#tw parental loss

[softhairedhotch]

this one to me feels much more oc-like than a reader-insert (bc of all the details i added) but a few of yous said to keep it as a reader fic so i hope this is okay!! don't hate me if you can't relate to it please n thanks <3 also sorry for the weird formatting of my fics/the random bold or italics or small text idk tumblr hates me and keeps doing it!!! comfortember day five: treehouse (+day eight: grief/mourning) aaron hotchner x gender neutral reader aaron is there for you, just like he always is, after you lose your mother. word count: 2.1k warnings/content: parent loss, death of reader's mother, hurt/comfort, some emotional conversations and sad topics, mentions of crying, pet names, kissing, hugging, established relationship. lyrics that inspired this: "do not enter" is written on the doorway / why can't everyone just go away / except you / you can stay / what do you think of my treehouse? / it's where i sit and talk really loud / usually / i'm all by myself

comfortember masterlist here!

also on ao3!

the treehouse

You step out into the back garden and take a deep breath, closing your eyes as you allow the crisp air to wash over you. Aaron steps out moments after and closes the door quietly before his hand finds your lower back. 

"You okay?" He asks, his voice just above a whisper. It's almost drowned out by the sound of mourning doves overheard.

You shrug, your shoulders feeling as though they’re being weighed down by the heavy armour you’re trying–and failing–to shield yourself with. “I will be.”

“Yeah.” He looks around the garden and lets out a short, flat hum. “But no one is expecting you to be okay, you know that, right? There’s no time limit; you’re allowed to grieve.”

“I know.”

“I know you do, sweetheart. But I just wanted to remind you.” You turn to look at him and, at the sight of his genuine concern, your brave face crumbles. He wraps his arms around you immediately, pulling you close and enveloping you in his warmth. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay, I’ve got you. I’ve got you, yeah?” 

“Yeah,” you whisper as you cling to him, trying your hardest to hold back your tears but failing miserably. “I know.”

“Good.”

“I just don’t know what to do.” 

Aaron presses a kiss to your forehead. “You don’t have to do anything.”

You pull back and look up at him, confused. “Yes, I do. I have to… to get rid of everything and sell the, the house. And do all the paperwork and figure out what to do with her antiques and, and, and–”

“Hey, hey,” he interrupts you gently, pulling you back into a tight hug. “Don’t worry about any of that right now. I’ll do that.”

“What, no–”

“Let’s not talk about this now, okay? We’ll sort it out later or tomorrow. Give yourself some time to think about it.”

“But what do I do in the meantime? I can’t just… sit around.”

He thinks for a moment. “Show me around.”

“What?”

“Show me around the house. Tell me everything you can, anything you can remember, and I’ll listen. I wanna know what life was like for you.”

You almost burst into tears at his words. “Really? You wanna know about my childhood?”

“Sweetheart, I wanna know everything about you.”

***

You take Aaron inside the house, taking him to the living room. The room hasn’t been touched in a few days, save for a few files on the coffee table you checked earlier, and you feel sick at the thought of leaving the house behind once everything’s packed away. Then the thought of having to pack everything away makes you feel even worse and you sway on the spot. Aaron notices you falter and reaches out to squeeze your arm gently, standing beside you patiently. 

“I don’t know what I’m gonna do when all this is gone.”

“It doesn’t have to be gone,” he replies. “You can take it all.”

“And keep it where?”

“In our house, in a storage container… there’s many places.”

You think for a moment, holding back tears, before shaking your head. “No. I need to… to let it go. Not all of it, but I can’t keep everything. She wouldn’t wanna weigh me down with all her stuff.”

“Alright,” Aaron says, squeezing your arm again and leaning to press a soft kiss to your cheek. “Take anything you need. I promise we’ll find a place for it. That sound good?” 

You nod and lean into him for a moment before slowly making your way through the living room, grabbing the objects with the most significance to you and telling Aaron about them before sorting them into a box to take back to the house. You pack a few of your favourite DVDs, ones you’re sure won’t even play anymore with how scratched they’ve become, as you tell Aaron vague memories of watching them as a kid. What happened when you watched them, who you watched them with, how you felt–anything that comes to mind because you know he’s listening.

