#this is the only way i can cure my depression from work

[rawrl1ns]

Just Lestappen in Austria 2019

[cy-cyborg]

Disability Tropes: The Perfect Prosthetic

[ID: A screenshot from the movie Nimona, showing Nimona, a small white girl with red hair, grabbing the right prosthetic arm of Ballister, a knight in black armour with black hair and light brown skin. He is holding a broken bottle in his prosthetic hand while Nimona admires his arm. Overlaid on the screenshot is white text that reads "Disability Tropes: The Perfect Prosthetic" /End ID]

In a lot of media, prosthetic limbs are portrayed as these devices that act as a near-perfect replacement for a character who has lost, or was born without a limb. So much so that in a lot of cases, the use of a prosthetic has basically no impact on the character beyond a superficial level or their appearance, or it's portrayed as something that's even better than the old meat-limb it's replacing. This trope shows up most often in Sci-fi, but it shows up in all kinds of stories outside of that, even otherwise very grounded ones!

If a story isn't depicting the loss of a limb as the be-all-end-all worst thing that can happen to a person, they almost always default to a perfect prosthetic, functionally curing the amputation with it. But the reality is that prosthetics are FAR from perfect, and as someone who has used them for their entire life I don't think they ever will be. Limb difference is still and always will be a disability, regardless of the prosthetics available, and this really isn't a bad thing.

Why is this trope so common?

I meant it when I said this is a really, really a common trope, so much so that the majority of the media I've seen with amputees and characters with limb differences that released in the last decade or end up using it. Even stories where becoming an amputee is treated like a fate worse than death, ironically, aren't excluded from this. I have a few theories as to why this has happened: The pessimistic answer is that it's easy. You get to have a disabled character and claim you have disability representation, without really having to do much extra work or research because most of your audience won't notice if you aren't accurate - in fact they kind of expect it. You also, for the most part, dodge the backlash other kinds of disability representation (or really any minority representation) usually get. The more optimistic reason is that, for a long time, amputees and people with limb differences (as well as a lot of other disabled people) were predominantly shown in media as sad, depressed and unable to do anything, very much falling into the "sad disabled person" trope. As a kid, this was really the only way I saw people like me on screen or in books. And so, the limb difference community pushed back against that portrayal and were pretty successful in changing the narrative in the public's eye. A little too successful. A lot of creatives were genuinely trying to do right by our community, listen and do better, but many simply overcorrected and instead ended up creating stories where prosthetics were essentially cures instead of the mobility aids they are. I also think the public's general lack of understanding about disability plays a roll in all this. There are a lot of people who, in my experience, believe that the more visible a disability is, the worse it is. Limb differences and amputations are very visible, but prosthetics, even those that aren't trying to be discreet, make them less so. While using a prosthetic is very, very different to a biological limb, you won't necessarily see how in a casual interaction with, say a co-worker or neighbor, especially because there is a very real stigma applied to people with limb differences to keep those things hidden from the public. There are other reasons too, such as the fact that a lot of creatives don't even consider the connection to real amputees when creating characters with robotic limbs in genres like sci-fi and some fantasy, so they never stop to consider that these tropes could be impacting real people. Amputees are also very frequently used in "inspiration porn" content that uses the angle that disabilities can be "overcome" with a good attitude, downplaying the way those disabilities actually impact us. The prosthetics industry - specifically the component manufacturers, often also push the idea of prosthetics being the only way to return to a "normal" life, both to the wider public and to people with limb differences and amputations (which can add to that sense of shame I mentioned when it doesn't play out that way for them). On top of that, I also think the recent increase in popularity of concepts like trans-humanism contributes to it as well. these movements often talk about robotic or bionic body parts being enhancements and "the way of the future", and I think people get a bit too caught up on what may be potentially possible in the future with the real, current experiences of people with "robotic limbs" aka prosthetics, now. There are also inherently disabling things that come with removing and replacing parts of your body, things that will not just go away with some fancier tech.

So How do you actually avoid the trope?

So, we have some ideas about why it happens, but how do you actually avoid the "perfect prosthetic" trope from appearing in your work? The most important thing is to remember that this is still a disability. The loss of a limb, even with the best prosthetic technology or magical item in the world, will always have some inherently disabling aspects to it - and this is not a bad thing. The key is to not over-do it, lest you risk falling into the old "sad disabled person" trope. So let's go over some of the ways you can show how your character's disability impacts them. You don't have to use all of these recommendations, just choose the ones that would best fit your character, their circumstances and your setting.

The prosthetic itself is just different

Probably the most important thing to address and acknowledge for prosthetic-using characters, is the actual ways in which the prosthetic itself is different from a biological limb, and the drawbacks and changes that come with that. For the sake of simplicity, I'm mainly going to focus on modern prosthetics here, but it's worth considering how to apply this your own, more advanced/fantastical prosthetics too. One major thing that most people writing amputees fail to acknowledge is that prosthetic limbs are not fleshy-limbs with a different coat of paint. They do the same basic thing their meat-counterparts do, but how they do it is often drastically different, which changes how they are used. A really good example of this is in prosthetic feet. There are dozens of joints in a biological foot, but most prosthetic feet have no joints or moving parts at all. Instead of having dozens of artificial joints to mimic the real bone structure of a foot, which are more prone to failure, require power and make the prosthetic much, much heavier for very little gain, prosthetic feet are often constructed from flexible carbon fiber sheets inside a flexible rubber foot-shaped shell. This allows the bend and flex those bones provide, without all the drawbacks that come from trying to directly mimic it. Making the sheets into different shapes makes them more ideal for different activities. E.g. feet made for general use, like walking around the city, are simple and light, shaped to encourage the most energy-efficient steps, while still allowing their users to do things like wear normal shoes. Feet made for rough terrain often have a split down the middle of the foot to allow the carbon fiber sheets to bend better over rocks when there is no ankle, and some newer designs also include a kind of suspension using pressurized air pulled from the prosthetic socket to allow some additional padding. Running feet have large "blades" made of these carbon fiber sheets to absorb more pressure when the foot hits the ground, and redirect the force that creates to propel their user forward as quickly as possible.

[ID: A photo of 4 prosthetic feet. On the left, the foot is covered with a black shoe, the one to it's right consists of a small, carbon fiber blade, split down the middle, in roughly the same shape and size as the previous foot. Next to the right is an even simpler and smaller carbon fiber foot with no split, and finally is a very short foot that is vaguely rectangular in shape. /End ID]

These are some of my own prosthetic feet I've had over the years. The two on the right are designed to be used by someone who is less mobile, and the ones on the left are made for someone who is more active. As my needs changed over the years, I've used different designs and styles, and keep the old ones since my needs do tend to fluctuate.

There are also robotic feet available that are designed as a kind of "all-purpose" foot that use an electronic ankle which more closely mimics a biological foot, but they are not very popular as the mechanism adds a lot of extra weight and it requires a battery and power to work, with many amputees feeling the jointless carbon fiber feet do a better job at meeting their needs. The same goes for arms and hands. "Robotic" hands that mimic a meat hand exist, but they aren't really that popular, even in places like Australia where the prohibitively expensive price tag isn't as much of an issue due to government programs that pay for the device for you. Instead, most arm amputees who use prosthetics that I know prefer simpler devices that do specific tasks, and just swap between them as needed, rather than something that tries to do it all. A big part of this is because the all-purpose hands can be clunky. they often require manual adjustment using the other hand to do simple things like going from holding a deck of cards to putting them down and picking up a glass of water, for example. The few that don't require that, I've been told, are often temperamental and don't actually work for every person with a limb difference.

Altered Proprioception

Loosing a limb is a big deal and this is always going to have an impact on the body in some way that won't be solved with a fancy piece of tech. One such example is how limb loss effects your sense of proprioception. This is your sense of where your body parts are in space. It's how you (mostly) know where your foot is going to land when you're walking, or how you're able to do things like lift up a glass of water without needing to actually watch your hand do it. Your brain does this by creating a mental map of your body, but this map doesn't get adjusted if you loose a limb. If that map doesn't accurately reflect your real body, you're not going to have an accurate sense of proprioception. This might look like a leg amputee being a bit less stable on their feet, or like an arm amputee needing to look at their arm or hand to be able to grab something with it. Those born without their limbs who take to using prosthetics often have a lot of trouble adapting, as their brains aren't used to having that limb in the first place, whereas an amputee's brain can sometimes be tricked into using their outdated body map to help them adjust to the prosthetic (though its impossible to line it up perfectly). Prosthetics that directly integrate with the nervous system, while rare, do exist, and even this direct connection doesn't completely erase this issue for reasons doctors aren't quite sure about. This is something that does become less of a problem with time. Eventually, someone proficient with their prosthetic will learn to compensate, but their sense of proprioception will never be 100% perfect. At the end of the day, no matter how it attaches, a prosthetic is still not a natural part of the body, and that will always cause some issues. It also means if they aren't practicing it all the time, they may have to relearn how to compensate for it.

Extra weight

You also have to remember that a prosthetic is not a natural part of the body, like we already talked about, and so no matter how good it is, your brain will most likely always interpret the weight of the prosthetic as something attached to you, not part of you. This means that, even though prosthetics are actually a lot lighter than biological limbs, they feel so much heavier. This is because, while a meat limb is heavier, a lot of that weight is from muscles which are actively contributing to the limb working, so it doesn't really feel like its that heavy. When you have less of your meat-limb though, you have even less muscle to work with to move this big thing strapped to it, so it feels heavier. The more of the limb you've lost, or just didn't have, the heavier the prosthetic has to be, and the less muscle you have left to move it. It's for this reason that a lot of amputees and people with limb differences get tired faster when using prosthetics. Some of us are fit enough where you almost wouldn't notice the extra effort they need to put in, but once again, just because you can't see it from the outside, doesn't mean it's not an issue.

Avoiding Water

Most prosthetics also aren't waterproof, and so prosthetic users have to be very careful about when and how they come into contact with it. For amputees with electric components, contact with water at all will likely damage the device. This can even include especially heavy rain, something I was told to avoid when I got my electronic knee prosthetic and something I assume would also apply to arm amputees with complex, electronic hands. For those with non-electronic prosthetics, water can be hazardous for different reasons. If the prosthetic has metal components, water may cause them to rust, especially if it's salty water. Other prosthetics have foam covers to give the illusion of a limb with the general shape of muscles and fat, but these covers do not come off, and if they get wet enough that water seeps all the way through, it is very hard to dry it and they may become moldy. Finally, cheaper modern prosthetics may also float. Many are made of very light-weight materials and some have pockets of air trapped inside them. For leg prosthetics in particular, this means a user might, at best, struggle to swim with them on, but at worst, may get flipped upside down and become trapped underwater - something that happened to me as a very young child. On the flip-side, older prosthetics were usually made of heavy materials like wood or steel, and so had the opposite problem, acting like a weight and pulling a person down if they were to wear them in the water. Water-safe prosthetics do exist, I had a pair of prosthetic legs as a teenager that were hollow, and designed especially for me to swim with fins on when swimming in the ocean, and Nadya Vessey, a double leg amputee in New Zealand even got a mermaid-tail prosthetic made especially for use in the water. Most amputees though just swim without any prosthetics at all, and in 99% of cases, this is the easiest and safest way to go.

Prosthetic-Related Pressure Sores and Pain

Many people with limb differences also experience pressure sores from their prosthetics. Modern prosthetics typically attach to the body using a socket made of carbon fiber or fiberglass, held on either by pressure, using a vacuum seal or through a mechanical locking system built into the socket. No matter the specifics though, the socket has to be very tight in order to stay on, and this means that extended periods of use can lead to rub-spots, blisters and pressure sores. Many socket prosthetics also use silicone liners to add extra padding, but this means wounds caused by the pressure can't breathe, and bacteria in sweat has nowhere to go, meaning if the person doesn't rest when one of these wounds occur, it can very easily and quickly turn into a serious infection. In a properly fitting prosthetic, used by someone who has fully adjusted to them, this doesn't happen often, but it is something most amputees and people with limb differences have to at least be mindful of. Some new prosthetics use a different method of attachment, called Osteointegration - where the prosthetic attaches to a clip, surgically implanted into the person's bones. While Osteointegration avoids many of the issues like pressure sores that come from a socket, they have their own issues: mainly that they are incredibly expensive, and as of right now, have a pretty high failure rate due to the implant getting infected. Because the implants are directly connected to the bone, these infections become very serious very quickly. Many people with Osteointegration limbs have to be on very strong medication to keep these infections at bay, and they are generally considered unsuitable for anyone who is going to regularly come into contact with "unclean" environments.

Maintenance

[ID: A screenshot of Winrey, from Full Metal alchemist Brotherhood, a white woman with blond hair handing out the sides of a green hat. She is measuring a piece of metal from a prosthetic she is making while Ed, the prosthetic's owner, gives her a thumbs up in the background. /End ID]

Finally, prosthetics also require maintenance from a specialist called a prosthetist, and they don't last forever. Some parts, like a foot or hand, can be reused over an over, but the sockets of a prosthetic need to be completely remade any time your body changes shape, including if you gain/loose weight, you start experiencing swelling, or you're just a child who is growing. Children in particular need new prosthetics every few months because they grow so fast, and as such, their prosthetics have to be made with this growth in mind. If they go too long without adjustment or an entirely new prosthetic, it can seriously impact the child and their growth but even small adjustments can be costly, depending on where you live. While prosthetics are built to be sturdy and reliable, they need a lot of work to stay that way. The more complex the prosthetic, the more work is needed. Complicated electronic components may need to have regular maintenance done by your prosthetist or even the specific component's manufacturer, and depending on where you live, this might mean having to send your prosthetic limb away for this to be done. While my prosthetist technically has the skills and knowledge to do the maintenance on my electronic knee, for example, the manufacturer forbids anyone not from their company to provide this service, meaning my leg needs to be shipped off to Germany once every few years if I want to keep the warranty. This has the unfortunate side effect of sometimes your limbs getting lost in postage (shout-out to Australia Post, who lost mine twice), meaning it can be months before you get it back or get a replacement. Usually, you'll be given a replacement in the meantime if you need it, but walking on a leg that isn't yours, even when its correctly fitted, always feels a bit weird (maybe that's just me though).

Not every difference is Inherently Negative

We've talked about some of the negatives that come from having a prosthetic, but not every difference is negative or even really that big of a deal. In fact, often times, it's these little moments in the depiction of a disability that go the furthest and make it feel the most genuine. My amputations effect me from the moment I wake up, to the moment I go to bed, but that doesn't mean every single way it impacts me is always inherently bad or negative. For example, back when I was working a normal job and going to university, I would often come home, throw my legs off at the door with the shoes still attached and get into my wheelchair, the same way you might throw your shoes off after work and replace them with comfy socks and other comfy clothing. This is something I've only ever seen on screen once, with Eda from the Owl House (and she wasn't even an amputee yet, her limbs were just detachable)

[ID: an screenshot of Eda from the owl house, a very pale woman, laying on the couch in a bathrobe, her hair in a towel. She has taken her actual legs off, throwing them to the other side of the seat. /End ID]

After that, my day mostly looked the same as most other people working a 9 to 5, I'd make myself dinner, watch some TV or play some games, maybe do some extra work at my desk or chat with friends. The only difference is that it would all be from a wheelchair, mainly because my prosthetics were heavy and it was just easier to use the chair around the house. The fact my afternoon and evening routine was done from a wheelchair wasn't a bad thing, it was just different. Likewise, I also don't sleep or shower with my prosthetics on, for the same reasons most other people wouldn't take a shower or sleep in thigh-high, steel-capped boots. In your own stories, this might look like giving your characters similar alterations to how they go about their day. Let them take their arm or leg off when they're resting or relaxing, show them taking a few minutes longer to get ready because they have to put it back on, show them doing some things without it. Arm amputees in particular tend to get very good at going about their days without their arm prosthetics, and leg amputees often either learn to get around more relaxed spaces like their homes using a different mobility aids like wheelchairs or crutches, or just through hopping if that's something they're physically able to do. Even when everything is going well and working as intended, your limb-different character won't wear their prosthetic 24/7, no matter how much they love it. There doesn't have to be something wrong with it or painful about it to not want it glued to them at all times, just like you can love a pair of big heavy boots but not want them on when you're trying to sleep. For more action-focused stories, being an amputee, also changes things like how you fight. The specifics will vary from person to person, but for example, when I did Hap Ki Do, a Korean Martial art, my instructor heavily modified when I learned what techniques. Beginner-level kicks and most leg attacks were impractical for me, as the force from the kicking motion would usually cause one of my legs to fly off. I also couldn't jump very well, due to some complications with my original amputation that made my stumps too sensitive to withstand the force of landing again. So I ended up learning a lot more upper-body attacks much earlier than it is typically taught. By the time I got my green belt, I was practicing upper-body techniques usually saved for black belts - including weapons training that I could use my secondary mobility aids for, like crutches and my cane in a bad situation. Many holds that rely on creating tension in your target are also less effective on amputees, because either the anatomy that causes those holds to be painful just simply isn't there, or the body part in question can just be removed to escape. Whether we're talking about the negative things, or just neutral differences that come with using prosthetics, you don't want to go too far with any one example. The key is to strike a balance. Of course, the old writing advice of "show don't tell" also applies here. It's one thing to tell us all of this stuff, but unless we actually see it play out, it won't mean much.

