which wasn’t working bcos the boiler wasn’t working and they refused to fix or replace it until winter was over) and she had the audacity to chew me out for my space heater. i was fucking sick, lady. give me a fucking break. the best thing, hands down, about the medford place was there was a corner store with a good deli across the street, so i could go in my pajamas to get a good sandwich and a box of fries. great place, great people.

i got referred to a rheumatologist that fall, and my first appointment with him was in november (i also at some point... i think in spring of 2015 started using testogel, because i wouldn’t have been able to get the stuff for injections refilled while i was in kentucky. i don’t remember when i switched back to injections but i did at some point while living at the medford house, which i once again was terrible at keeping up with).

at the time, my deadname was still on my insurance bcos even tho i’d changed my name earlier that year, i was still on my parents’ insurance and my dad wouldn’t fucking change my name there and wouldn’t give me the information to do it myself. my rheumatologist took one look at me and how i was responding to being called my deadname, and he asked if there was another name i went by that i’d be more comfortable with, and i was rarely called my deadname again after that (and only by a couple nurses until they got to know me better). ofc that stopped being an issue when i switched to my own masshealth plan (in early 2017 i think?).

he listened to the whole mess of a story, felt my joints, and then poked at the middle of my chest (which i now know is a common fibro trigger point). when i recoiled back bcos that hurt far more than it should have, he said “yep that looks fibro-y.” i don’t remember if i suggested fibro and/or rheumatoid arthritis, or if he did. he prescribed me some medications -- including tramadol, my savior that winter. i’d been taking tramadol already bcos i’d had some left over from... i think lasik, and a friend had given me some percocet for very bad days. i was so unused to the tramadol back then that it’d throw me for a loop, occasionally make me nauseated, and also knock me out. it was p great.

back then i’d have to ask my roommate danny to open like, water or pop bottles nine times out of ten bcos i just couldn’t. now, i can’t remember the last time i had a serious problem opening bottles on a consistent basis. there have been some bad days where i couldn’t, but it’s not like that’s all the time.

i improved in fits and starts after that; i can’t remember all the meds i tried with him, but i’m sure they’re in a file somewhere that i could request. i still wasn’t doing anywhere near good, but it was better than before -- if only, maybe, bcos i wasn’t dealing with this totally on my own. but you know what didn’t help? that house’s terrible fucking boiler. we’d wake up some days in the middle of winter and it’d be in the 50s inside the house, and i was the only one who knew how to fix the boiler (i’d taught the roommates, including the subletter we got when danny left for a semester in LA, but apparently the only one who could go down the stairs to take care of it was the fuckin cripple).

spring 2016 was awesome bcos i’d gotten a ps4 and destiny for christmas, and the subletter we got had two cats who i loved and who loved me, and everything was beautiful even tho i definitely still hurt a lot. i can’t remember much of note during this period, health-wise. it was mostly more of the same, but on top of it was trying to balance playing a shooter and having shitty hands that didn’t want me down anything with them.

summer 2016, when i was still in the medford house, em came to visit me (among other people -- they roadtripped up over the course of a couple weeks) and spent several days there. i had plans to take them to do touristy stuff in boston, but that never happened haha. and like we don’t have a solid date on when we got together bcos long-distance stuff can be fuzzy about things like that but that visit was our first kiss.

in september 2016 i moved into the allston apartment, and the less i say about that the better. i started back with a therapist in like february 2017; i hadn’t been to a therapist for years by this time, bcos my previous therapist had moved to a different office in the network and then left the area and i had never gotten back in touch with her after she moved to the other office. i also started on testopel, because injections were once again not working out.

that apartment was p much like living in the studio bcos even tho i had two roommates, it was an apartment i’d found in an emerson group centered on finding roommates, so i hadn’t known either of them beforehand; i wasn’t really living with them; we just happened to share some common spaces. health-wise i improved some as we found medications that worked for me, but i was still not doing even close to good. i had trouble going grocery shopping even though the grocery store was only a handful of blocks away because various parts of me would hurt too much to handle it, and by the time i was halfway home i would be almost dead. so, yknow. not a great time overall.

in september of 2017 i moved into this house with em and jo, and it’s been a fantastic decision bcos im finally living with people who care about me and will kick my ass into shape if i need it. em finally made me go to my rheumatologist and be like “so i know i’ve been saying i’ve been fine but i moved in with my partner recently and they’ve pointed out that im doing less fine than i said bcos i’d brushed off a lot of things as normal that they’ve told me are not, in fact, normal”, which was when he prescribed flexeril, and i think that’s helped me more than almost anything else has. holy shit. im taking a higher dose than my father (who’s like 6′1″ and has at least a hundred pounds on me) can handle but it’s working for me. i also went back to t injections a couple months ago bcos i didn’t enjoy missing everything for a week bcos it took forever for the testopel spot to heal, and i couldn’t sit on the spot until it healed; plus now that i’m living with em, they can remind me when i forget to do my shot. also, after a lot of fits and starts and panic over the last few years, im finally talking with a surgeon about top surgery.

overall like, i went back and looked at a lot of posts i made several years ago to get dates for this point, and i can barely recognize myself in some of those posts. my illnesses had ground everything else away, until all that was the physical pain and the emotional anguish, and i wish i could tell my past self that it gets better: that he’ll find medications that work for him and he’ll move in with people who he loves and love him back, and that it’s not all sunshine and rainbows here in 2018 but it’s so much better. 2015 me definitely deserved that.

and that’s true: that i’m not cured, and i still have very bad days, but i’m also having more and more good days -- days that were unthinkable back then. i’m on medications that help me physically, and i’ve been diagnosed with adhd and am on a medication that helps me mentally. when i flew down to kentucky earlier this month to attend my sister’s graduation, my dad remarked on how much better i was walking and moving just compared to thanksgiving. i can’t even imagine comparing myself now to myself a few years ago. i think i’m going to save this post so that when i’m feeling down about being sick, i can remind myself how far i’ve come, and how much i’ve weathered so far; whatever storm comes next, i think i’ll be able to handle it.

idk where i was trying to go with this, but it ended up a super overly long chronicle of the last few years. so uh. yeah. like i mentioned before, i’d appreciate if you show that you read all this, either with a like or a reply, esp if you get to the end

#nick gets personal #not 4 ur blog #fibro diaries

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magicalgirlmusings · 5 years ago

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I am...

TW: Suicide/Suicide Ideation

Another warning, this is fucking long.

I’ve never had a sense of self till recently. I always just, existed. I wasn’t anything but that. If you asked me who I was I wouldn’t have an answer. Tell me about yourself, no answer. I had nothing. I existed, and that was as far as my sense of self went. It wasn’t until I pieced together that I was actually a woman that I had some small piece that I could say was me.

A month or so ago I was blindsided by something a friend of mine said. We were talking about writing and I wanted to write a story that was like a letter to myself and others like me. I stated that the driving force of the main character was self-loathing, all her decisions in life were guided by this singular massive force.

“Then she would have killed herself before now. If that was her driving force she wouldn’t have a reason to not kill herself”

That was the statement. I started crying. I wasn’t expecting it, wasn’t prepared for hearing that. The main character was me in a big way, how I use to be. The thing was I never had a reason to not kill myself.

A little back story. I’ve had suicide ideation all my life, just wanting to not exist. Constantly thinking and being convinced it would be better if I never existed, or no longer existed. For over 2 decades, 20 YEARS, that was the case. I’ve been asked time and time again, “Why haven’t you acted on it?”. I never had an answer, I had no reason to not do it. That thought that I shouldn’t be alive. By all accounts I should have looked into the void that has been a part of me all my life and let it consume.The void has always been there, a large looming presence that made up most of my being.

It...was a rough night. I cried for an hour, talking it out with another friend. Trying to work my way through the haze of my mind.

Why didn’t I do it? Because I wouldn’t let myself. I would not even humor the concept of taking my life when it occurred to me. I didn’t have a reason, I didn’t need a reason. I looked directly into that void and said you can’t have that. That was the one thing the void couldn’t have. I then realized who I was.