A few family photos are displayed on the TV stand, as well as a cabinet in the corner, and you relive the memories of when they were taken as you tell him all about them. He asks to look at one closer and you give it to him, watching as he smiles down at a photo of you with your old dog. “You looked happy.”

“I was,” you reply, nodding. “Some of the time, anyway.”

He gives you a small smile and hands you the picture. “I know what you mean.”

You continue to walk him around the house, showing him dents in the wall from where you hurt yourself and little drawings you hid behind drawers and peeling wallpaper. He listens intently, smiling at your happy anecdotes and comforting you when tears well up in your eyes as the worst memories cloud your mind. You show him your childhood bedroom, telling him about friends that used to come over for sleepovers and the first time you kissed someone behind the open door so no one would see. 

“My first kiss was with Haley,” he replies. “In the theatre room at our school.”

“Isn’t that where you first met her?”

“Yeah. I kissed her in the same spot I first saw her.”

“Aw,” you smile as you grab an old diary and throw it into your bag. You’ll read that later when you’re alone so you don’t embarrass or upset yourself anymore in front of Aaron. “You’ve always been a romantic, how cute.”

He blushes and presses a kiss to your cheek as he passes by, making his way to your desk and flicking through a few papers you left there when you were last over. “You think you’d want these?”

“Probably not, doubt they’re important.”

Aaron nods and begins to open the drawers, pulling out miscellaneous items and silently dividing them into piles of things you might want to keep and things you’d throw away. You watch him with a sombre smile, feeling your chest ache at the realisation that he knows you so well and that his love for you is endless. When he catches you watching him, he pauses and raises an eyebrow. “You okay?”

“I love you, you know that, right?” 

“Of course I do,” he replies, closing the drawer and walking back over to you, wrapping his arms around your waist to tug you close. “I love you, too. More than you’ll ever know.”

“Hm, I don’t know. I think I have a pretty good idea.”

“I don’t want to doubt you, sweetheart, but I really don’t think you do.” He presses a sweet kiss to your lips, channelling all his love into it. “I can’t even begin to express how much I love you. I just… do.”

You press another kiss to his lips to hide the tears welling up in your eyes. The love you feel for him is so strong it feels like you might burst. He kisses back, letting you take the lead. Pulling back, you look deep into his eyes and smile the first genuine smile you’ve been able to manage since you first heard the news. “I love you more.”

Aaron chuckles. “Sure you do.” He presses a chaste kiss to your lips with a hum. “Ready to carry on?” 

“Yeah,” you mutter, going to pull away before a thought strikes you and you let out a sharp breath. Aaron pulls you back into his arms immediately, looking down at you in concern but keeping silent to give you a moment to think. “Sorry, I just… realised that that was gonna be my last kiss in this room.”

“Is that a good thing? Or bad?”

“I don’t know,” you reply honestly, feeling out of it. “I don’t like the thought of everything we do in this moment being the last of anything, but… the fact that it’s you that I’m doing all this with… yeah, I think that’s a good thing.”

He smiles sweetly at you, love shining so clearly in his eyes, and presses a kiss to your forehead. “Then let's stay here for a little longer.”

“We should get it over with, I don’t wanna waste all your free time off work. You deserve to get some time to yourself.”

“Oh, honey,” he sighs, wrapping his arms around your shoulders and resting his head against yours. “This isn’t a waste of my time. Trust me. I want to be here, with you, for you, and that’s all that matters. Don’t think like that, okay? I’m here because I want to be, not because I feel like I have to. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah,” you whisper. “It does.”

***

“I guess that leaves the treehouse,” you shrug, feeling drained as you step back outside with Aaron following you. You stare up at the treehouse, wondering if it's necessary to go up there. “You don’t have to come up. It’s pretty small.”

“I’ll go wherever you go.”

“You’re so cheesy,” you say with a small smile, even when his words mean the world to you.

He smiles at you. “You love it.”

“I really do.” Making your way to the treehouse, you glance at Aaron and allow a small smirk to dance over your lips. “Don’t stare at my ass as I go up.”

Aaron laughs. “No promises.” 

You roll your eyes and begin climbing, risking a glance back to find Aaron’s eyes firmly on the ground and being as respectful as ever. It makes your heart skip a beat. Reaching the top of the ladder, you look at the treehouse's entrance and cringe at the big ‘DO NOT ENTER’ sign hanging beside the doorway. It was a sign you carved yourself when you were younger. When you look inside the treehouse, your heart aches as memories flood through you. It takes you a few seconds to force yourself inside but once you clamber in, you call down to Aaron to let him know he can join you.

