#the emptiness one goes through when you live in the solitude of your trauma | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

keilemlucent · 4 years ago

Text

pretty eyes & starshine: ii

(NSFW)

hawks | takami keigo x reader

ao3

part i || part ii || part iii (epilogue)

beta’ed: @shadowworks & @firein-thesky

word count: ~15.2k

Healing takes time, but it’s easier with someone else around who’s on the mend with you.

(You and Keigo learn to start living again.)

warnings: codependency but make it sexc, injured reader, post-trauma symptoms, reader has abandonment issues, angst, ouchies <3

a/n: part 2 :’^) we made it!! soft hurt and very horny codependency that involves keigo’s immaculate d*ck. all that is left after this is part 3 which will be more of an epilogue :’^)

enjoy loves <3

✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧

The doors to exit the hospital scare you.

How can they not?

They’re... automatic.

The glass panes are wide, sliding and slapping as folks come and go, the quiet ring of metal on metal and the slap of the plastic padding makes your heart race.

Get over it, get over it, get over it—

It’s just some doors, they’re normal.

You’ve walked through automatic doors so many times. Never before had you even taken conscious note of them.

(But that was before you heard them let in that man who—)

Without thinking, you take a little, tentative step back from them.

Consider you are leaving your own slice of healing hell; you are shakier and sweatier than you would’ve liked. Your clothes are like the ones... he used to wear, cheap garments obviously pulled from some industrial multipack that stank like plastic and rubbing alcohol.

You hate it.

But you didn’t have another choice. Your old articles were bloodied and disposed of long ago, and the hospital gowns you wore during your stay were far more uncomfortable than your scratchy, wide pants and crewneck long sleeve the same pale, lifeless blue as your old bed sheets.

It would be enough.

You shift the crutch under your right arm and shuffle the backpack on your shoulders. It contains just enough to get you to the shelter, where they’d supposedly have a bed— a cot, more than likely. You had a toothbrush, some extra socks, and a prepaid card for a single, one-way train trip across the country and into the unknown.

Tears stung your eyes as you lingered by the doors.

It all feels so uncomfortably real. The world kept moving, and you’re reentering it far-more battered and perpetually bruised.

And completely alone.

(The thought horrifies you to your core, but you try to ignore it.)

Despite the time you spent at the hospital, you were leaving without a hint of reverie. Everyone, nurses and doctors and anyone who has fucking eyes is too busy dealing with the casualties that had lasted months.

It didn’t matter how long you stayed. You were just a body. A fucked up one too.

You count yourself lucky to even have the backpack, as cheap and sterile as it smells.

It all unnerves you, but you didn’t have a choice. Numbness settles over you as you accept your future.

There... is a little glimmer that he will show up.

(He won’t. Empty promises.)

(Everyone leaves.)

(Why’d you call him, anyway?)

(Because no one had spoken to you like a human in a month.)

Solitude makes people desperate and crazy.

You are a little crazy, you know. Maybe not in a bad way, but certainly in a way that is eating you up and out in ways you don’t understand. You don’t have the energy sort through it all. You just have to finally start moving forward. Or try to.

Tentatively, you walk toward the doors, stepping out and onto the pavement. You lurch and you would’ve tripped if not for the crutch shoved under your arm.

For the first time in a long time, you suck in fresh air and the trickling sunlight. It feels fresh, cleansing you with each little inhale as you face your cheeks to sky. You have your moment, basking before your journey.

Then someone whistles. You ignore it at first.

The person whistles again, calling out—

“Your ride’s here, starshine!”

Your breath punches from your lungs. You whip your head to the sound.

Though it’s overcast, you do see your morning sun.

Your steps stutter as you nearly trip over your feet.

He is standing, not far at all, leaning against a shiny black car, sleek and expensive and out of place. He’s all overgrown hair and lazy-expressions, one which stretches into a grin as he sees you.

And you see him.

(He really came?)

(Of course he did.)

Your crutch nearly clatters to the ground as you stumble toward him. The moment you waver, he’s running to catch you.

You meet each other halfway.

And without a goddamn lick of shame, the moment you near him, your arms lock around him. Your face buries into the hollow of his throw and you inhale. The scent of him, a bit spiced but mostly skin and sweat fills you. Not a hint of antiseptic.

And you shudder at how good it feels.

He stabilizes the two of you, greedily wrapping his arms around your waist and squeezing as if to give a much-needed greeting.

There’s a moment of heat between you, familiar and blessed and so damned missed that you both share shuddering breaths.

“It’s good to see you, starshine,” He soaks up any part of you he could get to. So casually, he touches like he wants to consume you.

You squeeze him just as hard.

“You came?” Your words muffled into his skin.

He simply nods, and the only confirmation you need to sink into him. Perhaps, there’s onlookers, but neither of you have the mind to care. All you care about is the shift of his muscles beneath your fingertips, the heat of him, his golden, pretty visage—

Like he had so many times, he tucks hair behind your ears and tension drains from him.

So tenderly does he squeeze around your middle where he holds you up, “Let’s go home, starshine.”

You want nothing more.

...

The drive to your new home is long, but you don’t mind.

The world has changed in the months you’d been tucked away in the forest-hidden hospital. As disconnected as you were, you still heard of the unrest and upheaval across the country. The political clashes are marked by the... contrarian billboards lining the highway, new slogans battling each other every mile or so.

The scenery slowly goes from flatlands, to wetlands, to rolling hills that are a lush green. From the safety of the car, you could see that the air even looked wet, and you could imagine the way it would stick in your throat and tacky the tips of your fingers.

“Where do you live?” You finally ask, voice soft in the melancholy softness of the light mist that sprayed the car.

“In the mountains, high-up,” He squeezes your hand (the one he’s been holding the whole ride). Quietly, he adds. “I still couldn��t bear to be too close to the ground.”

He laughs, though it fades into the suddenly heavy air.

This is the world, isn’t it?

You blink, gulping at the face of your reality, and let your eyes go half-lidded as you trace the shapes of growing evergreen as your drive takes you higher and higher.

...

Keigo had made up the guest room for you.

He doesn’t have much for extra sheets and softness, let alone decor, but he does what he can. The bed is made and pressed with clean lines, freshly washed. The curtains on the windows hang heavy, but warm up the room with their clement, tan fibers. It’s a start, with lots of space for you to add your own touches as well.

He’d spent the night prior on it, laboring, like he was preparing a nest as opposed to a simple bedroom.

(It is a nest, but he doesn’t need to accept that just yet.)

There wasn’t anything else to do for a while when he first escaped that fucking hell. He’d really given up. Keigo was uncomfortably content to rot away as he had dreamed of since he’d been burnt. The little, dusty corners of the cabin would’ve made perfect places to waste away in peace and alone.

Except, he didn’t.

Keigo started to make the home better.

He isn’t sure if it was out of some need to just do something, and the outdated, worn cabin was his most available canvas. Part of him is convinced it’s some buried avian instinct, and without the Commission’s constant hovering, he has no reason to suppress those more animalistic urges. The need to nest somewhere cozy and safe took him over, and he had gotten to work.

The cabin is cleaned up incredibly well. New appliances, floors patched and polished. The furniture is mostly old, but it’s obviously been shined and tended to. The living area isn’t horribly large, but it’s more than enough space for the two of you. It has wide windows that looked down upon the slopes and peaks that your home is nestled in. The colors are warm oranges and tans that are easy on the eye. Nothing too red and nothing too blue.

Nothing too imposing.

(Nothing too reminiscent.)

He leads you from the car, gingerly helping you up the rickety stairs to the front door.

The wound on your leg may be ‘healed’, but you don’t appear comfortable in the slightest. Your expression pinches with half of your steps, the bending of your scarred flesh undoubtedly painful. It makes something in his chest squeeze as he navigates you into his house, from the snow into somewhere warm. A place that he crafted all on his own. Shaped with his own hands. A real possession, all his own.

When you enter, you don’t say anything, only tightening your grip on his hand.

“I like it,” You smile, soft and dreamy, worrying the strap of your backpack. “... Are you sure it’s okay for me to stay?”

“Of course,” Keigo assures you. Of course, it was okay for you to stay. “I’m happy to have you here, especially when the other option is one of the shelters.”

You wouldn’t have lasted a day with your bum leg and natural softness.

The thought has him gulping, the heat flaring in his chest as he tugs you closer, ghosting his lips over your temple.

With only a bit of stumbling, he shows you the rest of the home.

...

You’re quiet the rest of the day, curled up on the couch in the same clothes you left the hospital in. There’s clear exhaustion in your face, from the dark circles ringing your eyes and the tremble in your hand and leg. Keigo is content to cover you in a nice knit blanket he purchased down in the nearby town, and let you rest.

His own back burns when he catches glimpses of your scar. It ran down all the way to your ankle, even bleeding onto the top of your foot. The gnarled flesh brings back memories of screaming and metallic exam rooms.

And he, like you, stares at a wall for a while before making dinner.

You can’t manage much.

The TV glows with some show you might’ve watched and been engrossed in it. But the hollow feeling in your chest keeps you submerged in the static of your skull. It’s more comfortable than acknowledging how quickly the picture moves in front of you.

Your only motion is a ‘light’ scratching over the thin fabric of your pants.

‘Light’.

He enters sometime later, bearing food and an easy smile that falls all-too quickly.

“Hey, starshine— oh fuck,” His voice clips as he enters, setting down steaming plates on the coffee table and pulling your hand from your thigh. The tips of your fingers are stained with enough blood to make your eyebrows shoot up.

Your eyes shoot to your leg, where you’d apparently tore through the thin fabric of your pants and torn your skin up without even thinking. So close to the scar—

Heat flares between, light bouncing in your eyes as you cover the hole, “S-sorry, fuck, I didn’t even realize.”

“It’s okay, it happens,” Keigo assures you, softer than you’ve ever heard him. “Let’s clean you up quick and then eat, okay?”

You nod, exhaling a weight from your chest as the light skitters out of your eyes.

And the heat fades from the room. The absence of it chills Keigo, and the abruptness makes his nose scrunch.

He patches you up quickly and with a precision that screams ‘yes, I have done this far too many times.’ The wound isn’t too severe, just a nasty-looking scratch. The dried blood on your finger is wiped away.

You both settle onto the couch, eating in silence.

Something hangs in the air, thick and unsaid. Questions and paragraphs that have been ignored up until now. Not out of will, perhaps just tired negligence.

But, Keigo has always been the blunt type, so he finally asks one of the many facets that needs to be broached.

“What’s your quirk?”

A little surprised sound lodges in your throat with a bite of baked fish, “My quirk? I thought you figured it out already.”

Keigo raises a feathery eyebrow, “I’m a bit slow these days, starshine.”

The nickname makes something settle pleasantly under your ribs, and the light, little orbs of yellow and orange return to your eyes.

And heat fills the room, like it had so many times before. Like those first nights in the common room, stargazing in the lamp and starlight. It’s warmth that bleeds between his bones and tendons, through and through.

Keigo puts it all together, jaw going slack and eyes going wide.

Had he never realized it?

It does make sense, in retrospect and without a sinfully heavy dose of painkillers swimming in his veins. The heat that permeated all of the nights you sat, eyeing the stars and each other.

The odd heat of it all.

You’d been warming the two of you. Souls cold from the sterility of it all.

“That’s your quirk?” Keigo leans in closer, inspecting the little specks of light in your irises. The tell. “This whole time?”

“U-um, yeah,” You worry a hangnail. “I don’t mean for it to be activating all over the place, but it has been since everything happened.”

“Why’s that?”

You chew the plump of your bottom lip, brows pinched.

Without thinking, Keigo bows to the will of the ever-present, needy feeling in his chest and presses a little kiss to your forehead, willing it to smooth away some of your worry.

I’m not upset, the action says, but the cabin is quiet.

“... You know how cats purr?”

Keigo quirks an eyebrow, “I do.”

“Well, I think it’s kind of like that,” You met his eyes, the light returning and the fire-like warmth tickling the hair on your arms. “Cats purr when they feel good, but sometimes, they purr when they’re not doing well.”

“... ‘Not doing well’?”

“If they’re in pain, or if they’re really scared,” You go quiet, tracing a seam on Keigo’s jeans. “They’ll purr to comfort themselves. It’s like that.”

Comfort themselves.

No wonder all those nights you spent together, you felt so warm. It was your quirk—

And you must’ve felt awful.

Part of him feels betrayed, just for a moment, before it dissolves with the watery look you wear as your injured finger traces over his knuckles.

And the heat of you flares.

Your quirk is a part of you.

“I didn’t think to tell you.” Your voice wobbles, yet remains vacant. “‘M sorry.”

You don’t need to apologize.

If anything, the knowledge only strengthens Keigo’s resolve.

...

The first weeks at the house are odd as you both settle into rhythms of living. There’s an orbit to how you choose to live, though it’s not predictable or reliable. It can’t be, there’s no way for it to be. You float around each other like little planets to a fickle sun, unstable and wavering, but elliptical, nonetheless.

You’re both learning to be human again with your own rhythms.

Keigo’s biggest challenge is dragging himself from bed each morning. The lazy bones he thought the Commission had broken and beaten out of him still remain somehow. Now that he has no obligations to tend to at the break of dawn, he thoroughly enjoys lazing about in the sheets, even if he’s just staring at his wood-paneled ceiling wishing that Dabi had finished the job and burned him dead.

He’s doing great.

Despite his sluggishness, you move about on your own.

You make coffee each morning, and curl up on the couch under the same knit blanket. A few patches of the multi-colored throw have been pulled apart by your restless hands.

Neither of you comment on it.

Though Keigo takes longer to rise, you move far less during the day during those first weeks. You’re tethered to the cushion until the sun goes down.

It’s like the nylon straps at the hospital never left your wrists.

Your vacant nature scares him, if he’s honest. There’s an unspoken, massive wound you carry with you, both physically and mentally, and its manifestation is a little haunting.

Keigo knows about trauma, knows about how the mind worked and how to, you know, deal with it. He is— was, a hero, for fuck’s sake. Trauma is in the job description and he’d had his fair share of bruises before he went undercover, before he killed Jin (REALLY don’t think about it—), and lost his wings. He’s stitched himself up by filling up his schedule with anything he could. Distractions. Things to occupy him, help him forget for a while. If that didn’t work, he always had a bottle or two of imported soju that he could nurse.

Again, coping.

The state you’re in is the opposite of coping, it’s being. Existing. The strain you carry from everything shows in you, and the way that it’s manifested terrifies him.

Keigo is smart enough to know to keep a few boundaries. He can’t fix you and he can’t get it in his head that he can. He’ll smother you; he knows he will. The solace he finds comes from being there when you need him, and always being close by.

It’s all he can do to soothe what’s obviously an open wound. He has his own, that you tend to in your own way as well when you can. It’s all give-and-take, naturally and easily.

You’ll find yourselves on the couch together, leaning and touching so naturally, but with no intent. Your little fingers trace shapes over his clothes, hearts and lettering he can’t catch. The heat of you will cling to him, whether your quirk activates or not.

He holds you, simply and truly. Tries to be a new, kinder being.

...

You don’t have much that is solely yours.

You’d been living in an odd combination of Keigo’s clothes and the single outfit you arrived with. It works, enough. Most garments are worn until they’re filthy, but it takes you a little too long to notice.

Keigo notices.

One day, he sits down with you and his heavy, black credit card and helps you pick out... whatever you wanted. The guy is loaded and will be until he dies, and he’s smitten to help you pick out whatever you need.

You’re more challenged by the task.

“I’m fine, you don’t need to do this,” you murmur into his collarbones, narrowing your eyes at the laptop screen. “I have enough.”

Keigo clicks his tongue, rubbing the fraying fabric of your shirt, the same, cheap scratchy fabric from the hospital. Your pants are soft cotton, old ones of Keigo’s that he should probably throw away. You adore them, and spend most of your time in them, too.

“You deserve some nice things that are yours, don’t you think?” He coaxes with some extra soft touches as you glare at the screen.

Perhaps, you think to yourself. Your jaw locks.

You deliberately avoided thinking about your lack of... things. The absence of all the bits of you that you had once carried tugs at something deep in your chest. Grief, probably. Loss at the very least. Your home has been torn apart and you have nothing. Not a single remnant of then except you. And you’re hardly a good cast of the existence you once lead.

The world feels dimmer with the thought.

...

The house gets cold at night.

It’s inevitable, with the chill of the snowy valleys and peaks slipping through drafty windows and cracks in the woodwork. It slunk into the house once the stars rose, sinking bone deep. It’s easier to ward off during the day. The little stray touches and the ambiance of shared presence helps.

