#tw childhood neglect

[this-is-a-podcast-fanblog]

Young Cecil doing his homework with no help and walking past his mom’s half-open door hoping she doesn’t hear him sneaking out and doodling things like “CGP + EH” in his notebook (crossed out) and turning in permission slips at school that the teachers reject because they’re all signed by his big sister and feeling a shiver down his spine whenever he sees a too-tall tree and stealing makeup from drug stores but popping out the mirrors first and falling asleep to the radio and stacking cassette tapes next to his mattress because he never got a frame for his bed and leaving out bowls of water for stray cats and chasing the mice out of his room and learning Torah verses even though he knows no one other than Abby will come to his Bar Mitzvah and crying himself to sleep at night but making up stories in the morning about the citizens he’s seen around town and bumping into Josie at the supermarket where she offers to drive him to the bowling alley and bringing his mom mother’s day flowers even though he’ll be the one who puts them in water, plucks away the dead leaves, throws them away while she watches with blank eyes and when he stares at the loud sunrise he feels an ache in his chest he can’t explain yet and hating that Abby can get a summer job but he’s not old enough yet, it’s starting to feel like decades have passed and he’s still not old enough, and failing his practice SATs because he had to teach himself all those big words and dying in front of a broken mirror and looking at a mirror with broken shards that’s still intact and being a beautiful person in spite of everything and dragging his boy scout recorder into a blanket fort to record cassette tapes about how one day things will be better, one day things will be better, one day things will be better. 

[angelsdean]

a very specific headcanon i have that i've just written into one of my longer wips (so you won't see the scene for an age) is that john is kinda a dick abt food and dean's eating habits. and he's just. so oblivious to the amount that his kids are suffering when he's gone. because dean sure as hell is not gonna bring up how the money is never enough, how they're near starving toward the end of some weeks. how they've relied on charity more than once. so when john comes back and gets them big full meals and dean especially practically inhales his food (bc he's hungrier, bc he's given more of his portions to sammy) john chides him to slow down, it'll make himself sick etc etc. but dean struggles. and he's always SO eager for burgers and pie and carb-y filling things. because he's starving. but he gets a reputation for "eating junk." john teases him for it. or berates him for it when he's feeling especially mean. when dean's older, stanford era, and they meet up for a hunt and get lunch dean still digs into his food a little too quickly, he asks the waitress for pie with a little too much gusto, and john shakes his head, laughing, saying it's a good thing dean's a hunter, it's a good thing he's got the grueling work to keep him fit or else all those burgers and pies would've definitely caught up to him by now. laughs at how dean still eats too fast, "you've done that since you were a kid. never grew out of it, huh?" and dean bites his cheek, bites back a remark about why he always ate so fast, why he's still always squirreling away food and jumping at every "free food" "free samples" opportunity even now when money is easier to come by

[nekrosdolly]

Wesker surviving RE5. Taking a good while to recover. When he final tracks Chris many years later he sees a young woman with Chris. Obviously not Chris' wife.

Chris got a daughter. And Wesker knows how to truely break him now.

Poor girl, she gets hit on by a super hot dude not knowing that he is her dads biggest enemy

listen... this would go fucking crazy... 18+

cw; afab!reader, creep!wesker, reader is 21-ish and wesker is... *gulps*... 61, dad!chris isn't the best dad, i'm projecting big time with this one guys sorry, takes place circa re8, reader is in college, no use of y/n, chris is the kind of alcoholic dad that you don't want your boyfriend to meet because you are, in fact, embarrassed of him, wesker drives a lincoln mkz zephyr.

you look like your dad but prettier. softer, sweeter features than your father's own. your eyes are paralyzingly innocent, and he can't help himself when he lays eyes on you. you're younger than albert by a concerning amount of years, but thanks to your dad's unintentional neglect during your childhood, you've got some issues.

your father never told you about wesker- or anything relating to his line of work. how foolish of chris to not take such precautions with his daughter. you never bothered to ask, either, as you felt some sort of resentment towards your dad in your teenage years. everything he did pissed you off, especially when he was trying to bond. so of course you decided to date someone just as old, if not older than your dad, just to piss him off in return.