The sound of him climbing up surrounds you as you push yourself into your favourite corner, one filled with soft padding and blankets. A few of your favourite books are scattered across the floor and pictures of you and your childhood friends cover the walls. The nostalgia hits you hard and you bite your lip to stifle a sob. 

Aaron joins you, crawling inside and looking around with interest. As he gets comfortable in the small space, his long legs curling against himself to fit, you realise it’s the first time anyone’s ever been in the treehouse with you. Or at all. 

He remains silent, waiting for you to be the first to talk. You appreciate that. 

“I used to come up here a lot,” you say after a few minutes. “To read, to think, to talk to myself out loud… everything.”

“And did it help?”

“Yeah,” you nod, reaching over to grab one of the books beside you. It’s one you’re sure you’ve read a million times over, the pages worn and yellowing and a small layer of dust covering the outside. “It was nice. Peaceful. Somewhere I was never bothered.”

“I had a place like that,” Aaron muses, smiling at you. “Not as personal as this, though. It was a bench a few blocks from where I grew up, hidden by a few overgrown trees. I liked it.”

“Did you go there a lot?”

“Whenever I could. Couldn’t go much in the winter because of the cold, though.”

You huffed out a laugh. “Same here. Still came here even if I meant I almost froze to death.”

His smile becomes sad but there's clear understanding in his expression. “Yeah.”

The two of you sit inside the treehouse for almost an hour, talking about whatever comes to mind. Aaron listens intently to every word you say, his comforting hand drawing patterns over your thigh and eventually over your side when you move to curl up against him. You feel yourself drifting off at one point when the exhaustion settles deep in your bones, feeling so safe and warm and loved and comforted beside him, but you force awake to finish back up in the house. 

Aaron follows you inside, as he always has and always will, and comforts you through everything that comes after that. He helps you pack up the house, assuring you over and over that you can take however many boxes you want back to the house you share with him. He sits with you for days after, mostly in silence when the grief catches up to you and you can hardly think, never once looking as if he’d rather be elsewhere. He holds your hand throughout the funeral, never once leaving your side or once letting you think for a moment that you’re ever alone. And even after it’s been weeks, months, years, since that moment, he’s there for you whenever you need a shoulder to cry on. Just like he always has been. 

[thequeenofsastiel]

Sometimes grief hits you out of nowhere. I'm headed to school, and was contemplating the fact that the branch farther away from me is actually faster to get to than the one closer to me because my bus system is weird, and thinking that it's a good thing because it means I'll get to be downtown, close to a lot of places I like being but rarely go to because it's such a hassle. But then I was trying to think about the good things about going to the school closer to me, and I thought that at least going there would make it easier for me to get to my dad's. And then I remembered.

The last time I went to school, my dad was alive. And he really really wanted me to go to college because he wanted me to be able to find a job and be financially stable. But because of my various mental illnesses, that's always been extremely hard for me. He'd be so happy to know that I'm going back to school.

The grief is rolling through me like waves and I wish it wasn't because I have to be able to focus. He'd want me to.

Fuck.

[childlikegoblinqueen]

My question wasn't meant to be rude, sorry! I'm a fic writer too, I was wondering if you ever had second thoughts or something. Like, why do this when you could write your own stories? Or write nothing at all?

Oh jeez!!!! Now I feel bad if I came off as salty!

Haha.

This is a great question! Honestly, there’s a bunch of reasons.

First, I’ve never been particularly comfortable with my OCs. I love how many people are passionate about theirs and build whole facets of story into them. My job requires me to read ALL THE TIME and I am forever in awe of how writers can make characters that I genuinely care about… but I just always feel like my own ended up hollow.

Second, I had terrible insomnia after losing my parents the way I did. My therapist actually suggested that I try fan fiction and it just opened up a creative space I forgot I had.

I often think about how Dave Filoni was literally hired to “write Star Wars Fan Fiction” for Clone Wars and his OC(s) like Ahsoka Tano are now beloved in the fandom.

I guess there’s a part of me that finds relief in playing in a sandbox that has some sort of design. It’s a way to hone storytelling skills and plotting, but has scaffolding.