But, you slept separately.

It’s cold— so fucking cold in your beds. Keigo hates it. Despises the way how it makes his eyes droop and his body heavier than it should be. Despite not having wings any longer, his other avian traits lingered, and torpor was definitely not in his top three faves. He can only be thankful that he thought to invest in an electric blanket for himself, for his nest.

Though it would be a lot better with you in it, the last thing he wants to do is push you. You’re fragile. Everything is fragile. Keigo has laid awake on more than one night, trying to make sense of all of it, everything and coming to the conclusion that sleeping in his too-big, too-cold bed would have to do.

Sometimes, there’s no way to swallow the state of things.

...

“Your packages are here.”

You look up, eyes wide and sweet.

Oh, yeah. Material goods.

Clothes.

Objects.

It takes a while, but the result of your shopping spree is a small horde of packages down at the town post office, all with your name attached. The idea of so much newness is daunting, but your few remaining garments are threadbare and practically falling apart. It’s necessary, you acknowledge, even if you’re terrified of not living in Keigo’s worn crewneck.

(Change can be good, you remind yourself. The thought is quiet.)

Keigo stands by the door, buttoning up his coat and lacing up his boots as you watch from your soft perch on the couch. The blanket has a new, wide hole picked in it, but you don’t notice.

“Would you like to come with me and pick them up?” Keigo flicks his gaze to you with a careful, easy smile.

You hadn’t left the house since you’d arrived.

The thought sends your stomach knotting and sweat gathering in your palms. You jerk your head side to side, sinking back down into the cushions.

Keigo doesn’t hold it against you. You can tell by the way his expression softens around his eyes.

He leaves after kissing you on the forehead a few times, telling you he’ll be quick to return. It’s not often that he leaves, though he’s always timely on coming back. His excursions are never more than a trip to the town market, thankfully. An hour or two feels like a lot, but the too-still air and quiet of the floorboards without Keigo’s pacing unsettles you.

Not having him near unsettles you. The thought of having him gone for too long shoots something hot and needy in your chest.

(Don’t leave, don’t leave, don’t leave—)

Thankfully, just like always, Keigo isn’t gone for long. And he returns bearing a few armloads of packages and some takeout curry. You take it all, and him, greedily.

(Thank you, thank you, thank you.)

...

It’s a few days later when Keigo wakes to you knocking on his door in the early hours of the morning.

It had been a... rougher day. You had been a bit livelier early on, joining him on the snowy patio for morning coffee and even taking a quick walk around the neighboring forest. With the snow so deep, you could only go so far though. The motion of it aggravated your injury, left your gasping and clawing at Keigo’s arm as the scar tissue pulled.

The scar is still dead, thank god, but the impact is just as present physically as it is mentally for you.

The rest of the day you spent curled up on the couch, taking little sips of water between short naps. That night, you hardly touched your dinner. Keigo was smart enough to cut up some fruit and lay it with a handful of crackers and offer it to you throughout the rest of the night. You nibbled at the bits, but hardly consumed much at all.

You went to bed early, giving him a hard hug before retiring to your lonely room.

Those days are the worse, the bad ones. They’re the ones where Keigo wants to break all the boundaries he still has. The little touches and kisses he gives you are one thing, but there’s much more he wants to do. Craves doing. But, pushing you too far or too hard would break you. He’s smart. He knows that. So, Keigo doesn’t wait. He satiates all those protective needs.

He accepts circumstance, just as he always has.

(He doesn’t understand how much you crave him, but that’ll come later.)

That night, things begin to shift.

His voice cracks with sleep as he calls for you to enter. You linger in the door frame, clutching a pillow to your chest, like a scared child who’s had a—

“Nightmare?” He asks, sitting up and tugging a blanket with him to cover his bare chest.

The cold air of the cabin hits his scars. He hisses under his breath, shoulders drawing tense. You must notice, eyes going a little wider as you recede from his room. The darkness of the hallway nearly dissolves you. His chest aches, hands tightening around the fabric in his fists.

“Come back here, starshine, come on,” Keigo calls, praying you’ll heed him. “It’s alright. What’s wrong?”

Keigo half-recognizes that that’s a very loaded question, but you’re both a bit sleep addled. Maybe it will slide.

Your eyes alight in the pitch of the room, sputtering with little orbs of amber. Your atrophying arms squeeze the pillow, and you take a few more tentative steps closer.

“... We’re safe, right?”

The question surprises Keigo, enough to make his old wounds ache.

One loaded question answered for another.

It’s reasonable to ask. It’s very reasonable to ponder. Keigo has wondered about it too. The townsfolk don’t know who he really was, and he was quite secretive about the initial move. The world hadn’t caught onto the fact that ‘Hawks’ had moved him and his new love to an isolated little cabin in the woods, and hopefully they never would. Society had a lot bigger problems, according to the over-processed news channel he tuned into on occasion.

Keigo was old news at this point.

So many heroes had been called out for poor behavior. Scandal after scandal, coverup after coverup. Corruption, everywhere. It was an industry secret, all of the bullshit behind closed doors. Keigo’s little double-agent schtick and you know, murder of a good man (for the love of god, do not fucking think about Jin) was still bad, but the public had a whole new slew of bullshit to torch people at the stake for.

Still.

He’s glad no one knows about your little hideaway or you.

“We’re safe, starshine. Very safe.”’

It makes his answer easier to say, more honest.

You inch closer from the doorway. There’s a tremble in your shoulders that runs to your hands. You’re only wearing a t-shirt and thin shorts, maybe just panties, he can’t tell. Your scar runs down your thigh and calf, gnarling and twisting the flesh it dared to mar. The seam of it is a shining black that Keigo had failed to notice before.

It reminds him of why you’re so scared and the types of nightmares you must have.

“... Promise?” You stop at the foot of the bed, throat bobbing with a thick gulp.

Keigo gives a sympathetic smile, patting the sheets next to him, “I promise. You’re safe. We’re safe.”

You look skeptical, but climb into bed with him all the same.

Something stirs in Keigo’s chest as you do. As he watches you clamor over the sheets and blankets he... nests in, the heat of it fills him. A combination of yours and his own, spills through his ribs and down to his toes.

He shudders with it, something needy wriggling down from

You sit up on your knees, sinking into the mattress and holding the pillow tight to your chest. Watching, eyes still alight and wide.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Keigo asks.

You don’t, you both know that, but breaking the silence is a start.

You push the pillow against the headboard, trading it to link your fingers with his, over his chest and pressed to the linens.

You squeeze and let out a breath you’ve been holding. There’s a weight to it, like there’s something you’re actually carrying. There has been something you have been carrying, but only you are able to see it— feel it in its actuality.

But, that doesn’t mean you have to shoulder the burden alone, especially on darkened, lonely nights.

He tugs you closer, mindful of your tenderness and the scars you both bear. The night is only lit by starlight, and the room is dark with the new moon. It makes it easier to be closer as you settled into the bedding next to him.

It’s uncomfortable for a few moments.

Despite how much contact you share, this feels different. The little touches, kisses and caresses you trade throughout the day are second nature. Comforting someone else who so obviously needs it. His person who needs it.

(He wonders if you think of him as your ‘person’ too.)

You lay on your side, facing away from him as you fall into his nest, still tense, still on edge and unsure. It reminds him of those first days at the hospital, when you both had lost your tongues and yourselves and just enjoyed the stars together in oddly comforting silence and broken conversation.

It’s a process, he reminds himself.

Keigo slides closer, throwing an arm over waist and adjusting the blankets with his other. There’s plenty, piled on top of each other without much reason. Careful hands properly tuck you into it all, next to him, with him. He brings them up to your chin, pressing stray hairs back into place and laying a trailing kiss or two over the back of your neck.

“... Is it okay if I stay?” Your voice sounds far-off, like the question is more for yourself than for him.

He can feel the unease and fear still bound up in your shoulders. It’s always there, whether it’s a moonless night or a snow-glitteringly, sunny day. The tension he presses his thumbs into is held in all of the muscle of your back, in your hips, your hands— everywhere.

It makes part of him ache.

A few little coos, soft little rumbles, roll from the back of his throat.

Normally, he’d be a bit embarrassed. But at the birdish chirps, you’re falling deeper in the sheets, the nest, and against his chest.

“Please stay,” He assures you with a squeeze. A small comfort, one he’d keep giving.

The odd quiet returns, sans the little sounds in his chest.

Slowly, tentatively, you turn in his arms. Your own lock over his waist, splayed low on his spine. The pads of your fingertips brush scars, the old ones and the new. It makes him writhe a bit in his own skin. It’s unfamiliar, compared to all of the cold prodding and meaningless pleasure he was used to.

It is the closest anyone of familiarity has been to the scars in a long time, and you, preciously, grace him with the softest touch. No expectation in it, just some much-needed, shared bits of love. Once again, precious.

And you both relax into it all. The ambient thrum of the other's body, the shared breath and smells that mingle between you. There’s little pains and stings that never really go away, but with the other so close, neither of you mind.

It’s hard to tell when your quirk settles, and the organic heat you create together fills the rooms and your lungs.

All Keigo knows is that he falls asleep with your lips brushing the hollow of his throat, still and warm against his chest. The feeling of the living rhythm of your body with your breath lulls him off, content and hazy.

...

You never sleep alone after that night.

Keigo pulls you into his room, or you pad in after brushing your teeth and pulling on your soft, soft sleep clothes. The bed feels a lot less big and lonely with the two of you wrapped up in each other, fully giving in.

It puts Keigo at a remarkable amount of ease.

The urge in his chest to ‘keep you safe’ feels the most sated at night, when he can keep as close as you both can bear. Your hands always make their home at the base of his spine, or the fat and flesh between his lower back and his rear. The pads of your fingers rub away years of stored tension and weight, quietly and kindly before you fall asleep each night.

During the day, you’re equally as needy, though you’re slowly becoming a bit more independent. You’re more lucid in general. Though the couch and worn blanket are your greatest comforts (other than him), you’re beginning to stray and poke around the house a bit more.

The shelves have a few more familiar comforts, things Keigo had slowly accumulated to pass the time. There’s a video game console or two he’d never used, a few stacks of books he’d heard were good, and some tucked away art supplies if inspiration struck.

As much as he urges you to take and use whatever you’d like, you’re still tentative. The first few times you pluck a crisp book from the shelf, Keigo’s back aches with how the old muscles that once controlled his wings tried to puff-up non-existent feathers. Despite how it tugs at all the wrong parts of him, he still glows at the progress.

You start to help him with dinner too. That’s some of your favorite time.

There’s a rhythm to it, when you both start preparing meals together. Keigo can’t season food for shit, (though, he’s made leaps and strides with cooking that pats himself on the back for) but he’s quite skilled with a knife. Remnants of his training that have domestic applications.

He doesn’t tell you that that’s why he’s so good at dicing vegetables and paring meat, he just chatters to fill the air. You tend more to the process of cooking, seasoning and watching and nodding along to his words.

The more meals you share in creating, the more you start to speak up.

It’s progress, even in something so small.

...

But progress isn’t linear.

It’s not even a goddamn line and it’s fucking infuriating.

...

The depth of winter bears down on the hills, the house, and the two of you. You’re coping, both of you. But the momentum of it is fragile.

It scares you, secretly and privately.

You feel fragile, and you have for a long time. Your scar remains tender, gnarled and ugly on your leg. You avoid looking at it at all cost, though Keigo has free reign to graze tender touch nearby it.

That’s how you find yourselves, leaning on each other on the cushion of the couch and idly watching the glow of the television. Your cheek tucks over his shoulder and you watch with half-lidded eyes. You’re only half-there as Keigo changes the channel.

He hums after a few moments.

“There’s a storm coming tonight,” Keigo tells you, lips just a touch dry against the shell of your ear. “I’m going to go to town and—”

Oh wow.

You interrupt, fisting the front of his shirt, “Can I come?”

The question stuns both of you.

Your eyes are honest as you peer up, genuinely unsure if you can.

“Of course, starshine,” Keigo assures. You notice the way his eyes, his pretty eyes, look wide and bright. All for you. Wow. “Let’s get you out of the house, hm?”

Getting out.

Time has stretched out and you can’t remember the last time you left for anything more than a little stroll on the backroads, Keigo on your arm. Going to town and seeing people strikes something odd that has your stomach churning.

You’re nervous when you finally pile into the car, both bundled up with hats, mittens and scarfs (Keigo wears a mask to better hide his identity, but he’s sure some of the townies have figured him out.) The tasks are simple. Stock up for the coming storm and make sure he pays to plow their little backroad out once the storm passes. Easy, things that wouldn’t take too long, but it still makes your palms sweat.

Keigo massages your thigh as you drive into town. The comfort of the snowy hills and evergreens disappears, and it has you in goddamn knots.

You squeeze his hand, locking your jaw.

“I’m scared.” You break the silence as the small structures of the town come into view. “I don’t know if this was a good idea.”

You haven’t decided again.

He kneads his thumb into the tension in your thighs with a little smile, “Let’s give it a try.”

“It’s scary, though.”

“I know.”

You pull at a hangnail with your teeth but say nothing else as you roll in and park at the small market.

The first thing you notice is the goddamn doors. Automatic doors.

When you see them, you want to climb back into the car, maybe the trunk for fuck’s sake, and hide like you’ve never hidden before. Go home and bury yourself in a snow pile with how your heart hammers in your chest and your breath catches.

Deep breaths.

You catch yourself, just a little.

You keep walking, Keigo’s hand in yours and you enter the market like nothing feels as wrong as it is.

The store is small, but there’s a decent selection, all things given. Keigo places a basket in your hands, tells you to ‘go nuts’ and ‘literally get whatever you want, especially if it’s salty or sweet’ and you heed him the best you can. He busies himself talking to the clerk, organizing with that honey-voice you crave.

You take a few deep breaths and walk around the market like a normal person.

(Even though, the last time you were in a situation close to this, you got that nasty, cute scar on your leg.)

(You suppress the thought for as long as you can.)

The basket gets filled quickly, but you stuff it to the brim. Keigo picked out plenty of good food, and had learned how to cook decently, but having some... agency felt nice, if not fucking terrifying.

You’ve got your back turned to the entrance of the store when the (automatic) doors suddenly swish open.

A chill so cold and hard shoots down your spine and you freeze, hovering over a box of breadcrumbs.

One...

How long was it between that sound and when he touched you?

Two...

This was a terrible idea.

Three—

It was four—

Four—

Four seconds, you propose, as your heart beats out of your chest and you sweat under your arms. Four seconds from the door opening to pain.

You wait.

And wait.

Nothing.

Just more voices from the front of the store, a figure entering your aisle and then leaving.

You hate the way you're so rigid, tense enough in your shoulders for it to hurt. The ghost of the wound on your leg makes you want to fall to the ground and writhe, but you grab the box of breadcrumbs and try not to think.

It works, and you land next to Keigo, presenting your filled basket to be rung up.

You bury your face into his shoulder and take a deep inhale. Keigo keeps you close, tucked in your side with an arm around your waist. Your anxiety must’ve been quite visible, as he takes to quietly rubbing your shoulders over your sweater.

Things get hazy as you feel safer. Keigo laughs and sways the two of you as he speaks to the clerk.

(Her sons are going to blow your little house out when the storm passes. The family cat recently got out and came back pregnant. Her husband has been reading some odd literature he found on the internet. Something about ‘the strong triumphant over the weak’. Her daughter might be able to return from her foreign university now that the travel restrictions had been lifted.)

Everything moves forward, even if it’s unpleasant.

It’s an awful reminder at an inopportune time.

You watch your feet as you crunch your way back to the shotgun side of the car, only relaxing when you hear the doors lock and the engine thrum.

...

The storm comes, just as the faces on TV said it would.

You’re in the country, in the hills and mountains where the weather is already turbulent and changeable. All the same, the overcast skies dump snow over the land and blanket the world in quiet and cold.

Snow silence sucks the sounds from the air, sans the howl of angry wind.

You’re tucked away and safe. It’s Keigo’s only solace.

After going into town, you keep more to yourself as the storm takes it sweet time rolling in. He recognizes the far off look in your eyes; it’s the one you wore stargazing, but there’s no kind smile on your face. Just a thoughtless frown as you go through the motions of your day.

It makes his chest ache.

(Part of him regrets bringing you with him to the market. It rots part of him, and he can only hope it sprouts again.)