that's when you stumbled across wesker. he was handsome for his age, though he looks much younger and you're not sure why. the sunglasses thing confused you, though he'd told you once when you had first started talking that he has light-sensitive eyes. you, being so trusting of this nice, older man who made you feel wanted, believed him and every little thing he ever told you. he'd make you feel so warm inside, and it didn't take long for you to fall for him.

he'd made a show of falling for you, too, to keep you under his thumb. you were the type to flee at the first sign of abandonment; he couldn't have that.

your dad was shocked when you told him you'd found a boyfriend. thanks to your strained relationship, you'd hardly talked to him after leaving for college, which he blamed himself for. it had only worsened between the two of you after your mother left.

and now, at dinner, your dad thinks it's the greatest idea in the world talk about your beloved.

"so," your father starts as he saws through thick-cut steak with a serrated knife, cutting you off a piece, "this boyfriend of yours, when am i meeting him?"

"you want to meet my boyfriend?" you cock an eyebrow at your father, though he doesn't meet your gaze. his own is fixed to the bit of steak he's setting on your plate beside some vegetables.

"well, yeah. must be pretty serious if you told me about him." chris finally looks at you, setting his silverware down. you swallow.

"i don't know, dad."

"what, are you embarrassed of me?"

"i didn't say that, don't put words in my mouth." you stuff a piece of sauteed cauliflower in your mouth as chris sighs inwardly. for the next ten minutes, there's no sound except silverware clinking against your plates and your father's jaw popping here and there.

neither of you can take much more of the awkward silence.

chris clears his throat and leans back in his chair, "listen, i just want to make sure you're dating a good guy, okay?"

"yeah, sure." the bitterness and slight annoyance in your voice is hard to hide. you don't bother.

"is that a crime? wanting to look out for my kid?" he crosses his arms over his chest, getting a little defensive.

"don't you think it's a little late to play dad of the year? i'm not a child, i don't need you to look out for me."

"i know you're not a child-"

"then just stop." you're standing up from your chair, "stop trying to be a bigger part of my life. stop acting like you care. stop."

"fine, you want to be an ungrateful brat?" your dad stands up too, "then get out. take your shit and leave, or shut the hell up."

you don't really have anywhere else to go, so you slink back into your chair and reluctantly finish your food. with all the money your dad gets from his job, he's paying your tuition.

your dad downs the whiskey in his glass and gathers his dishes, leaving you to sit in silence at the dinner table.

-

your father lets the boyfriend thing go until you bring it up to him again, this time on your own.

when you bring it up to albert, he's delighted.

"i'd be honored," he tells you as he leans down to kiss your cheek, he's confident about this, which puts you at ease because you know your father isn't going to take this very well.

-

you're dressed your best, as is albert, who's got his hand on your lower back protectively. he can sense your nerves- uroboros didn't completely burn out of his system- as if they were his own, and he kisses your head as you unlock the front door. based on the black jeep in the driveway, beside albert's zephyr, your father is home. you open the door, and in a flash, you're pushed out of the way.

you didn't expect your father to have a loaded gun aimed at your boyfriend so quickly, if at all. a deep laugh sounds from albert.

"oh, chris..."

[loveyourlovelysoul]

All the times you were told by your equally wounded caregiver to not dream too far, that something (eg. even a toy or game table) was just useless so you shouldn't buy it, that you were obliged to say no to something your soul was calling for, all those different situations are still inside of you. And they are often playing with your mind, hindering you, caging you, blocking you unconsciously from moving towards anything you really want. Not letting you see your real worth, not letting you try for something better, different, for anything you really desire. Please, don't let this mental pattern block you. Free yourself. Believe you can try and have what you desire. You are deserving at least a try, no matter how things will go. Stay hopeful, stay positive, and keep believing in yourself and how much you deserve. Do not let the past or someone else's pain hinder you. You deserve much more. And you surely deserve accolades for making it to today despite it all.

[sulasnsleep]

“i do not recall the taste of love. i remember being fed poison and told it was sugar.”

