Self-Care in Times of Atrocities
This is something I've been struggling with myself, and it's also something I have a general chip on my shoulder about (in terms of the corporatization of self-care, ugh), so here have a post
It can feel impossible or even cruel, to "practice self-care" in the face of the world right now - and in particular, in the face of the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
So, I think it's really important to say that self-care does not mean that you are always emotionally balanced at all, that you are never overcome with rage and grief at the horror of ongoing atrocities.
To never be overcome by rage or horror or grief or any other negative emotions would be to shut ourselves off from a huge part of the human experience, in a situation where our connection to our common humanity is, I would argue, more important than ever.
Some days you will feel completely laid low by that rage and horror and grief. Sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for days or more.
That's not only normal, it is a completely rational response to what Israel is inflicting on Palestinians right now. I think it's a completely rational response to any genocide.
In some ways it's also a healthy response. Bottling up or choking off your emotions isn't good for you. Refusing to ever sit with pain isn't good for you. Refusing yourself grief and mourning and catharsis isn't good for you. We know all of this.
Self-care, in times of atrocity, doesn't mean always keeping yourself on some kind of even keel. In a lot of ways I think it means letting yourself cry, letting yourself channel all of your storming emotions into a force that can help, rather than just eat you up inside.
And self-care isn't the kind of corporate, hypercapitalist "buy yourself out of your feelings" bs that we're quite literally sold, either.
Self-care is, very often, not about indulging or pampering yourself (not that there's anything wrong with indulging or pampering yourself).
A lot of the time it just means...taking care of your physical form, as best you can, even when you least want to, so you don't pile more on top of everything else.
A lot of the times it means making yourself eat something, even just some crackers, even though you feel sick from horror.
Or groaning and forcing yourself to drink a glass of water, because you can, you have access to drinkable water, and you can honor that for the privilege it is by avoiding a terrible dehydration headache.
Or making yourself take a shower, even though it's the last thing you feel like doing, because you have an important meeting tomorrow.
Or locking your phone in a drawer for a while, because staying up all night doomscrolling won't do anything but drain you further.
And if you're ever feeling too guilty to do any of that, remember: you cannot pour from an empty vessel. Meeting your own basic needs as best you can is one really, really important way to make sure you have the energy to help.
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i’ve got a river running right into you.
Pairing: Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn
Warnings for descriptions of medical gore.
Ghost gets hurt. Ghost is touch starved. You just want to help. It’s awkward.
NOT COMPLETE / NO BETA
It's loud in the medical bay. The lights overhead buzz, adding their hum to the sound of clinking medical instruments, shouted calls for supplies, and the pained sounds of the injured. No set of hands are still as the wounded are wheeled in on gurneys or dragged in by their fellow soldiers. There's too much iron in the air to really adhere to the stricter medical protocols, and it's a scramble for everyone to assess and treat the damage in front of them. Each doctor's movements are efficient and practiced; stitching a wound just as a soldier would clean a gun.
Just another day on the job.
You were hustling from one sectioned off bed to another, caught in the flow of all the action in the medical bay. The thin curtains between beds did nothing to muffle the chaos of the situation. Too many bodies were moving in and out of the area, it was almost dizzying. Your section of the unit had been chaotic for the better part of three hours, leaving you no time to stop and breathe. It seems things had gone south on the recent mission. The details of which were lost on you, but they didn’t matter now.
Stepping behind a curtain, you immediately get to work assessing the situation the soldier on the bed has found herself in, and you set about putting her back together. She's only caught minor fragments of shrapnel in her upper arms and chest. Nothing deep and nothing dangerous. It doesn't take you long to patch her up, thankfully. As you work, your brain vaguely registers that your medical team must be shifting focus to the less severely injured of the bunch.
You and the soldier both breathe a shared sigh of relief as you finish up her sutures. She only needs a few, and you tell her to return in about a week to check in before they can be removed. As you fill out her paperwork with a quick hand, you notice that the sounds of the room have hushed. You must be reaching the end of the torrent of injured soldiers.
Though small, your team was incredibly efficient; working like a machine during frenzied moments like these. Every second counted, nothing could go to waste.