I am Emotion.

I am Control.

That is who I am, at my very core. Leading everything back to its source of who I am as a person is those two things. I am Emotion. I am Control. Let me explain...

I am Emotion.

I’ve always had a large amount of empathy. I can very much feel other people. I understood people. People always came to me for advice, probably for that reason. I was able to understand. When I was young I was told constantly that I had my heart on my sleeve, I felt everything intensely. I was also taught that emotion wasn’t allowed, if I felt I had to suppress. If I felt I can’t show it. Which leads to the second part.

I am Control.

The thing you have to understand is that my capacity to endure things is probably unhealthy. I endure a lot because I control myself. Control holds Emotion down, rejecting it completely to accomplish a goal. For this reason I’ve always been the pillar in times of crisis. I would drag people through the chaos till it had passed. Only then could I let myself feel something, even then, just a little. Control is what prevented me from submitting to the void. In the end the void is just an emotion, not an action. It cannot force me to act because Control refuses to yield what it is. So Control took Emotion and locked it away.

The thing is that doesn’t work forever.

No matter how strong a wall is, no matter how much a dam can hold back, no matter how fortified a fortress is, it all falls with time. There is a breaking point to everything. Even something as strong as Control. First it would only spill over, a slight slip caused by a sudden unexpected surge from Emotion. Control would loosen just a little before clamping down again.

I was bullied for almost all my school life, it wasn’t till high school that it mostly went away. I didn’t act. I didn’t react. I took it. Day after day after day I took my blows in silence. No one cared to stop it and I was powerless to, if I retaliated I would be the one in trouble. But Control can only hold back so much.

I snapped twice. Just. Twice. In anger against the abuse. Before school started that day in elementary school, last year I believe, I was picked on again. The thing you need to know is that there was a leader of the entire class of abusers. That day I couldn’t. I don’t know what about that day, but Control was blindsided by Emotion. I snapped, I yelled and chased him. Kicking him in the ass (literally) as he ran from me. Got him twice, both times he lifted off the ground. Control quickly took back the reigns and I went back to my quiet isolation.

If you want an example how much power Control had: I one time approached the head bully and, completely straight faced, asked him why he picked on me. He said he didn’t know. Didn’t stop him from continuing. The second time it was against the same person in middle school. This time it was in the middle of class, he kept getting other people in the class room to whip me while the teacher wasn’t looking. I flipped my desk, spun around and yelled “You want me to kick your fucking ass like I did in elementary school?”. Teacher gave me detention for it. I immediately whirled around and called him out. “For the entire year this fuck has been getting half the class to whip me and doing it himself. You better punish him to.” He did. I’m very...intense...when it comes to righteous fury.

After that Control got even better. It found out that it could let steam out, almost literally, via breathing. It also found a controlled way of channeling Emotion to maintain Control, ranting. I could get worked up and rant, sometimes just about completely arbitrary things. People always found it very entertaining when I went on my rants. But even then, the cracks were beginning to form.

In college I entered crisis for the first time. In the middle of campus I broke down with a major anxiety attack, I had insomnia, I could never focus, whenever I tried to do anything it would feel like I was losing my mind. I was having anxiety attacks over almost anything, Control could no longer completely contain Emotion, not anymore. So it slipped and all my mental problems started leaking into actions.

I think I’m gonna stop here for now. I’ve been writing for the last hour and a half and its nearly midnight. Besides the next part needs more context. I’ll be talking about the bad side of Control: the suppression of very important thoughts. Control, while it kept me from ending my existence, also kept me from facing who I was...

#TW:Suicide #Personal #Journaling #Musings #Sense of self #Very fucking personal #Also I probably sound a little crazy #Emotion #Control #Transwoman

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mogdaze-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Dinner at Frankie’s - Short Story

TW: Suicide References, Suicidal Ideation, Self-Harm Mentions.

I was on the way back from work when I decided to kill myself. I must have crossed the bridge outside the city a few hundred times in my life, but only then did it occur to me that it might be a viable option for ending it. I climbed over the railings, and spent a few minutes staring at the dark, flat expanse of the ocean, just thinking.

Contrary to popular belief, suicide is almost always an act of pure impulse, not something you pencil into your schedule. The urge had risen once or twice before, but it'd always been quashed by equally strange reasoning: should I shoot myself in my apartment? No, that'd hurt the resale value, it wouldn't be fair on my landlady. Maybe I should hang myself? Can't tie knots to save (or, you know, end) my life. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

But this time, sitting on the edge of the bridge and turning the concept over and over in my head, I couldn't think of a single good reason to not die. I knew something like this was bound to happen eventually, the way life had been going. I'd even taken the liberty of writing a note about a week back (vague enough to compensate for whatever way I ended up topping myself, while providing a decent overview of the rationale - like suicide CliffsNotes) and left it on the kitchen countertop before I left for work in the mornings. It'd be easy to find and put the issue to rest when the police came to my apartment looking for me.

Yeah. It'd been a rough year.

The wind felt like cold fingers running through my hair, squeezing at me, making me feel vulnerable. The sea below seemed unusually calm and even: as though the whole thing was covered over by a great sheet of plate glass. It looked truly, unbearably, perfectly cold down there. I unfurled my scarf from around my neck and threw it down into the water below me, watching it drift and pirouette into the blackness like the world's saddest party streamer. It wasn't like I needed to stay warm anymore.

Still, there was one more decision to make: dive, or belly flop? A dive would mean piercing the surface like an arrow, and being immersed in half an instant by all that ice-cold water. I'd go into shock, and probably drown a minute or two later. A belly flop from this distance? Hitting the water would be like hitting concrete. I'd splatter, sink, and be lunch for the bottom feeders. I'd be lucky if they even discovered a skeleton.

Then again, that wouldn't be my problem, would it? Oh, decisions, decisions.

"Hey there!" I heard a calm voice from behind me say, "Whatcha doing?"

The sudden noise startled me, and almost made me lose my footing. My hands found themselves gripped tight around the railing, keeping me anchored in place. Even if my mind had made the decision to end it all, my body didn't seem to have gotten that memo yet.

A woman was standing on the sidewalk a few feet back from the railings, tall and dressed in a fashionable winter coat. Her hair stood out to me most, though: medium-length, and bunched into a ponytail at the back, all dyed a bright cherry-red. The woman was beaming, like she'd just won the lottery.

"Whoa there," she said, "be careful, you don't wanna fall, do you? Well...maybe you do, but I don't want you to."

"Stay back," I barked, snapping to the defensive, "this is my decision, not yours."

The woman shrugged.

"Could you be persuaded to climb back over those railings for a second? I just wanna chat."

This wasn't something I'd anticipated. Dying, as I'd imagined it, was a private act. Her being here just ruined the whole mental image of it. I shook my head in response to her question, not knowing what to say.

"Not even if I said pretty please?" She continued, "with sugar and a cherry on top?"

For the first few seconds I was just deeply confused, but then I found myself getting angry. I was at my lowest moment, the nadir of my life as I knew it, and she was here making a big, stupid joke out of it. What'd been just numbness for several weeks now began bubbling into rage, and this woman, who'd appeared out of the blue on a bridge I'd thought empty, was going to be on the receiving end.

"Look, will you just fuck off, please?" I said, that tightly-strung note of anger rising in my voice, "if you're here to tell me I have so much to live for, or that my family's gonna miss me, or if you're gonna sing Third Eye Blind at me or some shit, you can save your breath. I'm not interested."

She raised two defined eyebrows and gave a cautious smile. I couldn't tell if she was sympathetic, or amused.

"Lady, I'm not here to drive a wedge between you and your date with the deep, I just want to talk to you," she said, taking a few tentative steps closer to the railing, "if you wanna do a double-back-flip down there, that's your business. I wanted to ask a favour, before you jump and get all squishy."

"A favour?" I asked.