How NOT to avoid the trope

Before we move on, let's focus for a moment on some common things I've seen that you SHOULDN'T do as a way to get away from the trope.

The Enhanced Prosthetic

A lot of sci-fi in particular will take prosthetic limbs, make them function exactly the same as a biological limb, but add something extra to it. This does change the way the prosthetic functions and is used, but it usually still ignores the actual disabling parts of having a prosthetic. A really good example of this can be seen in pretty much any futuristic setting, but personally, I think Fizzeroli, from Helluva Boss is the best one to demonstrate what I mean. Fizz is a quadrilateral, above knee/above elbow amputee with highly advanced prosthetics that function, more or less exactly like the limbs he lost, but with the added benefit of being super-stretchy. Fizz is an acrobat and a clown in service, at least initially, to Mammon, one of the Seven Deadly Sins. These prosthetics help him perform and we even do see how they change little things like how he walks and just goes about his day, but the show still treats them like natural arms and legs, but better. 

[ID: A screenshot of Fizzeroli from Helluva Boss, a white-skinned imp with 4 black, prosthetic limbs, dressed in teal a nightgown as he lays in bed, reading from a list /End ID]

We see that he never takes them off, even when sleeping, and when he needs to use them as regular arms and legs, they do everything he needs, perfectly fine - at least when they're working correctly. The only time he ever even takes them off or has any issues with them, is when they break in season 2. The word amputee is never used to describe him, as far as I remember, and the fact he is one never really comes up at all, except for when they break or when the story focuses on how he lost them. Which brings me to my next point.

The Glitchy/Broken Prosthetic

One way I see people try to avoid the perfect prosthetic trope, is to take the prosthetic and break it or otherwise make it unreliable by having it malfunction, but not really changing anything else. This approach is heading in the right direction but still kind of misses the point of the criticism a lot of limb different folks have with the depictions of prosthetics in the media. Yeah, prosthetics do break down and some do require extra maintenance, but if your character's prosthetic is still exactly the same as a biological limb (or even better, in the case of the "enhanced prosthetic") when it's not broken, and the only time their disability is treated like a disability, is when it breaks, you're not really addressing the issue. Real prosthetics, like we discussed, even when functioning at 100%, exactly as the manufacturer intended, don't function the same as a meat-limb. They are fundamentally different, and the glitchy/unreliable prosthetic completely ignores all of that. Once again, Fizz is a really good example of this - the only time his prosthetics are not perfect, is when they break or are malfunctioning (despite the criticism, I do genuinely love Fizz as a character, but he unfortunately does fall into a lot of disability tropes).

[ID: Another screenshot of Fizzeroli, this time in a torn up jester outfit, looking down, panicked, at his prosthetic arms which are fully extended and laying motionless on the ground, with his left arm visibly short-circuiting with electricity around it. /End ID]

Now this isn't to say you can't have your character's prosthetics break down or malfunction at all. just that this shouldn't be the only way you differentiate the prosthetic from a biological limb. You should also be mindful of how or why they're breaking. A typical prosthetic isn't going to break down randomly from normal use unless something is very, very wrong or your character just has a terrible prosthetist (which unfortunately, does happen). You might experience issues if you try to make the prosthetic do something it just wasn't designed to do, or expose it to something it wasn't designed to deal with though (e.g. submerging an electronic prosthetic in water and trying to use it to swim).

Just add Phantom Pain

Another common pitfall I see when people are trying to avoid the perfect prosthetic trope, is to just give the character in question phantom pain - which is a side-effect of amputation where your brain's mental map of the body doesn't acknowledged you lost a limb. Your brain tries to fill in the gaps, since there is no signals coming from that part of the body anymore, and assumes either something must be wrong and so you should be in pain, even when you actually aren't. Alternatively, it can also happen when your brain was so used to feeling pain from that area before, in the case of people who had chronic conditions before they lost their limb, that it just keeps remaking those old signals itself. Like the broken/glitchy prosthetic approach, this also doesn't really address the issue with the perfect prosthetic trope, because it has nothing to do with the prosthetic itself. Phantom pain doesn't come from the prosthetic, nor does it effect how they're used, and so including it doesn't really address the issue of the prosthetic being functionally the same as the original, biological limb. This isn't to say that you shouldn't include phantom limb sensation or pain as something your character experiences, but just keep in mind that, when used on it's own, it doesn't counter the trope. Also, just be sure to do your research, everyone's experience with phantom pain is different and it's not something everyone with a limb difference even experiences.

Why is this trope even a problem?

Alright, so we know what the trope is, we know why it became so prevalent, ways to avoid it and also how not to avoid it. All good information, but why is this trope even bad? Why should you try to avoid it? Outside of just wanting to portray a real disability that effects real people more accurately in your creations, the prevalence of this trope actually contributes to a lot of real-world issues, especially when it's as overused as it currently is. I've talked before about "the jaws effect" - where the depiction of something in the media, especially something that the public is widely uneducated on, influences how people see it in real life. The Jaws effect specifically referred to how the popularity of creature-feature movies featuring sharks, like Jaws, caused the belief that sharks were monstrous killing machines to become much more wide-spread, even going so far as to influence decisions about laws and policy surrounding real-life shark preservation and culling in some parts of the world. But sharks aren't the only thing this has happened to.

Disabled people are so thoroughly misunderstood by wider society, that when tropes like this one become popular, people can and often do start to believe the misinformation they spread - in this case, believing that our prosthetics are a perfect replacement for a biological limb, and that getting a prosthetic means you're not disabled any more. While this can be annoying and cause small scale issues for some of us, like people giving us a hard time for using disability accommodations we very much need, it can also impact us in systemic ways too. If the wrong people believe these tropes, it can and does have a very real impact on the lives of disabled people through things like changes to policies to make it harder for amputees and people with limb differences to access financial assistance for other things outside of our prosthetics we may need assistance with.

Conclusion

Despite the very real harm tropes like this can do when it's overused, I don't think it should go away entirely. Some of my favourite pieces of media even use the perfect prosthetic trope and there are even some kinds of media where I even think it's somewhat unavoidable. Characters with perfect prosthetics in kids media in particular, especially when talking about side characters, can help to correct some of the other stereotypes kids may have seen elsewhere - such as prosthetics being "creepy" or "scary" - in a way that is casual and easy for them to understand. The problem with the trope, in my eyes, is it's excessive overuse. It's the fact that it seems to be the only representation amputees and people with limb differences are getting now. Not every story with a limb-different character can or even should delve into the reality of what using prosthetics is actually like, but we need at least some stories that do, without it being this majorly depressing thing.

[netherfeildren]

Busy, Dying. Part 1;

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader

Summary: In an in-between place called his life, Joel Miller is alone. In search of a cure. In need of a miracle. In want of God.

Can I interest you in a cure for loneliness? She'd asked him in a language without words. Taking it is the easy part. Letting her go is impossible.

-OR-

an a/b/o soulmates AU

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: No Outbreak AU, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Soulmates AU, Infidelity, Cheating, HEA!!!!!, Angst, Fluff & Smut, Mating Bites, Knotting, Heat Sex, Breeding Kink, Group Therapy, Social Experiments, Basically puppy training for unsocialized Alphas, And by God that man will be house trained by the time she’s done with him!, Complicated family dynamics, Discussions of self harm, Depression, Existential Angst, Author returns not with a whimper but with a KNOT, I wrote this in a very unserious state of mind beware 

A/N: Gray November, I've been down since July - but we're so back, baby. I’ve missed this so bad. I’ve missed you all, I won’t drone on and on. I hope you enjoy, and please talk to me in the comments. Update me on what I’ve missed, let me know how you’ve been and what’s happening in your life.

A great heartfelt thank you to all of my wonderful friends who so supportively cheered me on while I struggled to write this. Sincerely the best people I know. 

Love you all madly.

Word Count: 6.5K

Read on AO3

Part 1;

The old linoleum tiles are the most peculiar shade of puce, and Joel has realized that there is someone sitting at the back of the room who smells… strange. 

More brown than purple—an ugly color. There’s something about it that fascinates him.

The woman that is currently speaking tells of her husband; it’s the only tale she has to tell. She’s been doing it for weeks, and they all know it well by now. Older, omega, the woman, and at the latter and less comely stage of life. Most of them here can say the same. They usually give their names, those that get up to share—although it’s never a requirement when you attend, it is highly encouraged—the sharing, he means—but he never pays much mind to them—the names, that is. That’s not what he’s here for after all—to make friends. Although, he does see how that’d be the initial assumption. 

Joel Miller is here for something more specific.

Six weeks he’s been showing up to these things now, and he’s yet to take a turn. He tells himself he’s working up to it. 

What that specific thing is…he hasn’t quite figured out. He’s listening for it, though, and intently, even if he does skip over the names. It’s the details of what they’re telling that matter to him. The hows and intricate whys of what it is that brought them here today.  

Her youth had been spent on a drunk, the woman is saying—her husband—and he’d been cruel to her in those days when there was still currency to spend in the form of her vitality. Joel nods at the puce—yes, he thinks, that’s usually the way of it. But later, there’s more to the story she reminds her audience, he drank himself into a fit, and had never been right since. The cruelty had been taken away from the marriage after that, and she’d been put in charge. 

“But I wonder,” she says, “If sometimes I don’t miss it, the way he’d been,” —if the reason she was here now, with all of the rest of them that were just like her in their own unique ways, was that she’d been left lonely after her cruel husband had been exchanged for a sick one. 

Joel nods again and wonders what sort of face the woman wears as she confesses but doesn’t bother to check. No matter, he knows they’re the same. If not in designation, then in heart. 

It’s easy, that thing, he does it too, to wish for the bad. To want to hold on to it, the thing that hurts. Addictive, even, in some cases. Missing it is easy. 

It’s why he’s here. 

And it’s what they promise you. In their flyers and pamphlets, when they stand on the corners of streets talking people up wearing that look in their eye and that slouch in their step, when they smell it on you—or in the lack there of—a mate or a purpose.

Welcome to our meeting. We’re here to find the cure for loneliness. 

That’s what they promise you when you come here. 

It’d been that word: loneliness, actually, that had caught him. L-O-N-E-liness. There was something attractive about it to him. Not a label but a state. 

You see, it was like this: Joel had seen a therapist once, several years ago, against his will and at the behest of another, who’d said all the wrong things in all the wrong ways. 

“You sound depressed, Joel,” the therapist had told him. 

He’d worn horn rimmed glasses and had a shiny bald head he could see the reflection of the overhead lights in. And worse—the non-scent of a beta which told him they’d never understand each other in the ways Joel longed to be understood. He’d—not hated him, necessarily—but felt an immense apathy for the man; more so than the regular apathy he felt for most things in his life. 

“I don’t know what that means.” 

“Very, very sad,” was the official diagnosis.

Joel hadn’t liked the sound of the word. The label. He did not like that a word so succinct could be ascribed to him and all that had happened to him in his life. There was no word for it. It just was. 

But there was something different about a state of aloneness, which if attributed to himself, he could accept. He had been left alone, in ways. It was a tangible thing he could look around a room inside of himself and recognize. 

They’re meetings, is what this place is—encounter groups this coalition offers where lonely demi humans can come to congregate, discuss their aloneness, what had led them to such a state; their lack of attachments, connections, mates—alpha, omega. Held in the basement of the Emmanuel Episcopal Church on Newbury street, right between his shop and house, although they never talk about religion which he likes because he doesn’t believe in religion. 

God is still under review. 

He wonders if the Catholics wouldn’t have them. 

Sitting forward in his seat, the metal folding chair that always leaves his back aching something fierce, he presses his elbows into his knees to distract with alternative pressure. Focusing on his fingers woven together between his spread legs, he tries to pay attention to the man who’s stood up to speak now. Older than himself, late sixties, no children, no family, no nothin’; he’d run them all off. 

But Joel is distracted. 

The smell is stronger now. Stranger too. Something full bodied, but metallic like rust, astringent bleach, built in a way that forces saliva to pool heavy between his suddenly aching gums. A mask that sits atop something of a much different chemical architecture—that’s the strange part. 

Or—no. The back of his neck itches, and Joel lifts a palm to cup his nape, quell the sting, feel the tender mark. No. The strange part is not the illusion of the smell. What it is, actually, is that he’s fairly certain what he’s smelling is someone else's blockers. Something which he’s positive he’s never consciously noticed on another person in the thirty plus years since he’d presented as an alpha. 

He has, suddenly, the quite intense urge to peek over his shoulder, certain that he’ll be caught smelling things he has no business smelling. That there will be someone just there, breathing down the nape of his neck with accusation on their tongue—boo!

Silly. But he’d known today would not be a good day. 

It’d started off wrong. The milk had gone sour overnight, the check engine light had come on in his truck, all his socks were suddenly mismatched with not a single pair to be found, and his usual route to work had been waylaid by some freak accident. A tree split in half, one side into a house, the other into the road. Not a sign of lightning in the sky all night long. 

Perhaps he might be compelled to believe in God after all. 

Joel does not like it when things are out of order or out of the ordinary. His life was organized in a way that never caused him strife or excess. And it was not that he was stuck in his ways, only that he enjoyed his routine and disliked when things were not as they should be. And this—whatever it is he’s smelling, whoever—is not as it should be. 

The older gentleman, an Alpha too, is still speaking. He had a daughter, has, who no longer speaks to him. Won’t even take his money. He’d had a long career in government that’d filled him with greed and paranoia and a radical view of life that refused to align with the way young people saw the world now. Perhaps he’d tried to change at certain times, but he was old and set in his ways. Or maybe he hadn’t wanted to change as badly as he should have when he still had the chance to. Happily stuck in the past. His wife had died, and his daughter had gone away from him. Too tired of his mediocrity as a father to give him another chance. 

The man sounds like he feels sorry for himself. Like he thinks himself the victim, and this one, Joel does look up at. He looks old and worn down, heavy beer pouch and thinning hair and sagging jowls. A sad and lonely man. Joel wonders if that’s how he looks to the other people in this room, as well. 

“No man knows how bad he is until he has tried very hard to be good.” Joel blinks, looks at him more closely, tries very hard to find similarities between themselves. But no—not quite right, not the thing he’s looking for. Their plight is different. This man is not alone, he’s got his weakness to keep him company. 

The one thing Joel had fought like hell to keep out of his repertoire of issues. He’d run from even the possibility of it as soon as she was dead, left Texas straight for the Northeast and from thereafter, everything he’d done, he’d done with a staunchness of character. If at the end of it, that staunchness was made up of apathy or numbness or dissociative fury, well, then at least he wasn’t still that man who’d been too weak to save his daughter. 

That counted very much in Joel’s book. 