Finally, when the storm truly comes and the hills get heavy and crisp white, a bit more of you returns. Keigo wants to take the fragments you’re willing to give him and tuck them close, horde them and squeeze. The way he’s gotten abashedly greedy for you has him handsier and needier.

He’ll take what he can get, and give what he can too.

It’s easiest to bear at night, probably out of habit. Maybe the time in the hospital fucked both of you up (yes, for sure, it did), but nighttime was the time where you were open and easy with each other.

The storm gives the perfect opportunity to all of your time shamelessly twisted together, only leaving for brief coffee breaks and light meals. Otherwise, you’re both nested.

Pillows and blankets piled on the oversized mattress, all soft against your scars and old scratches. Keigo’s still fond of the color red, he can’t let that go, but he trades in the scarlet that was once his ‘brand’ for a deeper burgundy. All the sensations are rich and velvety, whether it’s the bedclothes you’re wrapped in or the touches you share.

It feels safe.

The feeling is something almost foreign to Keigo. He’s been getting used to it, even as the isolation weighs down on him. No one around means no reason to be so alert. The house isn’t bugged, there’s no villains or Suits watching his every move. He’s just a flightless bird, with no cage, but no captors either.

It feels amazing.

It feels even better that you’re always the heat against his side. That you and your perfect, sweet hands always know how and where to touch. Your words flow easier when you’re so close, so surrounded and so deliciously suffocated.

Keigo fills you up in all the best ways, and you’re finally able to breathe easier.

You tell him your secrets, little stargazing facts and facets of you that you’d held away and far from him before.

“Do you know what cosmic microwave background radiation is?” You ask, sweet as your lips nip at his jaw.

“No, not a clue,” He laughs, the giggle only you get to hear.

You hum, shifting your thighs so it lies over his. Your hips grind, slow and unhurried as wind rattles the windows.

“It’s this ambient radiation that’s just everywhere, all the time, forever,” You tell him, voice going a little huskier despite the fact you’re talking about theoretical astrophysics. “It’s left over from the Big Bang. A little bit of the beginning that never stops.”

“And how do you know all this?”

“A documentary, love.”

The questions fade as your lips slide together, lazy hands sliding into each other's hairs. You pull, only lightly, just to bring him closer. Keigo gets greedy, (again, always), licking into your mouth and tasting you. It’s all cheap coffee and the stale mint of toothpaste, and he drinks you down like the finest nectar. He sucks on your tongue, moaning at the way you keen and shift next to him.

It’s not enough. It never is, so he rolls to sit himself over your hips and grab your jaw in a tight grip. He can’t be too forceful, he can’t— his little birdbrain won’t let him do anything too rough to you, even if neither of you would mind it. He tilts your head just right.

You roll your hips up, breath mingling with his as it hitches and shudders from you. It’s so much, so much good, but it still doesn’t feel like enough.

Keigo pulls away, eyes half-lidded to take in your own blown pupils. It makes something purr in his chest, to see your eyes already glassy and wide for him. Your neck is thoroughly covered in darkened splotches, already sucked and bitten while the storm sang.

Little marks of him.

“You’re all mine, you know?” Keigo nearly moans at the way your expression goes gooey and sweetened. He tightens his grip on your jaw just a fraction, enough to make you gasp before he licks and nips below your ear. Just to make sure you hear him. “‘Everywhere, all the time, forever’, I’ve got you.”

“Y-you do,” you gasp as Keigo shifts your sleep shorts off, pushed away forgotten in the nest. The thin tank top you’re wearing is hardly covering anything, not that either of you care. The nearly-sheer fabric of it stretches over your collars and curves beautifully. It does nothing to hide the way your breaths heave or the sweat and heat gathering on your neck.

You’re bared to him.

And if Keigo’s being honest?

You own each other, in the most pleasantly fucked up way.

“Y-You’re so good,” The word holds weight, so much heaviness. Keigo groans, palming one of your breasts and rolling one of your nipples. It’s ambient, something to occupy himself as he resists your words. Just a little—

Your hand slips into the front of his sweats, bare beneath, and wraps around the velvet of him. Thick and hot, firm in your hand but not close enough.

You squeeze, almost in warning.

“You are good.” You gasp as Keigo pulls off you, leveling gazes with you, all pretty eyes reflecting the starshine and snow. He is good. There’s so much more to it than that, but your poor, fucked up little mind can’t synthesis it yet. Only that Keigo is good, warm, safe, and wholly yours. And you’re his. You stretch to ghost a kiss over his lips. “My good boy, always keeping me safe. You keep me so well.”

He stills, even as you slowly pump in his cock. It twitches in your hand, your thighs squeezing between his hips.

Keigo’s mind races, in the best way.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” He murmurs, head tilting and body sagging to drink down your kiss-bruised lips. More, more, more— “You just need to be taken care of.”

“I don’t need to,” You lie, huffing.

Keigo raises an eyebrow, biting his lips as your grip floats down to his balls, massaging them in your soft grip. It’s tender, weirdly vulnerable, as the whole of you two are.

“Maybe you don’t need to, you’re very capable,” Maybe not right now, but he knows it’s in there. “But you want it.”

“I-I like it,” You scramble the wording, shoving down his sweats, huffing again and urging Keigo to kick them away. Your palm goes to his cheek and drags him closer. “I like you a lot, love you, you know. You make me feel... safe. It’s a good feeling.”

It’s the most honest you’ve been in a long time, and it sits in the air. Keigo remains silent for a moment, silent and trying to control the way his birdbrain wants to take you. Wants to fuck you up and ruin you for anyone else.

You’re his, aren’t you?

“Good girl,” Keigo breaks the tension, squeezing your hips to the point of bruises. His, his, his. “I keep you so good, don’t I?”

You nod, spitting out little affirmatives between kisses. They dot his cheeks and forehead, slipping to his nose and downward. You pull his bottom lip into his mouth, letting out a little half-sob as Keigo’s touch drifts to your cunt, to your clit that’s swollen and untouched.

More, more, more—

“You keep me so good,” You gulp, whining and grinding into the heel of his hand. Slick coats your sex, sticky and hot. “So, so good—”

Keigo drops down the bed, ignoring the flare of his scar tissue, to seat himself between your thighs. They get thrown over his shoulders with a squeeze. His hands cup your ass, slipping a pillow beneath your hips before eating your cunt like he’d die if he didn’t.

It’s one of his favorite things. Stuffing you full of him until your belly swells is another, or seeing the way his cock opens and stretches you until you’re gasping for breath and begging for more, more, more—

Keigo slips a finger into you without resistance. He curls it, unyielding as he massages the little knot of nerves in you that makes you arch and beg for more, for him.

You choke on a sob when he adds another finger, and he hushes you so sweet, tears prick your eyes.

“Starshine,” He coaxes, withdrawing only to give your clit, a few kitten licks and slow kisses. His gaze flickers towards yours, holding your wet eyes. “Doesn’t it feel good?”

You nod, the meat of your thighs squeezing around him. Keigo would be happy to die like this, you soft and opened for him, crying for him. Broken and cracking for him, by his tongue, by his touch, Him. His.

“Who takes care of you?” He curls his fingers, and you throw your head back into the nest of pillows.

“Y-You,” Your voice breaks and you rub at your cheeks.

“Who knows just how to keep you so well? How to make you feel so good?”

He presses a third finger in, tending to your clit as you cry above him. You’re molten around him, and he laps you up until the smell and taste of you is all he comprehends.

This is what you both need, isn’t it?

Each other. All of each other.

Your cries turn sour quickly, and it has Keigo jolting up, fingers withdrawn and leaving you to feel empty. The little sobs turned into hiccupping cries, one's stifled with the back of your hand.

Keigo rises over you, tugging you hand away to get at your cheeks, kissing them soft and sweet.

It isn’t often that you cry, surprisingly. You probably should more often.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Keigo urges. Please, please, just tell him what the fuck is wrong. He knows, you know, the meat of it all. But please tell him something he can tend to. Something he can stitch up because god, he needs to be useful— “What’s making your cry sweetheart? Tell me.”

You paw at your forehead, “It’s silly.”

You sniffle and look at him with the most unguarded expression he’s seen you worn. The vacancy is gone, the hollowness and pain has been pulled away in the safety of that perfect nest and all that’s left is—

“‘M scared,” You mumble. Your arms curl over your chest, covering what’s primitively most precious to you. “I’m scared.”

Your eyes grow bright and heat, hotter than anything he’s felt from you, explodes over the room.

He’s half-choking and he fucking loves it.

Something in his chest snaps and he worries your hair, bringing his nose to yours, nuzzling and nudging your hands away. He nips you. His poor little birdbrain.

“I’m afraid you’re going to leave.”

Keigo stills.

He sits with your fear for a few beats.

“I’d never leave,” He says easily, truthfully and fully. He couldn’t.

Those long nights in the hospital and the warmth passed between you had so easily gotten you wormed his chest, right next to his second and third rib. He can feel it, always; you’re ever present. He grabs your arms and holds them to yours sides. You’re exposed, soft flesh and squirming a bit beneath him. He wants to mark you purple and near-bloody, so that no one would think of you as anything other than his.

His, his, his.

He shows you.

Worn hands, a bit chapped with the dry air, pull your high to rest on his shoulders. He massages your calves, kissing your ankles.

“I mean this real lovingly, starshine,” He breaths deep, fisting his cock with a few slow strokes. “I’m not going anywhere.”

You don’t get a chance to protest as he slides into you in one stroke. The stretch of him has you burning; he can tell by the way your hands fly to his shoulders, nails digging into his shoulders as your little cries only get harder.

“Bear it, I know you can,” You had before, and you would many times more. The stretch feels amazing, even if it burns something in your core. You like it, how the pain pricks something that shoots into your toes. Only Keigo gets to fuck you up, gets to own you. “You’re always good f-for me— f-fuck, so fucking good—”

His, his, his.

There is, of course, the inverse.

You grab his jaw, your grip tight like his was earlier, and you meet his gaze. You blink away tears, sniffling, but expression set with determination.

“You’re mine too,” You squeeze around him, grinding down to the root of his cock. “‘M only good for you because you’re mine too, Keigo. All of you.”

Without thought, your hands ghost over his scars.

You have avoided them for so long. It was an untouched spot, something tender and from a time where Keigo was being that was entirely and wholly different from who he is now. It’s a piece of him that’s always been off-limits.

But you’re both so cracked open, you do it without thought.

And something in Keigo snaps.

He pushes you down by the backs of your thighs, folding your legs to your torso. And he fucks you.

His hips slam against yours, opening you up with pants and groans. You feel full, full of him in every and all ways, everywhere, always, and forever.

You’re greedy with your touches, tugging him closer and uncaring of the way your nails scrap over his shoulders and arms. His body is yours and you’re his. It’s disgusting, it’s fucked up and perfect the way you slot together. It’s like little, scared pieces of existence slide together, and everything feels whole, yet open and uncracked.

Keigo fills you up with a sob, tears dripping down his cheeks as you pressed down on the burns and scars that rack down his back.

“Fill me up,” You demand, the heat of you swelling as his hand dips to your clit, circling and rolling with the little pleas falling from both your lips.

The world drips as his thrusts go harder, sloppier as you tip your head back and scream. Your voice breaks, hoarse from all your pleading and possession.

Keigo stuffs you, tip of his cock pressed to the deepest parts of you. His cum, all him, leaks from around his cock as he gives a few more weakened grinds. He makes sure you’re full, content and sated and his.

He falls over you, coating your cheeks in kisses and praise. You sputter little sobs for him, begging for him to be closer, despite the way he still fills you even as he softens.

It never feels like enough, the closeness. But you’ll settle for all of him that you can get.

...

The storm passes, and you spend your time much the same way. Fucking, feeling, and for a little, blessed while, forgetting.

Eventually, the snow stops falling. The wind that has been whipping the power into tree trucks and your windows falls still. It’s peaceful, then. Not that it wasn’t before, but without the weather bearing down on you, you’re both less hungry. Still greedy, just not starved.

You share the first morning after the storm outside, on the porch. Keigo had shoveled a little clear patch and you’d brushed off the two, brittle lawn chairs that had seen better days. You fixate on the task a bit too much, the steaming coffee you’re to share is forgotten. The straining plastic of the chairs is a yellowed-white and bright red. It felt strong enough under your fingers, cold fingers, as you cleared away the snow.

It feels like a remnant

Whatever fixation you have on the object passes as Keigo runs a hand up your spine. His hand is wide and warm, still a bit warm from the toasty mugs.

You rearrange your chairs and yourselves to be close as can be, in your little patch of snowless porch, and sip at your coffee as the world begins to wake up.

...

Oddly enough, the storm helps you make forward progress, at least a little. You take up making breakfasts on your own, occasionally carrying plates into the bedroom with a big, previously unseen grin

Keigo returns the smile so big, his cheeks burn for hours.

You take to a few of the little crafts and things Keigo has been hoarding. Paper folding and little canvases with acrylic painting are your favorites. Sometimes, you paint your little strokes and press creases from the comfort of the couch. Other times, you make you place for the day at the kitchen island while Keigo makes his day-long meals.

There’s a rhythm to it that’s so good.

It’s progress, and seeing it visibly start to the fill the walls feels good for both of you. Your little canvases get hung around the cabin, little portraits of the stars and their mother, all for you and Keigo to admire. ;;

...

He gets the call exactly three weeks after the storm passes.

Keigo awakes before you to the shrill ring of his cell. It vibrates against the bedside table, loud enough to wake the both of you. You both startle out of sleep, squeezing each other.

He takes the call in the other room, after he sees the contact name.

[Suits] Calling...

He paces as he listens to her drone on.

There’s no greeting, no “hey, how does it feel to be a flightless fucking failure?”. It’s business. Just business. It’s always been like that with her, and the lot of suits that treated him like a fixture until he got particularly cracked and unsightly.

“So, you come into Tokyo, we’ll do a small event—”

“The event you’re describing really doesn’t sound small,” Keigo tilts his head and gives an angry smile to his own reflection in the mirror. “It sounds like a circus that I really have no interest in being a part of.”

“It’s for the people, Hawks—”

It makes him snap.

“Stop fucking calling me that.” He growls into the receiver, grip tight enough to hurt. “Stop calling me, stop asking me, I am not coming back.”

The woman is silent on the line for a beat, before spitting, “What if I didn’t give you a choice?”

His blood runs cold before burning in his veins. And he laughs.

“You think you could?” He only feels a little hysterical. “You don’t have any power, not over me, not over anyone else as far as I’ve seen, Madam President!”

“Hawks—”

Shut up, shut up, shut UP.

“The Commission is dead, the world is in chaos, and putting the corpse of a hero on the big screen isn’t going to convince anyone that this is all fixable,” Keigo chest gets tight, and he can’t tell if it’s from the uncomfortable laughter he’s spitting or the sobs that are locked in his chest.

“So, you’d rather turn your back on the people you swore to protect?” Suits speaks with no emotion, not an ounce of feeling. “Selfish.”

Selfish, selfish, selfish. The word echoes in his mind, worms its way down his throat and suffocates him.

“You’re really going to say that to me? Of all fucking people?” He feels his nails break skin where he’d been clenching his fist. “Me, selfish?”

“You left, didn’t you? Ran away?” The woman has the stones to fucking laugh. “Everyone’s lost something. You’re not special, and it doesn’t justify—”

“What the fuck are you getting out of this?” Keigo interrupts, burning, burning— “Did you call me to go to this little gala or did you call to dig into your perfect little hero? You told me I could be done. Should’ve known you were lying, you always lie—”

“You’re being childish.”

“Oh my GOD!” Keigo nearly screams and doesn’t notice how you’ve tip-toed from the bedroom. “Do you hear yourself?”

“I hear you screaming at me, the woman who practically raised you, like some petulant brat. Get a grip, Hawks.”

He snaps.

“STOP FUCKING CALLING ME THAT!” He screams into the phone, vision going white and scarlet. “I am not Hawks! Hawks is DEAD! Why can’t you understand that? There’s no fucking hero to attend your little ‘healing’ gala, there’s just me. ‘Childish’, ‘selfish’, and wingless, babe. That’s what I’ve got, and this is what I am.”

Suits takes an audible sigh, and Keigo can almost see how she’s shaking her head at him, “You’re being ridiculous, Hawks. Take at least a goddamn ounce of responsibility for your actions that helped cause all... this.”

Ah, there it is. The thing Hawks has so properly compartmentalized, tucked so far back in his psyche that it’s almost impossible to reach.

How much of the dissolution of... everything is on him?

Something in him snaps, and it slips through his own fingers.

“I’m not going and this, Madam President? This is for me.”