I was beginning to feel the cold without my scarf. It was a sharp, biting frost out, the kind that leaves the sidewalks sparkling. The stranger's winter coat looked so warm.

"Yeah, a favour, seeing as I'm guessing you don't have anything planned for later today," she said, "sorry, that was in poor taste, wasn't it?"

I laughed. I'm not even sure if it was funny, but I laughed.

"But, what I may lack in tact, I make up for in honesty," she said, now only about a foot from the railing, "so I'm gonna level with you. I've got this bottle of Pinot Noir my cousin bought me for my birthday, and I was gonna have a few friends over to have dinner with me and polish it off. But, what do you know, they cancelled at the last minute."

And just like that, I was back to confused again.

"You're...asking me on a date?" I asked, my teeth almost chattering in the cold.

The stranger grinned, and slowly extended a hand towards me. I know I should have jerked away - dying, not being here, that's what I wanted. Nobody could stop me. But with that soft hand extending towards me, I couldn't help but remain still and receive it like a treasured gift.

"Call it a date if you like, hon. All I know is, if I drink a whole bottle of wine alone, I'm gonna hate myself in the morning. I know your whole 'self-preservation' thing isn't exactly up to par, but I'm sure you wouldn't want that for me, would you?" She said, curling her fingers around my shoulder, her hands so incredibly warm and alive, "Name's Francesca, by the way. But those flakey friends I mentioned earlier call me Frankie."

A pause, dead air. A few moments of awkward silence.

"So, uh, do you have a name or shall I just make one up for you?"

"Maude," I said, quietly, then repeated it a little louder, "my name's Maude."

"Maude. An oldie, but a goodie. I love it. So, what'll it be, Maude? My dining room, or Poseidon's?" Then she leaned in, until I could feel the warmth of her breath on my ear, "for what it's worth, mine's warmer."

Something snapped me out of the daze that Frankie had put me in, a sudden reminder of why I was here. I snatched my body from her hands, tearing my ear away from her sweet words, and clinging onto the railings with just one hand. A few fingers were all that was separating me from a sharp plunge to the icy depths.

"You think it's gonna be that easy?" I said, the fury welling back up, though more at myself than her, "I know you think I'm some charity chase, like if you don't let me fall you'll feel better about yourself, right? It's insulting. The second I step off this bridge you'll have me committed and stuffed full of happy pills, all while you and everyone else tells me it's all for my own good, while patting yourselves on your goddamn backs for a job well done. Well, fuck you very much, Frankie, but I'd rather be dead."

Frankie pulled back a little, perhaps finally sensing that she'd crossed one too many boundaries. She held up both her palms, open and inoffensive, as if urging me to stay calm and collected. Her smile was gone - her face was contorted into a mask of concern. Maybe it was wrong of me, but I got a little bit of satisfaction out of that. She'd have to take all this seriously now.

"Maude, honey," she said, "I wasn't lying earlier. If you wanna die, it's not my business to stop you. I just want someone to spend the evening with. That's all, I swear."

I let out a long, rattling sigh. Feeling guilty for getting angry at her like that, and hating myself for feeling that guilt so quickly. People always just walked all over me.

"You're not gonna try to talk me out of it?" I asked.

Frankie shook her head, vigorously.

"When we're done, if you still feel like jumping, I'll give you a lift back - Scout's Honour," she said, "but if you're gonna die either way, why not die full, warm, and a little drunk? Seems like a no-brainer to me, Maude."

It went against my better judgement, but before I could even formulate some kind of denial, I had one leg back over the railing already. Frankie beamed again, having gotten her way. I kind of grudged her that.

"Atta' girl." She said with a suggestive wink.

"I'm not a dog, Frankie." I shot back, both feet now firmly on the bridge.

"We'll see," she said with a small laugh, and cocked her head towards the opening of the bridge, "now let's get moving, I left the oven on. You're not gonna want a steak that looks like a map of Texas cut out of charcoal, are you?"

"Steaks? I didn't know you were making food." I said.

"It's no big deal," Frankie said with a nonchalant shrug, "I make people dinner all the time. It's second nature to me. Let's go!"

She grabbed me by the hand again, and started leading me towards the end of the bridge. My instincts told me to remain guarded, in case Frankie went back on her promise and got me committed anyway, but part of me knew that she was telling the truth. Frankie's whole persona had this honest, up-front vibe to it, like she couldn't deceive you, even if she tried. There was something oddly comforting about that - and about her warm, soft hands.

"I only live a few blocks away," she said, forging ahead and not turning to look at me when she spoke, "we'll be there in no time. And if the oven's burst into flames and reduced the house to ashes, there's a Taco Bell a little further down."

"Frankie." I said.

"Yeah?"

"Why were you out on the bridge? Were you heading back from somewhere?"

Frankie seemed to think about it, then shook her head and smiled - or at least that's the way it seemed, from the side of her face I could see. That bright red hair was nothing short of hypnotic.

"Nah, I was just a little pissed off about my friends cancelling on me, so I came out to get some fresh air and simmer down," she said, "the bridge is a good place for that, I head out here whenever I'm feeling a little on-edge. The fact that you were literally on the edge at the time was just a happy accident. For me, at least."

"Has anyone ever told you you're kind of strange?" I said, before I could stop myself. Something about teetering on the precipice of death had a tendency to disrupt your filter.

She just laughed and carried on walking.

"Me? Strange? Oh Maude, you ain't seen nothing yet."

Frankie's house was a detached cottage nestled into a pleasant suburb a few blocks from the bridge, as advertised. She'd lovingly maintained flower beds and hanging baskets to frame the front of the home, and the grass was cut impeccably neat. The only thing missing for the "wholesome, all-American home" aesthetic was a literal white picket fence, but Frankie seemed like she had too good a sense of taste for that. She lead me, still by the hand, down the garden path to her sky-blue front door.

I'd grown up and lived in grotty inner-city apartments my entire life: this, Frankie's home, Frankie's life, was completely alien to me, like stepping into an alternate reality. All the muted concrete greys and brick reds were replaced with a vivid palette of primary colours.

"What do you do for a living, Frankie?" I asked, "if that's not a rude question to ask."

She produced a ring of keys from the breast pocket of her winter coat and started unlocking the front door, before doing a quick double-take behind us, like she was worried about being followed. It struck a quiet note of paranoia in me too: I found myself scanning empty streets for hidden pursuers, until the click of the lock in Frankie's door snapped me from my trance.

What was I worrying about? Being attacked? I was ready to throw myself off a bridge not more than ten minutes before. As Frankie had said earlier, it's not like my sense of self-preservation was healthy.

"I'm a humanitarian," she said with the amused, theatrical flair of someone not wanting to sound obnoxious, "well, I do humanitarian work. I work in the accounting department of Feeding America. It's a pretty sweet gig."

Frankie opened up the door and lead us both into the warmth of her hallway, before shutting and locking the front door behind us. It was immediately evident that Frankie adored kitsch: the hall was lovingly adorned with paintings of kittens playing with balls of yarn, little ceramic deer on end tables, and a large, pink cuckoo clock that dominated the left wall. She looked like she was in her mid-twenties, but she had the decorating sensibilities of someone well over fifty. It reminded me of my grandma's place.

"They're the food bank charity, right?" I said, wanting her to know I was still interested.

Truth be told, I was more familiar with the place than I'd have liked to admit to her. My employment history was as spotty and sporadic as my memory during the years I spent on every antidepressant under the sun, so I'd used the food bank in the city more times than I could count on one hand.

"Yes siree," Frankie said as she switched on a frilly lamp near the door, "hunger's a tragedy too many people have to experience. I wanna do my little bit to help out. That and, you know, I don't wanna go hungry myself."

Frankie took off her winter coat and hung it up on a hook made to look like a Christmas bow. The corniness of her home was disarming: Jeffrey Dahmer probably never owned a cross-stitch of a marmalade-coloured kitten. He was too busy murdering people. Frankie's cottage was warm and inviting.