You briskly step into another curtained area to see a broad, masked man on the gurney. The poor bed looked like it might strain under the weight of his bulky frame and plethora of equipment. For a moment, you can't even tell what's wrong with him. Stepping closer, the scent of fresh blood hits you just as you notice the dark wetness blooming on the upper right thigh of his gray fatigues. It looks like he’s used his own belt as a tourniquet. Your eyebrows scrunch down as you move to his side, your gloved hands automatically moving to his mask.
"Are you awake? Hey-" you're interrupted with a stiff, gloved hand gripping tightly at your wrist. Looking through the skull mask's eye sockets, you can see the whites of his half-lidded eyes starkly against his eyeblack. He's staring evenly back at you.
"I'm awake," he rumbles, low in his chest as if through water, "leave the mask." The directive is clear, even through the murk of his discomfort. You're not sure who this guy is, but from his tone he clearly expects to be obeyed. You knew there was a special operations unit active out of the base, and you can only guess that he's a part of it. Those types tended to be.. odd. This guy fit the bill.
The exchange doesn't last long though, and you immediately move down to visually assess the rest of his body as you open a new emergency medical kit. "Can you feel anywhere other than your legs that you've been injured? Have you hit your head at all?" you ask, running through regular questions since he seems to be lucid enough to give clear answers. He watches you intently, blinking slowly and almost lazily when you look at him, trauma shears in hand.
He simply shakes his head, grunting what sounds like a negative response. Great, how very helpful. You sigh as you work the shears beneath his pant leg. Without even looking up at him you slide the shears up, cutting half of his pants away to reveal the mess of both fresh and congealing blood on his thigh. Without a second thought, you cut through his briefs, pushing them aside just enough to allow him privacy as you get a better view of his injuries. The belt stays for now, it’s probably the only thing keeping him from passing out.
It's not great. He definitely needed to be seen sooner, and you're worried about exactly how much blood he's lost. Some of these wounds are deep and still bleeding. Small bits of metal are visible through the clots. You can see bruising already beginning to form on the skin around the lacerations. The hot iron scent of his blood floods your nose, thick in the air between you.
"I need help in here- I've got shrapnel, heavy blood loss and I need extra hands!" you shout to your team without looking up, busy flushing his wounds with saline to clear any loose debris. Your hands are practiced and steady, one hand deftly wiping the blood and saline as you work. The man shifts, a strained breath escaping him. You spare him a sympathetic glance, knowing this part made many uncomfortable. Why had no one tended to him? He should've been among the first.
Evidently, so is the man in the bed.
Before you can ask, your colleague steps in and immediately gloves up before getting to work with you. Together, you clean and stitch the man's wounds. He remains almost totally silent for all of it, save for the soft grunts as he's sewn back together. Even with the local anesthetic, it's still a bit uncomfortable. Throughout it all, he peers at you, his pale eyes flitting between your hands and your face as you work. At one point his gloved hands twitch at his side like he wants to move them. He doesn’t.
Your colleague quickly removes the man’s vest, knowing just as you do that there could be more injuries beneath it. The vest goes in a chair by the bed for later. The black shirt shirt he's wearing beneath it isn't torn or bloody, but you’re aware of your colleague’s intention to begin feeling for broken ribs as you get his IV drip ready.
His hands catch your colleague’s wrists with a quickness you wouldn’t have thought possible given the amount of blood he’s already lost. “That’s enough,” he hisses. Your head snaps up, and you can only see the tight narrowing of his eyes through the mask. Before you can react, your colleague jerks from his grip.
"I need to get these pants the rest of the way off, and then we're done. I'll get you cleaned up and finished for the night," you explain, falling back into your doctor mindset and practiced speech to ease the tension. He makes no response to this, so you take his silence as the go ahead. It's not like his pants were salvageable anyway.
"Are you gonna be okay in here? I have to go check on someone," your colleague asks, clearly annoyed. It wasn’t anything new to have a rude patient, but everyone’s nerves were fried after the hectic shift. You couldn’t blame them at all.