— sulasnsleep

[s0ulcrushed]

My frustration has nowhere to go.

I am still 5 and hyperventilating.

[riahlynn101]

Ai-less Whumptober 2024 - Day Sixteen: "Drowning." (Switching with day fourteen.)

Word count: 1,864

Trigger warnings: child abandonment, children in distress, the ocean, drowning, implied death, and unhappy ending. 

Story notes: This takes place in pre-quirk time, but almost nothing is historically accurate. Izuku is five and Tenko is nine.

--

“Do you think it hurts?” Izuku asks, resting his head on Tenko’s shoulder. 

He met his new friend several days ago while hiding in the laundry room. As it turns out both boys’ families were from the same country - Japan. Which was a relief, because it’s been so hard finding other people that speak the same language as him. 

His mother, his father, and him moved to England a year ago, after his dad got a better paying job at one of the factories. One of the ones that produced thick gray clouds and made him wrinkle his nose whenever he hugged his dad. 

But the paychecks were better than they were in Japan, and the move was hard on his mother, so Izuku tried really, really hard not to complain. Even when the kids at his new school, some of them factory workers themselves, started bullying him. 

And then, his dad stopped coming home. 

Mom never explained what happened to him. There were whispers of a fire and a collapsed roof, and Izuku found he really didn’t want to know more. 

His mom used most of the remainder of their money to buy a ticket to get him aboard a ship set sail for the United States. 

“This,” she started, “is your best chance.” Her fingers trembled, fastening Izuku’s coat buttons. A piece of cardstock paper hung by a string around his neck. He couldn't read the words, though he recognized some of the letters from his weeks attending an English school. 

“O-R-P-H-A-N?”

His mother choked on a sob. “Baby, my baby,” she warbled. “It says ‘orphan.’"

And that, more than his mother’s lack of a suitcase or ticket or the big boat honking its horn behind them, confused Izuku the most. 

He tilted his head. “But I’m not an orphan, momma. You’re still here.”

His mom shook her head, mind already made up. “I can’t go with you. I can’t leave your father. Not while they’re…” she trailed off, as if her next words might have been too morbid for a child of five to hear them. 

“Izuku, try to blend in with the other families. Present your ticket at the dock but stay hidden while on the ship. It should only be a week. I packed some meals for you in your suitcase.” She stroked his hair, pulling him close. “When you get to America, I need you to do something very important.” His mother had pulled him away and held him by the shoulders. “I need you to find a man named Yagi Toshinori, okay? He’s from Japan like us, and I’ve already contacted him. He said he’ll take care of you until I can find a way to leave England.”

“But momma,” Izuku said, bottom lip quivering. “I don’t want to leave.”

The big ship’s horn blared again, and whatever else his mom wanted to say to him was cut short. She pushed him towards the railing that held a line of people. “Go,” she told him. “And find Yagi. I love you, Izuku.” Izuku lost sight of her in the crowd pretty quickly after that. 

His assigned room is decks below where the more well-dressed and affluent passengers stay. “Third-class” he overheard people call it; their tones almost snobbish. But Izuku couldn't understand what’s so bad about it. 

Sure, it’s not as colorful or decorative as the above decks. But the family he shared a room with is nice to him, and the music he sometimes overheard from a room over, helped him sleep. 

He explored during the day but only the first two, as the mother of the family he roomed with warns him against drawing attention to himself. So, Izuku stuck to peeking into unlocked rooms and hiding amongst the unfolded laundry. 

He found Tenko, or rather, Tenko found him, while Izuku was hiding. He went to climb inside and almost screamed when he saw Izuku staring up at him.

“I need to hide,” Tenko explained, eyes wide from the shock of finding another warm body where it shouldn’t be. 

Izuku’s eyes widened. “You speak Japanese?” He sat up, rocking the laundry cart. 

Tenko shushed him, looking over his shoulder. “Yeah, I’m from Japan. Can I hide with you?”

Amazed and relieved at hearing his native language, Izuku scooted to the side. Tenko hopped in. He stared at his new friend with stars in his eyes. 