"You have a beautiful house, Frankie." I said, kicking off my shoes.

She was walking towards what I assumed was the kitchen, but she turned to me and gave a pleasant, toothy smile. When Frankie smiled, she smiled wide: her lips curled all the way back to the gum.

"Thanks, hon," she said, "and by the way, what's up with your hand?"

I was blushing before she'd even finished saying it. My left hand clenched involuntarily, trying to hide the mottled burn-scarring that took up the majority of my palm. She must have felt it when she was dragging me along. Nice going, Maude. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"I'm not judging, by the way," she quickly added, before disappearing through the kitchen door, "just curious. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

I walked into the kitchen after Frankie, becoming immersed in the intoxicating scents of the steak she was cooking. It was all similarly twee: pink tiles and flowery wallpaper, with matching crockery. Say what you will about Frankie, but the woman knew how to pick a style and stick to it, even if that style was Willy Wonka's Retirement Home. I pulled up a chair at her table, and took a seat. Frankie was in the corner, donning a frilly apron sporting the phrase "RAISE THE STEAKS!" in dissonant block caps, and checking inside the oven.

"It got burnt on a stove...no, I burnt it on a stove."

Frankie closed the oven door and turned her head in my direction, looking worried. It occurred to me then that she was wearing oven mitts shaped like dinosaurs.

"Why'd you burn yourself, Maude? Do you mean you did it intentionally?"

"I was in a low place." I said, or rather, mumbled. I felt shame more than sadness now.

She took off her oven mitts and apron, and pulled up a seat next to me, her face still as solemn and sympathetic as I'd ever seen it. Frankie must have been around six feet tall - she was solid and a little pudgy, and carried it well. There was a strange sense of strength and authority to everything she did. But now, I could tell she just wanted to listen.

"That's not really an answer." She said.

I gave another long sigh, like my body was deflating.

"This isn't the first time I've tried to kill myself, it's just the closest I've gotten," I said, "tonight's the night I'm gonna end it, I know that much, but there have been other attempts."

"I'm no suicide expert," Frankie said, "but suicide by stove just feels like a really inefficient way to do it."

"I wasn't trying that," I snapped back, not knowing Frankie had struck a nerve until I said it, "but I was considering, you know, setting myself on fire."

"Jesus Christ."

"Yeah. I heated up the stove and pressed my hand into it. I wanted to see how long I could hold it there without pulling it away, to get a little simulation of what the pain might be like."

Frankie just sat there in wide-eyed disbelief. I couldn't blame her.

"Why would you ever think about burning yourself alive?" She asked, "that sounds excruciatingly painful."

"Depression isn't sadness, Frankie, it's numbness. It's being in an emotional coma, like you're being pressed between two mattresses, or being underwater but still somehow breathing. Some days, you just wanna feel something," I said, "and burning alive? I figured that'd have to get a rise out of me, at least. I'd die feeling something."

"What did it smell like?"

"What?"

"Your hand," Frankie said, seeming oddly distracted, almost dreamlike, "when you burnt it on the stove, Maude, what did it smell like?"

The oven let off a soft "ping" before I even had time to think of an answer to Frankie's deeply bizarre question. The sound seemed to snap Frankie out of her stupor, taking her from dreamy sadness to her usual alert, bubbly frame of mind. She sat bolt upright, and started grinning.

"Steak's done!" She announced, like I hadn't just heard it too, "back in a jiffy. Hope you've brought your appetite!"

Frankie set off for the oven, while I sat and looked at the palm of my hand. Scar tissue is rough, and shimmers in the right light, and the burn on my hand was no exception. They all had a sort of twisted beauty about them, like the fractals of shattered glass in the moment two cars going above sixty collide on the freeway. It was a reminder of sorts, but of what? I hadn't changed since then. I may have gotten closer or further away from death at different points in the interim, but it was always in earshot. The possibility of an end.

Really, I didn't want to die. It was never a goal, just the means of achieving it. What I really wanted was to not exist, and if someone could press delete on a keyboard and poof me out of reality, I'd take the opportunity in a heartbeat. No questions asked. The problem with going from existing to not existing in the real world is that so few of the methods are ever really painless. There's always some element of suffering in the equation.

"It's steak time, baby!" Frankie said, sending my train of thought careening off the tracks, "I'm happy with how they came out, but I'll let you be the judge."

She placed a plate in front of me: a steak, cooked medium-rare, sitting on a bed of salad. It wasn't until I actually saw it there that I realised how hungry I was. If you'd asked me how I felt just then, it wouldn't have been an exaggeration to tell you I was feeling straight-up ravenous. Who'd have thought a suicide attempt would work up your appetite?

"Crap," Frankie said, "knife and fork. Knew I'd forgotten something. Back in a sec."

While Frankie left to fetch the cutlery, it dawned on me just how strange this whole situation was. Right now, I was supposed to be a lifeless body, being nipped at by crabs and inspected by nosy shoals of fish. Instead, I was being treated to dinner in the house of a total stranger, who'd come upon me by pure chance. Perhaps this was the best case scenario, but I couldn't help but feel that something was off.

A steak knife and dining fork came clattering down onto the table, followed shortly by a beaming Frankie sitting across from me once again. In her left hand, she held the bottle of Pinot Noir which was allegedly the reason this had all happened in the first place. In her right hand, she held a pair of wine glasses.

"How were you holding the knife and fork?" I asked, before pausing, "actually, I'd rather not know. Thank you for the meal, anyway, it looks great, Frankie."

I tucked in, throwing caution to the wind, while Frankie poured two glasses. The steak was delicious - that much I couldn't deny. The second the first forkful hit my tongue, I was carving out my second and third, gobbling it down. It'd been so long since I'd had a proper meal - and not pot ramen or a microwave burger from the gas station near my apartment. I was already half way through the steak by the time I realised Frankie wasn't eating one herself, and started to feel self-conscious about it.

"You're not eating?" I asked, my mouth still full.

Frankie shook her head again, smiling, and yet somehow still looking morose.

"I'm abstaining," she said with a reserved little laugh, "trying to work on self-control."

I shovelled a few more chunks of Frankie's steak into my mouth, and gulped it down before saying, "I don't know where you find the willpower. This is delicious, Frankie."

She lifted her wine glass up to her lips and took a long sip, savouring the flavour.

"Willpower's always been a problem for me, if you can believe it," she said, with a playful poke at her slightly chubby middle, "when my body asks me for something, I have a hard time saying no. Why'd you want to kill yourself, Maude?"

So sudden, I almost choked on my steak. Frankie drained her glass, and began pouring herself another. Had I been the one to strike a nerve that time? She'd jumped from the point she was making like it was an electric shock, trying to change the subject. Still, I was her guest - I felt at least somewhat bound to oblige her.

"There wasn't any one reason," I said, pausing to take a sip of my own wine, which tasted like any other wine I'd tasted, "it's a layered thing. Clinical depression sits on the bottom, that's the foundation, and you just keep piling layers on. An argument here, a lost job or a sick relative there. Layer after layer until you're standing on a tower a hundred feet high, and the air is getting thin around your head. After a while up there on the tower, all you wanna do is jump. Just for a change."

Things were silent for a little while after that, like I'd broken some unspoken taboo by actually answering the question. We drank from our glasses and when they were empty Frankie would refill them. Life seemed to keep in time with the slow, metronomic thrum of the pink cuckoo clock out in the hallway.

Frankie broke the silence first.

"I know how you feel, Maude. I really do, even if it may seem difficult to believe that," Frankie said, the humour in her voice having completely dissolved, "it's not easy, having a monkey on your back like that. Other people can't just see it, and if you show them, they might not get it. They might get scared, and try to run away, and it makes everything worse. You realise, eventually, that other people can't help you. You've gotta save yourself."

"Then why'd you bring me back?" I asked, forgetting myself, the wine going to my head, "if you really believe that people can only save themselves, why'd you try to save me?"

She didn't say anything at first. She finished another glass, refilled, and groaned into her hands. When she looked back up at me, her eyes looked so tired. So weary.