An overabundance of cold numbness, little anger, everything a static haze—an abstinent winter. That was his whole life. But then, look at him now, he was here, wasn’t he? He’d taken that brochure handed to him on that last warm Tuesday weeks ago as he’d headed back to the shop from lunch. 

Hello, sir. Could I interest you in a cure for loneliness? The young omega had said. 

It’d started like anything—an experiment or a desperate ploy. The monotony had been steady going the past few years, getting older, colder. He’d grown hard and solitary around his wound, loneliness spread like a fungus, and he’d longed for any sort of change. 

“A cure…how?” The terrible shrink had come to mind.

“Oh, nothing to fret over.” The young man had a nice smile, Joel remembers. Kind and straight toothed. Honest in the way that a stranger knocking on your door to sell you a Bible seems honest. “We call it an encounter group. People come, share, tell the tales of their designation and their lives. In the end, the result is different for different people. Some move on to a second step if they need more. Others find what they’re looking for just through the connection of sharing. But no matter the result, you’ll see, you’ll be cured. Promise.” He’d winked, smile deepening, giving him an appreciative once over at the end of his spiel. Joel had blinked back, surprised, confused, but curiosity peaked enough he’d obsessed over it for three short days before he’d found himself stepping into the molted incense smell of the belly of a church so dimly lit he was sure not even God peaked in this sad space any longer.

“It’s that easy?” Joel had asked, childlike in his throat-strangled hope.

“That easy.”

It seemed the smile had been honest enough to sell him the Bible. 

The scent insists upon itself as the older gentleman finishes up, and Joel’s nose tickles with whatever it is it’s whispering at him. He wants to get up and walk out, run away, but suddenly his gut is tight and hot, and he isn’t sure he can actually stand up without disgracing himself in front of all these people. A wash of agonized heat moves through him, confused at what’s suddenly happening to his body. 

“We have a newcomer today sharing for the first time,” Maria, the woman who leads the group, says at the front of the room. “Everyone give her a warm welcome, it’s her first day and already she’s brave enough to jump on up here.”

There’s the shuffling of bodies in their seats, a cleared throat, the man sitting behind Joel breathes so loudly he thinks he’s gotta have some sort of medical condition, the puce turns more hideous by the second, and his own heart is beating so hard in his ears the rush of blood is dizzying. He feels each thump of the thing against his breast bone in some sick imitation of a fist begging to be let out. 

The new voice begins as nothing but a murmur. 

An introduction—he misses the name. His breathing goes shallow, he’d tip over in his seat if he didn’t have both boots planted firmly against the puce. The voice gains strength and with it, Joel wishes he’d been paying attention from the start. He didn’t get to hear her name. 

It’s a girl.

She’d run away from home in the spring of her sixteenth year to join the opera, she tells them. Had come upon the city in roaring spring and thought the rest of her life would be exactly like that, pure novelty in bloom, nothing like what she’d left behind. And was deeply disappointed when the reality was nothing such. 

And Joel hears it, that disappointment in her voice at what she’d not been able to find after searching for it so religiously. This is what makes him look up at her. This, unlike all the others, he thinks he can relate to—just by the sound of her voice. The search for a thing lost which can never again be found. The fruitlessness of it all. 

At that first vulnerable, terrified glance, she’s already staring at him, eyes catching like hooks. 

He blinks once, twice—color—is sure he can hear the movement of his eyelashes passing through the air, the stick of his lids meeting—color—bright. This is it.

That wash of heat turns into a blaze, every single bead of sweat blooming on his brow is a tell evaporating into the ether. This is what he’d sensed from the start of the evening. Maybe even from the moment he’d seen that split maple. 

“My mother always said I needed to be stronger, bolder, not so sensitive.” She looks away from him now. “I grew up in an angry house where you had to fight tooth and nail not to be overrun. Because of this, I left it at a very young age, and it was the greatest fight I could muster, abandoning that house of anger. I found myself something to bring me what I thought would be joy, a job and a city, and for a time, it was enough. But starting your lonely life so young…it’s hard.” After a pause of breath, “It’s been hard.”

“And it’s made me never want to have to—exert myself,” she says, searching for the right words, smiling when she finds them, and Joel has the urgency to smile back. “Now, I never want to have to be strong. I never want to have to try. I want to only be the way that I am. If that’s weak or sensitive or whatever it might be at any given moment, I don’t care. I don’t want to have to fight. I never want to be in an angry house again. I want someone who’ll see this in me and understand and never make me work for it, that they would give it to me willingly, easily, without me having to ask. Do you understand?” She looks about the room, and he hopes her eyes will land on him again, and even though they don’t, he feels she’s speaking directly to him. He nods, the hook of her temptation cast beneath his chin. “This is a fantasy. And it makes for a lonely existence. This idea of how I need it to be for it to be right—love.” She looks down at her hands folded atop the podium where they go to stand at the front of the group and share, and he wills her gaze to find him amidst the crowd again. “It’s so difficult. And this might seem very bad to you, weak willed, but it’s not. It’s only very honest. Which can never be a bad way to be.” That’s why she’s here, she tells them.

Finally, she looks back at him, and it’s that loneliness of two people amidst a crowd, facing one another, knowing themselves mirrored against the other and yet still disparate. There’s something indecent about the way she looks at him in front of all these people, the way he, in turn, looks back. A little bit like finding your own face on a stranger's body in a crowded room. Color rises to his face, and she gives him that same elusive smile from before. 

He’s the one to look away this time. 

As the crowd disperses for coffee and pastries after the last of the speakers, he searches for her. He needs to ask her name, feels as if he’s some blighted creature without it, swears he’ll never forgo attention during a meeting again if he can fish it out of her.

He finds her at the dessert table, Maria at her side and a hand at her shoulder. Something of a thank you is being imparted between the two women. The girl is saying she’s grateful for the welcome, grateful that they’d found each other. 

Joel has things to be grateful to Maria for, too. His brother, mainly. It’d been pure chance that Joel had met her here, that she knew Tommy also. She’d met his brother on a summer trek to Wyoming where they’d become friends and had kept in touch afterwards. The woman has a thing about her that ingratiates people by sheer force of will. Perhaps it’s that she’s an alpha, too. Perhaps it’s just the charisma and wide smile. The fact that she has a countenance that takes no shit from anyone, that makes demands of a person whether they’ve got any give or not. But whatever the case, they’d realize their connection through Tommy, and she kept Joel updated on his brother whom he’d not spoken with in many years. 

Watching the two women stand together and share that easy thanks that Joel so urgently owes, and yet which he cannot voice, he feels, suddenly, so angry. So awkward. So humiliatingly inexperienced. So unable to grapple with the pain of human contact, the fascination of it, the humiliating necessity. 

That decade old anchor weighing him in place and the guilt of even thinking of it as such. 

I feel decrepitly alone and odd, he thinks. And how strange, no? He was a normal man. He has a normal job. He lives in a normal house. Unexceptional in every sense. Everything in his life had been ordinary up until that one great tragedy. And then, as if none of the before had ever existed, it was as if everything afterwards was one great landslide of wrongness. The filth of it slinging mud all over his life so that nothing had ever been right after her. 

So that now he cannot even approach this girl whose name he needs to know, and Maria, to whom he owes the last surviving connection to his brother. 

As Maria turns to go, she gives him an encouraging nod, sending him into an agony of shyness. She’d sensed him hovering. 

The girl remains at the dessert table, perusing the pastries. He can see her fingertips dancing over the golden, sugared confections, before she settles on a plain, glazed donut. He watches the bend of her elbow, bringing it to her mouth and thirty seconds later, the empty hand reaching for a napkin. He can’t help the huff of laughter it draws from him. 

Watching the unknown creature with her back turned, he peers down the length of himself. Wood stain marred t-shirt, old work jeans and scuffed boots, he’d come straight from the shop. Looking back at her, she seems perfectly packaged and pristine. The two of them, different as chalk and cheese. He tells himself he shouldn’t do it, turn around and go, leave her alone, as he steps up beside her at the table. 

Immediately, there’s the heat of her skin, the smell of her shampoo, and he realizes, and it’s silly because it should’ve been obvious from the get go, she’s an omega. The epiphany, not that she is one, but that he’d been too stupid and oblivious to notice, leaves him feeling vulnerable and angry. 

Any sort of hello that’d been coming alive on his tongue immediately dies. And he’s about to make a run for it once again when she speaks up from beside him, “Would you like a donut?” Her small fingers are dancing over the pastries, searching once again. “I haven’t had one yet,” she lies, “I can’t decide which looks best.” 

The dancing hand pauses over a golden brown puff pastry, seemingly coming to a decision, when she turns to look up at him. The scent of her isn’t just shampoo, not just the blockers he’d shockingly picked up on before, sharp, burning his nose. It’s her skin now, too. The dry sweat from hustling under her coat to make it to her first meeting on time salted along her limbs. Hot, sweet almonds. The shocking vermillion of the morning’s split maple comes to mind. He can smell her.

“A puff pastry?” She presses, quizzical crook to her brow at his silence and glower. “I think you really need something sweet. It’ll make you feel better.”

He wants to agree, to say he also thinks he needs something sweet. All he can manage is a short grunt because she smells…indescribable. Honeyed musk, something heady, like she herself had just got done baking, straight out of the oven and full of sugar into his waiting mouth. 

That earlier anger, it kicks up a notch. Why isn’t he fucking saying anything? 

She shrugs, as she lifts the puff pastry to her mouth he finally manages sound. 

“You stink.”

He doesn’t know when he became such a liar.

A pause, mouth open, straight, white teeth ready to bite into the fluffy sweet bread. He can see her small, pink tongue, and it makes him go a little woozy.

He might be losing his mind. 

She’s got elegant eyebrows that shoot straight up her smooth forehead. The look of her skin is glorious. “Excuse me?”

Now, there seem to be too many words spilling out of his mouth. “You need better meds or somethin’. Need to sort your shit out. Can’t go gallivanting about the world smellin’ like that.” Oh god, shut up. 

“Excuse me!” She takes a huge bite of the pastry. “I do not gallivant,” she shoots back, mouth full of sugar and Joel goes hot everywhere. “What is wrong with you?” she demands, the pursing of a prim little mouth as she chews, eyeing him maliciously. 

He hasn’t the damndest clue. 

She is not wary of him in the slightest, which in turn tells him he needs to be wary of her.

Another large bite, inexplicably she extends her free hand towards him—potentially going into shock and entirely out of his depth when he takes it, the vulnerability of tendon and muscle soft beneath his strength—offering him a firm shake. She gives him her name. 

In that moment, she has a look about her that tells him she’ll bite back if he isn’t careful, even if she hurts herself in the process. 

And now he knows you. 

-

“We might as well acquaint ourselves if you’re going to insult me. Don’t you think?” Peering up at him, he’s tall, well over six feet, and broad shouldered. Older, distinguished, but in a rough way, hewn oak, gray. “Are you typically this rude? Or is this a special occasion?”

Incredibly handsome. 

“I’m being serious.”

“I do not stink. No one has ever said that to me, and my blockers are quality. It must be a you problem.” The puff pastry really is very good. And this man really is very handsome. Coming here today was a good idea. 

One of the girls from the theater had suggested it, handing you a pamphlet with Looking for the Cure for Loneliness? emblazoned across the top, and even though she’d done it kindly, any other person would’ve taken the implication as an insult. Hey girl! No offense, but we all in the company think you’re super weird and have you heard about this support group for losers? Kind of like Omegas Anonymous!

Those hadn’t been her exact words, and you hadn’t taken offense. After the initial agony of embarrassment, you’d warmed to the idea. You’d heard of groups like these before. Congregations of demi humans where one could come to find community or connection. Be it socializing or support for people struggling with their designations and all that they implied, they served their purpose. And anyways, you weren’t in a position to be nitpicky. 

It’s true, you’re alone. 

So alone, in fact, that even the people around you could tell. Strangers, coworkers, your roommate and her girlfriend. Like some noxious cloud of loneliness following you around virtue signaling the desperate need for love and companionship and understanding you’re so in need of. 

You increasingly saw yourself as a dancer on her toes, trembling delicately all over, vying desperately to survive to the end of the song. A monster with too many heads. A Cerberus of the richest caliber. 

Two or three would’ve been acceptable—heads—but you'd long surpassed that and moved on to something unrecognizable and unpleasant. Desperately in need of a solution. 

“Maybe you’re the one that stinks. Maybe it’s your upper lip.” And voila, the monster makes her debut. 

“My—” The rude alpha, obvious, that one, lets out a choked sound, a deeper wash of color immediately flooding his cheeks. You dip your head sideways, appraising him as you polish off your second pastry. He has pretty bone structure, masculine, and after he’s done choking and spluttering, he can’t help but laugh a little bit. You see it. 

Beneath a mouth that looks forbidding, perhaps even a little cruel, you can sense that he is not an unkind man. 

Yet you’re not so green that you can’t recognize the gnawing hunger of loneliness in others. There’s always a reason people find themselves in places like these. His face, edged with the weariness of age, makes this obvious. He has good reason for subjecting himself to this. 

Reaching for the lovely eclair you’d been deciding between earlier, you take a large bite of it. Almond cream and a thick layer of icing on top, humming happily as you chew while he stares at you like the three headed dog. 

You hold the dessert out towards him, offering. Palm up, he shakes his head no, slightly disgusted look on his face. 

“So. You come here often?”

He blinks. “Really?” Patronizing look on his face now. 

“Why not? I am actually interested to know if this is worth my time.”

He rolls his eyes. Oh, he’s fun. “Yes, I come here often. Every Friday, for the past two months just about.”

“And you like it?”

“Is this the sort of place one likes?”

“Oh, come on. You never know what you might find.” He watches your mouth as you finish the eclair, swallowing hard. “Anyways, I think the world is kind of over out there. Don’t you? Might as well make the best of it in here.” 

Thumb pressed against the edge of the table, he looks down, suddenly awash with shyness once again. A shy alpha, who’d of thought. 

“What did you used to do?” He asks, motioning at the crowded room full of chatting alphas and omegas. You wonder how many of them will go home together for a fuck after this. 

“When?” You ask, sure he means in lieu of this group, if you’d ever had another form of demi human community. 

“Before this.”

“Before this? Nothing.” Smiling at him, certain he isn’t picking up on your teasing. 

“Nothing?”

“Nope. I’ve always been here.”

“But— Don’t you…I thought...” He’s cute, shaking his head like you’re just too confusing to sustain. “You sing, right?” He pivots. 

“Sing? Me? Whatever made you think such a thing?” The sly look on your face goes completely over his head and slides to the rest of the sweets. If he wasn’t watching, you’d have another. 

“You said. You said you’re in the opera,” he gruffs back, looking visibly aggravated now. 

Such fun. 

“I’m a supernumerary,” you concede as you turn, making your way to an old relic of a pew along the far wall, tragically abandoning the desserts. 

He follows as you go, sitting a respectful distance beside you. 

“I don’t know what that is.”

“We’re the actors that fill the stage at the opera.”

“No singing?”

You shake your head, flirting with him. “I’m a wench, I’m a courtesan,” You bat your lashes, fingertips pressed coquettishly beneath your chin, “Part of a harem. I’m every woman you’ve never known. It depends on the opera.”

“I’ve never heard of that before.”

“I started as a stagehand when I first got to Boston. Worked my way up.”

“How’s it work? Lines or somethin’?”

“No lines. No anything. I’m a background actor—an extra, basically. If anything, I’m given some simple choreography direction, laugh, sigh, show fear, horror, shock. Whatever. I’m playing pretend without actually having to do anything.”

“No working for it.”

Your smile melts to blandness. So he’d been listening, then. 

“Did you want to sing?”

“No. I wanted to be a supernumerary.”

“Strange. I’ve never heard of that,” he repeats.

“You did say, yes.” Now, the smile turns auspicious. Everyone’s here for something. “What do you do?” Perhaps this is it for him. 

You eye the rest of the congregation, at the far exit, there’s a large alpha helping an omega into his coat. 

“Got a shop, furniture, woodworking and such.”

“You make things?” He nods. “Ah, a man of creation.” 