“So,” he started to ask after a solid five minutes of neither of them saying anything, “who are-”

He was cut off by a loud and pointed “shush!” 

Not a second later the door to the laundry room swung open. It slammed against the steel walls. “Where’re you ya brat?” A man, sounding a lot like those men Izuku overhears in the hallway in the early morning, stumbling their way back to their rooms. 

Izuku looked at his friend. A growing unease kept him quiet. His friend shook and stared at the ceiling, as if expecting the man to suddenly appear above them. 

But he didn’t, and after shuffling around piles of clothes he left the way he came. 

“Who was that?” Izuku asked. He didn’t dare sit up in fear of the man returning. 

“No one important,” his friend said. “Thanks for letting me hide with you. I’m Tenko.”

“Izuku. Can we be friends?”

Tenko smiled at him then. It was a nice change from the terrified expression a moment ago, so Izuku smiled at him too. His heart felt full, and fuller still when Tenko responded with an immediate:

“yes. Best friends.”

They did everything together after that. Tenko was traveling with his family. His older sister, Hana, his mom, and dad. It was supposed to be a vacation, but Tenko didn’t look very happy when he was around his dad. But Izuku doesn’t think he would be very happy either if his dad was half as mean as Tenko’s. 

They spent the day running through the halls and sneaking onto the top deck, which Izuku finds to be a lot easier with Tenko. As Tenko’s family is a lot richer than his own, but that just means that the two boys could dance and eat food and enjoy the view without worrying about alerting security. 

Hana, Tenko’s sister, sometimes joined them. Her dark hair was long and hung in pigtails fastened in beautiful bows. Her dresses were always beautiful and matched her china doll. She treated Izuku like a second brother and liked to comb his curls.

Everything was fine. 

Izuku didn’t feel as homesick anymore.

He had friends, and an exciting new life to look forward to. 

Yes, everything was fine. 

Until it wasn’t. 

-x-x-x-

“Women and children first,” a man in a uniform said. He helped mom, then Hana onto the rescue boat. “You next,” he said, but Tenko wasn’t looking at him. He scanned the boats already in the water and over the people still left on the upper deck. His heart beat faster and faster the longer he didn’t see Izuku. 

The man reached for him, but Tenko stepped back. “No!” He shouted. He forced his way through the crowd of people, ignoring his mom’s pleas for him to come back.

The ship rocked back and forth, creaking. He stumbled. “Izuku!” He screamed, voice drowned out by the screams of other passengers. “Izuku! Where are you?”

The water from the ocean poured onto the deck, soaking his clothes. The salt burned his eyes as it dripped from his hair. Even then, Tenko knew they didn’t have long left. 

The life jackets were long gone and the rescue boats were almost filled. If he found Izuku, they would only have mere minutes before they were left stranded. His desperation grew with every passing minute. 

“Izuku! Izuku! Answer me!”

Like an answer to his prayer, a cry caught his attention. It was small and child-like, which didn’t automatically mean it belonged to his best friend but it was all Tenko had to go on. He stumbled towards the source of the crying - a closet on the third floor of the boat. 

He opened the door. “Izuku!” Tenko shouted, throwing himself towards his friend. The relief he felt in that moment is unmatched to anything he’s ever felt in his entire life. “Oh,” he said, pulling the younger boy into his arms. “I was so worried about you.” He stood up again and held a hand out. “If we want to survive, then we have to hurry back to the upper deck.”

Izuku sniffled. “I want my mommy.”

Tenko shook his head. “I know, I know, but we have to move.”

His friend shook, pressing his hands to his ears. “Scary,” he muttered. “Too loud.”

An announcement crackled over the loudspeakers, like a nail in the coffin, “all boats have been filled.”

“No, no,” Tenko muttered under his breath. He turned to Izuku who continued to cower. “C’mon, Izu, maybe if we hurry we can jump off the side of the boat and somebody will let us in.”

It’s not the safest idea, especially on a night as cold as it is. But it’s better than going down with the ship. 

Izuku cries grew louder and louder until the boy started to gag. Tenko kneeled down beside him. He pressed his hands to Izuku’s ears and resigned himself. 