"I told you I wouldn't lie to you, Maude, and I haven't. I didn't try to save you," she said, "if, after all this, you still want to die, like I told you earlier: I'm not going to stop you. It's your life, it should be your death too."

"That's half of my question answered, but a question still remains: why'd you bring me back?"

Another long silence. This time I broke it.

"Your friends didn't cancel on you tonight, did they, Frankie? You hadn't invited anybody over."

Frankie avoided my gaze in a way that life had taught me meant the answer was 'yes'. I kept digging.

"Why did you want me to come here, Frankie? How did you know I was gonna be on the bridge?"

"People are on the bridge all the time, Maude, there was a whole documentary about it," Frankie snapped, "you wanna know the ugly truth, Maude? I've been waiting on that bridge every night this week for someone like you to turn up. Somebody I knew had already severed all their other ties. I'm guessing you wrote a note, right?"

I nodded.

"Yeah, they all write notes, all of them," she said, "you know, I don't ever buy steak from the supermarket. They factory farm their animals, treat them like crap. All the beef you just ate came from an ethical butcher. That's funny, isn't it? An ethical butcher. It's like saying 'a peaceful soldier'. Why do you think ethical butchers exist, Maude?"

"Um," I paused, having never really thought about it before, "so the animals get treated better."

"Why?" Frankie asked, seeming to get more aggressive, more forceful, "why's it matter how the animal's treated? If we really cared for the animal's wellbeing, it wouldn't be sitting on your plate. Why does it really matter to us how the animals we're eating were treated?"

I shrugged, and turned my gaze downwards, before saying, "to make us feel better about it, I guess."

Frankie clapped her hands together theatrically, jolting me from my slightly-buzzed stupor.

"If we feel guilty," Frankie said, a tremor in her voice, "if we feel guilty about eating them, and about them suffering, why do we still do it, Maude?"

"Because..." I said, "it's just a habit."

Frankie reclined in her chair, sliding her empty glass away from her. This strange, strange woman's thin lips were twisted into a grim smile - a smile that communicated pain and understanding in equal measure.

"Exactly, Maude, it's a habit. Such a good word for it," she said, now staring right into my face, "it's a habit we feel shitty about, but we keep doing it, because we've done it so long it's been hardwired into us. We don't even really know if we can stop - but what separates the good from the bad is whether we try."

She leaned forward until her face was inches from mine, and spoke in a slow, intimate whisper.

"I'm trying so hard to break my habit, Maude. I really am. Can't you see I'm trying?"

"Frankie, you're worrying me. What's happening?"

"I can smell the oils on your skin, Maude. I can hear your heartbeat, and see the tiniest dilations of your pupils," she said, sounding like she was on the verge of tears, "I've been good, Maude. I've been good all night, even after a whole week of nothing. I'm afraid, if you stay here, I'm going to do something bad to you."

I pulled back, receding into my chair. Where had this fear come from? I didn't even know I was still capable of feeling that, or anything else. It had to mean something. It had to mean I was still alive.

"Maude..." Frankie said, her tone pained and apologetic, "I like you. I like you a lot. And that's why I think you should leave. Right now."

"What? I don't understand."

"For what it's worth, I don't want you to kill yourself. I hope, when you're standing at the crossroads again, you decide not to do it," she went on, "but I need you to leave right now. I'm sorry. It can't be any other way."

"But Frankie..."

"Please," she said, quiet, but firm, "just leave."

She was dead serious. The silence enveloping the room then didn't feel like the mere absence of sound, but a thick, oppressive blanket over everything. When this realisation had set in, I got up from my chair, and began walking to the the kitchen door.

"Goodbye, Frankie," I said, "thank you for the meal."

Frankie just nodded. She was sitting on her chair, looking awkward and rigid, her hands bunched together and her lips pursed shut. This wasn't the fun, carefree woman I'd met on the bridge - something was terribly wrong, but I knew not to press the issue. I didn't want to take advantage of Frankie's hospitality.

I walked back towards her front door, past the kitschy decorations and the gaudy cuckoo clock. I unbolted the latch on the door, and walked out into the front yard, closing the door behind me. Walking out from the warmth of Frankie's cottage to the frigid cold of the outside air felt like changing states, sending a powerful tremor through my body. It was dark out now, and the frost had begun to set in once more.

Frankie's lawn practically twinkled in the moonlight.

That was almost it. I was walking down the garden path, wondering what the hell I was gonna do now, when I saw the arches of the bridge in the corner of my eye. How long had it been, an hour? An hour since I'd been ready to jump into the icy waters below and end it all. Part of me was loathe to admit it, but the urge had passed. Death may not have been gone, but it wasn't looming anymore. It'd pulled back - and it'd pulled back because of Frankie. If it wasn't for her, I'd be dead. No question about it.

I found myself wondering: what sort of person would I be if I just walked away?

Deep down, I knew Frankie was right. Nobody else can save you, it has to come from inside - that being said, what's the harm in giving someone a little help? Frankie did it for me. I knew it was my turn to return the favour.

Taking a deep breath, I turned on my heels and started back towards the cottage. I didn't know what Frankie's problem was, but if I could find out, then I could do whatever I had to in order to help her. I knocked at her front door, lightly at first, then began hammering when she didn't come to answer. If she'd done something awful to herself, I'd never be able to forgive myself for leaving her.

When I was confident that Frankie wasn't coming, I crossed a boundary, opening her front door and stepping inside. All the pink and kitsch seemed to take on a sinister slant now, all bathed in shadow. Frankie, I assumed, was still in the kitchen, so I didn't waste any time. I charged down the hallway, calling her name, but nobody replied.

The kitchen, just like the hallway, was empty. Empty chairs, empty glasses, and an empty bottle of Pinot Noir. My plate sat unwashed on the table, where I'd left it. The only thing that'd changed was Frankie.

I could feel panic beginning to set in. Sweaty palms, heavy breathing, heart palpitating. Where the hell was she? I looked up and around, and didn't find anything. But, while I was distracted, something else found me.

Quiet, dragging footsteps entered the kitchen from the hallway. I could feel its presence, making the hairs on the back of my neck prickle, as its humungous shadow seemed to swell into the room. It didn't speak, it just gave long, grunting breaths, like a large animal. Something distinctly inhuman.

I turned again, slowly this time, as if taking in the sight behind me in increments would lessen its impact on me. As I'd guessed, the thing standing behind me was not human: it stood at around eight or nine feet tall, stooping slightly to fit into the room. The skin was raw pink, the eyes large and wet. Its arms dangled about five feet long from the shoulder, terminating in grasping, three-fingered claws - but worst of all was the mouth. The creature had a baboon-like snout, with its lower jaw hanging about a foot from the rest of its head, giving way to a black maw that seemed endless. Just looking at it was enough to paralyse you.

The creature stood perfectly still for a moment or two, just watching me, sizing me up. There was tragedy in those eyes, I could tell that much, but I knew this thing was still dangerous. It'd eat me alive if it got a chance.

Frankie had just saved my life. I didn't intend on letting this monster steal it from me.

My retreat was more like a fall backwards, as the creature swung for me. The arm trailed through the air, feeling even larger up close. All I could do was crawl for my life, with this monster bearing down on me. I heard a succession of wet, meaty stomps after me as it advanced, and when I turned to see how close it'd gotten, the creature was on top of me.

Those awful jaws were snapping at me relentlessly, inches from my face, coating me in thick strings of warm saliva. I could feel the heat of its breath, smell the remnants of rotting flesh...and of wine.

"Frankie?"

It was true. I knew it was true. The realisation hit me a hundred times harder than the sight of the monster, and my arms just went limp. Frankie had somehow turned into this thing, and the thing that was once Frankie was trying to eat me on her kitchen floor. My body had given up on fighting, and if the creature had carried on, I would have been dead. No question about it.