Sitting back to take him in, he’s got the beginning insinuations of silver speckling the dark hair at his temples, a well groomed beard, and large, intimidating hands. 

His small huff of laughter is bashful, tinged with something disappointed. “No, nothin’ that grand.” And he’s got an accent heavy at the ends of his words, not Bostonian. Southern.

“But you know, I wanted to say…”

“Yes?” You press when he loses his courage, leaning towards him, inhaling deeply. 

“Well, that I know what you meant earlier. Sometimes I can be the angry house.”

You blink once. Sit back. “I see.” 

“It’s hard work. I have to try every day at it.” 

Hard work being the house, or not? Two opposite sides of the same coin. 

“How do you stop yourself?” You cast a line, fishing for his character.

“Don’t know. Keep myself cold, I think.”

“That’s no way to be.”

“No. It’s not.” He sounds amused. You want to bite him.

Everyone’s here for a reason. 

“Ah, well. Perhaps that’s what’s brought you here then,” you say, twisting the toe of your sneaker against a scuff on the old hardwood, leaning forward on your palms wrapped around the edge of the pew. 

“Maybe,” he says, but a sort of pained, exasperated sound follows it. Your hung head turns to peer at the handsome face, and he’s already looking at you. 

There’s something animal afoot. Perhaps in terms of designation, sure, of course, like the rest of the alphas and omegas here. Your designations weigh heavily in the air. But also intrinsic to your two personalities. You feel you know him. That the two of you might have the same sorts of problems, desires. And as you stare at him, you think you may be equally measuring each other’s character, finding that similarity in one another. 

His eyes move quickly between yours, over your face, and you can tell that prolonged eye contact isn’t his norm.

He has the most surprising set of bright hazel eyes like river stones. 

Suddenly, you feel desperate to pull out a flicker of sexuality in the man, hear it in his voice. Sure, that with him, the experience would be entirely different, exhilarating. Perhaps a challenge. He seems to be more quiet and more patient than any other man you’d ever come across, but also more stern—taking in that soft mouth held so firmly. Far more remote too, by the far away look in his gaze. You want to see how he could be moved and what the sight of it would look like. 

“Maybe not,” he finally continues. “I’m looking for something, I think.” 

“Something like what?”

“Someone like me.”

“An alpha?”

“No,” he looks away, cringing. The word out loud seems a shock to him. “Did you listen to the woman at the start—missing the bad thing? I struggle…with that. Holding on, not letting go even when I know I should.”

You’re at an age now which sometimes makes it hard to realize or accept that what you’re living is your life. That it’s been time to grow up. That you have to remember to move forward when it’s your turn in line. 

Which is to say, that you understand him—the difficulties of knowing when to hold on and when to give up.

“Sometimes you hurt yourself because you don’t have anything else to do. Sometimes, because the alternative is much worse.”

“Holding on ‘cause there’s nothing else to do?”

“Sure. Or you’re used to it.” You’ll be gentle with him, you decide. He’s in need of gentle handling despite the stern face; not a puzzle so arbitrarily solved. And those eyes are still so bright, he doesn’t seem like he needs any more hardship.

“Don’t know why I’m tellin’ you this,” he says, accent heavy. 

“Well you did come here for a reason. Didn’t you?” Discreetly, you slide closer to his side, but he doesn’t notice. Apparently lost in the realization that perhaps this was what he’d come here for, to talk to someone, to have someone listen and relate. You’re almost positive he’s never gotten up to share with the group before in all his time coming to the meetings; doesn’t look like the type.

“I came here because I’m going to take better care of myself,” you tell him. “I’m going to try harder.”

“Harder at what?” He blinks as if attempting to come out of a dream.

“Everything. I don’t want to end up like my parents; drunk, angry, alone. I’m scared of it. I’ve avoided at least two of them.”

“I’m afraid of getting older,” the dream moves in his eyes. “That I’ll forget,” he says, but you don’t ask what.

All of a sudden, he seems very real. The swells of grief and loneliness moving through him so similarly, so close to the surface. 

Springing up, you turn to face him and he follows to stand too. You can hear the crack of his knees unfolding, and when he lifts his left palm to stifle a gruff cough, the band of gold around his finger is paralyzing. 

All of a sudden, he’d seemed like what you’d been looking for here too. There’s laughter coming from the church rafters. 

“You’re a widower?” He wants to forget, he’d said he wants to let go. 

Hadn’t he?

But instead, “What? No.” You stare pointedly at the ring, and he looks down at it also. “No,” he repeats. 

“So’re you looking for a fuck, or what?” You try and hold back the bite it comes with, but you can’t.

“No. No. That’s not what I’m looking for.” 

You don’t understand, impaired by your youth, you forget you’d chosen to be gentle with him. “Maybe it’s what you need,” you tell him, turning towards the exit before you can watch him cringe.

He follows at your heels, grabbing his coat from the hook by the doors before he’s stepping out after you into the fall blister. It’s cold and wet and glorious out. 

“Don’t you have a coat?” He demands.

“Nope.” You start walking towards Arlington Street and the park. 

“Did you walk here? It’s freezing out.”

“I did,” you turn back towards him, still moving, and he starts to follow. 

“From where?”

“Downtown.”

“Where?” He scowls at your uncooperation, the married man. Alpha. The truth was that he’d smelt strange to you too. Like no one ever had before. As glorious and shocking as the cold. Like if snow had a scent. Disappointment churns in your gut alongside the excitement at the sight of him stalking after you. 

“I don’t think you know it.” Your backward walk is interrupted as a hurrying stranger bumps into you, sending you staggering. Watch it, the Boston snark spits. The alpha turns to scowl, heavy boot forward like he’s half a mind to follow after the person you’ve just inadvertently assaulted. 

And it occurs to you, “You didn’t tell me your name.” How silly of you. You’d been so distracted you’d forgotten to ask, and what if you never see him again after this? What if you can’t muster the courage to come back again next week? What if he can’t?

“It’s Joel.” 

You think it sounds right. 

“I might—know it.” Where you’re headed to. You smile at the dog with a bone. The disappointment pulses. “Is it far?” He presses. You shrug, looking over your shoulder. You’re going to lose yourself in the garden for a few hours, forget about him. “Why don’t you drive?”

“I like to walk,” you tell him, turning back. 

He looks at you like he doesn’t like the things you say much less the way you say them much less the way you’re grinning at him. Perhaps he can see the disappointment and is disturbed by the sight of it, but the possibility seems too altruistic. 

“You should try it sometime, Joel. You might like it too.”

His huge body seems to be shivering in the cold. 

“I think…” The look on his face has turned suspicious now. He takes a step towards you. “You’re very strange. And you’re very young. I don’t think we should be friends.”

Your heart gives a demanding thump. “We’re not going to be friends.” When you’d first spotted him in the crowd, the strangest feeling had come over you. A tug behind your belly button, a scalding heat at the back of your neck, at your wrists. Perhaps it’s merely imagination, the look of disappointment you think you see on his face right before you turn away from him to continue on walking. “And I’m not that young anymore.”

You’d known today was going to be a good day. Extra cinnamon in your latte, a late start to your morning, warm in bed, no rain in the sky despite the cloud cover. And your director, late for rehearsals after some freak accident had befallen the roof of his house.

“That’s what all young people say.”

Part 2;

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

Updates Blog

[nereidprinc3ss]

lava lamp

in which spencer reid comforts gn!reader when you find yourself contending with a sudden bout of depression

fluff

warnings/tags: established relationship, reader has depression, task paralysis, spencer reid can't cure your depression but he sure can't make it worse

a/n: this is most definitely not inspired by the pink lava lamp in my room. it has nothing to do with that. extremely short and sweet, WC <800

The room is awash in hot pink. 

It’s interrupted only by dark shadows cutting lines across the floor and the furniture. The blinds are down over the window so moonlight can’t seep in—assuming the moon is in fact out now. You’re not actually sure. You don’t know how long you’ve been lying here like this, studying the soft glow of the lava lamp where it sits on the bedside table, watching the blobs of orange separate and conjoin and float around each other like they’re dancing in the suspending liquid. 

The sound of keys in the front door, of it scuffing against the floor as it opens and squeaking shut and the lock clicking back into place, inspire the tiniest spark of joy inside you. For a few moments you remain in solitude—listening to the sounds of the kitchen sink running as Spencer washes his hands, a glass being set down on the counter, the soft rustle of fabric on fabric as he takes his coat off. Maybe you have really excellent hearing. Maybe you’re just imagining the sounds because you’re so familiar with his post-work rituals. 

Finally the bedroom door opens, catching your legs in a triangle of yellow light, and sounds cease—Spencer is surely standing in the doorway, surely surprised to find you sprawled on the bed, staring vacantly at the lamp you’d purchased last winter from an antique shop. 

The door closes again, encasing you in an amnion of pink warmth once more. 

“Hi,” he says, quietly enough. 

You don’t respond. Not for a lack of affection. Just for a lack of energy, really. Spencer is used to you, and he doesn’t let your heavy mood stop him from moving to sit on the mattress behind you. The heat of his hand is a comforting weight as it finds your back, slowly rubbing up and down. There is always so much love in the way he touches you. 

“How’re you feeling, honey?”

A quiet moment passes in which you’re gathering the energy to speak for the first time in hours. Spencer doesn’t rush you. 

“Tired.”

More quiet. 

“What kind of tired?”

But he knows what kind of tired. 

“I tried to fold laundry,” you mumble, lacking even the gumption to move your mouth much as you speak. You tap the laundry basket with your toe where it sits on the foot of the bed. The laundry inside remains very much unfolded. 

“I can handle it.”

If you had any more vitality you’d say, you shouldn’t have to, you just got home from a full day’s work, I’ll take care of it—but the truth is, you can’t handle it and you can’t take care of anything—not even yourself. All you can do is watch orange bubbles float in radioactive pink liquid. 

“I don’t know what happened,” you whisper. A few tears take you by surprise as they roll down over the bridge of your nose, though your face remains stony. “I’ve been here for hours.”

Spencer’s hand remains steadfast on your back and you wish you could express how grateful you are for it and for him and for his gentle voice, always. 

“Maybe nothing happened. Maybe some days are just hard.”

You sniffle. The answer is unsatisfying, but so is life, sometimes. And you know he’s right. 

“Yeah.”

Time passes. A few minutes, maybe, of listening to your own ears ring, to the haunting frequency of the old building, of the upstairs neighbors walking around and snatches of music coming from cars on the streets below. 

“You know, I sometimes have days where I just want to lie down and stare at the lava lamp too. I think a lot of people feel that way.”

You turn your head just slightly and finally see him, cast in the soft lambent glow, smiling down at you in that unconscious, serene way, that is little more than a curve of his lip. Just seeing his face makes something in your chest unclench.  

“Really?”

The soft arch of his smile flickers momentarily wider. 

“Metaphorically speaking.”

He’s perfect. 

You reach over your own waist to grab his hand, and he interlocks your fingers, running his thumb over yours. 

Spencer knows it, but you tell him anyway. “I love you.”

He leans down and kisses you, so softly it’s like medicine. 

You know it, but Spencer says it back anyway, sweetly against your lips, heads pressed together. “I love you.”

And you much prefer this view to the lava lamp. 

[astrologylunadream]

Messages From Your Soulmate!💌🍂🎀 (Pick a card/Tarot love reading)

Hi, it's Lunadream🩷 In this reading you will find messages from your soulmate, what they want to tell you~✨️💭 So your soulmate can be the person that is meant for you, feel free to interpret any way you like! hope you find your message🧡

Notice: Only take what resonates because the most important thing is your own judgement!♡ If anything doesn't resonate, don't worry! It's not your message right now <3 (Entertainment purpose only. All rights reserved)

Now, shall we begin~? ^w^ Think of the your soulmate, and pick whichever pile that fits the energy you're feeling~🍂🩷💌

Pile 1🎸

Pile 2🍂

Pile 3✨️

Pile 4🍁

Take your time and choose carefully with the heart~♡

On to the readings —> 🩷

Pile 1🎸

Sign energy: Innocence, Spiral, Therapy, April, Even, Chiron, Virgo, Fire, Sagittarius, Aquarius,🎣🏃‍♀️✉️👈

🧡Your soulmate's energy: First of all this person is the sweetest! Their energy is just so soft and bright.😭 My pile 1's your soulmate is has a very pure soul and also a very innocent mind.💭 This soulmate is kind and loving, I'm also hearing fragile. They could have a sensitive side, they feel like a therapist because their energy is so caring and helpful.🥺🩷 The envolope emoji is definitely confirmation that this person wants to send you a message, haha. Some of you may know this person from online or a community, they could be going through something similar to you right now or have the same emotional wounds/sensitivities as you.🫂🎀 Your soulmate has a loving and nurturing energy towards you, they energetically feel any pain or difficulties you have and whenever you feel down. This person could have Virgo, Sagittarius, or Aquarius placements, Chiron in Aquarius or Virgo, Also fire energy is present here. April may be a significant time for your soulmate, maybe that is your meeting time or someone's birthday.🎂 This person is light hearted and enjoyable, it feels like you and this person are in similar situations or stage of life. Like if you're starting college or job, they are on the same page.🎓💼 This person watches you from a distance and wants to help you and be by your side, It is possible that this soulmate is going to be a coworker or someone you collaborate with.🤝 They have a bright smile that can cure depression I'm hearing, and this soulmate is a very healing connection for my pile 1's.☺️💞 It feels like you and this person have shared experiences, or part of the same community. Maybe they felt surpressed or unable to fit into certain expectations. Your soulmate is a free-thinker and you are both very like-minded. No wonder this is your soulmate because it feels like you are meant come together and heal eachother!🫶❤️‍🩹

💌Messages from them: Far away, Trial and error, Role, Hair, Follower, Water, Neptune, 5th house, Capricorn, Vertex, I wish I could control anything, Don't be so sad, It makes me nervous, I feel your pain, Your soul is mine, I like you, I understand you, You have so much worth,🤚✔️😫👇

Ohh okay so your soulmate wants you to know that they are far away right now, but they will do anything to follow you😢❤️ They want to play a role in your love life, and bring you the love and attention you deserve.👑💋 They want you to stay strong, they are taking steps to get where they need to be for you. It feels like this person is working hard on themselves right now, they want to be successful and able to provide and support you.💼💰 Your soulmate wants you to know they are going to give you everything, also they hope you won't waste your energy and time falling into obsession with every detail of your future spouse or into romantic connections that may not be realistic or true. They want you to know THEY are the real deal, a serious solid lover and not a one sided or half hearted relationship.👤🚫 Wow, your soulmate is possessive over you and wants to tell you that you don't deserve to be neglected or give your energy away with nothing in return, this energy is kinda ticked off tbh like that really bothers your soulmate. So they really hope you won't give in to toxic connections that aren't giving you any love or care.💔 Your soulmate wants to let you know that your pain is their pain and they hate seeing you upset, they want to be available to you right now.😭 Also another message is that your soulmate wants to let you know that your hair/head is very attractive.🩷✨️ They want you to know that they will inevitably find their way to you despite all the obstacles and trials. They're lightly complaining about how they wish they could take care of you and make things easier on you🥺💞 They feel a strong sense of responsibility to make sure you are okay and taken care of, they wish they could fill the care-taker role for you, like help you with your schedule and cook for you even🍵🍳 Your soulmate wants you to be confident in their existence, like "Yes pile 1 your perfect person is out there working hard to come to you", they don't want you to lose hope or overthink things but instead happily accept their promise and energy and let everything fall into place!💌 They are genuinely loving and attentive to you pile 1!