Izuku’s cries eventually lessened, and if not for the humming, Tenko would almost think his friend fell asleep. His big green eyes seem to stare right through the door ahead, plotting or, perhaps, trying to distance himself from the situation they’re in. 

“Do you think it hurts?” Izuku asked him, eyes still staring ahead. His head comes to rest on Tenko’s shoulder. 

Tenko’s stomach drops. He hadn’t thought about that, at least not all the way through. Suddenly, maybe selfishly, he wishes he left on the lifeboat with his mom and sister. 

“Probably,” he mumbles. “I hope it doesn’t,” he adds quickly. 

“I’m scared.”

“Me too.” A thought crosses his mind, bright like a lightbulb. “How about we go to sleep, and when we wake up we’ll be in a much better place?”

“A much better place,” Izuku repeats. He settles down on the floor, tucking his legs in. 

Izuku looks up at him, one hand outstretched. “Hold my hand?” He asks. 

Tenko lays down next to him. It’s not the most comfortable spot, but he can’t find it within himself to care. They cling to each other, desperate for comfort in their last minutes on earth. 

Water pours in from the crack underneath the door. It’s cold and makes them shiver when it soaks through their shirts. Izuku cries a little, but he does too.

He pets Izuku’s curls, shushing him. His friend rubs his face in Tenko’s shirt, seeking warmth that isn’t there. 

“I love you,” Izuku gets out between quiet sobs. 

“I love you too, little brother.” Tenko’s eyes burn now and he isn’t sure the salt is to blame. 

They don’t say anything after that. Soon after the water breaks through the door, crashing over their bodies, and filling their lungs with ocean water. 

They die reaching out to each other, their hands never touching.

[ttyls]

good evening, my pals 🧡 i haven't been very active lately bc:

work takes up so much of my day 😭 (why can't the work day be 2 hrs... 🤲🏻)

i've been processing many memories of childhood neglect that i buried, and they're resurfacing mostly bc i live with my parents and they're now retired and are around a lot more

my friend has convinced me to run a marathon with her in 3 months!

work crush likes to be out and about and when she invites me places, i have no choice but to follow her like she's my orpheus 🧍🏻‍♂️ i have never wanted to be someone's wife so badly...

but! like everyone else, time management is something i'm working on and i'm still always writing in my head 🥹🫂 so, i guess all this is to say i'm still around even when i'm not as active :-D

[buuuuggggggggggg]

Abused kid things: closing all the windows so you can hear everything that's happening inside

[turtlethebean]

I know it's been like 2 weeks, but here's the fifth chapter of ANF. Bone apple tea.

A Normal Family - Chapter 5 - Turtle_The_Bean - Criminal Case (Video Game) [Archive of Our Own]

[madeofbees]

Here’s to all the motherless kids

The ones who chose to leave and not come back

The ones who had to excise themselves before the tumor overtook them

Here’s to all the kids who can’t leave yet

The ones who are trapped at home with their demons

The ones who are forced to celebrate those demons

Here’s to all the kids to who are grownups now

The ones sitting on the floor of someone else’s mom’s house

The ones trying not to cry on a joyous day

Here’s to all the kids who aren’t on social media today

To the ones who can’t look at other people’s happy families

To the ones who I really hope will see this tomorrow

Here’s to us. We got this.

[loveyourlovelysoul]

When you had to spend most of your life renouncing, or hearing no's related to anything you wished for, it's hard to start believing things will change and you'll actually receive anything you actually wish for. It's hard to feel like you're deserving. It all just seems impossible, no matter how you try and hope. You just take any (even partially) negative sign in relation to it as a confirmation of your fears. Adding to this, if you've been living with a parental figure giving you mixed signals and often lying to you and judging you, or giving themselves anything but rarely doing the same for you, it may be even tougher to believe that even having the smaller good thing is possible for you.