You wave them off, tired. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got him. Shouldn’t be much longer anyway.” They head off, and you turn back to the man, sighing. He’s clearly had a rough night, maybe he could use the benefit of the doubt. You were certain that you’d be a bit pissy after catching some shrapnel.
"Do you think you can get into a clean bed without ripping those stitches?" you ask tiredly as you remove your gloves. Without looking up, you move to unlace his boot. You swear you can feel him watching your fingers loosen the laces, watching your hand wrap around his ankle as you pull the boot off. His stare holds a weight in it you've never experienced before. When you look up at him, he's ready looking away.
You offer him a fresh towel for privacy as you cut his pants and briefs the rest of the way off and gingerly slide them from beneath him. They go straight in the red trash bin specifically for biohazard waste. You gingerly clean his thigh one last time and apply a thin layer of ointment to his sutures to encourage healing before you wrap his thigh in gauze. He helpfully spreads his legs enough to allow you to securely tape the gauze in place. His skin is warm, even through your gloves.
You blink once, twice, forcing the thought away as you finish up.
"I can." is all you get out of him. You sigh, it's been a long day. His boots join his vest in the chair, and you roll a clean cot into his room. This one has a thin cotton sheet and a blanket on it. You could almost swear his head is cocked, ever so slightly, with a question, and you answer it without thinking. "You're sleeping here tonight. You've lost a lot of blood and you'll need IV fluids to recover. It's not much, but it's better than that gurney."
He huffs, you can only guess he’s annoyed, but he looks the bed over. The cushioned pad was minimal at best. He would definitely feel it in the morning in addition to whatever pain arose from his stitches. “Look, I’m going to override whatever authority you think you have here. It’s safest for us to be able to watch you, just for tonight.” It’s your turn to leave him without room to argue.
For a long moment, he looks at you indignantly, like he’s not covering himself with a thin towel and your sutures aren't in his thigh. Then the tension slowly eases out of his shoulders, and he nods once.
You don't look away as he slides his legs around to the edge of the gurney, one massive hand still covering himself with the towel for decency. It's nothing you haven't seen before, and you're more concerned with whether or not he's okay to stand without support. You step closer, clearing your throat to cut the silence.
You roll an IV pole to the side of his cot and hand the fluids you’d prepared earlier on it. “Okay, last thing and then I’ll fuck off for the night, I swear,” you tell him dryly. He huffs, a short sound that’s close to a laugh, you think.
"I'm here, if you need a hand," you tell him, more confidently than you feel. Seeing him standing now you realize he's nearly a full head taller and twice as broad as you. Your hand finds his elbow, and to your surprise he doesn't tell you to back off as you help him ease into the bed.
A low, cut off groan escapes him as he sits tentatively on the edge of the bed. When he eases back to lay down, his shirt rides up just enough to hint at the bloom of a purple bruise draped over his side. His eyes are pinched shut as he slowly settles into bed.
He doesn’t get the chance to try to help himself get comfortable. “Here, just let me. I’ve got it.” You tell him quietly, batting his hands away from the sheets. You gingerly help him maneuver his legs into a comfortable position and tuck the blankets loosely around him. Another stolen glance at him tells you he’s still got that dreamy half lidded look. It’s enough for you to not exactly trust him with getting settled in bed on his own.
“I’m going to give you an IV to replace the fluids you lost and some light pain medication. Then we’re all done,” You tell him as you add more of those shitty military issue pillows to the bed. It’s the least you can do to make him comfortable. The local anesthetic won’t last him the entire night, and you’re certain the rest of his body must be sore from the aftermath of the mission.
Placing his IV goes without fuss. He's slumped back against the pillows, breathing evenly as you fill out his paperwork for his overnight check in. You'd managed to fill out most of it, but you still didn't know his name or what unit he belonged to. "Hey, what's your name and unit? I need to fill this sheet out for my records,” you ask, not even looking up.
"Ghost. One four one," each rumbling word has you bristling, your face paling. Oh hell.
"..Thank you sir." Your throat feels like it’s closing up. You don’t even bother asking for his actual name. You’d heard about a Ghost on the base, but you’d never seen him; never thought you would. It was all just rumors, something to shoot the shit about over dinner in the cafeteria.