Thank you my pile 1's! If you feel this resonated, you may tap the heart to claim this message!🤗🎀

I hope you enjoyed your reading! ʚ(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )ɞ If you did be sure to let me know pile 1 with the guitar emoji~🎸 Thanks for scrolling through, Hugs hugs hugs!! See you in the next reading🍁🩷

Pile 2🍂

Sign energy: Fight, Role, Mermaid, Jawbone, Children, 4th house, Cancer, Taurus, Vertex, 9th house,��🥇👗⛺️

🧡Your soulmate's energy: Aw this is cute! Your soulmate is really caring and comforting, especially for your inner-child🧸 They are very family-oriented and fiercely protective, like they would fight anyone who hurts their loved ones.😢🥊 Their jaw and neck are very attractive and noticable, also their voice is soothing and sweet. My pile 2's your soulmate is such a softie but strong, they're like a gentle giant on the inside!🥰💞 Also they have such a siren energy and vibe to them, they could have red hair like Ariel❤️ For those who this soulmate is a feminine, they wear beautiful dresses, also whether a feminine or a masculine they may often wear soft huggable clothes. This person is just so sweet I love their energy😭 They would make a great spouse or parent, they are very caring towards you like you're their baby. Their placements could be Cancer, Taurus, or Sagittarius, it's very likely for them to have 4th house placements. Your soulmate plays a crucial role in your home life, for some this could be someone who has lived overseas or is a foreigner settling down in a new country.🏠💕🛫 Family is extremely important to your soulmate, you will have a strong bond with this person. Also! Your soulmate literally gives the best hugs, the most comforting and loving cuddles😩🫂 You may meet them in their home country or abroad, but for some in your neighborhood. They will feel familiar to you, like you have known them forever. They have a good amount of feminine energy which makes them so caring and loving🩷 It's very likely that a lot of you in this pile will start a family with this person, even have children for some. But overall this person's energy just feels like home to you, I'm also hearing "number one dad/mom" that may resonate for some. Your soulmate may be someone you really want to tie the knot with, they're also someone really committed and devoted to their spouse or family💍👑 Your soulmate is definitely giving "trophy husband/wife" lol, I love how they're both extremely kind and gentle but they also have a fiery rougher side that comes out when them or their loved ones are theatened in any way.🔪🔥 Your soulmate may like the color blue, and interested in other countries and cultures. They are extremely caring and sweet to you.😫🩷

💌Messages from them: Career, First, Aura, Believe, Fishing, 8th house, Earth, South node, Fire, Pluto, Whatever, This is interesting, You make me blush, I want to hurt you so good, There's no chance, I want to surprise you, Your energy is so youthful, Kiss me and don't stop,🕺🪽🛸🎢

Alright so I was surprised by the suggestive energy that sort of popped out of nowhere lmao I guess that's what your soulmate means by wanting to surprise you😳❤️‍🔥 I wasn't expecting such passionate energy from them, they have a lot of romantic feelings and attraction towards you. They want you to feel their intensity and love for you, like they can't hide it omg. Your soulmate seems like the type to openly express their romantic/sensual thoughts and feelings for you🙈💋 I think they would be whispering sweet nothings to you right now, that's a lot of their messages honestly. I'm trying to keep this pile light, but your soulmate is real naughty😭 They also want to tell you that they're obsessed with you, haha also they're kind of a troublemaker like they are such a tease in a cute way.😜🌟 I think it's interesting that "career first" came out, I think they're trying to say either you or them need to focus on their stability and professions right now before coming together 🔜💼 I'm hearing "this is what I need to do", they want to make a solid foundation for you, this could also be because they want to move in with you and they feel like they need to have the means for that. Also this sounds hilarious but your soulmate wishes they could just abduct you like an alien and bring you into their life instantly😂😭 Lmao this person will definitely make you laugh, they're so funny. They really do want you with them right now, but they know they still have responsibilities to take care of at this time before they can finally have you💐 Your soulmate wants to properly shift into a stable and secure earthly energy before you are divinely united, they want to tell you that their life is like a rollercoaster and is too chaotic right now🎢🔥😬 They feel like they're not capable enough to have you. They want you to feel their loving energy and believe in them, believe that fate will bring them to you. Maybe they also feel like their energy may be too intense for you right now, and they need to raise their vibrations to meet your standard😊🩷 Your soulmate wants you to know that they are preparing themselves for you, becoming their best self to present to you. They might be coming sooner than you think, because they feel a little impatient to be with you.😅 But they're resisting impulsiveness in order to make sure they are right for you.💍

Thank you my pile 2's! If you feel this resonated, you may tap the heart to claim this message!🤗🎀

I hope you enjoyed your reading! ʚ(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )ɞ If you did be sure to let me know pile 2 with the fallen leaves emoji~🍂 Thanks for scrolling through, Hugs hugs hugs!! See you in the next reading🍁🩷

Pile 3✨️

Sign energy: Lovesick, More, Sarcasm, Cinderella, Options, Air, Fire, 7th house, Uranus, 1st house,✔️🫂🟨👩‍🔬

🧡Your soulmate's energy: Ah so interesting, your soulmate is uniquely beautiful☀️ The second you meet them you will notice how they aren't quite like anyone else, something about them definitely stands out.🤭🩷 For some reason I'm getting that a lot of people may be envious or out to get this person, their individuality makes others on the fence. Your soulmate is experimental and they may not have a set ideal type. Your soulmate is very innovative especially in their relationships, oh you know they might be a fire or air moon🌙 Libra or Aquarius placements, Aries, 1st house aspects, their energy has a lot of duality. They can be feminine or masculine, wild or tame, dreamy or realistic depending on the time or mood. Your soulmate has a lot of contacts and close relationships, I'm also seeing lots of options romantically take that however it fits. Blue and yellow are significant colors for them, maybe those could be favorite colors💛🌊 I feel like this soulmate doesn't like fitting into gender roles/labels, they desire something new and different💡💭 This pile could either go two ways, for the first half of you, this person is a hopeless romantic and Impulsive with finding love/suitors❤️‍🔥🔍 For others are the complete opposite and maybe stopped caring about love and relationships because they don't want to feel constrained and vulnerable.💍🚫 Now I am seeing the duality of the terms "hopeless romantic" and "hopeless romantic" if you know what I mean☹️💔 This person may have tried several dating apps or hoped to find the one but none of the options clicked with them. Your soulmate may be very disappointed or even disgusted by love, I'm hearing "I want something more" that could be their thoughts on love🥀 For some of you this person may look like a player or like they have a lot of suitors, but they just roll their eyes because they can't feel any spark with those people. They feel like they still haven't found the one, their soulmate, which is pile 3🥰 I'm hearing this person is not settling for something dull, they want to find a real passionate and unique romance that lights up their world🩷✨️

💌Messages from them: Mouth, Legs, Taste, Vent, Friendly, Eros, Moon, Vertex, Aquarius, Pluto, I wish I could control it, Think of me, I'm stuck with you, It's not me, You have a future ahead of you, I love the way you dress Your fantasies are unreasonable, I wanna take you down,🧎‍♂️🙏🏍🧩

Okay this is interesting, I actually forgot to mention a lot of you may start out as friends with your soulmate, but there is a really strong energy of friends with benefits.😳 Honestly for some of my pile 3's your person is a freak and they can't hide it, they might even try to stay in the friendzone for their sake or yours.😭💋 So anyway, your soulmate has many messages for you, in a way that they kinda want to vent to you right now lmao. Your soulmate would tell you they're on their knees praying for you to walk into their life.🙏🩷 And this is your soulmate but not necessarily your next partner, so they're honestly afraid because they feel like they have no control over your fate and they don't know for certain if you will choose them or fall for someone else💔 Their heart is pouring out from their words my pile 3's they wish you were with them right now. I almost said future spouse lol but yeah your soulmate is being very open with you about how possessive and insecure they are feeling because they aren't yours.😰💌 I think this person might not know you two are meant to be, they want to hold on to you tight pile 3. This person is afraid of losing you (or never having you) tbh too they get really turned on by you but they can't control it they just feel so attracted to you.❤️‍🔥😫 This may get in the way of your friendship at the beginning of this connection, so they try to hide it. Your soulmate hopes you will think of them as more than a friend, also they wanna tell you that you always dress really nice🫦👀 I think mainly it feels like your soulmate wants to rid of the buddy-buddy energy between you both, they don't like acting friendly to you and want to be closer to you in a more intimate romantic way🫢♨️ So that's what they want you to know, maybe they're afraid of you seeing them as a friend when you meet them or of you've already seen them that way. They also feel like you have strange requirements in love but they want you to know they can fulfill those unlike anyone else.🫣💌 They want to tell you they're your perfect match, I'm thinking "match your speed" however that resonates. Your soulmate also wants you to know how much they care about you and that you bring them the most comfort.🫂🩷 I'm hearing "You are my missing piece"😢💖

Thank you my pile 3's! If you feel this resonated, you may tap the heart to claim this message!🤗🎀

I hope you enjoyed your reading! ʚ(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )ɞ If you did be sure to let me know pile 3 with the sparkle emoji~✨️ Thanks for scrolling through, Hugs hugs hugs!! See you in the next reading🍂🩷

Pile 4🍁

Sign energy: Childhood, Affect, Gold, Unafraid, Trauma, Uranus, 2nd house, Earth, Mercury, Sagittarius,📿⛸️🎤🟪

⚠️Note: Brief mentions of verbal mistreatment, proceed with caution!

🧡Your soulmate's energy: Okay this pile may be a little sensitive topic, but your soulmate may have some childhood trauma.☹️ Especially verbal abuse or being treated differently, your soulmate may have felt like an outcast.💔 I think this affected their self worth and caused them to feel like they lack value in some way, so this person tries to accommodate by becoming more beautiful, richer, smarter, ect. I am definitely seeing your soulmate rising above those who looked down on them, and their current energy is now stable and successful.✨️ They don't let anyone bring them down, and now they have very strong boundaries and high standards. Your soulmate is unique and may be from another culture/religion than you, for some they may have converted to a different religion from what they were raised in. Ice skating may be significant, also they may be a public speaker, singer, or lecturer and they are quite financially stable in their career.💼💰💸 Your soulmate has such a grounded energy, like no one can affect them because they are so strong and successful.👏 Your soulmate wears jewelry or luxury items like watches, handbags, earrings, fancy stuff. Purple is a significant color here, your soulmate could definitely be rich. My pile 4's soulmate has an inspiring life story, like their life could be made into a movie lol.🎥🎞 They have such a fancy vibe about them, also a nice voice. This person could be an online beauty influencer for some, but I'm also seeing that as this person definitely loves online shopping.👜🏷 Signs for them could be Aquarius, Taurus, Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, also placements like uranus in 2nd house, mercury in earth signs or sagittarius, uranus in sagittarius, chiron conjunct mercury or uranus. Omg pile 4 your soulmate is so pretty?? Their beauty has a radiating affect on others, so graceful and charming.👑 They could definitely wear golden jewelry and accessories, I'm imagining wrist wear for some of my pile 4's. Also maybe a gold-ish skin tone? Lol their skin just glows, your soulmate is a stunning and expensive person!!

💌Messages from them: Makeup, Message, Treat, Leo, Invitation, Pisces, North node, Vertex, Aquarius, 10th house, It's hard to make this work, Don't compare yourself, I know, Seriously? I think we're alike, Let me know, They're just jealous, What did I do?🧣🐈😔🛸

Haha ok this is interesting, so your soulmate wants to tell you that even if things get tough, please don't be hard on yourself pile 4🥺💖 They don't want you to blame yourself for difficult times, or compare yourself to others that seem more successful or achieved than you. Also specifically they don't want you to compare yourself to beauty influencers or celebrities, your soulmate is saying that no one wakes up effortlessly attractive or accomplished and not everything is as it seems.🔍🚫 That message is really coming out strongly from your soulmate, they hate seeing you upset or feeling like you aren't good enough. Your soulmate hopes you will treat yourself with pride, respect and self love🩷✨️ Also for some of my pile 4's your relationship with this soulmate may recieve public recognition and even jealousy, so your soulmate wants to let you know that won't keep you two apart.🌹 I'm hearing people making up rumors and delusions about you two, but your soulmate doesn't want you to let them affect you. Also only for some but you may get an opportunity to work with your soulmate, could be an online campaign or some sort of collaboration that will bring attention to you both.👀📸 I am seeing some of my pile 4's might compare themselves to this soulmate, and they are here to assure you that you two are no different. It may seem like this person is more efficient or ahead of you in some way, but they want you to know that they are not as great as they appear and they make mistakes just like anyone else.☹️💓 Your soulmate really wants you to know that you are just as good as anyone else, they want you to remember your worth. You are someone admirable to them, they themselves are a greatly respected and loved person but they only see you.🔗🩷 So pile 4 your soulmate wants you to keep your chin up and love the person you have become! They are so proud of you and they are your biggest supporter, they believe in you.🥰

Thank you my pile 4's! If you feel this resonated, you may tap the heart to claim this message!🤗🎀

I hope you enjoyed your reading! ʚ(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )ɞ If you did be sure to let me know pile 4 with the orange leaf emoji~🍁 Thanks for scrolling through, Hugs hugs hugs!! See you in the next reading🍂🩷

Wanna see more readings like this? Check out my tumblr for accurate readings for you!💗🌊🌸

Thanks for reading! \(*^w^)/💌 -Lunadream <3

[devils-rising]

If i keep getting angry like this, there's gonna be a new scar. I never do it out of sadness and despair anymore. Just rage, knowing there's no one I can let it out it on besides myself. There's no regret for lashing out. I only feel calm.

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

I had a panic attack in my kitchen the other day. 

It was a really warm evening, I was making dinner in the kitchen and I noticed I felt a bit weird. At first I didn’t pay it much mind, I was probably just annoyed at having to stand at the hot stove in this weather, but then the thought crossed my mind “What if I falsely believe this is some harmless discomfort and I’m actually having a heart attack?” - and those of you who struggle with health anxiety as well can surely imagine it was all downhill from there. Suddenly I got dizzy and my chest hurt and I felt like I couldn’t breathe… 

And I said to myself “These are all the symptoms of my usual panic attacks, these aren’t new or unusual symptoms that require me to get medical attention right now”, so I turned off the stove and did the first aid I learned works for my panic attacks:

I went to the fridge and got an ice cube and held it in my hand, until that sensory stimulation snapped me back to reality. And when I could think clearly again, I felt safe enough to do a deep breathing exercise and go through my “Why do I feel so shitty” checklist (checking for unmet physical needs I may not be consciously aware of), and I realized I was dressed way too warmly for the weather, so I changed into something lighter - and then I went back to making dinner. My “heart attack” was just me overheating and then my anxiety attaching a wrong interpretation to that. 

That’s a pretty boring story, right? Nothing dramatic happened. But that’s exactly why I share it with you. 

When you’re young and mentally ill (or if you have been freshly diagnosed with it, at any age), a common fear is that it’ll stay. You’ll be like this forever now, you’ll never go back to normal. And so positivity often focus on recovery, on “it’ll go away one day, you just gotta be strong until then”. And maybe it will! Mental illness is a pretty vast umbrella term, some conditions under it can be cured completely. 

But I wanted to share another perspective here: even if it won’t go away, even if it indeed stays forever because it’s a chronic condition or a treatment-resistant one (or because you learn, after years of wondering why your depression and anxiety won’t go away with traditional therapy, that you’re actually autistic and need a completely different approach than a neurotypical patient (hi, it’s me)) .. it won’t feel like it did at the beginning forever, simply because it’s no longer so new. When it’s new, you have no blueprint on how to deal with it. It’s a situation you’re thrown into with no prior training - of course you feel completely lost and hopeless! 

Mental illness is a real illness and as any illness, it’ll affect your daily life - but over all those days, you learn more about it. You try things to cope with the symptoms and realize that some techniques work better for you than others. Even if you can only learn to manage it rather than cure it: you figure out how to deal with it better. You draw your blueprint. 

It’s still part of your life but it’s no longer the showstopper. It becomes just a boring story of stopping dinner to take care of your symptoms first. And that’s something to hope for, to fight for. 

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Dad 

[weaselle]

RECOVERY

I spent a lot of my life depressed without admitting it to myself and then i spent a year so depressed i could hardly make myself do the bare minimum to keep my body alive, and now it's about 3 years since i got up from that lowest point and while i am still struggling with myself things are objectively a lot better.

and i just want to put a couple things i've learned, both to remind myself of how far i've come, and in case any of what i've experienced helps anyone else.