But that's not what happened. Maybe she snapped herself out of it, or maybe it was just hearing her name on my tongue one more time, but the creature stopped. Frankie stopped. Her eyes shone with tears, dripping down the raw, pink flesh of her cheeks and hitting the floor with wet slaps. Her jaw didn't snap anymore - it just hung impotently on her face. Frankie let out a long, low wail, and retreated, barging back out of the kitchen door.

For a while, I didn't even move, just laying on the tiles and panting. It was easily the most terrifying thing I'd ever experienced, but terror wasn't what I was feeling. No, what I was feeling could better be described as pity. There were loud crunching noises emanating from the hallway, and when I had the energy to stand once more, I got up and made my way in the direction of the sound.

I could have been killed, sure. Perhaps I should have just turned tail and bolted from the building, running, screaming, into the night. But as far as I was concerned, a world where I left Frankie like this wasn't a world worth living in. I'd rather have been ripped limb from limb than leave the woman who'd saved me.

The hallway was empty, but I could trace the crunching noises through an adjacent door. It was dark in that room, and silent save for the loud, wet cracks, so I felt along the wall for a light switch. I was half way across the wall, consumed by the dark, when the noises stopped. In the cold silence that followed, the start of a soft and distinctly human sobbing could be heard. I found the switch, and flipped it.

We were in Frankie's living room. It was exactly what you might expect: pink couches and armchairs, adorably tacky knickknacks, and wallpaper covered in stylised, cartoon cats. I scanned the room, looking for the source of the crying, when I saw something dithering in the corner. A pale bundle underneath a furry blanket, her shock of crimson hair seeming to glow from underneath. Frankie was curled into a shaking crook, crying, her face turned to the wall.

"Frankie." I said, not a question this time, but just letting her know I was in the room.

She didn't respond at first. She just lay there, and carried on sobbing. It didn't feel natural seeing Frankie - so strong, so strange, so vibrant - in a state like this. It was like seeing rain fall upwards.

"I'm still here, Frankie." I said. Quiet, consoling.

"I thought I was strong enough," she said, her voice quaking, "I thought that just for one night I could hold it off. But no. I messed that up too, and I almost killed you."

Taking slow, cautious steps, I walked towards Frankie and knelt at her back. When I put my hand on her shoulder, at first she jerked away, like a frightened cat, but soon enough she was laying still under my hand.

"You should have just left, Maude," she said, "I didn't want you to see me. The real me. I wanted to keep a lid on that."

She turned her head to me. Her face was a mess, red and puffy with tears, but a far cry from the thing that I saw in the kitchen. When she saw me again, her lower lip quivered, thinking of what she'd just done.

"It was stupid. Assuming that just once I could control myself, that I could have something nice without trying to fucking eat it. Oh god, what have I done," Frankie said, pain ringing like a fire-bell in her voice, "you could have been killed, Maude. I could have killed you. Why are you still here?"

The only answer I could think of was, "I think we've both got some shit to work through right now. Here, you hold onto that blanket, lemme help you up onto the couch."

Either it was the adrenaline still jetting through my veins, or Frankie was surprisingly light for her height, but I was able to hoist her back onto the couch behind her and lay her there. She'd swaddled herself in that furry blanket, seeming like an overgrown caterpillar with a human head. I took a seat on the couch across from her, and let out a long sigh I'd been holding in since she attacked me in the kitchen.

We just let the silence remain intact for a little while, until Frankie decided to break it.

"I didn't bring you back here to eat you, I want you to know that," she said, "I know it might seem that way."

"Why did you bring me back here, Frankie?"

"I wanted to prove I could be around humans, alone, without needing to feed," she said, shame flattening her tone, "it was meant to help my self-control. I knew, that if I could spend the night with you, even though it felt like every cell in my body is screaming at me to eat you, I'd be over the hump. It wouldn't be a compulsion."

This was all, naturally, a lot to take in.

"So are you like some kind of were-creature?" I asked, not really knowing what else there was to ask.

Frankie shook her head.

"That thing you saw in the kitchen," she said, "it's not pretty, but that's me. That's how I was born. That's who I am."

"Frankie," I said, softly, "what you're born as doesn't have to be who you are."

She turned her face away from me, and stared at the door to the hallway, where the cuckoo clock ticked and tocked the night away in its own steady rhythm. Clunk, clunk, clunk.

"I wish I was like you, Maude. Human, a person. I wish I could look at people when I pass them in the street, and think 'friend' before I think 'dinner.' You think I like this? Always living at other people's expense? I try to help people, to see if I can make up for all the lives I've cut short with my stupid appetites. But the numbers, Maude, the numbers never even out. No matter how hard I try, I look in the mirror and a monster always looks back."

"I wish I was like you."

Frankie gave a dry, humourless laugh, and stared at me with eyes that screamed "don't you dare patronise me."

"No, Frankie, I mean it, I really do," I said, "you're smart, you're confident, you know what you want. I don't have a god damn clue what I'm looking for in life, and a couple hours ago the only goal I had in mind was jumping to my death. Compared to me, you've got it all together."

She laughed again. This time, it was genuine.

"Maybe you were right, earlier," she said, "we've both got some shit we need to work through."

"Right."

"And...I'm sorry I tried to eat you. I didn't mean that."

"Frankie, if you hadn't have tried, I'd be dead anyway. No hard feelings here."

She gave that same warm smile from the bridge, and I smiled back.

"You want to stay the night?" She asked.

"Yeah," I said, "I'd like that."

"I might hurt you if you stay, Maude. I won't want to, but you need to know I might."

"Yeah, and if I leave, I might end up hurting myself," I replied, "way I see it, I'd rather have the company."

"So what do we do now? Where do we go from here?"

"To be honest, Frankie, I'm not sure. Maybe we should talk about it tomorrow, it's been a long day...but, for what it's worth, I don't regret a second of it."

Frankie seemed to think about it, before gulping, and saying, "Yeah. Me too."

She went to sleep soon after that - exhausted by the change, I guess. But I was still awake for a few minutes afterwards, just thinking about how all this was going to end. No matter how hard I tried to imagine it, my mind couldn't conjure up some conclusion for all that'd happened here tonight, on the bridge and in Frankie's cottage. Maybe that's not a bad thing: a strange future, an uncertain future, is still a future.

All in all, I think she was right, that strange something-or-other that lay sleeping on the couch a few feet away from me. In the end, when you're underwater but still breathing, nobody else can save you. It has to be you.

I got up, and sat next to her, wrapping my arms around the blankets and around her, feeling her warmth and knowing - no matter what she was - that it comforted me. When I drifted off, it was with her face in against mine, and her voice in my mind.

This night alone wouldn't change it all. I was still underwater, and I had to swim back out myself, but I knew that when I did, I wanted Frankie to be waiting for me on the shore.

#stories #romance #W/W #lgbt #drama #supernatural fiction

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terramythos · 7 years ago

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Review: The Prestige by Christopher Priest

Genre/Tags: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Split Narrative, Unreliable Narrator, Memoir, Journal, Stage Magic, Historical Fiction, Horror

Warning(s): Child death, miscarriage (unrelated), suicidal ideation, self-harm

My Rating: 3/5 (Somewhat Recommended)

**Minor Spoilers Follow** (Unusually long review!)

“I step forward to the footlights, and in the full glare of their light face you directly.

I say ‘Look at my hands. There is nothing concealed within them.’

I hold them up, raising my palms for you to see, spreading my fingers so as to prove nothing is gripped secretly between them. I now perform my last trick, and produce a bunch of faded paper flowers from the hands you know to be empty.” -Alfred Borden

An Aside: The film The Prestige (dir. Christopher Nolan) was based off of this book! The movie is honestly one of my favorites ever and certainly my favorite Nolan film; it’s a concise and harrowing tale of obsession and revenge and how it consumes the two main characters, all wrapped together with a strong cast, interesting twists, and a good nonstandard setting. Definitely my kind of story.