You wanted to sink into the floor. How could you have missed the literal skull mask? The hectic rush of the day coupled with your exhaustion must have completely cleared your brain out of any irrelevant gossip, and now it was biting you in the ass. For the last half hour you’d been practically ogling him and talking to him like he was any other soldier on the base.
The rest of the shift moves by in a blur, it’s mostly paperwork and cleanup since everyone has been seen too. You luckily are not chosen to pass food out, so you’re saved the further embarrassment of having to interact with Ghost even more. With any luck tomorrow morning would be the last you two ever speak, and he could go back to being invisible to you, and you’d be saved from dying of embarrassment.
A low chuckle rolls from his chest, and your head sharply snaps up. You fight the urge to apologize and dig your hole deeper. You can feel your cheeks flush with embarrassment as you realize he’s laughing at you. You had heard rumors about his particularly efficient methods of combat and data extraction from captured enemies; some of the things you’d heard made your spine chill.
You can only smile nervously back at him and tiredly drag your hand over your eyes. You can only cling to the last vestiges of professionalism that you have left. “You’re all set here. Once things calm down someone will be by with some food for you, if you feel like eating,” you tell him, your mouth dry. He hums softly in response, and you figure the pain medication has started to take effect. “I’ll be back in the morning to check in, have a good night, sir.”
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💛 seb/lewis :-)
(kiss fic prompts!)
a little epilogue to rabbits are chasing :)
Lewis's flight lands at 8:02PM, which means that by 7:31PM, Seb is parked outside the airport arrivals door, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel and scanning the sky for approaching planes.
It's quite silly, getting here so early, but it's not as if there's much left to do at home. There's roast vegetables waiting in the oven, the cauliflower steaks that he started marinating earlier this morning chilling in the fridge. Mina and Ellie are safely ensconced in their duck coop with the heater turned on for the night. The sheets on the guest bed are freshly washed.
The car parked behind him starts up. Its headlights illuminate Seb's cabin. For a moment, he catches a glimpse of himself, harried and too-bright, in the rearview mirror. He scrubs his hands down his face. Christ. Get it together, Sebastian. He is a full 39 years old. Far too old to be getting the same jitters that he did the first time he invited a girl over at age 17, agonizing about what album to have playing when they came back to his room. Lewis is far too old for Seb to be doing all this. Lewis might not even be gay.
His phone buzzes. Seb nearly jumps out of his seat.
Lewis
just landed
getting my luggage now
hows it so freaking cold here
The inside of the car is already fogging up. When he'd asked Lewis to send dates he could come visit and Lewis had said just so you know the next few months are kind of crazy for me, Seb had expected late fall, maybe the holidays. Not the middle of slush season, when all the roads up the mountain have a 50/50 chance of being so muddy that they're undriveable.
Sebastian
I'm outside, in the blue Infiniti :)
He glances back up at himself in the mirror. The scab from where a wood chip caught the corner of his eyebrow while he was sanding the new planter box is almost healed over. His hair looks as good as it's ever going to. If Lewis asks whether he's been using conditioner, he's fucked.
It shouldn't feel like this. Seb beat Lewis to Senna's record, and Lewis still laughed at all his jokes the next season. Lewis watched Seb DNF twice in five races and still said in the media pen that he was waiting for the day Seb would be back up on the podium with him. When they inevitably auction off Lewis's Le Mans racesuit, it'll have to be with Seb's snot all over the front of it, because Lewis let Seb sob all over him and then laughed as he wiped sweat off of Seb's cheek with the sleeve. After all that – the fact that he's about to be in Seb's house for the next week shouldn't make Seb feel like he's standing in front of Lewis naked, without even the promise of a fast car or a good competition to distract Lewis from looking right at him.
His phone buzzes again.
Lewis
outside i think
Seb peers through the windscreen. Lewis – or rather, the blurry figure lugging a giant suitcase behind him that he assumes is Lewis – waves at him from the sidewalk. Seb flashes his lights at him twice.
The back door opens and Lewis's head, along with a burst of cold night air, pops in. "Hey," he says, a little breathlessly. "I don't think this is going to fit in the back."