Selfish, selfish, selfish.

He hears her unspoken words echoing in his skull as he hangs up, slamming the phone on the countertop.

Something hotter than rage and more poisonous than pain fills his blood, and it makes him want to both wretch and break his fingers in the same breath. He slams a fist onto the phone, cracking it against the countertop. He can buy a new one—

“S-Sweetpea?”

Keigo freezes.

You’re at the mouth of the hallway, hardly out of the shadows, eyes wide and fearful. His chest somehow gets even tighter.

Normally, he would’ve rushed to comfort you, calmed himself down to console you for seeing his little outburst.

But he doesn’t that day.

He breaths ragged with his lips slowly curling, panic’s ugly cousin turning his spit acrid behind his teeth.

“Here, let’s go back to bed, okay? We can—” You take a few steps closer, hand outstretched and eyes beginning to light.

Oh, and Keigo’s hit by fucking envy, and it’s over.

“Don’t.”

You freeze, “Pretty eyes—”

“Don’t, just don’t.”

You don’t move as Keigo trudges to the door, throws on his thick parka and snow boots, pocketing his keys and grumbles to you that there’s leftovers in the fridge.

It’s shitty and selfish.

And he just doesn’t care.

He can’t make himself care as the door slams shut behind him, the sound echoing off the trees and so quickly dampened by the snow.

...

Keigo drives, white noise in his ear that echoes the wind in the treetops of the mountains he’s descending. He’s only half there as he leaves town.

It’s still too much.

...

You, on the other hand?

You’re frozen, stuck-still, as you watch Keigo climb into the car and drive off. Maybe your mouth has gone a bit agape, you aren’t aware of your body.

You panic.

There’s no other word for it, not that you were able to think of as you were untrenched in it.

There’s something thick and knotted that is rolling unraveling in your chest. The... thing is worse than a feeling and runs deeper and hotter than you can manage.

You tried to manage it.

While Keigo is god fucking knows where, you paced the house, always within eyeshot of a window. Hoping for a glimpse of his dark parka, or the tufts of his blonde sticking out in the snow, a return—

Fucking nothing.

He just left.

No return time, no destination, just a departure with no explanation. He’d obviously left the cabin before, you’d handled those times quite well, but he’d never stormed out. Never raised his voice and screamed and then just left.

Is he okay?

(You heard most of the call, at least his side of it. Is that awful Hero Commission he told you about calling him back? Or even worse, dragging him away.)

(He’d tell you, wouldn’t he?)

(Guess you’ll never know! Because he’s fucking gone.)

It made something seize in your chest, hot and awful as you walked your circuit, praying. Worry is damning.

How could he just... leave?

You need him back.

You alone without him.

Your thoughts rot you, despite the winter’s cold outside. The chill of the cabin seeps into your bones, coats them and leaves you sticky and downright paranoid. The lack of... presence (his presence) was driving you up a wall. The air is too still, the floors quiet and without the telltale old creaks of movement that you’ve become accustomed to, and the cabin is silent other than your breathing and rabbit’s heart.

Beneath the anger was a thick layer of fear.

You are alone.

The feeling rolled its way into you as the sun began to dip lower in the sky.

What if he never comes back?

Of course he is, you remind yourself, hurriedly, worrying the scary on your leg and picking at the core of it. He wouldn’t leave.

Why wouldn’t he?

The thought gets your poor little heart racing faster, air choking in your lungs. Your head whips to the window to see the empty, snowy driveway.

“I-I’m alone,” You break the silence of the house, the walls answering with their pensive quiet and the wind shaking the fresh snow from thin branches just outside.

All alone.

All fucked up and broken and fucking alone.

“He wouldn’t leave,” You start talking to yourself, threading a hand in your hair, gripping. “He cares, he wouldn’t just leave.”

He cared about being a hero too and he left everyone else.

What if things changed?

Insecurities, new ones and old ones, cloud your mind and vision and stuffed your lungs. The grip on your hair goes tighter.

All alone in the mountains.

All.

Alone.

It scares you more than anything, how much you need him.

Tears prick the corners of your eyes as you tug at the roots of your hair. It hurts, but everything is starting to hurt very quickly, and a bit of hair pulling is child’s play to how it feels like your chest is being hollowed out.

You really have so little. It stuns you in the moment as you choke back a sob. The little house in the mountains, Keigo, and the starlight you still both enjoy— that’s fucking it. You’d never returned to your ‘apartment’, or rather the remnants of it. Any possessions you had were lost to destruction and unsalvageable. Your meager relationships and friendships had fallen away when you were bound to hospital for months.

He’s all you have.

“No, no, no,” You nearly trip in your pacing, dragging your feet as you accept your reality. “He can’t l-leave.”

The world responds with silence. The mountains are cold and lonely, just like you are. It’s cruel, it all hurts and after being in a daze so often, the reality of your situation hurts like a hot brand.

He’ll come back.

He cares.

You desperately try to convince yourself as you tug your parka on, throwing on your boots. You don’t bother to fasten or tie anything, you just stumble onto the deck blindly and scan the hill of the drive.

Not a single soul.

Something rotten curls up behind your teeth. Bile climbs the back of your throat and you have to swallow to keep from vomiting. Your chest is too tight, the world is too bright, and you’re terrified.

You’re not sure what to call the type of panic response you have; it doesn’t make any logical sense. Your heart runs in your chest, your breath is hot and tight, and you simply slip to the ground in the fresh snow.

And you wait.

...

Keigo drives until he’s nearly out of town, into some flatlands near the river that gurgles and churns nearby. The surrounding forest is the perfect place for a pensive walk.

It’s the best place for him to just get it out.

It had been a long time since Keigo had just talked to himself. Audibly sorts himself as he walks along the bank of the almost-frozen river. He doesn’t keep his voice quiet, no, its full volume complaining. It’s anger that’s bundled up in his chest that’s finally being lit and the smoke of it nearly chokes him out.

It’s not fair.

He does feel a bit childish, thinking about it like that. But hadn’t he done enough? Hadn’t they told him that he’d done enough? He lost it all and was just starting to the plant the seeds for a new life to sprout. Couldn’t he just have that? He’s not the shiny thing he used to be he’s fucking worthless. And that’s fine. He’s made peace with it and can find worth outside of saving people.

He’s capable. Adaptable. And he’s doing it all at his trademark speed.

But the thing that makes his gut twist is facing everything he (ran away from) left behind. The only short statement he’d given after Dabi’s video was nearly as viral as the actual video of him killing Jin (don’t think about it, don’t think about it—)

He’s not sure what possesses him to pull out his phone and pull up the video. It’s not hard to find.

It hurts to watch, but he does it anyway. Fucking masochist.

He’s standing beside Enji and Tsunagu, all of them in hastily tailored suits. They all had their visible injuries. Scars and brands that had just been carved and burned into skin. They look haggard, they look beaten.

Because they were.

Keigo watches as he adjusts his microphone in the video and gives his statement. Stupidly simple and vague, all at the same time.

“The villain Dabi did not lie. I am the son of Takami, and I killed Twice of the League of Villains. It was all necessary. Please accept my apology for the upset I have caused.”

His voice doesn’t even sound like him. It’s manufactured and broken. He remembers how the smoke had charred his throat and lungs for the first few days, before he was transferred from Central to the big facility in the tall-tree-ed forest.

He bows on the video and Enji begins his statement. Something solemn about the suffering he’s caused his family, how he wants to atone and how he is atoning. The public was too angry to listen and is too angry to listen. And the world Keigo ran from is the result.

He lets himself cry.

Finally.

His shoulders shake as he hunches over himself. The tears slip down his chilled cheeks and make little divots where they fall into the snow beneath him. His little gasps turn into sobs, the kind that hurt your chest and give you a headache that lasts for days.

He repeats a little mantra between scratchy breaths—

“I’m still good.”

He falls against the thick bark of a tree and slides down to the ground.

He let’s go.

It’s good for him, cleansing. Maybe it’s the rushing of the nearby river or the snow he's buried his hands in, but with each ragged breath he can feel some of that filth that’s clinging to him fall away. Not all of it, not by a long shot.

But feeling the worst is the first step to feeling your best.

So, when Keigo’s ready, he stands and moves forward. Trudges onward, albeit a bit slower.

...

Keigo returns home just as the sky begins to change from red to indigo with the night. It paints the pines and evergreens an eerie, dark color, shadows long and deep against the fluffy snow.

His gut twists in knots as he gets closer to home.

He’s tired. Exhausted. His eyes are still puffy from his tears, sore and aching. His body still feels tight, tense in his shoulders and arms as he grips the steering wheel. He needs rest. A good cup of tea and maybe a beer later.

And you.

As weak as Keigo feels, he knows he fucked up... just a bit.

It wasn’t fair to storm out. He isn’t dumb. All the same, if he stayed with you in the cabin, he probably would’ve said something he regretted. Or locked himself in the bedroom all day. It wouldn’t have been good or fair for you or him.

(Coward.)

Probably, but he was also burned alive fairly recently, so he had to give himself a bit of credit.

As he nears, his stomach drops.

You’re on the porch. You sit on the steps, parka pooling around your waist as your head rests on your knees.

Something’s not right.

Some of his old, honed senses trill to life, seeing you. Something in his gut twists, the muscles in his back tense, the old ones that controlled his wings.

You must be cold.

Keigo leaves the car and slaps on a smile, “Waiting for me, starshine?”

You twitch, curling over your body harder.

Something is very wrong—

He calls your name, your actual name, and you hardly stir. You all but twitch from where you sit, head tilting up just the slightest bit. It’s not enough to ease any of the worry pulling his old muscles, if anything, it makes it worse.

He falls to his knees in front of you, ignoring the crack his bones make.

“How long have you been out here?” Too long, he knows the answer, but he still has to ask.

“... A while,” You murmur, barely audible. “You’re back.”

“I am,“ Keigo pushes you up by your shoulders, scanning your face as more fear curls in his gut.

Your eyes are glassy and unfocused.

“We need to get you inside, now,” He isn’t sure if he sounds scared or angry (probably both), and he can’t make himself care.

You’re freezing.

Too cold, way too cold.

Keigo had to take plenty of survival courses during his training with the Commission and he had learned plenty about hypothermia. His avian anatomy made him more susceptible to the cold and knowing the symptoms for himself kept him from turning into a bird-adjacent popsicle more than once. He’d rescued his handful of civilians—

(Don’t think about being a hero right now or you’re gonna start crying again.)

You’re not some civilian, you’re you and you’re in front of him with darkened lips and dull eyes and full panic breaks his ribs.

...

You remember how pretty red the sky was.

You like sunsets.

You should see if Keigo wants to watch the sunset sometime.

Keigo’s gone.

You could drive—

Keigo drove away. You’re alone.

You aren’t sure how long you sat in the chill, but it was comforting despite how your fingers and toes began to ache. Outside, there were plenty of sounds and sights to keep you company. The wind whistled through trees, and the sky echoed a few, far-off sounds from distant civilization.

It was nice. Peaceful, at the very least.

...

“Inside, you need to be inside,” Keigo sputters, pulling you up under your arms. Your feet drag for a moment before going flat, and you sway in his arms.

Getting you inside makes his body ache in new ways, your weight mostly on his side. Old pains crawled to the surface as he dragged you to the couch, setting you down on the cushion and assessing you better.

His hands run over your body, over curves and divots he knew and loved and the chill of you filled him with dread.

“Your pants are wet from the snow,” Keigo swallows, rising. “I’m going to grab you dry clothes.”

As soon as he tries to move away, you catch his wrist in a weak grip.

And finally, half-lucidly, you regard him with terror in your eyes.

“You l-left,” You spit, lips curling over your teeth. “You left, Keigo.”

You use his real name and he really wants to die a little.

Sure, Suits used it on the phone with him and it made him see blood fucking red, but it’s you, and you saying the name he never really had, for the first time, so fucking angrily makes part of his secretly fragile heart break.

He freezes, breathing hard through his nose as he looks down at you.

“I’m sorry,” He says softly. “Let me get you warm, then we can talk, okay?”

You don’t look convinced, tightening your grip on his wrist and pulling him closer.

Keigo gives in, so, so easily, dropping to his knees and pulling your icy hands into his. He rubs warmth into them, bringing them to his lips and breathing hot over your knuckles.

“Please, starshine. Let me get you warm.”

“I’m already warm,” Your voice slurs, entirely unconvincing.

“I say this very lovingly,” He says, somehow cracking a smile, “but you’re genuinely hypothermic. You can be as mad at me as you want, but you need to get warmed up.”

You chew your lip, cupping his cheeks with your freezing palms, “... You’re not leaving?”

Your voice drawls and Keigo makes a note to turn up the thermostat.

“No, god, no, I’m not,” He tries to assure you, shaking his head, but your grip only gets harsher. He placates you with a squeeze to your knee. “Please let me help.”

He can’t tell you how much he needs to. How hyper aware he is of your chill and of his own thumping heart. That protective urge in his chest wants to just pull you to his chest and wrap you up in him, in his heat, but that’s for later.

Your eyes' gaze goes softer, little specks of light bouncing between your irises. The room fills with blessed, familiar heat and Keigo can feel his shoulders slacken and some of the worry in his chest dissipate.

...

He returns with some of his own soft joggers, fleece-lined and well-loved. He grabbed a few layers, and an armful of blankets and pillows. Anything he could carry gets brought as his little, avian mind craves something he suppressed for years so well.

Nest, nest, nest.

Heat them first, then nest.

He helps you slip into your new, dry clothes as your teeth begin to chatter. Thank fucking god. Keigo is smart enough to check your toes as he slips onto fuzzy, thermal socks, and they all look to be healthy and functioning.

You’re quiet during the whole ordeal, save for soft breathing and snapping teeth. You occasionally grab his hand and hold it to whatever part of your skin was bared, mumbling something about how warm he is.

Keigo eventually gets you settled and surrounded by blankets and pillows which you sink into, eyes hardly open. Only then does he feel like he can pull away enough to start the nearby fire.

It feels somewhat unnecessary, given you’re still heating the room. It’s probably somewhat for the atmosphere, considering the sky is nearly fully black. A bit of crackling flame and light would do you both good.

(He rarely lights fire, but considering the flame is a kind red and not a fucking disgusting blue, he can bear it. Especially now.)

When the fire is stoked, he turns back to you and deflates.

“I’m sorry,” You say, all soft and half-lidded from the blankets. “That was... dumb.”

“It was.”

Keigo can’t fight you on the obvious.

There’s a goddamn list of questions he wants to ask you. ‘Why’s and ‘what’s, but he has a pretty good idea of why you were sitting outside and what you were thinking.

He’s not sure you’d want to talk about it anyway.

The couch creaks when he sits down a few feet from your little nest, running a tired hand over his face.

“... You know, this couch folds out,” You shift a little, slow and lethargic. Still cold. “We should sleep out here tonight.”

He turns to regards you, and it takes everything in him not to fucking break.

“Why?” His voice shakes and he knows you can tell.

You hum, leaning toward him, “Change of scenery. I think we could both use it.”

“Later.” Keigo agrees. The urge to wrap you up in his (wings) arms feels unbearable, the little avian tickings in his skull loud and needy. “Warm first. Futon later.”

You huff weakly, but lift the blankets to let Keigo slip behind you. His body curls around yours, finding the coldest parts of you and tending to them first. His hands clasp over yours and your feet get tucked between his calves.

“Thanks,” You murmur, neutral and vacant.

Keigo doesn’t push you.

Instead, you stay tucked in his arms, still shivering, but significantly less cold. Your lips and cheeks look a far healthier color and they’re warm to the touch. He traces his fingertips over the curves of your face and neck, preening in the only way he can muster up.

You eventually break the silence, when the fire is all but embers.

“I heard some of that call…” Your voice trails off. “It sounded bad.”

“It was,” Keigo agrees with a little nod. He really doesn’t want to think about Suits and, you know, the rest of the world, but it feels necessary. “Very bad.”

“Who was it?”

“Old boss.”

“… And?”

Keigo sighs, squeezing you probably a little too tightly, “Why don’t we focus on warming you up from your hypothermic excursion and not my shitty life as a shitty hero—”

“You weren’t a shitty hero, Keigo,” He can hear the mourning in your voice and it makes him want to die, just a little. You cup his cheeks, eyes sad and soft around the edges. “You were a really good one.”

“Was I? News to me.” He laughs, the bitter sound tasting like bile. He hates it, the feel of it mixed with the heat and softness of you. It feels wrong. “I don’t want to talk about all that, starshine. Please just drop it.”

Your face hardens.