Obviously it’s impossible not to compare the two, and I know some of that will come across in my review. That being said, I strongly believe that adaptations are different for a reason and should be judged on their own merits, so my base review will only cover the book and my impressions of it. You can probably tell, however, that I preferred the film purely from the rating. I will write more about how the two compare near the end. This review is a bit longer than usual for it.

My Summary: An investigative journalist named Andrew, adopted at a young age, is sent to research a local cult holed up in an abandoned estate owned by the Angier family. In doing so, he meets a woman named Kate Angier, who recognizes him from childhood. It turns out their ancestors, Rupert Angier and Alfred Borden, were two feuding stage magicians in the late 1800s, and the bad blood between the two families has spilled out into modern times. While Andrew doesn’t particularly care about the family that abandoned him, he gets the sense that his long-lost twin is calling out to him from somewhere and compelling him to stay, and he learns the history of the feud.

From there the narrative shifts to a memoir by Alfred Borden which exposits notable facts of his life, including what got him into stage magic and an immense secret which influences everything he does, including how he pulls off his most famous trick, The Transported Man. He also documents an ongoing rivalry between himself and fellow magician Rupert Angier, and the latter’s constant attempts to one-up him, leading to a climactic and uneasy final encounter between the two, with supernatural elements to it.

An interlude narrated by Kate comes in the middle which reveals an Uncomfortable Detail about her childhood and connection to Andrew. Some supernatural stuff is implied. Then, the story shifts to a narrative from the point of view of Rupert Angier, this time in the form of a journal. Similar to the first half, it goes over Rupert’s life and history, and the circumstances the rivalry between him and Alfred. It documents his attempts to surpass The Transported Man, a trick he obsesses over. It is also noteworthy in that mutual scenes between the two are not the same, implying unreliable narration on part of one or both men. Their rivalry eventually comes to a head.

The Good:

Features a strong voice. It felt like both halves of the story were solidly rooted in their time period and I never felt “taken out” by the phrasing and language of the two protagonists. It ultimately felt interesting to read.

Parallels between the two halves of the story are interesting and satisfying when they occur. It was interesting to flip back and forth between certain scenes and see what was different between them, and try to piece together who was telling the truth. I haven’t run into many books that do that.

The story is obviously well-researched; Priest has a working knowledge of stage magic and the general economic climate of late-1800s London (and, to my surprise, Colorado history, which I’m familiar with). When the characters describe their acts, it has a lot of depth which makes them come across as convincing professionals.

The core concept itself is really quite interesting; it’s an odd conflict and time period to pick, but it pays off in a lot of ways. The choice to use unreliable narrators in a story about stage magic is brilliant.

Of all things the story reminded me heavily of Frankenstein, particularly the way the book describes the supernatural/science-fictioney elements and how it plays into the lives of both men. I could appreciate the references it dropped.

The choice to do a pure half-and-half split narration was risky, but I think it paid off and ended up more effective than just threading the two stories together in alternating chapters. As I mentioned above, I liked that I had to flip between the two. You take what Borden says in the first half for granted– after all, why lie about it?– but the inconsistencies between him and Angier are an intriguing and come much later. (I’d prefer it if the book DIDN’T mention this directly, but unfortunately…)

The Mediocre:

While I liked the split narrative, having the halves be purely autobiographical or journalistic ultimately bogged the story down. By its nature a journal contains a lot of fluff that doesn’t necessarily connect to the story. It felt like Priest was trying to be “authentic” by including a lot of life details that end up… ultimately irrelevant? It detracted a lot from my experience because I had zero reason to care about those things and they served no purpose to the story.

As a result of the above issue, the events of the story felt episodic and disconnected, not a part of some overarching and connected feud. Especially in a story that relies on subterfuge and deception, things that might seem irrelevant should reflect in a new light as the story progresses. The first half accomplishes this in some ways, but it falls apart in the second half.

It had an annoying tendency to foreshadow a twist, reveal it, backtrack and reveal the twist to be “impossible” then… go back to it? Just kind of an irritating bait and switch, generally. Twists work with this type of story due to the whole stage magic thing but that gimmick completely goes against the attitude of it.

The framing device with the modern characters seems ultimately pointless. The story would have been fine without it. It would also prevent that… ending. See the final point under “The Bad”.

The Bad:

The characterization was lacking. There are a lot of people that come into the story and leave virtually no lasting impression on it, which isn’t a good sign. The big problem here is with this type of story, characters SHOULD be the driving force, and they simply aren’t. I get that the story focuses on the main two, but it shouldn’t be to the exclusion of all else.

And I really hate to say it, but the main characters were not especially interesting. A memoir and a journal by nature have a laser focus on one specific person, and while that was true enough, the characters don’t really change all that much. Both Borden and Angier are self-important assholes. That’s fine. The problem is they stay that way the entire story and refuse to examine themselves or develop in any concrete way until the very last second. Even when a character has a moment of reflection, like “this feud is stupid we should just end it”, something contrived keeps it going and neither character grows or matures from the insight. If this is intentional, it’s a frustrating position to put your reader in.

The conflict ultimately makes no sense. The feud is founded on stupid reasoning, and the way it sustains itself seems unrealistic. Even when a spoiler event happens that gives a character EXCELLENT motivation to push the story along and solidify the feud (possibly justifying this story built, ultimately, on miscommunication), it gets resolved in three pages and then the feud just… continues for no reason? If the feud is intentionally pointless, then play that up more! Show it through the side characters, or the modern framing device, or something. It feels bad otherwise.

I’m just going to say it. The ending is stupid as hell. Just really fucking dumb. Yeah, let’s turn this into a supernatural horror story… randomly? It makes no goddamn sense with the rest of the book. It felt like a joke ending. Nothing really set it up beyond the science fiction elements of some of Tesla’s stuff and even then it went in a way different direction. If the rest of the book had been like that, sure, but it wasn’t.

Final Thoughts: The Prestige is a book that features a fascinating core concept. Rival stage magicians at turn-of-the-century London trying to one-up each other and how they ultimately go too far? Frankenstein style science fiction? Nikola Tesla features prominently? But to me it fell short– it’s the type of book that could be great with a stronger editorial hand clipping out unnecessary fluff and bolstering the characters. The movie accomplishes this! It’s just a shame it couldn’t happen with the… book it’s based on.

That doesn’t mean the book is bad– far from it. It obviously came up with the framework that made one of my favorite films, and I liked seeing connections between the two. Again, I have to stress that it’s well-researched and an interesting idea, and the writing quality is good even if it falls short on storytelling. The idea of having unreliable narration for a story about stage magic is goddamn brilliant and I’m glad the author went for it. I just think he jumped the shark.

A lot of my complaints with the book are solved in the movie adaptation. It’s ironic that a book that has so much more time and space to develop characters falls flat, but the shorter movie version doesn’t. A story about obsession, one-upmanship, and how revenge destroys a person when they go too far should be character-driven and the movie understands this. The feud between Angier and Borden is caused by a stronger and more personal event, and you start off rooting for Angier. However, as the story progresses, Angier’s willingness to go to further and further extremes switches sympathy to Borden. Even more important are the side characters, their arcs, and seeing how they react to each man’s obsessiveness, and how it tears everyone apart on an interpersonal level. It’s raw and it’s structured well; everything is relevant, which makes the twist at the end all the more satisfying. You get a more concise and philosophical story overall, and I feel it’s way more appealing that way. The ending is also much different and much, much less stupid– I cannot stress this enough.

So ultimately I’m glad this book exists because it gives us an excellent story– one that only reaches its full potential in the adaptation. If it weren’t for that egregiously bad ending then maybe it would be a 3.5 (I’d penalize it more based on that but… ehh). You can certainly read it if you want to for the good aspects of it, but you should probably just watch the movie. If you want a story about rivalry gone too far, I’d recommend Vicious by V.E. Schwab or Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, both of which are character-driven with fascinating (and consistent) premises.