It does, eventually, but not without a fight that involves Seb having to climb into the trunk alongside Lewis's suitcase and physically wrestle it into place while Lewis shoves from behind. They're both out of breath by the time they finally climb back in the front and slam the doors shut.
"You know, there are beds at the farm," Seb points out. "You didn't have to pack your own."
Lewis shakes his head, tugging off his gloves. His coat collar is turned up around his neck. He's wearing an an ear warmer headband, held in place by two butterfly pins. Every other bit of uncovered skin is pink, even with the heat in the car up at full blast. Lewis shoves his fingers in front of the vents and sighs with relief, closing his eyes. "Ugh, thank God," he says. He sounds exhausted. "Listen, you're lucky I fit everything into one." It sounds far less like a joke than Seb would hope. The fact that the fondness in Seb's chest still manages to outweigh the exasperation is probably a sign that Seb's beyond salvation.
"Next time I'll bring a trailer so you can fit your bathtub and toilet, too," he says, reaching for the keys. The engine purrs to life as he flicks the lights back on, then leans forward to scrub the worst of the fog off the windscreen. The thermometer on the dash says it's still 3 degrees outside. They might still be able to make it back before the slush freezes over. "Okay," he says, sitting back down and twisting around to reach for his seatbelt. "Ready to go?"
Lewis doesn't say anything. When Seb looks over, he's staring out the front window, playing with one of his rings.
"Lewis?" Seb asks.
Lewis's head jerks around. "Hm?" he says. "Oh. Yeah." He doesn't move to put on his seatbelt.
Seb frowns. Kills the engine so he can properly turn in his seat. "Lewis," he says. "Is everything –"
Lewis leans across the console and kisses him.
It's barely half a second. Seb still hasn't moved by the time Lewis sits back down on his side of the car.
"Uh," Lewis says, after a second. He clears his throat. "Sorry. I just – Shit. Sorry. The whole way over, all I could think about was – I had to get it over with before I chickened out."
He's fiddling with his rings again, but his eyes stay fixed on Seb's. His jaw is set. He still looks half-ready to bolt through the door behind him, out into the night.
"Well, you don't have to make it sound like taking your medicine, Christ," Seb says hoarsely, and drags Lewis back across the console to kiss him properly.
Lewis's lips are still cold. When Seb opens his mouth, Lewis sighs, pressing in closer with a soft sound that makes Seb want to go twenty years back in time and kick himself for not figuring out how to make Lewis make that noise sooner. His hands settle on Seb's wrists, holding him in place. Seb slides his own hands up, cradling the back of Lewis's head, to return the favor.
When he finally pulls away just far enough to catch his breath, Lewis follows him, close enough that their noses bump. His eyes are wide. This close up, Seb can see the dark circles under them more clearly.
He closes his eyes. Lewis is still there when he opens them.
"How long have you been awake?" he asks.
Lewis blinks. "What," he says. "Are you talking about."
"Sleep deprivation," Seb says. His heart is pounding hard enough that he feels it in his throat. "People start to get delirious when they're tired enough –"
"I was awake for 24 hours and I didn't kiss you at the end," Lewis interrupts, his eyes sharp and bright. "I'm not making the same mistake twice."
Seb opens his mouth and nothing comes out. He tries again. Still nothing.
"Fuck," he says, closing his eyes. "Okay. Okay." He drags himself back upright and reaches for the keys. "We can – tomorrow. But we should – you need to shower. And sleep." Lewis's hand settles on his leg. Seb rests his own on top of it; after a second, he squeezes Lewis's fingers gently. Lewis flips his hand over and laces their fingers together.
"Yeah," Lewis says. His thumb traces over Seb's knuckles. "That – tomorrow sounds good."
The slush crackles under the tires when Seb starts to move. Ahead of them, the headlights carve a path through the darkness. Lewis's hand is a solid, steady weight against his leg. "Okay," Seb says, to himself, to both of them, to no one. Lewis hums softly from his side of the car. He squeezes Seb's knee gently.
Seb closes his eyes for a second. "Okay," he says quietly. "Yeah. Let's go home."
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