“No.”

“… No?”

“No, I’m not done,” You sigh, big and hard. “I think we’re more fucked up than we talk about, Keigo.”

He winces, but you keep going, and he doesn’t move to stop you.

“Probably.”

Your jaw sets like stone on stone. It makes him internally wince as your hands go to cup his cheeks.

“I’m fucked up, you’re fucked up, everything is fucked up. We can ignore it up here, quietly, but it’s true, isn’t it?”

Yes.

“Yeah.” He feels his gut roll, but he doesn’t stop you. His grip goes tighter on your hips. “You’re not wrong.”

“Can we just… Acknowledge it? Please.” You ask, beg, softly as you rub his cheeks with your thumbs. “Please, Keigo.”

He doesn’t know what to do at first. He really wants to lock up. Shut down. Lock all the nasty feelings in chest, behind his heart, so they can burrow into his spine and keep him moving forward.

He wraps his hands around your wrists.

Your eyes look glassy, tears sticking in your bottom eyelashes, but not daring to fall. Not yet.

“Keigo, I’m fucked up, I know that, and that’s okay,” You deflate a little. “I’m getting better. We’re getting better. I know we are.”

“We a-are.”

Keigo’s voice cracks, hoarse in his throat and tight as the uniform belt he used to wear. His lungs feel hot, too stuffed even as he tries to swallow the heat that’s welling up on the very back of his tongue.

“You are good, Keigo, I promise,” You lean in to give his forehead the lightest kiss and Keigo feels part of himself die in the best way. “Please, let’s just talk.”

And so, he does.

…

He tells you about Jin first.

You’d heard about him, the villain Hawks killed during the War. Published for the world to see, over and over, forever. The video was one you’d only seen once, during your early days at the hospital, but you could recall the footage on your grainy hospital television.

Your pretty eyes, pretty Keigo, cut him down. One of his old feathers, hardened into a stiff blade, struck Jin across the chest, arcing up to his neck and slicing a few important arteries and veins. It was an imperfect job, one that probably made his death more painful and prolonged than it needed to be.

You don’t let go of Keigo’s cheeks as he tells you the story. You can’t, you’re too busy thumbing away the little tears that roll down his cheeks.

He speaks between sobs that break from his chest. Underused and much-needed.

“He was good, starshine,” Keigo curls in a little on himself, but you keep him mostly upright. “I had to, y-you know? I didn’t have a choice, if I didn’t—"

How many more people would be dead?

His body convulsed, the little tears turning fat as he collapsed into your chest and buried himself in you. Like he was hiding, and god, did you let him.

You hushed him, soothed him with little kisses, and listened.

“And then Dabi—”

You hate him, obviously. You only know his name and visage, and you hate him so much it hurts. Part of you wants to rub at his scars like he lets you, but you decide against it in Keigo’s fragility.

He tells you of the blue flames, how the boot felt against his back, how his throat burned for weeks from the heat and smoke. His grip on you goes so tight, you’re afraid he’s going to tear your shirt to shreds.

“He took them, starshine,” Keigo’s voice muffled into your shoulder, the sound of it rattling you. “He t-took them!”

And he slumps against you, well and truly, and can’t muster up another word. All you could do is hold him, rocking him from your little, shared spot on the couch and whisper to him little comforts. You’re crying a little too, breath tight and hazy as you let Keigo shatter in your arms.

He’s not ready to talk about his wings and that’s okay. More than okay.

So, you soothe him. He soothes you right back, rubbing at your sides, hips, thighs— whatever he can reach and touch and claim. You’re good, you’re the closest he’s going to get to permeance and he’ll be damned to let you go when you feel so good and he feels so fucking awful.

You fall back onto the chest, pulling Keigo with you so he can lay atop you. His ear presses to your chest, heart thumping in his ear while you lock your arms around him. Caged in and held, with the lightest pressure on the thick skin of his scars.

“I’ll never truly get it, I can’t,” You admit, quietly as you smooth back some of his tear-matted hair. “But I want to be here. I want to listen when you’re want to talk. Need to talk. You can dash off on your own, Keigo, that’s okay. Just know that I’ve got you to, okay?”

Keigo sniffled, peering up at you with wide eyes, “Are you sure you can handle it?”

“I am now, aren’t I? Just a few hours out from nearly being a popsicle,” You hum and joke, glowing from the inside out when Keigo graces you with a little smile.

It takes a few more moments for him to cover, haul himself up to the crook of your neck and breathing hard and deep for a while. Like he’s trying to absorb you through scent alone.

“… Are you okay?” Keigo asks, squeezing you so tight it hurts. (And you want more of it.) “You’re not as cold anymore.”

“I’m feeling okay,” You paw at your face a bit, rubbing your cheeks like they’re still numb and not flushed with blood and sticky with drying tears. “I just freaked out a little.”

“… Because I left?”

You nod, chewing your lips.

“I don’t want to be alone, Keigo,” You whisper it, though he already knows your admission. “I’m terrified of you leaving.”

“When I left,” Keigo rises to meet your gaze, gooey and cobbled. “Did you think I wouldn’t come back?”

“… Maybe,” You shake your head, refusing to look at him. “You didn’t say anything about coming back, just about… leftovers.”

You both frown.

“I panicked.” You shake your heard.

“… That’s what happens when you panic?”

“I guess?” Your mouth feels too dry. “I don’t know. I got scared. I panicked. What else was I supposed to do?”

There’s an obvious answer or two, but it’s unspoken.

“I’m not leaving,” Keigo rubs at your cheeks. “You’re gonna have to try pretty hard to get me gone, starshine. I love you too much to go easily.”

It’s a declaration, a strong one, and god does it feel fucking good to hear.

“… Promise?” You ask him as his palms cup your cheeks and jaw.

“Promise.”

“I heard on the call—”

Keigo interrupts you with a kiss, hard and long that steals your breath and makes your head spin.

“Promise.” Keigo breaths, pretty eyes meeting your heat-filled ones. “Everywhere, all the time, forever. I promise, I’m not going anywhere.”

It’s a start, even if that insecurity is so deeply rooted. The adoration in his eyes, and the sweetness of his touch tempers it all. It’s there still, just like how there’s so much unspoken that needs to be sorted, chewed on, and digested.

But now?

The embers in the hearth need another log or two. The futon needs to be folded out and I’d be best if you shared a cup or two of tea. Preferably something with lavender that’ll scent the cabin with the smells of spring and herbs.

Now, you’re both more than enough.

…

thank you for reading!!💞keep an eye out for part 3! 👀

ko-fi

#salem writes #hawk x reader #hawks #takami keigo #takami keigo x reader #mha x reader #my hero academia #anyways ouch <3 #kiss it better keigo #enjoy this big boy heheh #kith kith :'^)

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brideylee · 4 years ago

Text

Chateau Quarantine

Sophia Coppola smokes a cigarette while she waits for an omelette she has no intention of eating. It’s a gloomy marine layered morning, you can barely see across Sunset. She’s been in lock down for three weeks and while she normally loves the moody, brooding decadence of the Chateau Marmont, its elite solitude is giving her a bit too much time to reflect. She thinks about the concept of crying as she watches a long torso-ed model skinny dip in the pool from the penthouse. There are no rules anymore, not that there were many in the first place. The hotel was shuttered to the public as of three weeks ago, and those who were already there could stay indefinitely. Sophia lives alone in the tower suite with the three bedrooms and the wrap around porch, known by some as “the Deniro”, but Robert himself couldn’t tell you why. Any legends or gossip about the Chateau were just bread crumbs to keep the public hungry and mystified. The real Chateau for the privileged few who used it, was an unceremonious respite for excessive loneliness, addiction, and often not great sex. The Chateau had a reputation: look but don’t fuck. Everyone’s genitals were rendered useless from anti-depressants.

She thought she would be filming by now. Her cast is stranded too, with little guidance other than “we’ll wait it out.” The film she wanted to make stars Hugh Grant and Ewan McGregor as two estranged brothers coming together for their father’s funeral. Iman was set to the play the mysterious woman who shows up at the funeral who they then realize was their father’s mistress. It was going to be a slow movie about the brothers coming to terms with their father’s death and equally so falling in love with the woman he hid from them. All this would be suggested through intimate long takes, and funny, stylish, improvised montages. Always subtle and romantic without the sap, this was the tight rope Sophia liked to balance on. At the end of the movie, both brothers are mildly changed, but not entirely. She has a sweet spot for the immovability of people’s psyches, particularly men.

Sophia watches impartially, as the naked model floats on her back in the calm pool. It is so cold and early to swim, is she on drugs or is everyone at this place even more numb than they think? She wondered if her film was too male, too disembodied from her personally to mean anything. Tapping into the male gaze, was an ability she was born with. Her father’s point of view was all she interacted with as a kid, and the underside of his specialties became her focus: the lost parts of men when they are too weak to hold up the heavy crown of their egos, who they were when they could let themselves feel outside of their work. But given the state of the world, and the molasses nature of time during lock down, Sophia started to question if what she always found to be her strength was just simply trauma. Was her whole profession a way to resolve some genetic creative stifling that took place in the shadow of her dad? Surely her body of work contains more than that. It’s not all a selfish attempt at repair. Is any art not selfish? "Maybe I should make a different movie, something that everyones gonna like for once.” She thinks to herself. Thank God, her goat cheese omelette has arrived.

Later on, the gothic lobby is empty besides the cast of her film and the elegant model behind the reception desk standing like a hollow sculpture, frightened by the chaos that lurks outside. Ewan McGregor, drunk off of five Marmont Mules, is showing Hugh Grant an app that maps the stars and constellations. Ewan has gone on and on about a camping trip he took around Scotland and how amazing the stars were, but when pressed for details about where exactly he was or what he saw or what year he did this, he can’t seem to remember anything at all.But that doesn’t dampen his excitement about the app. “See, that, there is Orion’s belt!” Ewan enthusiastically points out, his cute smirk displaying his bottom row of sweet corn kernel teeth. Ewan just recently learned about the stars. Until the age of 47, Ewan had been referring to them as “night freckles.” Many think this is why he didn’t have a fun time acting in Star Wars, space simply befuddled him. Hugh and Ewan are dressed exactly the same: navy blue beanie, black jeans, a tight blue thermal, and desert boots- the actor man uniform they give you after you play opposite Nicole Kidman or Renee Zellweger.

“That’s brilliant,” says Hugh Grant completely perplexed by the app and confused at Ewan’s rambling. Hugh sticks a handkerchief up his nostril with his pointer finger and wiggles it around somewhat violently. Iman clocks this with a blink of disgust, her silk, gold blouse glistens with god-like royalty in the amber glow. “Can you turn your face away? That’s how the virus is spreading.” Her voice is deep and she rarely uses it because it changes the direction of the wind and messes with the tides. “Aw, fuck me. That’s right, isn’t it?” Hugh Grant turns away and starting blowing his nose and coughing obnoxiously. Hugh is acting like a resentful brat because he knows he wont be able to have Iman. He decides he’s gonna pick a fight with Sandra Bullock via face time later to blow off steam. Iman is thinking she was right all along, she should never have agreed to this. She was already sick of the “beanie twins”.

Hugh had been rattling on about how the movie needed a sex scene or at least a sexy scene and went on to say that Sophia had some sort of block. Iman felt that both Ewan and Hugh, however innocently, were exploiting their acting roles to gain real life experience, and there was no way in hell, she was going to kiss either of them. Her kiss would make them immortal and Iman knew their souls needed more lifetimes to grow. Plus, she liked the script the way it was- underwritten and open for interpretation. Her character is symbolic of the side of their dad they didn’t get to meet- spiritual, graceful, embodied. It was a soulful choice not to show any nudity or sex, one that could lead Americans to try to use whats left of their iPhone stolen imaginations.

Meanwhile Michael Cain, who was supposed to play the dead father, is staring at the beautiful Victorian tapestry hanging behind her. “It’s like it’s right out of the Cloister’s.” Michael says under his breath. Michael is sweet, Iman thinks as she watches him stare at the tapestry with wonder, his mouth agape, and a lil warm milk spilling out of his left eye. Iman and him have known each other for years and he always reminded her of her husband: his fierce devotion to his craft, his rigorous intellectuality that does a bad job hiding an animalistic sexuality. Both men contained so much and no one can handle a man like that besides a mystical siren like Iman.

Hugh and Ewan’s chatter dies as their drinks empty. “If I were to be honest with myself…” Hugh begins. “Better later than never…” Michael Cain interrupts without cracking a smile, a dryness a la Maggie Smith. In fact, fuck, this was Maggie Smith. No one had realized. Hugh winks at Michael/ Maggie and continues. “ I don’t think were going to be filming any time soon, folks. I think we are being held hostage a bit by Miss Coppola.” Ewan stares off with a thinking face like no one has ever had a deeper thought before. “That is interesting to think about. There is some kind of bratty assumption that all this will fade away soon enough. And we’ll be back on set. But what if it’s not for another year or so?” Ewan is really getting worked up “What if we live here for the rest of our lives!!” His eyes are big and dazzling, it’s like he’s thinking of the most ideal outcome for the rest of his life.

Suddenly, Sophia joins them at the table. “There they are, my little hunchbacks!” This is what Sophia affectionately calls her actors, the origin is unknown. Sophia has a strange new confidence around her. Usually, when she walked into places, she would feel like a Nat Sherman cigarette, like only some select tall New Yorkers in the back would still appreciate her. “Hello, love! Someone slept well.” Maggie Smith as Michael Caine chirped. Even when Maggie-Michael said something sweet, it still felt like someone was aggressively tickling your ribcage.

“I have news.” Sophia sits down, and smiled large and toothy, a stark contrast to her usual chic, despondent stare, a look only afforded to artists born with trust funds. “We’re not making the movie.” Hugh taps the table. “Well, I believe I won that bet.” Ewan’s jaw drops, destroyed. “You mean we cant live here together forever?” He runs his hands through his hair, petrified. Iman is quiet, which can mean many different things and all things at once, she is eternally the glory of God, a forgotten pyramid at the bottom of the ocean that if unearthed would explode us into 5D ascension.

“We are making a better movie! A super hero movie!!” Sophia exclaims. Sophia gets up close in the faces of her cast, pitching them on her new idea. “It’ll be a real heroes journey- good guys versus evil! Fun CGI! Sexy starlets and fun on trend jokes!” She turns to Michael Maggie, her mouth inches away from their milky eye, and says- “And much much more!” Sophia climbs up on the table now. “The adults will love it, as well as the little ones!” She does an Irish jig and starts spinning around and then poses with her arms up as though at the end of a musical. It was not fun to watch. Iman cuts her off-“I don’t trust what is happening.This is not reality. This is delusion. A karmic spell.” The power of Iman’s words blows the power out of the Chateau, pipes burst, the fire alarm goes off, and Joel Madden of Good Charlotte in room 304 stops jerking off for a second. Sophia is still catching her breath from her presentation, her sweating, arms stretched to the ceiling. She gulps as her eyes meet Iman’s. “Why don’t you just write from my character’s point of view?” Iman says as softly as she can without causing chaos. Sophia freezes. Her whole body calcifies and turns to ice, then crumbles onto the table. Ewan and Hugh watch in absolute horror as Iman drops some of the ice into her water. She knows she shouldn’t have said yes to this project and looks on lovingly at Michael/ Maggie who has dozed off.

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arthurhwalker · 6 years ago

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Managing Severe Anxiety

Severe anxiety drastically impacts one's quality of life, afflicting one with somatic symptoms, and playing havoc with the social calendar. In the last year, I've had my worst bout with anxiety, and after three trips to the ER, lots of mistakes, trying many things, I finally feel like I'm on the mend. What's worked for me, may not work for everyone, but it may lead a person toward resources for finding their own solutions.

I'm not a doctor, or anything close. I'm a creative, and a thinker, and while I haven't found a silver bullet for severe anxiety, I've found some things that greatly improved my quality of life. Before I begin, I want to state, definitively, none of this is a substitute for therapy, taking your medication, and having a doctor you like. Consider seeking those things first.

Note: Nothing talked about below will fix you, but it might make enduring your severe anxiety less wretched. Read on!

Defining Severe Anxiety

I'm not going to do that here, mainly because I don't want to put a trigger warning on this. If you've had somatic symptoms scary enough to send you to the ER, you can probably put yourself in the severe anxiety category. Severe anxiety doesn't come out of nowhere, it has a trigger, and figuring that out requires professional help.