#Taylor reviews #books #3/5

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revwinchester · 8 years ago

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Color The World - Chapter 9

Summary: Sam meets Jessica early in their freshman year at Stanford and his world is suddenly brighter. When he loses her during their senior year, Sam’s life is plunged back into grayscale. With the help of his family and friends, Sam starts to get his life back together. He works and travels with Dean, restoring classic cars, and eventually meets Gabriel but struggles to let the other man in.

Author: @revwinchester Artist: @bluefire986

Pairings: Sam x Jessica, Sam x Gabriel; background Charlie x Dorothy, Dean x Castiel

Chapter Word Count: 1458

Warnings: Soul mate AU, fluff and angst (50/50 split), major character death, fire/arson, mention of suicide (no suicidal ideation, though), depression, internalized homophobia, cursing

A/N: Chapter 9! We’re in the home stretch now! I couldn’t help myself, I had to dip my toes back into the angst pool on the way to closing this one out (sorry not sorry). Since this is a bang, everything got posted at about the same time so you should check out the master posts here:

Color The World - Fic Color The World - Art

I hope you enjoy it!

Dean was right, Sam and Cas had hit it off and gotten along well. They were well matched in intellect and Sam could tell immediately how much the man cared for his brother. After a week with Castiel, they were getting ready to head out for the next job Dean had booked and Sam knew that, as much as he loved his job, Dean didn’t want to leave.

Sam looked up the specs of the job and was fairly certain he could handle the start of it on his own. When he offered to go out to Chicago alone and let Dean have another two or three weeks with his soulmate his brother was reluctant at first but after Sam assured him he hadn’t had a nightmare in over a month and that he’d be alright on his own, Dean agreed, grateful to have more time with Cas.

Sam arrived in the little suburb of Chicago, Illinois, a day before he needed to meet the client about her car. Having left his Mustang with Bobby when he hit the road with Dean, Sam had flown to Chicago from New Jersey and now found himself in a rental car. He would never admit it to his brother, but he was enjoying driving the quiet, efficient Prius.

Sam drove to the garage where Dean had rented some space for the job and met Garth, the manager. Dean had met the guy through Bobby and Sam liked his positivity and sunny disposition almost immediately. After introductions were made and garth showed Sam around, he returned to his office.

“We’ll see you tomorrow, then, Sam,” Garth remarked as he shook Sam’s hand and returned to his desk chair.

Sam said his goodbye and as the younger Winchester exited, Garth picked up a newspaper and flipped through the pages before settling on a section to read. Sam heard Garth’s voice through the doorway as he walked away from the office, “Oh Marmaduke, you crazy!”

Sam smiled and laughed to himself as he made his way back to his rental car. It would seem that Garth’s positivity was infectious and Sam had a smile on his face all the way to a little coffee shop he had noticed on the way to the garage. Sam parked in a lot around the corner and hopped out of the Prius, his long strides carrying him into the coffee shop in no time.

Sam ordered his drink and, once he had it, made his way to the counter with the extras so he could add some creamer. There was someone else at the counter pouring what looked like a pound of sugar into his drink so Sam waited a few paces back. He pulled out his phone to text Dean and let him know that he’d arrived and met with Garth. While he was fiddling with the device, someone ran into Sam and the jolt made him drop his coffee.

“I’m so sorry,” the man who had been at the counter apologized. “Let me get you a new drink.”

“Oh, it’s alright,” Sam replied, “don’t worry about it, really.” But the shorter man was already gone. He walked right around the counter like he owned the place and pulled one of the employees aside asking her a question as he pointed back to Sam before he set about remaking his drink.

The man came back around the counter and handed Sam a new cup a size larger than he had ordered. “I’m Gabriel,” the man offered as he somehow managed to corral Sam over towards a table near the windows despite being nearly half his size.

“Uh, Sam, and thanks for the coffee. You really didn’t have to do that,” Sam responded as he sat. He hadn’t intended to stay at the coffee shop but something about the man drew Sam in. “You, uh, you seem very comfortable here.” Sam was floundering for conversation with Gabriel, something he wasn’t particularly used to.

“Oh, yeah,” Gabriel replied, “my brother is the owner. He doesn’t love that I’ll jump behind the counter but he’s a pretentious ass and his employees like me better so no one stops me and he just deals with it.”

Sam laughed at that, a full on belly laugh and it felt good. Some of his hair fell into his face and he pushed the dark locks back, noticing that he must have gotten something in his hair at the garage. The men continued to talk and Sam found that his eyes were drawn to Gabriel’s shirt. Sam wasn’t sure what was so fascinating about it but the way the sun played across the man’s chest the shirt almost looked like it was navy blue.

The men talked and shared stories until both of them had finished their drinks and for some time afterwards as well. Gabriel told Sam about the bakery he ran and how he provided all the baked goods for his brother’s shop, too. Sam shared about the restoration job he would be starting the next day and the work he and Dean had done together over the past few months. Gabriel openly talked about his family and his childhood but if he noticed that Sam didn’t share any stories from farther back than January, he didn’t mention it.

Gabriel was telling Sam about a prank he played on his brother, something about using chili powder instead of cinnamon in some cookies, that had Sam laughing again when he stopped talking in the middle of a sentence. After a pause he continued, “Sam, I, um…” Gabriel ran a hand through his dark blond hair as he tried to find the words to explain what he was seeing.

Sam took in the look of surprise in Gabriel’s golden eyes and it hit him like a ton of bricks. The reason he’d been drawn to the man, why, after the initial awkwardness of their meeting, it had been so easy to talk with him. His shirt hadn’t looked blue in the light, it was blue. The hair that had fallen in his face didn’t get something in it at Garth’s, it was deep brown. Colors were creeping back into Sam’s life and, from Gabriel’s reaction, it would appear that the same was true for him.

Sam stood from the table, his chair clattering to the ground behind him. This wasn’t happening - it couldn’t be happening - not now and shouldn’t be happening ever. Finding a second soulmate was a romantic notion from Hollywood; it almost never happened in real life and certainly not after only six months…

“I need to go,” Sam said, his voice hard. He quickly made his way to the door and down the street, trying to put as much distance between him and Gabriel before the other man could make it out of the building.

As Sam turned the corner, he heard the shorter man with the golden eyes shouting, “Sam! Wait!”

Sam ducked into a shop and watched through the window, waiting for Gabriel to pass by in his attempt to find him. Sam gave it another few minutes before he left the shop and jogged to his car before taking off for the motel where he was staying.

Sam pulled up to the motel, thankful for the anonymity of the rental car. It was around dinner time but Sam found that he wasn’t hungry, he just felt queasy. He climbed onto his bed and flipped on the television, looking for a distraction. Instead the half colored, half grayscale images mocked him as his colors slowly came back into focus. Sam pulled up the therapist’s contact info and pressed the call button before he buried his head under his pillows, blocking everything from his view.

The therapist didn’t answer. Sam wasn’t surprised, really; it was well past working hours. He and Gabriel had sat for close to three hours talking in the coffee shop before Sam had unceremoniously rushed out. He pulled the phone from his ear and flipped over to his brother’s contact info, hesitating to call and interrupt his time with Cas. Sam knew he needed to talk with someone but Dean didn’t get much time with Castiel to begin with. Sam considered calling Charlie but dismissed the thought almost immediately, knowing that his friend would overreact to the news. Sighing, Sam resigned himself to interrupting Dean’s evening with Cas and brought the ringing phone to his ear.

Dean picked up after the fourth ring. “Sammy! What’s up? Everything go alright with Garth at the garage?”

“Yeah, yeah, the garage was fine,” Sam confirmed but even he could hear the strain in his own voice.

“Sam, you sound terrible,” Dean replied concerned. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”

Next Chapter

All tags are posted with the master post for this one so that no one got inundated with a dozen tags in a matter of minutes when this went live. :)

#sam winchester big bang #supernatural #SPN #supernatural fanfiction #spn fanfic #Sam Winchester #sam winchester x jessica moore #sam winchester x gabriel #SamJess #Sabriel #spn sabriel #spn angst #spn fluff #spn fan art

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