You can't run from the darkness

When you're super depressed it's easy to focus on how much you don't want to be depressed. When everything is darkness you tend to wish you could escape that darkness.

but you can't. The darkness is all around you. You can't run away from it without running deeper into it.

instead, follow the light.

don't think of it as escaping depression, think of it as seeking joy. Don't run away from the darkness, walk toward any lights you can see.

At first it will be very small things. The taste of a food. The way your favorite color looks. A smell you like. For me one of the first things i could find to remind me of joy was the way a warm shower feels.

I would just stand in the shower and lean into the tiny, tiny joy of that feeling. I would describe it to myself, how it felt good, what about it felt good. It didn't cure me, it didn't make me less depressed, but it was a little point of joy to focus on, to breathe into like a tiny candle flame in my darkness.

I would memorize that feeling, so that later, when i felt like nothing ever brought me joy anymore, i could think, no, that's your depression lying to you, you felt joy, however small, right there in the shower just yesterday. And, maybe there is more somewhere else.

Even today, it's been a hard week, i'm feeling a lot of hopeless and helpless feelings clamoring away at me, but... i have spicy soup. And spicy soup is a NEW joy. I found spicy soup joy as i was following any little light i could out of the deepest part of my depression.

I never put hot sauce in soup before then. But today i am drinking the broth of a very spicy soup and as much as everything else is complicated and difficult and scary and dark, there is a bright mote of joy in this sip of spicy soup. And in the next one. And the next. I enjoy it, i love it, all the more that it is new, and if i had given up four years ago, i never would have known this small joy, this new favorite tiny thing.

Who knows what other little joys i may find?

If you have come to a place in life where you have lost the knowledge of how to feel joy, it is important to remember that feeling joy is like anything else in life. The more you practice, the better you get, the more of it you can do at higher levels.

And there are only so many minutes in the day. The more of them you spend acknowledging what feels good, the less of them will be left for feeling bad.

you can't escape the darkness by fleeing from it, but you can find the light by moving toward it.

Chop Wood Fetch Water

Another thing i learned was a truth about the exercise advice you always hear.

For where i am in my recovery now, common exercise has very little impact. I don't really get the endorphins people talk about, and i don't tend to feel better about myself after i work out unless i already feel pretty okay about myself to begin with. i don't mean to say there is no point in me exercising, but, i walk about ten miles a day holding onto 8 energetic dogs and i do a fair amount of lifting and bending and stuff for my job, and it's fine but it's not, like, doing a whole lot for me at this point in my recovery (tho i do think more recreational exercise will come back into play a stage or two on in my healing process)

HOWEVER

There was a year there where i was only getting out of bed to go to the bathroom. When i was only able to force myself to eat just enough each day to stay alive because i'd made a promise to myself, and that promise was almost all i had left.

and the right kind of exercise is what pulled me out of that.

the RIGHT kind.

See, someone close to me needed help with a physical job. That was an important part and why this method is known historically as some variation of Chop Wood Carry Water -- it's intensely physical, which is important, but also, it helps the people around you. These days our personal communities tend to not need wood copped and water carried the same way. But you can get the same effect helping someone move all their furniture, doing all the yard work for your friends and/or family, volunteering for a charity that builds housing for homeless people, SOMEthing physically taxing that helps people.

In my case, my aging father needed help re-shingling the roof. So i promised i'd help.

So i got up every morning because he was expecting me. And i climbed the ladder because he would see me if i didn't. And i lifted and carried and hammered and worked hard. It took a week of six to eight hour days.

Right away, the fact that it was helping someone else made it not matter so much that it didn't feel like it was helping me at first. I couldn't deny that i was doing something good, that my existence had positive meaning, however small.

But very soon, it changed something fundamental in my state of depression. You can't do physical labor in the sun 7 hours a day without drinking a bunch of water. Without working up an appetite. Without getting very tired at the end of the day.

See, i had been struggling to make myself drink enough water, i was fighting to make myself eat even one small meal's worth of food each day, and i couldn't get a good night's sleep to save my life. And these things all made my depression much much worse. You think you get sad or angry from skipping a meal, consider being chronically undernourished. You think your mental state is worse after pulling an all nighter, think about what never getting a good night's sleep does.

But a couple days into this job with my father, and suddenly i was hydrated, i was eating full meals, and i was sleeping soundly at night.

THAT is what pulled me out of that deepest part of my depression.

So in a way, it was exercise that saved me. But not how people often say "have you tried exercising?" More like pushing myself physically to the point that my body demanded the things that previously i couldn't get it to want for itself.

Instead of forcing myself to eat i was craving food. Instead of staying up to all hours and then tossing and turning, i was physically exhausted and slept early and hard. (and, weirdly, being physically exhausted was somehow a relief from being emotionally/mentally exhausted)

Lastly

Healing often isn't noticeable while you're doing it

"healing is a process" is something you hear a lot, but i think it's more helpful to say something like

"Healing is like growing your hair out from short to long. You can look in the mirror every day and not notice it happening. And even when you can tell for sure it's longer than it was, you still can't really do anything with it, and it may seem pointless. But then one day you can tie it back in a ponytail and you realize how much it's grown and how many options are open to you now and you're really glad you stuck with it"

Now excuse me while i go meditate on the joys of my remaining spicy soup.

[blackenedsnow]

hi! i love your writing :)

i head canon that shadow volunteers for mental health organizations where they help people because he’s been there himself and wants to help people.

can you do a platonic shadow x reader one shot on that? reader is an extremely mentally ill person that shadow finds at the place he volunteers?

a quiet kind of hope

WARNING: Themes of severe depression, intrusive thoughts, implied self-isolation.

PAIRING: Shadow the Hedgehog & Reader

NOTE: Hi!! Oh my gosh, thank you for this sweet request. Shadow volunteering for mental health organizations is such a perfect headcanon—I love the idea of him channeling his past struggles into helping others. Thank you for trusting me with something so tender. Please take care of yourself. Sending love your way <333

SUMMARY: At a community mental health center where Shadow volunteers, he finds himself drawn to you—a quiet, lost soul in need of someone who understands.

The fluorescent lights of the community center hummed faintly above as you sat tucked into a corner, knees drawn to your chest. People came and went, their footsteps echoing against the scuffed linoleum floor, but no one seemed to notice you—or if they did, they didn’t stop.

You weren’t sure why you’d come here. Maybe it was the promise of a warm drink, or the idea that someone might listen without judgment. Maybe it was just somewhere to go when the walls of your apartment felt too heavy to bear.

Shadow walked past with his usual quiet purpose. He didn’t hover or pry, but his presence was impossible to ignore. He was there enough to seem imposing, yet somehow still approachable—his crimson eyes catching the light like embers as he glanced around the room.

It wasn’t until his third lap near your corner that he finally paused.

“You’re not here for the coffee,” he said, his voice low but not unkind.

Startled, you looked up at him. Shadow didn’t sit; he crouched down instead, resting one arm on his knee to meet you at eye level.

“Are you waiting for someone?” he asked.

You shook your head. Words felt too heavy to form.

Shadow tilted his head, studying you. There was no pity in his gaze—only patience. He knew better than to push for answers you weren’t ready to give.

“I’m Shadow,” he said after a moment. “I volunteer here. If you need anything—or if you just want to sit quietly—that’s fine.”

His presence was steady, like an anchor. You nodded hesitantly, unsure if he would leave or stay. To your surprise, he moved to sit on the floor nearby, keeping enough distance to give you space but staying close enough to show he wasn’t going anywhere.

For a long while, neither of you spoke.

It became a pattern over the next few weeks. Shadow never forced you to talk, never asked for more than you were willing to share. Sometimes, you’d sit in silence while he worked on paperwork or handed out supplies to other visitors. Other times, he’d offer simple observations—a comment about the weather, or a quiet remark about how the coffee was even worse than usual today.

He made it easy to exist without expectations.

One day, when the room was emptier than usual, you finally found the courage to speak.

“Why do you do this?” you asked, your voice barely louder than a whisper.

Shadow glanced up from his clipboard. For a moment, he looked almost surprised.

“I’ve been where you are,” he said simply. “I know what it’s like to feel… stuck. Like there’s no way out. I had help when I needed it. This is my way of paying it forward.”

His honesty was disarming. You stared at your hands, picking at a loose thread on your sleeve.

“It doesn’t feel like it’ll get better,” you admitted.

“It doesn’t, at first,” Shadow said. “But it can. Slowly. The first step is the hardest—you took it when you walked in here.”

His words settled over you like a blanket—not an instant cure, but a quiet reassurance. For the first time in weeks, the weight on your chest felt just a little lighter.

Over time, your conversations grew longer. Shadow never pushed you to share more than you were comfortable with, but he listened intently to everything you said. He remembered the little details—your favorite tea, the book you were slowly working through, the things that scared you most on bad days.

In his own way, he showed you that it was okay to take up space in the world.

You didn’t realize how much you’d come to rely on his presence until one evening, when the community center was unusually quiet. You’d been lost in thought, staring at the fading light outside, when Shadow appeared beside you with two steaming cups of tea.

“For you,” he said, setting one down carefully.

You blinked up at him. “Thank you. For everything.”

Shadow’s expression softened, just enough for you to notice.

“You don’t have to thank me,” he said. “You’re doing the hard part. I’m just here to remind you that you’re not alone.”

But one day…

The space you usually occupied in the corner of the center was empty.

Shadow’s sharp gaze swept across the room again, as if expecting you to appear any moment, but the hours ticked by, and the door remained closed.

It wasn’t unusual for people to miss a day here or there—life had a way of pulling people in unpredictable directions—but this wasn’t like you. You came to the center every time it was open, like clockwork, even on the days when you barely said a word.

Shadow couldn’t ignore the heavy feeling settling in his chest.

“You looking for someone?” one of the other volunteers asked as she packed up for the night.

Shadow nodded, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. “Yes. A regular.”

She smiled sympathetically. “Maybe they just needed a break. Sometimes it’s overwhelming for folks.”

“Maybe,” Shadow replied, but the doubt in his voice was evident.

He stayed a little longer than usual, tidying up stray cups and chairs as an excuse to linger. When it became clear you weren’t coming, he left, stepping out into the cold night air.

The thought of you walking home alone—head down, shoulders hunched—stuck in his mind.

The next day, you still didn’t show.

Shadow’s unease grew, twisting into something sharper. He tried to focus on his tasks, but his mind kept circling back to the hollow ache in his chest. He hated how familiar it felt.

When the center closed that evening, he made a decision. He wasn’t the type to sit around waiting for answers.

He remembered fragments of things you’d shared in passing—your neighborhood, the street you lived on. Shadow wasn’t one to pry, but he had a way of listening closely, piecing together the little details others might miss.

The streets were quiet as he walked, the night heavy with the kind of stillness that pressed against his ears. He found your building easily enough: a squat, aging structure with peeling paint and a flickering light by the entrance.

He climbed the stairs quickly, his footsteps echoing faintly.

When Shadow knocked, there was no answer.

He tried again, harder this time. “It’s me,” he called. “Shadow.”

For a long moment, there was only silence. Then, faintly, he heard movement inside.

“Go away,” came your voice, muffled and small.

Shadow’s ears twitched. You sounded exhausted—hollow in a way he hadn’t heard before.

“I’m sorry, Y/N.” he said, his tone firm but not harsh. “But I need to know you’re okay.”

Another long pause. Eventually, the door creaked open just a crack.

You didn’t meet his eyes. Your face was tired, your shoulders hunched as if the weight of the world was pressing down on you.

“I’m fine,” you muttered, but the words were unconvincing even to yourself.

Shadow’s gaze softened. “You’re not.”

The door opened a little wider, and he could see the state of your apartment—the cluttered surfaces, the curtains drawn tight against the light. It was clear you hadn’t been taking care of yourself, and the sight of it made something tighten in his chest.

“I didn’t want to go today,” you admitted, your voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t want to do… anything.”

Shadow stepped inside carefully, closing the door behind him. He didn’t speak right away, giving you time to retreat to the edge of your bed. You sat with your head in your hands, your breaths uneven.

“I know how that feels,” he said quietly, moving to sit on the floor near you. “Sometimes the world feels too big. Like you can’t face it.”

Your fingers curled tighter into your hair. “It’s not just that,” you said, your voice cracking. “It’s… everything. It’s all wrong, and I can’t fix it. I’m just—” You stopped, choking back a sob.

“You’re overwhelmed,” Shadow finished for you, his voice steady. “That doesn’t make you weak.”

Your breathing hitched.

Shadow leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. “You’ve survived this long. That means you’re stronger than you think.”

His words weren’t flowery or overly comforting—they were simple, grounded in truth.

“Why do you care so much?” you asked, your voice raw.

“I told you before. I’ve been there,” he said without hesitation. “I know how lonely it feels. I’m not going to let somebody drown in it.”

Shadow stayed with you that night. He didn’t push you to talk, but he also didn’t leave. He tidied the room quietly, opened the curtains to let in the moonlight, and made sure you drank a glass of water before you finally lay down.

As you drifted off, his words lingered in your mind: You’re not alone.

For the first time in days, it felt like you weren’t.

[beatrice-otter]

The Other Half of the Social Model of Disability

Lots of people in fandom are aware of the Social Model of Disability, which is a direct contrast to the Medical Model of Disability. Problem is, most of those people only understand half of the Social Model.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, the "in a nutshell" version is that the medical model views disability as something that is broken and which needs to be fixed, and little or no consideration is given beyond trying to cure it (and little or no consideration is given to the needs and wishes of the person who has it). The social model of disability, on the other hand, says that the thing that disables a person is the way society treats them. So, for example, if someone is paralyzed and can't walk, what disables them from going places is buildings that are not wheelchair accessible. (Or possibly not being able to afford the right type of wheelchair.) Inaccessible spaces and support equipment you can't afford are choices society makes, not a problem with the disabled person.

People then take this to mean that the only problem with disability is the society that surrounds it, and therefore in some utopian future where capitalism is no more and neither is ableism or any other form of bigotry, all problems disabled people have will be solved.

Except that what I've just described is not actually what the social model of disability says. Or, rather, it's only half of what the social model of disability says.

The actual social model of disability begins with a distinction between impairments and disabilities. Impairments are parts of the body/brain that are nonstandard: for example, ears that do not hear (deafness), organs that don't work right (e.g. diabetes), limbs that don't work (paralysis), brain chemistry that causes distress (e.g. anxiety, depression), the list goes on. The impairment may or may not cause distress to the person who has it, depending on the type of impairment (how much pain it causes, etc.) and whether it's a lifelong thing they accept as part of themselves or something newly acquired that radically changes their life and prevents them from doing things they want to do.

And then you have the things that disable us, which are the social factors like "is there an accessible entrance," as described above.

If we ever do get a utopian world where everyone with a disability gets the support they need and all of society is designed to include people with disabilities, that doesn't mean the impairments go away. Life would be so much better for people with impairments, and it's worth working towards, but some impairments simply suck and would continue to suck no matter what.

Take my autism. A world where autism was accepted and supported would make my life so much easier ... and yet even then, my trouble sleeping and my tendency to hyperfixate on things that trigger my anxiety would still make my life worse. I don't want to be cured of my autism! That would change who I am on a fundamental level, and I like myself. My dream is not of a world where I am not autistic, but a world in which I am not penalized for being autistic and have the help I need. And even in that world, my autism will still sometimes cause me distress.

There are some impairments--conditions that come with chronic pain, chronic fatigue, etc.--where pretty much everyone with that impairment agrees that the ultimate goal is a cure. But nobody knows how long a cure will take to find (years? decades? centuries?), whereas focusing on the social things disabling you can lead to improvement in your daily life right now.

In conclusion: the social model of disability is very valuable, and much superior to the medical model on a number of levels. But: please don't forget that the social model makes a distinction between disability and impairments, and even if we reach every goal and get rid of all the social factors that disable people, some impairments will be fine and cause no distress to the people who have them, some will be a mixed bag, and some will still be major problems for the people who have them.