What allowed my admittedly pretty bad normal anxiety to transform into the more severe variety was a lack of understanding my own body, the processes that regulate it. I've had my mental health fail a couple of times before, and traded a couple of savage blows with depression. I thought because I had basically beaten depression, I was on the other side of it all.

Trauma doesn't work that way. Being fearless doesn't prevent your body from having a biological reaction to staring down death, the threat thereof, injury, tragedy, and loss. Humans survived by keeping a certain standard of evolutionary fitness, and these primordial impulses will not be denied, even in the strongest of us.

Building Awareness

One of the things that contributed to my anxiety was a lack of a baseline relative to how I was feeling physically. My anxiety messes with my digestion, nervous system, and cognition, creating a host of somatic symptoms. I didn't have anything I did every day to create a baseline of awareness into how I was feeling.

Variety might be the spice of life, but rituals are the meat and potatoes.

Fight or flight turns certain sensations off, or down to low. Because the body believes there is danger, it doesn't bother with letting you know you're hungry, or tired, so you can keep fleeing or fighting. If your anxiety is severe, actually feeling tired or hungry can be a welcome sensation, as they become more rare. Anxiety robs one of their physical awareness.

To combat this, I've been doing thirty minutes of yoga every day. There are lots of benefits to low impact exercise, feel free to draw your own conclusions, and do your own research. Yoga won’t work for everyone (find your own thing), but for me, it was a good way to create a baseline.

Whatever you choose, make sure it’s realistic for you to do every day. When I travel, my yoga mat goes with me. I treat it like a prescription bottle of pills, or anything else you don’t leave home without.

So, if I felt bad, but flowed through my yoga, it was probably just my anxiety, and I likely had the physical resources to go on with my day. If I struggled through my yoga, it meant I was probably dehydrated, my sleep was subpar, or I hadn't consumed enough calories recently. Regardless of how I felt, I should probably take it a little slower through my day, and conserve my resources.

Meditation has been a good way to create a baseline for me as well. If I could easily empty my mind, and just be for ten minutes, I probably had the mental resources for outings, shopping, or social excursions. If I struggled with ten minutes of meditation, I might want to seek some solitude, drink some calming tea, or deal directly with whatever is occupying my thoughts.

At the center of both practices is breathing.

Breathing

My anxiety likely comes from an overdeveloped, overworked, fight or flight response. This autonomic response is designed to protect us from all kinds of mayhem. However, it can get so sensitive and overworked that it gets tripped by the smallest things.

We can't really control the rate at which our heart beats, our hormone response to hot and cold, or how quickly, or slowly, we digest food. One of the only autonomic processes connected to fight or flight that we can control, is our breathing. Letting the parts of your brain that control the autonomic process know that you're safe seems to be most easily accomplished with the breath.

Feel free to look up all the recent and not so recent research on the topic. I was surprised to find little conflict. Breathing is good, particularly if you do it correctly.

For me, I breathe from the belly, low and slow. Breathing from the chest is what I did as an athlete to amp up, and it turns out the opposite, low and slow, can bring your autonomic fight or flight response down. That part of your body only gets a little input from the higher functioning parts of the brain, and thus lives mostly in the dark relative to what's going on around you.

Telling myself I'm safe, while breathing low and slow, long and deep, five minutes a day, has really helped me out. It's a good practice to have if you're having a panic attack, and can possess the presence of mind to alter your breathing midstream. What helps me avoid being in that position is to carefully curate the aesthetics of my life, my safe places, both in the real world, and in my mind's eye.

Aesthetic Curation and Positive Association

Anxiety messes with our perception of time. The purpose is to give the mind more space to react to danger. However, it also accentuates discomfort, pain, sadness, and anything else one feels during periods of intense anxiety. Creating positive associations has really helped me.

I hate taking my medicine, so I put a picture of my wife and I at a beach on the medicine cabinet. I think about that cold day on the East Coast when I take my meds. It's gotten to where it takes such a small cognitive toll that I often have to count pills to make sure I took them. That's nice.

Sleep was a problem for a long time. Severe anxiety, fight or flight, for long periods of time, will shut down peripheral systems in the body, like salivary glands, and tear ducts, messing with digestion, and restful sleep. I used to dread going to sleep, so I changed everything I was doing, and took action.

Just to get sleep, I have...

Moved apartments, to one with a smaller and quieter bedroom.

Painted the wall opposite the headboard a soft yellow, nice to fall asleep and wake up to.

Bought a new bed, with an extra layer of memory foam to make it as comfy as possible.

Spent weeks waking up with the dawn, going outside to meet it, to rebuild my circadian rhythm.

Bought a triangular pillow so I wouldn't worry about waking up in the middle of the night to acid reflux.

Procured prescription toothpaste to help with dry mouth.

Keep dental mints in the nightstand so I have options if it wakes me up in the middle of the night.

Use eye drops when my eyes are dry.

Take ibuprofen when I hurt, even if just a little.

Take a diphenhydramine sleep aid, to make me drowsy, and help me breathe better.

Wear a sleeping mask with a curved covering so the fabric doesn't wick moisture from my eyes.

Wear a buff around my head to keep my long hair from getting pulled if I toss and turn.

Monitor my sleep with an app on my Apple Watch.

Have ear plugs in my nightstand if there happens to be noise in the night keeping me up.

Have the main lighting in our living room set to automatically shut off at bedtime.

Have eliminated all but a couple small lights in the bedroom; night time is bed time.

Go to bed religiously, roughly at the same time, as if it was a sacred ritual.

Talk about something nice with my spouse before I sleep.

Wear blue light blocking glasses in at different times throughout the day.

Use most of my electronic devices in night mode, unless I'm doing visual work for print.

Also: My spouse makes sure I have my favorite tea when I wake up, so I dread the morning a little less. <3

Good golly, that seems like a big list of things, but working on a sleep ritual that works for you is pretty key. There likely isn't a single silver bullet, but a long list of things that make up a ritual. Sleep is the cornerstone where managing my anxiety is concerned.

This was illuminated to me recently while traveling from Wichita, to Seattle, to Anchorage. The return trip was much harder than the initial, with the amount of sleep preceding each bout of travel being the defining factor. I can't burn the midnight oil anymore, I gotta have sleep.

As I alluded to previously, to get proper sleep, I needed a safe place to do it.

Safe Places

Part of my therapy required having a safe place to go, both in the meat space, and in my mind's eye. When we moved apartments, I did everything differently. I don't work at home, and the rigors of what I do can't find me there. Beside my favorite place to sit, is a smaller exact make and color of the blanket I use to sleep. My wife's artwork hangs where I will see it as I leave, and as I come home, a visual signal that I'm entering, or leaving, my safe place.

Creating this neurological baseline took weeks. I was surprised how readily my subconscious mind accepted what my rational self would dismiss as flimsy gimmicks. The autonomic process that regulates our fight or flight is remarkably simple, and the simplest stimulation seems to work best. In other words, the closer to whimsy, the better.

In my mind's eye I had to create a safe place. For me, it was Coronado Heights in Lindsborg, Kansas. It's a tiny castle on a hill, a strange thing to see in the rural Midwest. It's quiet there, and I have reconstructed it in every detail in my mind's eye. How the stone feels at the hand, the smell, the wind, the way the inner chamber echoes, the reddish hint the soil has there, everything.

I've used it as an internal focus for dealing with the banality of my life. In the worst of times, my wife and I would flee to Lindsborg for the weekend to recharge. If I have to do something I don't want to do, I wear a t-shirt I bought at one of the shops in Lindsborg. When I take a shower the day of that difficult task, I use scented soap I bought at one of the stores in Lindsborg. I've made that tiny idyllic town my cognitive safe space, and built many positive associations with it.

Recently, a high school student (and aspiring graphic designer) made a t-shirt, looking like a vintage travel advertisement for Coronado Heights. It's gorgeous on it's own merits, but has special meaning for me. I look at that shirt the same way I would ballistic armor. It is a neuro-cognitive trigger, and countermeasure.

This isn't the only way to create positive association however. Emotional support animals can die, and special places can be bulldozed, but these things wouldn't be precious if they weren't vulnerable, and finite. Being able to build new, even baseless positive association is important. I used to scoff at people that named their cars, or had sentimental attachment to objects.

I kinda get it now, in moderation.

My spouse and I found these tiny plastic chickens in a shop full of Wichita themed items. We decided the chicken is lucky, and made it a totem of travel, so we can safely return home. I carry my tiny totem in the case for my glasses, a reminder to keep my perspective. During our last trip, my spouse lost her tiny chicken somehow. We'll have to go get her another one, but the association here is simple.

So much of what causes anxiety is beyond our control. Sometimes it is the silliest thing that can dispel that helplessness. A tiny plastic chicken that makes you smile can have an enormous impact on your mindset. Humans use totems as part of their association with everything, their relationships, and their fears. The plastic chicken is just my way of gaming that particular societal construct.

Also, I can always get another plastic chicken if it is lost, no fucks given.

Not Giving a Fuck

The Internet has given rise to the notion that our ability to care about things is measured by a resource referred to colloquially as "fucks". There's pop culture and self-help books a plenty that hold to this concept. I think the use of profanity in this case is uniquely appropriate because it gets a person's attention. There is a stark and necessary distinction between "no", and "fuck no".

Managing my anxiety has often been directly proportional to managing what sort of things I give a fuck about, and when. Telling someone that I don't want to hear about what they don't like, and that I would prefer to hear about what gives them joy, changes the flow of fucks immediately. Avoiding the wasteful distribution of fucks to things that only feeds my helplessness has been vital.

Stopping myself midstream (usually right before I post or respond to something on Facebook, haha) and saying internally, "No, I'm not giving a fuck about that, moving on," has been a powerful thing. I've immediately, and definitely, given myself permission to not expend emotional resources on a given thing. I put my fucks safely back where they belong, in the bank, to be spent on things that really matter to me.

Educating myself about the known science behind anxiety has helped me be merciful toward myself. Specifically when I fail to act, or act or perform badly due to my anxiety. I can understand that the malfunction isn't a weakness, but an overdeveloped safety mechanism that I've had to rely on too much.

Saving my fucks, as a cognitive resource, gives me the space to endure when I would otherwise succumb to a panic attack.

Space

Managing anxiety, for me, is about creating distance with my fears, and surrendering to forces I cannot control. There is no one thing that creates that distance, and getting space is usually a combination of things that I've done as part of my ritual of wellness. I've tried supplements, fad diets, functional medicine, aroma therapy, and some cringe-worthy new age bullshit to manage my anxiety.

What shines through is I seem to win in finding the things that let my brain stem and limbic system know I'm actually safe. To that end, the simple things that tap into the few narrow means of communicating with our autonomic selves seems to work best. Identifying what trips your anxiety is pretty important in getting space away from it.

My phobias and fears are deeply rooted in my subconscious, to the degree my body responds even if I'm not thinking about it. It's the stimulus that is the mind poison. My physical resources play directly into whether or not I panic, or fly through those situations safely. I have to (as my father calls it) front load for life, and forgive myself when those preparations fail.

Sometimes, nothing will keep me from a crash. How soft the landing, and how quickly I bounce back, are directly related to how well I front loaded. Our bodies can't turn on a dime, and most of the countermeasures I've developed took weeks or months to take hold. I had to keep a journal of my symptoms, and chart my progress in a spread sheet to unlock what worked.

Even as I write this, my guts are trying to make a fist, and I'm feeling a little low. I know from months of experience that my sleep last night wasn't optimal, and I'm 90 minutes past when I usually eat lunch, and that is all this is. Having that knowledge, took time and a hard won deep understanding of myself.

You'll get there. Hang on. You'll get there. That's my mantra.

Nuts and Bolts

It's important to listen to your body. Ignoring your pain or discomfort, for me, has made my fight or flight response, my anxiety, worse. It tells my body things are bad enough I can't stop to rest, or eat, or seek solace. If I hurt, I take pain medication. If I'm constipated, I take a laxative. If I'm tired I rest. If I'm hungry, I eat. If I'm thirsty, I drink. I'm never far from some ibuprofen, my water bottle, a bag of lightly salted almonds, or a place to rest. I know where all the quiet coffee shops and libraries in Wichita happen to be.

Full Princess Mode, all the time, everywhere I go. I don't take on cognitive liability I can avoid, and I don't take risks with my mental health or safety. When I travel, I engage in the least amount of cognitive liability I can, and plan ahead.

I don't make myself do anything I know I don't have the resources for. I freely cancel appointments, politely decline new responsibilities, log off early for sleep, and engage in other culturally "selfish" behaviors. I don't ride the line with this either, and my sleep app has a keen feature, recording how much "credit" I have in my Sleep Bank. I'm shooting for double digit returns, eventually.

This frees me to make sure I am able to attend things that are important to me. I don't want to miss another wedding, birthday, or family reunion because I'm a wreck. I want to have the resources to do the important things, do my work, and spend time with people I love, for as long as possible.

Conclusion

Tell me what works for you in the comments. I genuinely care about this topic, and I don't think we can ever possess enough resources for life. I hope you found something useful in the text above, and that your tomorrow is better than today. Peace.

Recommended Reading

“The Body Keeps The Score” by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. - This has a lot of the science behind anxiety. Been my anxiety Bible for the last year.

“Mindsight” & “Aware” by Daniel J Siegel, M.D. - Useful science stuffs, mixed with complicated new age meditation jibber-jabber. Meditation need not be so complex, at least for me, books are still interesting and useful.

“The Pocket Guide to the Polyvagal Theory, The Transformative Power of Feeling Safe” Stephen W. Porges - Just got this one, haven’t vetted sources, but could be good.

#mental health #anxiety #severe anxiety

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melodicblu · 3 years ago

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I’ve been on an inward journey for quite some time..

Near the end of last year i decided to dig even deeper, beyond any man made limitation that’s instilled in us by mainstream ideas or lack of thought.

I refuse to live along, as something beneath my surface keeps poking through,

Prohibiting something deeper from moving forward.

And.. this hasn’t been the first time,

That a melancholic echo sticks to me.

I’ve looked at the principal of past lives and twinflames from various perspectives in the last 4 years, to research so i could construct what makes sense to me instead of taking one idea for granted..

As i’m gaining more knowledge and insights, i might come closer to the answers than i had imagined. Years of astrological research have passed by now.

I’m climbing and reach higher realms as i open my mind and wipe away any judgement towards signals, symbolism, coincidences,.. crossing my path.

I simply accept. take notes...

In my quest to understand what happened, i combine (shared) emotional (soul) memory, my akashic records, astrological indications, event charts (astrology), dreams, external symbolism, the language of my subconscious through the body, psychology.

In no way can answers be found through just one lens.. the whole is complex and multidimensional.

Keeping in mind there are 12 dimensions, and time isn’t necessary linear as to the principal of ‘point of focus’.. Ever had a dejavu...?

that’s time overlapping time.

Ever had a dream, woke up and said “you were there but it wasn’t you” ?

That’s astral travel or a soul memory poking through, all happening in this 3 dimensional realm. But ‘elsewhere’ simultaneously.

It’s you, letting go of judgement, the urge for logical order, what’s embedded into our beta brainwaves, where past memories are locked away in the theta part.

The part that holds the memory, that are considered unnecessary in the mundane here and now, but still part of your soul, as we would never be who we are now, without what happened in our pasts.

And the past, goes beyond the birth you had this time.

Travel beyond time.

All what’s traumatic, sticks to the soul, as memory.

This concept is also basic psychology.

The body remembers trauma, the brain remembers trauma, so does the soul. each in their own ways.

The body may create disease or disability due to trauma..

The brain shuts down the memory of trauma or has a disfunction of ratio.

The soul may ache.

But as we’re digging into the past that’s beyond the current lifetime,

what about “reversed” psychology?

From a prior person to a current person.. = you

but same in essence and energy, just a different husk and a little retarded as your memory vanished from the 1800′s and that one time you sucked Judas’s cock. anyway...

I’m almost scientifically approaching my own soul wounds as i prefer to stay as objective and practical as possible to not harm the present. Whereas i am in a relationship, but feel i have to resolve something with my past life husband. not necessary the easiest thing to explain, but open-mindedness embraced me in my personal journey towards truth, understanding and healing as the endstation.

So off i go...

I may have decided to part ways with my pastlife husband when i resided in total solitude, but once entering a new relationship, trauma slowly but surely resurfaced, so did that echo. I have experienced this before in another relationship where it became my reasons to break free from it and fall back to the union i’ve always known deep in my soul. But i kept running away.

there we have that irritating concept of twinflames known as the chaser and runner, but yet we are more than just mirrors, the comfort is within our marriage.