You even get ready to renounce once more, or to believe it's never gonna happen or that you've been a fool to believe it could be, even for a second, and in order to not feel betrayed and hurt once again you just give up and block yourself (you keep yourself in the known and comfortable zone). You build your own future in a cage, craving for one thing but reminding yourself that for any random reason (probably cause you're not enough or not deserving, probably cause others have been telling you -even unwillingly, even to "protect" you- what you deserve and need all your life), it's not for you.

And at the same time, you see people around you getting what they want and ask yourself what's wrong with you. Darling, there's really nothing wrong with you. But you need to give yourself a chance to try and actually see what it is that you want and need. And if this dream is for you (if you really want it now or it's from a wounded childhood trigger) or not. Work for it, no fear of what it could be in the end (see it this way, you know how to deal with disappointments: at least, you won't have regrets cause you tried your best to get it and you'll know for sure if it's possible or not. And if by any chance you'll feel like it'll be too much to not get it, then ask yourself about the possible childhood wound it reminds you of) and no fear of being judged by others or feeling behind others (there's no such a thing as you're living your own life; and people who use/d to judge you on one thing, probably know/knew unconsciously they are/were lacking it as well: it's easier to judge others instead of looking inside). You're you. And that's amazing. And for this reason, you're deserving to at least try.

[aphrorite]

tw vent regression + abandonment

not striked through for readability

when ur friend always text u on the daily... send u 4 concern messages and then u just get one from ur cg that doesnt even mean anything... n ure just sitting here wondering what did u do.. y did he treat me like dis.. was i a bad kiddo? i dont get it...

and then they take back everything they had with u... actions dont align with their words... they treat other people better but then say that they care about u more... they say ''we're a dream team'' have a shared account and then revoke it randomly.. they give u a gift and then they take it back...?? family subscription on spotify.. why? how can u do dat to me? does that mean im not part of ur family anymore? or did u just.. not pay? i dont see why u wouldnt.. u seem to love treating urself btu when i ask for u to be nice to me or just show u care... theres no input.. i ask u to message first... u dont... why am i in love with the potential of u... it hurt... a lot...

and ur not even going away in one go.. if u went in one go i could just laugh it off.. say im right.. but ure doing it excuriatingly slowly. which makes me believe that its someone else whos telling u.. or maybe u were just.. done enough wit me.. to do all of this..

when u were with other people and they gave u gifts, even when they stopped knowing u.. they never took it back... so why are u doing this to me?

i want to burn all the letters i made for you... the hole in my heart is growing.. that small bare minimum text reliefing my compulsion but the truth still yearning in me... why dont u care?

i wann thro wa tantrum and stomp on ur feet and show u how much u hurt me becaus im really hurt. i cant cry. it wont happen... u give familial love a sour taste like childhood...

ive been holding my breath / ive been counting to ten over something you said / ive been holding back tears while youre throwing back beers / im alone in bed / you know i i'm afraid of change / guess thats why we stay the same / so tell me to leave, ill pack my bags get on the road / find someone that loves you / better than i do... darling i know... / cuz you remind me everyday.. im not enough, but i still stay... / havent got the guts to call him up / walk around as if you never cared in the first place / but if you never call you end up stuck / thought another chance to tell him off right to his face / and even though we barely know each-other it still hurts, watching him fade away...

im accepting that u will never love me the way i want.. u hurt me too much... i dont know when to put my foot down.

[butthead7]

i have to vent about something.

TW. Mentions of childhood n3glect, her0in.

My biological mother growing up had me on the weekends, and I don't remember much about her. But I remember being at most 7 years old and taking my 3-4 year old brother by the hand and walking him over to a neighbor's house to get food because she never woke up to make us any, and there wasn't any in the fridge. My aunt told me that she saw me feed him individually sliced cheese from the fridge, because that's literally all there was. She took us to McDonalds, for two hours, and when we got back, my mom still wasn't up.

My brother is 13, he just had his birthday, and he remembers nothing. I don't care if he remembers that I took care of him, I don't care about that. It's the fact that he doesn't remember it happening at all. He forgets. He asks my stepmother (who i consider my real mom, and she is by law) what he was like as an infant. She lies and entertains this.