Also on Dreamwidth

[anundyingfidelity]

I'M A RUIN — Soldier Boy/Ben (Part I)

Summary: After the events of the Seven Tower, you present Grace Mallory a new secret project you're working on already to develop a cure to Compound V. The only problem? You need Soldier Boy for that.

Pairing: Soldier Boy/Ben x female reader.

Word count: 1,536.

Warnings for series: set after S3 (spoilers), some OOC!Ben, some depressed!Ben, angst, hurt/comfort, eventual smut, slow-burn, language, PTSD, reader has Compound V (she's no Vought supe tho), Soldier Boy being an usual asshole, reader is a fucking liar.

Notes: As soon as I saw him my feminism left my body immediately and my inner voice agreed that I'd let him take away my human rights with no question. He's an absolute idiot, would sleep with him 100%.

Heads up as English is not my native language sooo, yeah you know what follows. Lord pls give me inspo to finish this fic, amen.

☕ if you like my writing, support me with a ko-fi !

get yourself in the taglist!

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII

GEN MASTERLIST! — SERIES MASTERLIST!

Part I: For The Common Good

Two months.

Two months ago Grace Mallory decided to put the former greatest supe into sleep. Somehow, you managed to get in her head, explaining your new project to her and finding a new use for Soldier Boy, who had enough rest for 40 years.

You knew what happened at the Seven Tower, how Soldier Boy and Butcher's team ended up there to finally kill Homelander. Grace tried doing some shit against Vought before, but she never managed to win. It wasn't different this time. What was better then, that to develop a cure for supes like you, who didn't ask for it? People who never used their powers in public, nor seeked fame and money.

As a doctor in Chemistry, you were developing a cure for Compound V with a secret team. Suitable for you, you were in the same CIA tower Colonel Mallory decided to encapsulate Soldier Boy to, initially, spend the rest of his days in. You had luck Grace gave green light to the project, even though your team was already working on it without her approval anyway. But it was so much better if she found out properly.

Making your way to the super secured wing where Soldier Boy was held out of his sleep, you gripped the folder in your hands. You were scanned thoroughly before going inside a cold space, where two different crystal windows and metal doors separated the place. The armed guard guided you to the first room to check first through the window. You sighed, seeing a man sitting down, hands cuffed to a harsh steel table, gaze lost. It was him.

"The keys," you requested the guard by your side.

"Doctor-"

"I said, keys. He doesn't need to be cuffed."

He complied to your order, clearly annoyed but with a straight face and you walked to the closed door.

"If something happens, I can take care of myself. Don't let anyone inside understand?" you said.

He gave a nod. With that, he let you inside the room, the doors closing behind your back.

The prisoner observed you carefully as soon as you entered. His gaze was tired, but he seemed ready to attack, and it was completely hard to ignore his rough stare on you as you made your way to your seat in front of him. Soldier Boy observed you, placing the folder on the surface, and you held his gaze, not flinching for a second. Until you decided to talk first.

"I am glad you're awake. My name is Y/N, I am a doctor at the facility. Just wanna know how you're doing today," you spoke in a calm and soft way, so he could see you were not a threat.

He saw you roaming through the pages of the file, which he recognized as a copy of his file, and you took a pen from your lab coat to make some anotations.

"Not a smart move to let a fucking doctor here," he said with a deep voice, lips forming a straight line. "What do you want?"

"I want to help you."

"Cut the bullshit."

"I want to talk. If you let me, I will uncuff you so we can have a chat, like civilized people. Just don't try to escape, you won't go too far."

He raised an eyebrow as you reached his wrists and carefully, you set him free from the metal grip.

"I know what happened with Butcher and his boys," you said, confident that he would not try anything else. "About Homelander and your relationship with him."

"What the fuck do you know?" Soldier Boy tensed visibly hearing the name of the bastard. Still, he remained on his seat. "Want some info? You can lick Grace's pussy for that."

"She is, actually, the one who approved me to be here right now," you answered, brushing off his vocabulary. You used to deal with assholes like him all the time.

He scoffed. "Why?"

"Ben," you called his real name softly. "You've been sleeping for four decades. You deserve a second chance, I am offering you that. In some sort of way."

"I'm not going to be part of that freakshow-"

"This has nothing to do with Vought," you cut his words, his tone rising and you knew perfectly why. "You just need to be here in the facility, awake, in a dignified place we will give you so you can learn everything you missed. We can give you therapy, a comfy room, anything you want that's legal, of course..."

His jaw clenched, feeling you would ask for something more. "In exchange of what?"

"I know it's hard, unfortunately you won't be able to get out, but you don't deserve to sleep forever again," you sighed. "I will pay you visits and follow your improvements because you're human, after all. That's all I ask from you," you gave him a smile for the first time.

For a few moments, he said nothing, as if making up his mind about it. "Alright, anything but coming back to that shit hole. I need reefer though."

"Lucky you, that's legal now. We can certainly make it happen."

He looked around the room as you let him go inside first. Not the fanciest, not the shittiest. It had the basics: a bed, a sofa, a TV, a closet, a bookshelf with different books, magazines and newspapers he wasn't sure would read any time, a separate door for a bathroom, enough privacy, and no windows though. It wasn't really a cell, but he did look and felt somehow like a hostage. Just a little less if he could say.

"This is what we have for now, I am all ears if you request something else to have in here," you began as he paced around and tested the bed, sitting down on the mattress.

Ben still wasn't convinced on why you offered this to him. Sceptic, he gave a good look at you, roaming his eyes at your standing figure in a fucking lab coat. Christ, he hated those. Too pretty for a doctor, but too dumb to be locked with a supe like him. He was so tired that he didn't try and hit on you like he normally would with any walking pussy that appeared in plain sight. He was too exhausted to even give a shit.

"Lemme think about it, doctor."

"Of course, take your time," you replied as he walked toward the bookshelf, scanning through the titles there were. He recognized only half of them.

"So, I will be imprisoned here instead of a fucking eggshell," Ben said, turning around to meet you. "Charming," he smirked, dragging the words out of his mouth. "Doing charity."

He watched your face drop as you shook your head. "It's not like that-"

"Then why keep me awake?" Ben insisted as he gave steps to get close to you. "I can't die, it's much easier to force my sleep in a capsule your boss made specially for me."

He stopped mere inches in front of you, your eyes never turned away from him. He thought you were fucking brave just by keeping his dark gaze.

"Ben, I told you I will be watching your progress. You can grow from all of this with our help-"

"What kind of doctor are you?"

"A psychiatrist. That's why I'm here."

Ben scoffed with a grin showing on his lips. He didn't believe in that kind of shit, but oh, well. What was he gonna do about it? He was tired of sleeping, Mallory captured him, and you were here, giving him a shelter for no cost, but his freedom. In his mind, that was temporary of course. With time, a plan would come. Right now, he just needed to keep up with the fucked up things of the modern world.

"I guess you would come and babysit me then," he said, going back to take a sit on the bed.

"Wouldn't use 'babysit you' but I will come to see you, that's for sure."

He nodded. Silence was his answer, so you continued.

"Just general rules. Our people will bring you three meals a day, if you're missing something that you need then just push the button by the door, there will be guards outside to assist you on that. Also, there are clothes your size on the closet and personal products so you can change and take a shower," he stayed silent again, just taking in your words. "If you don't need anything then I leave you to get comfortable," you said, about to leave.

"Wait. I do need something," he hesitated for a moment, but he continued anyway. "Don't use those lab coats when you come in."

Your eyes widened, he quickly realised you already knew why he was requesting that when you started to take off the coat, revealing your formal attire. You wrapped the coat on your arm and cleaned your throat.

"I totally understand, I will keep that in mind when I come tomorrow. And I will ask for your reefer too."

You flashed a final polite smile and left him to get settled. Ben breathed out. Fuck, he really needed a shower.

[sansaorgana]

Oh my God!!

"You talked in your sleep... do you really love me?"

With Buck Cleven X reader, please?? Maybe reader is his best friend and sometimes talks in her sleep? So, best friends to lovers?? Please you'd cure my depression 😭😍

Love you & thank you 💕

hiii I'm so sorry you had to wait so long 😭 does anyone even still remember me omg 😫 thank you for your request! I didn't use this exact quote but the situation is the same and The Reader is a nurse here 😷

my requests are currently closed 🙅🏻‍♀️

Working as a nurse and befriending some of these boys, you mostly dreaded the day when one of them would come to you in a state that was doomed. To stare at your dying friend in pain, knowing you can’t do anything about it… That was keeping you awake at night. It was already difficult enough already to witness the boys you didn’t know at all die like this and not be able to help. But a vision of one of your friends in this situation was impossible to handle at times.

The one you worried about the most was Major Gale Cleven, the one everyone kept calling Buck. But you were the only person who still was calling him Gale. He was your friend from the moment he showed up. Handsome, charming but in a quiet way, kind-hearted and very responsible. You admired the way he was with his boys; like an older brother they could look up to. And not long time had passed until you realised you were actually in love with him.

Of course you would never admit that. But it made you smile when the boys admitted you were their favourite nurse, when they were treating you like the female equivalent of Gale Cleven at the base. Almost as if you were playing house with him with a bunch of pilots who were like your sons.

But loving a pilot was a dangerous business for the heart. Not that love could have been prevented. You had no control over that. But at least it was unrequited – in other circumstances you would cry your heart out into your pillow at night for loving someone who didn’t reciprocate his feelings. But this time it was for the better.

Yet, when you found him in the med bay after one of the missions, your heart skipped a beat. Your friend was talking to him softly, his face was in blood. You approached them immediately, ignoring other patients waiting for your care and attention.

“What’s going on? What’s wrong?” You asked, trying to hide how nervous you were.

“His plane got hit,” your friend explained. “He managed to come back and land safely with a concussion, can you imagine?” The admiration in her voice made you feel jealous and you hated this side of you. She had every right to admire him for this sort of achievement. “I have to clean the wounds on his face. Poor lad, they’re gonna leave scars.”

“I’ll do it,” you dismissed her and moved past her, nearly pushing her away. She was surprised at your reaction but she didn’t have time to think about it or comment because other patients needed her.

So, she left you alone with Gale. His beautiful eyes were hazy from the concussion and probably a state of shock his body was in. He wouldn’t be able to fly a plane with a concussion if not for the adrenaline in his blood system.

“Hi,” you greeted him softly when you started to clean the wounds on his face gently. They were not very deep but they caused lots of bleeding and your friend was right; some of them would leave scars. Not that you minded, you only hoped he wouldn’t grow insecure because of them. “You’ve gained some scars, brave fly boy,” you chuckled nervously but he only looked at you like he didn’t recognise you. “It’s okay. You’ll sleep it off,” you caressed his hair gently. 

He was confused and in pain but yet, you hated yourself for kind of liking this version of Gale Cleven. Not only was he even more adorable than usual but also you could allow yourself the gestures you would never do if he was acting like himself.

When his face was clean and you washed some of his hair, too – the parts that got stuck together with blood, you laid him down gently and smiled softly at his handsome face. He reached his hand out as if he wanted you to hold it. An unusual thing to do, which made your heart flutter in your chest, but you tried to remember that he was not acting sane at the moment. Still, you gently took his hand and sat on the edge of the bed. You decided to be with him until he’d wake up. Even if it would be the whole rest of the day and a night.

“Other boys need you,” the doctor approached you with a furrowed brow.

“He needs me the most,” you looked up.

“Cleven had a slight concussion, he will be absolutely fine,” the doctor insisted.

You knew that he was right and you didn’t want to act suspicious, so you sighed and squeezed Gale’s hand before leaving his side to go back to work. However, you worked as fast as you could, not even talking to the boys you were taking care of, just focusing purely on your job. And when you were finished, you went back to Gale’s bed and sat on the edge to watch over him. He looked so peaceful when he slept.

His wounds still kept bleeding a little here and there so you continued to clean them once in a while. And in his sleep, he sometimes moved, so you were putting your hand on his forehead, trying to calm him down and make sure he didn’t have a fever. Bucky checked on him in the meantime.

“Thanks for taking care of him,” he winked at you and you could feel your cheeks heating up. Did he know…? Were you that obvious?

“It’s nothing. He always takes care of all of you boys. I can see that and they always tell me that. Even today, the guys from his fort were asking me to take extra care of Major Cleven,” I answered with all honesty.

“Yeah, they look up to him. What he did today was… incredible,” Bucky nodded. “When they landed, he didn’t even recognise me but a few minutes earlier he had been flying the goddamn plane in this state.”

“It was shock and adrenaline,” you explained. “He could have forgotten us but not how to survive and fly,” you added with a smile. “Or he’s a natural. Maybe he was born and already knew how to fly.”

“Believe me, he didn’t,” Bucky chuckled and shook his head. “I remember our early days… He didn’t.”

“Okay,” you giggled and squeezed Gale’s hand tighter. You imagined what he had to be like in the early days of his training. He had to be adorable; a bit scared but also full of hope and optimism, that boyish excitement. “Thanks for checking up on him. When he wakes up, I’ll tell him you came.”

“If he recognises us,” Bucky made a joke and walked out of the med bay but it left you anxious now. He was right. The doctor had said it was a slight concussion but… What if Gale would wake up and not recognise any of you?

Lost in thoughts, you didn’t realise he was having a dream again. You only reacted when he started to mumble some incoherent things.

“Shh, Gale, shh, it’s fine,” you whispered softly when you leaned in to see his face better and put both of your hands on his wounded cheeks, delicately, avoiding to cause him any further pain.

“...Her…” He mumbled, his words suddenly making sense. You furrowed your brow. “I love her.”

You swallowed thickly at those words. It was only a dream, right? It didn’t mean anything. He couldn’t be in love with someone else…? 

You shook it off. What were you even thinking of? What did it matter? You were not together and you would never be.

But then, Gale mumbled your name. Yours, not anyone else’s. You had to blink a few times and catch your breath all over again. And when you thought it had all been a mistake, he mumbled it out again and and again and then…

“I love her,” he repeated.

However, he seemed to be in a great torment because of whatever the dream was about. So, with a heavy heart, you shook his shoulders a little, forcing him to come back to reality.

“Hi,” you greeted him softly as his eyes widened. “Welcome back, soldier. Do you know where you are?”

“Wh-what happened?” He sat up rapidly, his hands immediately going to his face as if he wanted to check if everything was in its place.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” You asked, adjusting yourself on the edge of his bed to be closer to him.

“We got hit… Oh my God… We got hit!” He panicked but you shushed him. Other boys were asleep and you didn’t want them to wake up or be alarmed by his attack.

“It’s fine, hey, Gale, it’s okay. Everyone from your fort is fine and you know why…?” You asked with a gentle smile. He shook his head. “Because you safely took them home and landed that goddamn plane even though you had concussion and didn’t know your own name,” you tried to sound casual but the pride in your voice was more than obvious.

“I… I did that?” He asked. “No way.”

“Yeah, you did,” you laughed. “And I cleaned your face, it was all bloody. You’re gonna have some scars,” you explained. “Want a mirror?”

“I don’t think so,” Gale winced as his fingertips traced the wounds. He hissed out of pain so you grabbed his wrists and took the hands away from his face.

“Don’t. They’re still fresh. But not so bad, I’ve seen worse,” you tried to cheer him up. “In fact, I think, you’re gonna look amazing,” you winked and he sighed. “You remember me, right?”

“What? What are you talking about? Of course I do,” he furrowed his brows as his eyes looked worried.

“Yeah, but after you landed, you didn’t. You didn’t even know who Bucky was. He was here, you know. Checking on you. And all the boys from your fort were so worried about you. You’re a real leader,” you squeezed his hands but he didn’t say anything to these things. Praises were making him blush and he did now as well, looking away.

“Well, thanks for taking care of me,” he finally looked at you again.

“No problem. You wanted me to stay, reaching your hands out like a little boy,” you chuckled nervously. Perhaps it was a bad idea to bring this up.