But it was all prior to this incarnation and therefore not necessary the purpose now. Which is initially my decision in this life time.

I keep feeling a form of guilt, sorry and an empty space.

More so as the twinflame union basically took place in the virtual realm,

all our time was experienced and felt in the soul and through dreams.

Our love was challenged to only take place in a dimension higher than the 3rd.

We had no physical touch besides only 2 and a half weeks within 4 years time.

I’m trying to make sense, find answers to :

- the strength of this connection and love

- the patterns of breaking up

the patterns of ‘disturbing’ my relationships..... or the patterns of relationships disturbing the connection

It’s how you look at it, but that’s the problem.. i don’t know.

As long as i don’t understand why this has been the deepest and highest i’ve ever experienced, why i am afraid of it simultaneously, the more the current truth stays ; i cannot fall in love like that anymore and it prohibits me from moving forward and opening my heartspace toward my dear and loving partner in this life.

I know, that i want to move forward. but it does feel like that old part of me isn’t served with this decision at all.

So what do i know now.. from research

Akashic records :

13 lives ago : Traumatic death with 7 others

7 lives ago : Mutual contract in traumatic circumstances with older brother, but it’s one-sided now

Past life : I took unjustified karma with me and still criticize myself for it

This life : I made a promise to sacrifice myself to a male figure, but it causes chronic health issues

This life : Soul loss of 15% due to intense shattered desire

This life : Lost a piece of soulmemory due to trauma

Okay trauma, to be honest i’m pretty familiar with trauma. not only in this life so to see..

The fact there is soulmemory loss in this life, is kindof shitty, because i need that memory to find the full picture. soulloss is something is till relate to, eventho i did the full 21 day clearing to restore it.

However, there are 2 lifetimes that could make sense to me when it comes to this husband connection..

That of 7 lives ago and the past life.. Especially the self-criticism.

I mostly judge myself for not sticking around, that explains my sorry for moving forward. the mutual contract could possibly be the husband, however that mddrfkkr really only feels like a cocker rather than a brother in any way.

The pain is fresh.

What is the strongest feeling i have : to take care, but it failed in the romantic setting, and as there are strong emotions involved, it has proven itself to fail whenever it’s approached in a more ‘lighthearted’ , friendship way.

Dreams :

Anno 2012-2013 the both of us had dreams about each other, There was a language barrier and we had a strong intimate connection. But we hadn’t met at all in the real world. it’s only 4 years later that we encountered each other online and instantly recognized the mutual energy.

Now the both of us have similar themes in dreams :

- nature, death, blood, corpses, abandoned places, mist, fog, fire, murder, terror, decay, green, brown, grey

To be honest, his death is something i afraid. Something would die in me too if that happens, even when the both of us would be happily married at some point in life, this dude of a soul holds special meaning to me, no matter the amount of time that separates us from connecting and contacting. i simply cherish.

These dreams also display trauma, if you ask me. so here again i find validation for actual trauma being embedded into this connection.

Astrology :

I’m not going to dive asshole deep into this one, but...

Moon conjunct moon with 0′01′ orb, that’s a rare exact conjunction

= soul conjunct soul

Southnode conjunct Juno

= pastlife conjunct marriage

there is a shitton more of real strong aspects between our individual charts, but also the relationship chart itself aswell as when we met for the first time in the physical world, there was a double conjunction going on to the Galactic center, which apparently is a portal for cosmic love, divine messages and downloads, healing portal, etc etc..

Temporary conclusion, ongoing research... :

Now.. we both know and recognize each other as spouse, validated through soul memory, astrology and emotion.

I know i hold trauma in my soul through akashic records, but damn i also notice it in the patterns of this lifes’ relationships. there is alot of crisis in my life (Venus on 29 degree, there you go, you’re welcome)

Getting married with one particular soul, over and over again, is romantic as HECK if you ask me, but not necessary the purpose as each is their own unique individual soul and the soul evolves.. until you master unconditional love.

In this life, circumstances really worked against our desires to even make it practically work, i was the one to make the decision that it’s simply impractical, whether i feel happy about that or not. i’m a virgo moon, i can be really ratio oriented and block out my own emotion..

My questions are :

- Why did we face such horrible amount of delay & obstacle

- Why does it feel so strong

- Why was this the first and last time love felt home

- Why the patterns of disruption

- Why do i feel responsible

- Why does that echo not disappear

To be continued...

#pastlife #regression #twinflames #research #pastliferegression #akashicrecords #psychology #soulmemory #astrology #moonconjunctmoon #moonastrology #southnode #juno #virgomoon #text

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whistlingpig · 3 years ago

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I’m going to vanish for a while, but before I do, I think I should explain myself so nobody gets the wrong idea:

A few days ago, I stumbled across a TikTok video of a fat girl showing off her bathing suit. Against my better judgement, I looked at the comment section. It was filled with trolls repeating the same tired fat jokes I’ve heard a thousand times before. At this point, they shouldn’t hurt. But they do. And I haven’t been able to get them out of my head

Every time I’m forced to share the same space with another human being, I find myself wondering... do they feel this way about me? Are they offended by my stomach, my rolls, my chins? Are they just pretending to be nice?

It’d be different if being fat was the only thing I had working against me, but I’m also extremely socially awkward, stupid, and uncoordinated. I stumble over my words, I lisp, I blurt out dumb observations at the wrong times, ask questions with obvious answers. Furniture creaks when I sit on it, I breathe heavy, I’m clumsy/accident prone, and I’m ugly!

If I had my way, I’d live like a hermit. I’ve never enjoyed socializing; it’s draining for me. Even after a positive social interaction, I need to retreat to the safety of my bedroom and recharge for several days As the saying goes: you don’t just marry a person - you marry the whole family. It’s true. And for me, it’s been a never-ending nightmare of awkward exchanges. I’m quite certain at this point that my father-in-law despises me. Why wouldn’t he, after all? I’ve never given him a reason to like me! I believe my mother-in-law simply tolerates me because it’s necessary in order to keep in contact with her beloved son. I think... long before we ever actually met, they formed negative opinions of me based on things Jim told them: that I was an alcoholic, that I was in and out of the hospital for various ‘mystery’ ailments, that I was pushy, physically violent when drunk, mentally ill, and unable to work. I’m definitely not the person they hoped their son would spend the rest of his life with

It’s not my intention to catalogue every passive-aggressive remark my in-laws make around me.. I don’t want to be the kind of person who collects grievances and plays the victim-card. That’s what my sister does! However, because I have such thin skin, I find it difficult to let other peoples’ comments roll off my back

A couple of recent examples:

- My MIL asked Jim and me to take a couple photos of her with her husband. We happily obliged. When we’d finished, she insisted they turn the camera on us. I laughed it off and said I don’t do photos. She just wouldn’t take no for an answer, though.. She kept telling us to pose. Jim could sense I was panicking - he pulled his mom aside to explain that I’m very uncomfortable with having my photo taken. She finally relented and I thought “whew, crisis averted!”. But later, as we were standing on the porch together, she turned to me and said, “if I ever take a photo of you, just know I’m not trying to steal your soul.” I just laughed. She doesn’t know I used to spend hours photographing myself from different angles, then circling the parts of my body I hated most. She doesn’t know I used to cover my mirrors. She doesn’t know how unhealthy my relationship with my own body is. And how could she? It’s my problem, not hers! But her flippant remark not only hurt my feelings, it made me feel as if my past trauma had somehow inconvenienced HER. I should have sucked it up and let her take the photo. She would have showed it to us. I would have spent the night having a meltdown. I wanted to avoid that

- We accompanied my MIL to the church to look at leftovers from a rummage sale. The idea was to get some cheap clothes/shoes. As soon as we arrived, I started looking for things I might be able to wear. Jim wandered off to the other end of the building to look at toys. He kept holding up silly items to show me and at one point I jokingly said, “hey, you aren’t even looking at clothes!!” His mom must have thought I was genuinely angry because she kinda snapped at me that “he can look at other things if he wants.” Jim and I engage in playful banter all the time; neither of us are serious! It isn’t the first time she’s felt the need to rush to his defense when she didn’t like the way we were kidding around. It’s kind of bizarre? She got angry when we were going through his old school journals and laughing at the misspelled words/crayon drawings. We weren’t laughing at JIM! Just at the silly things he wrote/drew.

- Today I was putting together a small package for my mom. I went in the bedroom to get a piece of paper for a note & when I came back out to the living room, Jim was gone. I said, “I never know where my husband goes! He vanished again!” My FIL replied: “It’s a husband thing. He’s doing it to save himself.” Maybe he said protect? I can’t recall. Either way, the gist of the joke was that husbands need to get away from their wives so they don’t go crazy. I laughed and sarcastically said, “oh come on, I know he loves spending every waking moment of his life with me.” Didn’t catch whatever FIL said next, but I think it must’ve been mean-spirited or something because MIL apologized on his behalf. This was shortly before I was reminded of the 4th of July, 2018. When I was pressured into trying to ride a horse, AFTER I’d expressed concerns over my weight being an issue. She insisted I try to get in the saddle, even though I wasn’t comfortable. It ended with her in the ER with a dislocated shoulder. Jack was furious. Today I was reminded about how he had to drive her to the ER and spend the evening in the waiting room with a bunch of weirdos. Just a joke, of course. But not really. Because he really was angry. And it really did ruin his night. But just a joke, of course.

I feel like everyone expected some sort of magical transformation to occur as soon as I was removed from the toxic shithole I used to live in. Maybe they thought I’d “come out of my shell”? That, instead of being overwhelmed, I’d embrace the idea of joining their enormous family and fit right in! The opposite happened. At first, I forced myself to be around them... As time went on, I returned to my reclusive lifestyle. Keeping others at arm’s length might make me look like a snob, but it’s how I’ve always been. It probably won’t change any time soon.

MIL and I are very different. When I get a package, I wait for the UPS driver to leave before I run out to grab it. She’ll meet the UPS driver at the door and have a 45-minute conversation with him

Anyway, the bottom line is.... I don’t belong here. After almost a year, I can say that with confidence. I’m not cut out to be part of a family! This has been weighing on my mind heavily for the past several months. Now I’m beginning to obsess over my weight/appearance again. I’m an insecure mess. I’m also rationing my medications........ it’s a perfect recipe for disaster

The other night, Jim’s cousin asked us over for hot dogs & drinks. I made an appearance - ONLY because it’s been so long since I’ve seen him and his girlfriend. I don’t want them to think I’m avoiding them! I feel like it didn’t go very well, though... As a fat person, eating in front of others is always complicated. On the one hand, I don’t want to offend the host by refusing food they cooked specifically for me. On the other, I don’t want to attract attention by being a fat woman eating a hot dog, lmao. The right thing to do would have been to decline - to give the impression I actually give a rat’s ass about my weight. Jim’s cousin’s girlfriend did that - and she probably only weighs like 100 pounds. I noticed, every time I took a bite of my hot dog, she stared. Why? Because you’re disgusted? Entertained? Are you asking yourself what my husband sees in me? You ignore everything I post on Instagram, but you like everything my husband posts. I notice these things. I wish I didn’t, but I do. I drank a cider. I got tipsy. I laughed a little too loud at jokes that weren’t funny. My teeth were throbbing. I made a bad impression. She kept looking at me, but every time I tried to make eye contact, she turned away

I could lose weight. By that, I mean, it’s physically possible. Do I have the self-control to stop guzzling soda and eating fast food? Probably not. But I’m off the market, I’m married, my husband likes to grind his hard dick against my stomach and knead my love-handles while I lie on top of him. Does it matter what anyone else thinks? I guess it does. Maybe It does when nobody knows he likes me this way. That he tells me he prefers fat women

Yeah, I could lose weight. Do I really want to, though? If I lost 100 pounds & suddenly began receiving compliments from the same people who treated me like a leper when I was fat.... Would I want that? No. You can take your beauty-standards and shove them up your ass. I don’t want to lose weight to win the approval of people who wouldn’t give me the time of day when I was fat

But it isn’t her fault she was disgusted by me. She takes care of her body

You know what I want? More than anything? Money. Enough money to live comfortably. Alone. I don’t want to die. I just want to remove myself from this bad situation. Live in solitude. Give Jim back to his family

And I want to vanish from the internet, too. Because if you knew me in real life, you’d be disappointed. If you like me online, it just means I’ve somehow managed to fool you. I would like to be forgotten! Move on, make real friends, and succeed!

I’m not stupid. I mean, I am. But I’m aware my social media accounts are just a source of entertainment for the handful of people who follow ‘em. I’m not quite... oh, what do they call it on Kiwifarms? A Lolcow? My meltdowns occur on a small, mostly empty corner of the internet. At least they’re still funny

Thanks for reading, if you did. I’ll be going now.

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nacchi-nacchi-nacchi · 6 years ago

Text

Troubling of the Water: A Todd Howard Story

Wilt thou be made whole? By Nacchi.

On the Production of Compact Discs

Information is stored in CD format as a series of microscopic burns. The useless unblemished disc is covered with millions of tiny wounds until it is assigned order, given utility and thus meaning; its identity is nothing more than a shorthand for the arrangement of its injuries. Hundreds of thousands of identically-scorched discs are mass-produced in factories devoted to this purpose, and then they go out into the world—momentarily useful and then left until they are forgotten, soon obsolete and eventually unreadable. But the marks remain, scars gone illegible within environments alien to them.

CDs are fragile things, damaged in just the right way. Cracks and gouges, records of less useful traumas, form mnemonic ravines into which meaning and memory disappear. And then, the greatest tragedy for a compact disc: to be discarded before even the moment in which its constellation of injuries--that is, in which itself--might be recognized, and so fulfill its destiny. What is to be done with these CDs, and all the CDs waiting for an eternity in landfills and forests and everywhere else on earth? What is the fate of objects with no use?

Chapter I: You Can Climb That Mountain

"I want to change the world.”

Every child believes this; every child is a fool. I certainly did, and was. But then, if I have ever deserved sympathy, it is in that distant past. I was made a fool, as we all are; Even as they nursed their injuries, those around me encouraged me toward lethally high aspirations of my own with patronizing smiles—under the pretense of indulging me, they cultivated my naivety as material for fresh bandages. Surely, someday, for someone—perhaps me—a dream would come true, and the world would open up for everyone. From the very start of my life, I was merely a thing to be used until I was exhausted and then thrown away.

By the time I had grown to understand my position, I was already fatally misaligned with the reality of my circumstances. Stupidly, I had told myself over and over again that, not having any say in the circumstances of my arrival, I was at the very least owed entry into the warm world I had been weaned on stories of. But, I had been given a gift after all, though I didn’t know it at the time: the very things which had finally been destroyed within me, my favorite parts of myself, were the few sacred qualities which might which might have prevented me from becoming the sort of monster that survives in this world—This was the expression of love I had been searching for all along, one I failed to recognize until much too late.

All but forgetting even the ruins of those painful, incongruent parts, I became capable of accepting, even almost of desiring, a life of fighting as hard and as cruelly as necessary to secure my own lowly position. I had made it, whatever it was. I had became the shape and hardness required of me, and had limited the bounds of my imagination to the realities of my existence. Insofar as every part of me that might have been crushed within my confines was gone, I was perfectly accommodated. Insofar as every noncontiguous region of myself had been excised, I was a complete being.

And yet. Even knowing that I could never claim to deserve anything beyond this pathetic life, my mind still wanders from time to time. I remember all sorts of things, stupid fairytales about finding some small, radiant thing, and exclaiming—as the narrator gave a tranquilized smile, or a soundtrack swelled—”Ah, I’m so glad to be alive!”

No matter how I tried, I could not shake those irritating thoughts. This, I believe, is referred to as the death drive.

November 11, 2011. Veterans Day. Already tasting vodka on my lips, I follow the advertisements promising hundreds of hours of velvety unconsciousness to my local GameStop. As I enter I am immediately assaulted by three screens blasting three different advertisements for three different video games. It would seem that if I am to return to the grace of nothingness, I must willingly plunge myself into hell.

“J-just this, please,” I stammer, holding out an empty box and a scuffed plastic card as meager offerings to let me pass through the store unmolested.

In this, as in all things, I am disappointed.

“Oh, you’re a fan of Elder Scrolls, huh? You want that for PC? You know, PC is really the best, since you get all the mods…”

As my mind drifts off, I recall being limply hit on in college—beneath all the token effort, the worn promise of pleasure is nothing more than an excuse for accepting the comfort of a night—or a few months, or years—spoken for, populated with enough distractions to sustain yourself, for a while. After the longest forty-five seconds of my life I am finally permitted to leave the store with my game. Driving home, I wonder when I stopped liking video games (did I ever like them?), and why I keep buying them. Well, what else would I waste my money and time on? Best to devote myself to whatever keeps me staring at a wall; after all, to raise my eyes further would only invite deeper injuries. It’s a strange kind of responsibility I practice, but then responsibility is always painful.