That house is burned down now. My biological mom left when I was 7. I haven't seen her or heard from her since, and I don't know if she's dead or alive.

but I feel so alone in this. The house is gone. I remember hardly anything. My brother, born addicted to heroin, can't remember. I remember that at some point she got an air freshener, and I smelled the same one at my grandmother's house recently. I took him right beside it and asked through the tightness of my throat if the smell reminded him of anything. He says it didn't.

I am so utterly alone in this. It's like it never happened, like some bad dream only I had. The house isn't there, but I can't smell cigarettes without remembering pounding on the bathroom door, begging to get in and being greeted with a wall of smoke I could hardly see through. I have to look my father in the eyes and know that I have the eyes of the woman who abused him. I can't drive down a back road or see a willow tree without having a panic attack. I hid them for 7 years, these panic attacks. I only recently got the courage to tell me parents.

My brother is the only one I went through this with, who understands, or would understand, but he was just too young to remember.

[riahlynn101]

Whumptober 2024 - Day One: "Search Party."

Word count: 1,106

Trigger warnings: Implied kidnapping, referenced child death, heavily implied child neglect, feelings of guilt, and talk of depression.

Welcome, everyone, to year 2 of me writing FNAF whump for a month straight! I hope you all enjoy :D!!

Fandom: FNAF movie (pre-canon)

--

Mike wants to cry. He wants to sob into his mom’s shirt, while she holds him. But he’s too old for that, and his parents are needed by the police. 

He wraps his arms around himself, listening as the police talked in hushed whispers to his grieving parents. The small amount of hope they had, had been whittled away by the constant media presence camped outside their home, and the calloused looks of people that ‘would have never let their children get taken.’

It had been like this for weeks, and Mike honestly didn’t know how much more he could endure. He knows he has to be strong, if not for himself, for his parents. His parents are already cracking at the seams. 

His mom either sleeps too much or not at all. Mike sometimes hears her, from his place in his room, screaming Garrett’s name. 

And his dad isn’t much better, though he somehow manages to keep going to work. He argues with his mom a lot, something that Mike wishes he would stop doing (there exists a fear in him that, if his dad keeps pushing, mom will crumble and break). And when he’s not arguing with mom, he’s drinking away their leftover money. Money that could be better used on finding Garrett.

His dad, in a way, seems convinced that Garrett is gone. That it’s a waste of resources trying to find him. 

Mike feels hopeless and more hopeless still when, after the officers stop talking, his mom lets out the most heart-wrenching cry. He hasn’t heard her cry like that, ever. Not when Garrett disappeared. Not when dad screamed at her, begging her to stop looking. And not even when a reporter shoved a microphone in her face and asked if she thought this was her fault. 

It pierces Mike’s soul, like an icepick. He feels it in his chest. 

He places a pillow over his ears, trying and failing to block out the sound. It doesn’t work. His mom’s screams of anguish carry all the way down the hall. 

Mike knows then, without being told, that his little brother is dead. That he’ll never get to play with him again or tell Garrett he loves him. All the maybes are shattered with the force of his mom’s cries. 

Maybe if he hadn’t turned away-

Maybe if his mom hadn’t spilled the pop-

Maybe if his dad looked over his shoulder, just once-

Maybe if Mike had gotten chicken poxs like the rest of his seventh grade class-

And maybe if his dad hadn’t decided to remarry-

There are so many things that had to go right for everything to go so horribly wrong. 

His dad had sunk into a depression after Charlie and momma’s deaths (his first mom, the one that abandoned them. The one that his dad told him to never talk about). And despite what his dad might say now, he had loved momma. Loved her enough for Mike to be shocked when he started dating his mom. 

He had been young at the time, maybe four at the oldest, but he remembered feeling confused and a little angry. It felt like his dad tried to fill the gaping hole in his heart with a new family. A new wife and, later, a new son. 

Mike found he didn’t have any vitriol for his new mom. She didn’t look at him with eyes full of sorrow, or brush him off whenever he needed a hug. She forced them to sit together as a family every night, and helped give life to Mike’s very best friend.