“Yeah, well, I had to feel lonely when I couldn’t recognise anyone. Even when I can, I often feel lonely,” he admitted with a shrug of his arms. “We’re so far away from home, from our families. The boys are like family, too, but every day can be their last. And men… Well, we don’t really…” He tried to look for words.

“Hold each other’s hands?” You asked and he nodded. You squeezed his hands again. “You talked in your sleep,” you brought that up, encouraged by his last confession.

“Oh dear God…” Gale rolled his eyes, visibly embarrassed. “What about?”

“You were talking about some girl that you love,” you teased him, grinning and winking playfully, pretending to be a teasing friend and hiding the nervousness. “She happens to have the same name as me or something.”

You expected him to be defensive or laugh at you. You would push his shoulder gently and tell him that you had been joking. But he didn’t react like that at all. In fact, he took his hands away as if your touch burnt him and he cleared his throat nervously.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Can we… Can we pretend you’ve never heard that?”

Your heart skipped a beat at his words. You kept staring at him in disbelief and bit on your lower lip.

“How?” You asked, feeling a sudden outburst of bravery in you. If Gale could have flown a plane with a concussion, you could say what you wanted to say. “How am I supposed to pretend I have never heard that? When that’s… That’s all I ever wanted to hear.”

Gale looked up at you as if he had to check with his own eyes if you weren’t joking. But you were dead serious.

“So don’t pretend,” he finally spoke up and reached out for your hand again. His fingers were cold and shaky. You intertwined them with yours. “But I didn’t want to do anything until… Well, I planned to ask you to dance with me at the party after my 25th mission. But I never wanted to let you know before that because if I died…”

“If you died, I would never know,” you looked up to meet his gaze with tears pricking your eyes. “And you think that’s fair? You think it would make it easier for me? It would not.”

“I’m sorry,” Gale swallowed thickly. “Are you angry with me?”

“For that? No. For nearly dying today? Yes,” you nodded and wiped your tears away with your free hand.

“Let’s make a deal,” he proposed, looking at you with pain in his eyes. He hated to see you so sad and crying… Especially when it was caused by him. “Let’s not… Let’s not do anything about it until I’ve done my missions, alright?”

“Alright,” you nodded through the tears. “But… What if you don’t finish them…?”

“Well, then, we’re both gonna die without ever kissing each other,” he lowered his voice even though all the other nurses were out of the med bay and other patients were asleep. “But… That doesn’t sound right to me.”

“That doesn’t sound right to me either,” you admitted.

“Then come here,” he encouraged you to get closer. “Just one kiss.”

“A promise of many more, I hope. Not the last one,” you said in a shaky voice but he only nodded his head because that was a promise he couldn’t make.

If it depended on him, he would. He would swear on everything. But it depended on things much bigger than you or him. On things he couldn’t control nor prevent.

He cupped your face delicately, as if it were you with the wounds on your cheeks, and he joined your lips in a sweet kiss, even though it tasted salty from all your tears.

“Just don’t die,” you breathed out when the kiss ended. “Just don’t die and the rest I can fix and endure.”

MASTERLIST || BUCK MASTERLIST

[metamatar]

hope it's okay to ask, but do you have any advice for like. internalizing that self harm and suicide aren't really helpful

obvs this is all personal, so depending on your personal beliefs and the dimensions of depression it may not apply. im sure some of this can make it worse for you personally. reader beware etc. im sure this is terribly revealing of what my problems are. but i can't ignore you.

for self harm my advice here is more harm reduction bc i think the internalisation of that not being useful to you is way more specific to why you harm and needs like. work.

for suicide, because i think fighting both takes different tactics and some of these are things that work temporarily:

relief from anguish is a feeling. you have to be alive to experience a feeling. even if you don't remember that feeling and don't feel capable of it what if you stuck around to see it? it would be transcendent.

you want out from something. think about drastic decisions you can take before killing yourself that can change things that fuck you up. drop out of school? quit your job? start living on a friends couch? break up with your partner? trans your gender?

suicide closes off any other possibility. it is a very loud scream of autonomy but it will be the last time you get to make a decision. is that truly enough autonomy for you?

you have wanted to die before. you have not wanted to die before. your feelings are complicated and contradictory. you cannot entrust your whole life to them.

be curious about your future. im serious. i've changed so much by now from the limiting self i was when i was 15 and couldn't imagine being 18 and now im beyond 25 and im curious what i'd be like at 35. bargain. to see those years. i mean maybe you'll be cured which is a fun fantasy but i don't really believe that. maybe you'll be worse. but which? and how? the wikipedia summary of your life is not the life experience. the texture of your anguish changes too.

consider survival more valuable to your self worth. it matters. you had to do it anyway but you did it so it still matters. yeah you cracked a bit but you can be proud of being alive.

now, more controversially before you kill yourself, consider making it worse. indulge self destruction some other way. do something inadvisable that's less permanent.

and now, after endorsing self harm as a means of avoiding suicide and making everyone mad. stuff i've internalised to do less self harm:

i am the only person in the world responsible for me. choose less harm. the doctors won't choose less but i will.

same stuff about making one drastic change.

just one thing make it safer? then do it safer. you can look this stuff up on forums.

pick a replacement behaviour that you think is slightly better. do it. fail it. do it again. force yourself to over indulge in it while the haze passes.

you kind of have to sit with the things that hurt you that the self harm soothes and try to change them. sorry. do it slowly and do it excessively and keep trying.

i am not the only person in the world who does this. read about it talk about it and keep it held in your heart that this is something about yourself that you feel the need to change. i like art about it.

fighting it a little is giving you a fresher newer self back. do you like them? don't you want to meet them?

relief is not contentment. wouldn't contentment be even more transcendent?

[apathetic-revenant]

uh...hi?

[head pokes around corner]

so...

I've been back to scrolling around on tumblr for a bit now, and have been really wanting to get back to actually, y'know. being here. posting. not just sort of hanging here invisibly like a mournful ghost, observing but never interacting. that sort of thing. (revenants, after all, are supposed to be corporeal undead.)

but I really wanted to explain why I just kind of abruptly vanished in the first place. no one demanded this of me, but it felt like something I had to do. and then, in the typical way of self-imposed obstacles, it became a massive stumbling block. partly because of the nerves and emotions attached to it, sure, but mostly, tbh, because it was a Task. I recently (about 3 weeks ago now?) started seeing a new psychiatrist and got an adjustment to my ADHD meds which basically made my brain boot up again for the first time in way too long. this is great! but it means I am having to kind of slowly rehab my brain into getting used to doing Literally Anything again, one small step at a time. I am not being hyperbolic when I say I had to gradually build up my executive functioning for a while just to be able to write a tumblr post.

but fuck it! I really wanted to just do this already. so, while I'm sure I'll talk about all this in more detail later, for right now I'm gonna strip this down to the bare essentials just so I can get it done at all.

here's what happened:

in 2020 I had a sudden onset of extremely severe OCD.

no, not about the pandemic, actually. yeah I was anxious about the pandemic but it was a pretty normal level of anxiety for a global pandemic, honestly. my OCD took the form of scrupulosity--essentially, an obsessive worry about being a bad person.

tumblr is....not a GREAT place to be if you have a sudden obsessive fear of being a bad person.

now, to be clear: tumblr did not CAUSE my OCD, and leaving tumblr did not cure it. that's just not how OCD works. later on, I learned that atypical antipsychotics--one of which I had been prescribed around that time, for depression--have been known to cause OCD. is there any way to prove that that's what happened? probably not, at this point! so I've just been kind of sitting with that terrible knowledge for a while.

anyway. I would've had OCD anyway, but reading a regular stream of posts going "hey, here's a really terrible thing you might be doing! you might even be doing it without knowing it! you need to think really hard and be constantly vigilant all the time for any sign that you might be doing this thing!" was basically pouring gasoline on the fire.

I never made an active decision to leave tumblr--if I had I would've said something first. I just kind of thought "god, I can't do this right now" one day and didn't open the app, which turned into days and then weeks and then months, and still things weren't getting better.

it's hard to express exactly how harrowing that whole experience was. actually I just started thinking about it and realized I would never finish this post tonight if I tried to get into it just now. so I won't. let's just say: It Was Bad.

but, by an astronomical stroke of luck, I ended up getting referred to not just an OCD therapist, not just the only OCD therapist in the state who took Medicaid, but the only OCD therapist in the state who took Medicaid and also she was really good at her job. I genuinely think that woman saved my life.

OCD therapy is one of those "the only way out is through" kind of things. it's brutal and also quite surreal, but it has a high success rate and is very effective. OCD is not a thing that you can cure, per se, but it went from completely dominating every waking moment of my life to being something that I occasionally have to yell at in much the same way as when the cat starts knocking things off my desk at 3 in the morning.

but, the thing was, it took a year-and-a-bit before my therapist and I agreed that I had probably "graduated" as she put it. so, by the time I felt able to go back on tumblr without my brain catching on fire again, it had been so long that I didn't know how to do it. I felt like I'd pulled a major dick move by just dropping off without saying anything. I still thought about it (usually late at night, at Time To Think About Every Regret I've Ever Had O'Clock) but my brain very easily goes to a place of "well, no one would really notice or care that I was gone, and if they did they'd be mad at me for having left."

well. earlier this year I started on the road to getting past that idea. shoutout to @fordtato for helping with that, btw.

but it took me a while to work up the courage and then, as previously mentioned, even longer to work up the neurotransmitters.

I think I gotta wrap this up for now cause I don't have much concentration juice left. but, for what it's worth: I had a lot of emotions, coming back and seeing the names of people I used to talk to all the time. I don't know how you feel about me anymore, but I really missed yall. I would like to talk to you again.

[lovealexhunt]

If you've followed me for any length of time, you would know that mental health awareness and suicide prevention are two topics that I hold very close to my heart.

I've struggled with depression and anxiety since I was a child. My parents didn't believe in mental health challenges and so my struggles were ignored and I was made to feel as though my struggles weren't real and something was wrong with me. I buried my mental health issues, hiding behind a mask of perfectionism and over-achieving. Those I saw in school or work, never know how greatly I struggled. However, hiding how I felt only made things worse and I struggled with suicide thoughts and attempts for a few years before finally seeing a doctor to get help.

I take medication for both depression and anxiety. These medications help take the edge off but they're not a cure. They aren't a magic pill that makes everything okay again. But they help and for that I am grateful.

I still struggle with depression and anxiety on a daily basis. There are days when the suicide thoughts creep back out, but through my experiences and working to raise awareness, I feel strong enough to remind myself they are just thoughts and I don't have to act on them. I hope that if it ever got that bad again, I would use some of the strategies from above: focusing on creative works, reaching out to others, trying to find reasons to be grateful.

Thinking positively or thinking "happy thoughts" is not easy. Sometimes I see and encouraging quote and they make me mad because I can't feel that way right now, but I still save them, because maybe tomorrow, that little reminder will be just what i need.

If you know me, I believe in the small little acts to make a difference. I've been making mental health awareness and suicide prevention posts for several years now, but I don't think I've ever had an image dedicated to small acts of kindness.

We don't know what anyone is facing (in person or virtually/online). With some, spotting signs of depression and suicidal tendencies is easier to spot. These individuals display more common signs and symptoms. But there are many more people who are high-functioning. On the surface, they seem put together, but underneath they are struggling. It is because of this that I so strongly believe in little acts of kindness: sending an encouraging word, checking in on others, giving little compliments here and there... these are small things, but you never know how big of an impact they can make.

Please continue to raise and spread awareness for depression and suicide prevention. It's only together that we can make a difference.

[upat4amwiththemoon]

hi! saw that your requests are open and if you want to could you write a fic with amelia shepard x reader. kind of a mental health fic where reader is struggling (depression or something) and either amelia and reader are a couple or reader is someone coming into the ER (or something else) but either way amelia decides to help R and eventually they become a couple (if they’re not already). i hope you understand what i mean?

anyway, thank you!

i’ll die anyway.

Summary: It’s still hard to find reasons to stay alive.

Pairing: Amelia Shepherd x female!reader

Warnings: depression

Word count: 824

a/n: Amelia Shepherd please cure my mental illnesses <3

masterlists | guidelines

Even though Amelia is oftentimes busy with her work, being the self proclaimed best neurosurgeon, she still makes time for her girlfriend, who unlike her, doesn’t have such a mess of a schedule. However, she just came to the realization that date nights haven’t happened in a while. She really hasn’t properly seen Y/N in a while.

Which is why, after arriving back home, Amelia’s first mission is to find Y/N. She goes up the stairs, towards their shared bedroom, still wearing her scrubs. She frowns as she steps into the room. No one is there. It’s dark and the bed is messy, which indicates Y/N has been there recently.

The sound of water hits her ears. Amelia knocks on the door opposite of their bedroom, trying to open it, but it’s mocked. “Y/N?” She calls out, growing worried at the silence coming from the other side. “Are you okay in there?” There’s slight humor to her voice, but it’s only there to mask her anxiety.

A quiet yeah comes from the other side of the door, but it doesn’t ease Amelia.

“You think you could open the door for me?” It takes a while, but eventually Amelia can hear the soft clink of the lock. She opens the door carefully, only peeking her head in first. When she sees fully clothes Y/N sitting under the running shower, she steps in the room fully, closing the door behind her so the warmth of the water wouldn’t escape. “What are you doing?” She has a gentle smile on her face as she kneels near Y/N. She recognizes the look in her eyes.

“I think I’m getting sick.” She whispers. Water droplets are getting all over her eyes and mouth, but she doesn’t seem to care.

“Sick?” Amelia shuts the shower off, getting no reaction from Y/N. She sets the back of her hand to her girlfriend’s wet forehead. “You don’t feel warm.” She states quietly.

Y/N hums. Her hands are hidden in the sleeves of the hoodie she’s wearing. It’s oversized, one of her favorites, mostly because it’s technically Amelia’s hoodie. Her eyes are unfocused, so she rarely blinks, only when water slides over her eyes.

“Maybe getting out of the wet clothes would help?” Amelia’s tone makes the sentence sound like a question, but it’s more of a request, as she is already helping Y/N up before she has a chance to answer. She leads her into the bedroom, not caring about the trail of water dripping to the floors. “I’m going to get you some clothes, okay?”

Amelia starts looking through their wardrobe, picking the coziest looking clothes for the both of them. She helps Y/N out of the wet clothes and into the clean ones before she changes out of her scrubs.

“Have you eaten today?” She’s pretty sure she already knows the answer, and it worries her, since she had a ten hour shift today. Y/N shakes her head, confirming Amelia’s fears. “Okay, I’m going to order us some food.”

After leading Y/N to the bed, she picks up her phone and orders the food that’ll arrive to their house the quickest. She sets her phone back down, making sure it’s not silenced so she’ll hear when their food arrives.

She sits down next to Y/N, leaning her bad against the backboard, she pulls Y/N’s back into her chest. “Can you tell me how you’re feeling?” Amelia pulls the covers over them before wrapping her arms around Y/N.

She sighs, slowly leaning the side of her head against Amelia’s. “I don’t know.” She whispers, her voice slightly wobbly. “I don’t feel anything but I’m feeling everything at the same time. It’s like I’m stuck in a hole and I can’t scream for help.” Taking a shaky breath, her voice turns almost too quiet for Amelia to hear, “it feels like it doesn’t matter if I’m dead or alive.”

“Maybe we could go meet up with a psychotherapist together tomorrow?”

Y/N hesitates. Asking for, or receiving help has never been something she can do easily. “I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.”

“But it is.” Amelia states in a way that leaves no room for arguments. “Mental health needs to be always taken seriously.”

Emotions mull through Y/N’s body. She feels guilty and bad for letting Amelia see, for making her worry, that’s not what she wants. She feels like going to psychotherapy would mame it worse, it’d solidify the fact there’s something wrong with her.

Amelia’s embrace turns tighter, bringing Y/N back to the present. Her hands have started shaking, she didn’t notice. “You don’t have to decide now.” Amelia whispers into her ear. “We’ll think and talk about later, okay?” Y/N nods, letting herself relax for now as she lays on her girlfriend, and tries to forget her worries.