The game disc feels light and cheap in my hand as I place it into my computer’s CD tray. And then it is drawn into the machine, and with a click and the whirr of a laser everything is set into place.

The game installs. The world is gray and filthy. I walk for some time, talk to some people, do what they want; it feels more or less like having a job. I had told myself that as a child, these games held some magic for me, something I could recapture; instead I am left with stinging eyes and an inventory full of meaningless words. There is nothing there to grasp on to, no substance to all the various weapons and armor and pre-appraised treasure. A sickness overtakes me, lying atop the one already provoked by the cheap alcohol I had been drinking. I just want to stop playing and... do... anything, maybe take a walk outside—when was the last time I had been to a park, or really, anywhere without a specific purpose? For one moment, I feel the resolve to go building within me—and then a corpse intersects with a door and begins to twist rapidly around, writhing about with an indescribable cascade of layered thuds.

I begin to cackle, a laugh I cannot even recognize as my own. A sword, battered by the flailing limbs, goes spinning upward with another sound—I double over. This, surely, is why I purchased this game. This is why I spent the money I earned with my long hours of work. At last all the years have led me somewhere, a path back to the sundrenched fields in which I passed some carefree childhood: this cloying, slapstick meme.

There is a kind of love so pure that it can only be understood as a species of gravest perversion. A love which tolerates no artifice and suffers no consideration of the demands of the outside world; a transcendent, fatal, repulsive sort of love. This is the love that I, miserable human being that I am, hold for this “meme” in its raw, unattenuated form. It is the only sort of love which a creature like me can muster.

Meme is the cold hamburger served up at a drive-thru with half the toppings forgotten, and it is the accompanying chuckle. It is the momentary warmth from a trash-heap of disappointments burning to nothing, the measly payment for the copper stripped from the last obsolete office a nameless architect ever built, a final betrayal of hope itself that some small scrap of emotion, whatever it is, might still be salvaged—return to a hometown you feel nothing for, find where the stain of hemolymph crushed into the pavement might remind you of sunlight—and that is meme.

If we are to live submerged in industrial waste, I choose to bend down at each iridescent pool and drink as deeply as I can—that I might at least get drunk on my own suffering, and perhaps even hallucinate some specter of amusement. If nothing else, at least I have that knowing smirk, unseen by anyone but myself; I’m really better than this, you know. It may be worthless, but there was never anything to extract worth from in the first place; I’ll take my silly little laughs. I have no idea what it means to love myself, or anyone else, but perhaps loving these stupid, malfunctioning pieces of debris is as close as I can get.

The following day I discover console commands, and my passion burns even hotter in my chest. So hot even that it melts the chains I had fashioned from the iron of my own blood, chains binding me to the hard edges of that putrid concept known as survival. I am not set free, of course. A malformed entity like myself is incapable of understanding freedom, even if I were to somehow earn it; given wings and set loose with an open sky, I would only bash my head to bits against the ground. No, I am more of a slave than I ever was—a slave to that neon, excruciating joy which in a single instant melted me down and shaped me anew.

Less than human, I have become a gamer.

Chapter IIa: Put What You Want in Your Hands

Having broken free of those chains which I chafed against for most of my life, I began to tumble painfully through my new, larger cage. The next two or three years progressed uneventfully despite the constant drip of new adventures and alterations in my beloved game—I had nothing to lose, and I lost it.

Taking advantage of a departmental reorganization, I left my job behind. Nothing could have mattered less to me at the time; I had only settled for the position in the first place to advance a career about which I cared nothing, chosen only on the basis of a few romantic fantasies. Still, the manner in which I made my exit left me with no hope for further employment in the field, and about as many friends. Loneliness changed, from something I experienced as I ran against the shallowness of my friendships to something I experienced in solitude; truth be told, I found that I vastly prefer the latter.

A far more dire consequence was the rapid depletion of my savings. I had perhaps overestimated how easy it would be to find some stop-gap job and how willing I would be to do that work, and the costs of living piled up frighteningly quickly. There were always new consoles to buy, new Skyrims to experience with their own unique flaws native to each platform, and the few income sources I drifted between came to hardly anything at all. Finally, too broke even to acquire new debt, I remembered why I had choked down the humiliation of employed life for so long.

I had only just purchased a PlayStation VR when Skyrim was released for the Nintendo Switch, and I desperately needed the funds to buy it. There was nothing left to sell, nothing but my piles of Skyrim games and the consoles to play them with. I had even given up alcohol, having found a more effective means of self-destruction. I was at wit’s end; I would wake up in a cold sweat at four in the morning, scour YouTube for any bug videos and scrub through those grating Let’s Plays, unable to get back to sleep unless I found some collision error or AI failure.

Finally, I contacted Todd Howard himself, hoping against hope that the man behind it all might take some mercy upon his most loyal fan. Nothing in my life could have prepared me for the consequences of this action. Whatever sort of creature I might have been, I held only a human understanding of this reality at best; I was incapable of comprehending the level at which a being like Todd operates.

And so it came to be, though even now I’m not really sure how, that I was in Maryland, face to face with Todd himself. He said nothing, his cold silence a marked contrast to the nervous energy he overflowed with in interviews. It gave me the impression that there were really no words to be said, no words but those listed on the contract before me.

I saw my whole life laid out there, neatly bound in threads of black ink. It was in tracing those threads across the page that I saw my life, for the first time, as truly my own. This was not the account of a character I was forced to suffer with; it was me, body and mind tied to a clearly-formed existence.

I earnestly believe that each of us desire, at our core, to be bound by something greater than ourselves. Floating freely through the horrible emptiness, crashing into others as we tumble about, we have no hard form, no justification for the parasitism of existence. And so we cage our dispersed conscious in a flimsy, prefabricated frame of lies, that that cage, those lies, may become our body and their borders our self. Having changed my cage was tantamount to rebirth. But was I entering a higher cycle of existence, or one of atonement?

Perhaps if I knew either way, I would have refused to sign the document. But the thrill of unknowing set down roots in that same part of my breast which had torn me from my dull life, putting forth a bloom of seductive crimson. At last, I remembered that I had a heart, and that it was filled with blood; I dripped that blood down the pen and across those neat threads, and my mind, body and life came together in a blaze of warmth.

Todd picked up the contract, wordlessly looked over my signature, nodded. I suppose the taste of my blood was to his liking.

Chapter IIb: Make Yourself Proud

A car soon arrived to pick me up. As it wound its way along the highway, I stared out into the sky—today it was brilliantly, crushingly blue, and, perhaps because I knew this would be my last sight of it, I couldn’t drink in enough. It was the kind of sky that had always set my thoughts wandering, and I sank softly into daydreams of the past. Not in regret, but as a way of basking in the satisfaction of having my affairs settled, really settled.

The feeling was itself nostalgic. How long had it been since I could complete everything I hoped to and enjoy a clear mind like this one? Even since I had given myself entirely over to Skyrim, I never found the time, or more accurately the mental discipline, to feel satisfied with my progress when it was time to sleep. There was always some other barrow, another Draugr to sneak attack, ten more frost trolls to spawn in. But, sometime before that, surely...

In truth, I’ve always found it better to avoid thinking too much about the past, but being that I was in a rare whimsical mood I chased the thoughts as they rolled around.

Where exactly had my life diverged from the tangle of paths collectively known as human society, and when had the gap between the two become too wide to cross? Though I no longer felt any pain when considering that sort of thing, the answer remained hazy, somewhere just out of reach. Maybe it never existed in the first place... Even as I tried to turn my memories over I found myself refashioning them, reshooting events and adjusting details until they supported convenient interpretations. By this point the original memory, if such a thing could be said to exist, had long since been lost.

In the back of that car, in that tiny world populated only by me, I invented a past self to bid farewell to.

What sense of obligation drove me? It must have been something like going to a distant relative’s funeral—unable to feel the emotion I had been expecting, unsure of even what that emotion was, I made a stiff attempt at propriety in its stead. Naturally it was an awkward affair, a lot like meeting an old friend one has long ago fallen out of touch with. Actually, it was exactly that—the sense of trying to reinvent an already-vanished identity, working backwards to justify a bundle of artificial feelings, all wrapped up far too neatly.

I, whose parts had never quite fit together properly, couldn’t be satisfied with an answer that tied a neat bow on my life. In other words, I refused to accept an explanation that “just works”—Surely I must myself be as full of meaningless switchbacks, unintended paths and misplaced objects as the game I had chosen to devote myself to.

A sharp turn pulled me out of my half-dreaming state, my mind still trailing somewhere behind me. We had arrived, and it was time to leave the beautiful sky behind.

Chapter III: You Can Play Forever

My thoughts hardened again as I approached the Bethesda offices, and my heart pounded in my ears. There I stood, at the edge of eternity, awaiting the consummation of my obsession. My driver came too, standing wordlessly behind me in a smart suit and dark sunglasses that, taken together, gave him a cartoonishly coherent image. I wondered if he wasn’t a beginner at this too, momentarily crossing paths with me as he strode out to the fringes of his own world with the same affected confidence.

All of my earlier contentment evaporated in the heat of that moment, a heat that seemed to exude from the manila walls of the office as surely as if they were the sands of a far-off desert. It was almost as if the golden sunlight which lapped against the outer offices of the building but went no farther had given them some extra warmth in compensation—It was strange to think that those walls would soon separate me forever from that light which had been shining down on me for all of my life. The glass door, when I pushed it, seemed impossibly heavy despite the smoothness with which it opened.

As the door came to a close behind me with a puff of air, I was determined not to feel even a single moment of anxiety or regret. What was I leaving behind? A life worth less than nothing. Having entered the (figurative) dungeon with no (figurative) means of healing and suffering deep (figurative) wounds, I had been tip-toeing around trying futilely to avoid further damage even as I knew deep in my heart that I would be broken the moment I tried to do anything.

I had been wrong my whole life; the thing at my core, the thing that had died, it had been a strand of that sunlight which would have pulled me out of that building. There is a place for the injured in society, in the same way that everyone sometimes indulges in a sad song. There is a place for those things which shatter and then go on bandaged in tape and patches, those things that glow with the rainbow promise of the resilience of the spirit, of that distant day when scars will have become old friends.

There is no place in this entire world for those who have broken irreparably. For those who cannot move on, for those who have no future, whose lives are forever sent spinning out of orbit from consensus human existence. There is no promise of the infinite and indefinite palliative care needed simply for that kind of person to survive each day. And, instinctively sensing that shortcoming, fearful that understanding the curse would be to invite it, those fortunate, blind souls for whom tomorrow will surely come are repulsed by the existence of those like me—Those left with no foundation on which to rebuild. That’s what I told myself, anyway.

But Todd was different. Ever since our meeting I believed, I had to believe, that he was one of the few members of this pathetic species with an unwounded heart in his chest. Or rather, I had to believe that that heart pulsed with such a vulgar, careless muscularity that injuries which would tear a more sensitive man to shreds could not stop its beating, but only wreathe it in a rosy mist of rich, hot blood as it pumped—Driving him, I presume, ever northward to the frozen mounts of Skyrim, like the engine of a locomotive rushing monomaniacally toward the next sales pitch.

I would be crushed carelessly by the weight of that existence, a bug upon a windshield. The thought excited me beyond comparison. If I met that sort of end, lower than a stray dog, I was certain that in my last moments I would blaze incandescent. A life so perfectly brought to nothing... That peculiar alchemy had become my last hope.

I was led deep within the bowels of the Bethesda facility, through winding halls and past unmarked doors. I was fairly confident that I had been descending underground from the first floor, but I soon lost all sense of how deep I might have gone. As I passed each silent chamber, I wondered if some other contractee was within, and for the first time in years I felt true jealousy claw at my heart. I was motioned through another door, shut inside, and then with the click of a lock I was left in darkness with only my strange emotions for company.

How much time did I spend drifting through that abyss? It was only when I realized that I couldn’t make out my hand in front of my face that I started to fret about my appearance. I had first come to Todd on my knees; now that I had incurred a debt of gratitude too heavy to ever repay, I could at least have kept myself presentable for his sake. But there was nothing to be done about it, and so, brushing my hair frantically with one hand, I set about groping around the limits of my chamber with the other.

It seemed I had been granted a bed with a cold steel frame of the sort hospitals have in period films, a large, rectangular dresser of some sort and an exposed toilet and sink shoved awkwardly in a corner. Beyond that, there could have been anything or nothing at all. Even my thoughts seemed to dissolve into the endless night, and soon I was almost unsure if I was asleep or awake.

It was in this state that he came to me, emerging from a thin slit of light and into the darkness of my dream like the negative image of an infant poking its head into the world. He clapped twice, waited. Clapped again.

The darkness erupted into light.

“You, uh, you could have… They were supposed to…”

So this was the real Todd after all. The weight of Nirn and beyond, all in the body of this strange, overgrown teenager. Even as my earlier fantasies evaporated, I drew a certain confidence from his awkward manner. Smiling slyly, I took my first steps toward him.

Todd continued stammering out an introduction. He seemed profoundly uncomfortable with the words people use, piling up phrases and cutting himself off in a spectacular tangle of conversation. The nervousness on his face grew as I approached, and I took a cruel delight in embracing him mid-sentence. His monologue, hardly a viable birth from the start, died in his throat as he hesitantly placed his hands around me.

No matter how quickly I tried to dispel the thought, his unsure touch reminded me of nothing so much as a child grasping out for its mother as he searched my body. As if to exact revenge for my shattered image of him, I took the lead with a perverse poise, patiently but firmly guiding his faltering touch.

Suddenly, Todd found what he sought, and began to move with a feverish brute force. The strength of an adult man erupted awkwardly from his lanky frame, a weird mixture of the figure I had imagined him to be and the one I saw clearly before my eyes. Carelessly, roughly, like the tugging of a newborn animal yet to even open its eyes, those hands pulled at me with such raw, artless desire that I thought I would surely be torn apart.

I gasped into the wrinkled collar of his shirt. For just a moment we were entwined in the stagnant, torrid air of the chamber; it was as though I was reliving a memory, one I had recalled many times before but in a concentrated form, crystallized until it had taken on a physical edge. Thought became plastic, molten, until I had forgotten where one of us ended and the other began, who was who and who held what and how desire flowed between us. Even before the moment had passed, I knew I didn’t want the tragedy of waiting for it, for something that would be like it but never quite the same, to take hold of me again—I wanted nothing more than to keep my eyes closed forever, burrowed within the same sensation for eternity.

And then, in an instant, it was over. We tumbled apart from other, spent and complete.

The copy of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for Xbox 360 Todd had shoved into my waistband sat cold against my stomach, stretching the fabric. Across from me, Todd clutched the sixty dollars he had extracted from my back pocket to his breast as he lay on his back staring blankly up into the concrete ceiling. It was the look of a man who had found all that he wanted and spent all of himself in consuming it, a vacant gaze turned upward at nothing at all.

We lay like corpses, like beings reverted to clay, in that chamber where time did not pass.

Once again I was filled with a terrible sadness even before the moment ended. It seemed impossibly cruel that the rotation of the earth and caprices of biology would soon reassert their tyranny over the world in which we two had found some fleeting shelter. Tears fell wet and hot down my cheeks, streaming soundlessly onto the hard floor. Todd, I realized in some periphery of my mind, was also crying.

Gently, apologetically, Todd slaughtered the moment before it could be taken by decay.

“I’ll be back tomorrow the same time,” he said with a sad smile. “I—I always operate in the same routine.”

And then he was gone, and I was all alone with myself. Myself, the disc and a cabinet stuffed with consoles and topped with a small television. All according to contract, all belonging to Todd—and yet I could hardly bear even this brief custodianship of everything I had dragged around for so long. Not any more. They had become so, so awfully heavy.

Long after he had disappeared, three more twenty dollar bills appeared from the crack beneath my door.

Returning uncertainly to life, as if awakening from a heartbreakingly beautiful dream, I breathed three words into the emptiness:

"I'll be waiting."

Originally posted November 2017, and revised for this blog. Todd Howard the meme figure in my meme hell world should not be conflated with Todd Howard the actual flesh-and-blood person in the actual hell world.

#toddposting #toddpost #todd howard #skyrim #the pool of bethesda #blood/#old #writing #by nacchi #happy valentines day

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