He hugged his pillow, nausea growing with every passing second. He knows that, at some point, his parents will need to talk to him about Garrett. Or maybe they won’t.

Maybe they’ll just forget to tell him, letting Mike stew in a hell of his own making. Reliving the moment he failed Garrett, over and over and over again. 

He cries. 

“Mike,” a familiar voice calls. Instantly, all the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Part of him wants so badly to look up from the pillow he mashed over his face, but the other part of him fears what he may see. 

Tiny footsteps come closer to his bed. They sound so loud, standing out even against his mom’s sobs. “Mike,” Garrett, his supposedly dead little brother, calls again. “Look at me.”

He shook his head. “Nuh, no. You’re not real. Go away.”

Hands, smaller than Mike’s own, grip his bicep. They’re cold, inhumanely so, and when they clamp down, shocking him enough to drop the pillow, he sees the partial decayed body of his brother. 

He’s dressed the same as he had been that day. His skin is tinged gray and his eyes have a film over them. “Mike….”

He screams, thrashing around. 

“Mike?” His brother says, hands wrapping around his wrists. “Mike, wake up.”

“Mike?”

He blinks open his eyes. His room is dark, only lit up by the hall light streaming in through the open door. 

“What’s going on?” He asks, groggy and a little shaken up. His dad stands above him, imposing and unreadable as he’s always been. 

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“Just a nightmare,” Mike says, feeling silly. His heart continues to race, though, unperturbed by stupid things like “reality.” 

“Was it about him?” 

Mike doesn’t need to ask for clarification. They both know who him is. It hurts to talk about him, and it hurts to say his name. So, they don’t. They talk in circles, pretending that he never existed. 

“No,” he lies. “Just a monster.”

His dad hums, not convinced in the slightest. But he does what he always does, and ignores the problem until he can’t anymore. “Okay.” He ruffles Mike’s hair. “Try to get some sleep.”

And despite being fifteen now, a sudden urge to be held and comforted by his one semi-functioning parent courses through him. “Dad?” He calls out. 

His dad pauses in the doorframe. “Yes?”

“Can you ho-”

A high-pitched cry echoes throughout the house, signaling Abby’s wakefulness. It was both a blessing and a curse having a new baby in the house. And one that he’s usually grateful for, but right now he just wants his dad. 

“Duty calls,” his dad jokes, hurrying out of the room. He shuts Mike’s door behind him, leaving the room in pitch-black darkness. 

“Hold me,” he finishes. He turns over, facing the wall. “Goodnight, dad,” he murmurs, already drifting off. 

In the quiet of the room, unheard by the sole occupant, a tiny voice responds, “goodnight, brother.”

[kismetharborconnections]

JOSEPHINE SPRING IS LOOKING FOR HER YOUNGER HALF SIBLING!

triggers: childhood neglect, potential parent death.

ooc: marie

Character: Jo Spring

Type of Connection: Younger half-sibling (can be a brother or non-binary sibling but it’s orginally a sister)

WC Name: Amy (changeable) Spring

Age Range: 21-23 

FC Options: Isabel May, Diana Silvers, Sebastian Croft, Kit Connor, Edvin Ryding, Elsie Fischer, Kizzy Edgell or UTP (as long as it’s believable and that they’re at least half white)

Would you like to be contacted?: yes here!

Trigger Warnings: childhood neglect, potential parent death

Connection Description: born in Kismet Harbor and has never left. Depending of how old she ends up being, Jo was present for the first 3-5 years of her life. She could be born right close to her parents’ wedding or after (or even a bit before if you prefer to have her on the bit older side). About 10 years after Jo left, she called her because DCFS was threatening to take her away. What happens in the meantime is UTP as long as it leads there. I imagined the mother either left or died, but when is UTP. The relationship to the dad is also mostly UTP. When Jo comes back, she takes care of Amy. Amy could be studying still and Jo would help with that, but if she is, she’d have a part time job. Jo and Amy are very close and her sister is super important to Jo. Personality-wise, I imagined her somewhat similar to Jo (stubborn, sarcastic, loyal) but maybe a bit more open, that’s pretty much UTP though.