And the scaffolding is kind of a good place to start, even though I have no intention of writing anything to monetize it. But my brain wants to tell stories! I think a lot of us in fandom spaces feel that way? Or just in general. Maybe not?

Alex Hirsch said something at the Requiem Cafe panel about being a kid and imagining all fictional characters living in a dimension… maybe that’s a misquote, but I get the general idea because it’s not an uncommon thought. I can get REALLY deep into the weeds here, but I’ll leave it there.

In general I can say in good authority that MANY current best selling authors cut their teeth writing fan fiction. Some adapted their works into original pieces, others used their experience to sharpen their wholly original stories.

One can also consider various plays from Shakespeare, mythology, and Dante’s Inferno as fan fiction…

So

Why not write it? Especially if it makes you happy.

Thanks for the ask!

[trkstrnd]

te quiero siempre, papa.

[aiden-stevens]

🍻 + “ have you ever considered running away ?” (nora)

They're where they're not supposed to be, which is typically on brand for the pair. Shit, if Aiden and Nora ever kept themselves in line with their noses clean, the Hell is probably freezing over. It's one of the many things he can appreciate about her. Kicking it back at the junkyard after volatile destruction has been had, or climbing the fire escapes of the downtown buildings to camp out on the rooftops.

His legs dangle over the edge and sway slightly to and fro, and the bottle of whiskey between them doesn’t go untouched. Aiden’s hand is on the neck, and he swallows a mouthful.

It burns the back of his throat all the way down where it warmly settles in his stomach, but it’s not an unfamiliar feeling. He takes another swig, half the size of the first, and puts the bottle back between them. “Who hasn't?” He shrugs, meeting her eyes with a knowing look.

And okay, New York wasn't her running away, but it was an escape from Aurora Bay.

"Small towns suck balls, it's boring and there's too many shiny too-nice sweethearts too worried about their image in this town who think they piss perfume and shit roses." But it's not the residents that get on his nerves.

Okay, they do, but the real reason for considering it is, "My mom's never home. She leaves me money, she hired Cricket to cook meals for me - which, cool, fine, I got a real good friend out of that-" he pauses, and in his drunken thought process, pulls out his phone to text Cricket:

[ are you friends with me bc my mom paid you to be? ]

"But she doesn't care what I'm up to. Or about me. My house always feels empty. And dad's dead, so unless I want to camp in the cemetery..." He wraps his fingers around the neck of the bottle to take another swig, one almost too big so he has to wipe his mouth with the back of his free hand.

"But I can't leave. I got Cricket and she's giving me a purpose, and Nikki's grown on me so much, I don't know how she did it, and Mack? He's practically family, and not because he thinks my mom is hot and calls me 'son'." Mack is what Aiden thinks having a brother is like.

"And I got you."

Aiden passes the bottle to Nora.

"My ride or die. I took one, so now you."

@noralevin @cricketcampbell @mackmontgomery @ambivalenceshefelt

[keremms]

Who: @victoriaxsanchez Where: Their apartment

Kerem hated this time of year, there had been so many years with his mother in his life and he had so many of his formative years being a mama’s boy and it got harder every year at christmas. Kerem couldn’t tell a lie, he really did hope that Tori had more to do today than usual, but the creeping darkness snuck up on him when he least expected it at this time of year. 

He knew his mother was his guardian angel, and of that he had no doubt however that didn’t stop the creeping pain that crawled into his chest right around now. Currently, though, he had heavy tears dripping from his cheeks and falling on the framed picture of his mother he kept beside his bed. Then he heard her, and a small part of him wanted to keep pretending so he wiped the heavy tears from his cheeks and tried his best to cover what was happening. “Hey!” He called out, but his voice wobbled, and he very quickly shut up.

[chloroformcurry]

More of Dulce

(I drew this on new years… what’s been up with me lately)

[dogbound1128]

ponk

[this has been ✨️ROTTING✨️ in my drafts]

(funni audio underneath)

[prenzea]

mild TW parental loss

"We'll have so many stories to tell whenever they come back, any minute now"

It hurts so bad because that's the exact way I felt about my dad when he was in the hospital, "Oh, whenever he gets home we'll have so many shows to watch, and this to do together" and then. he never came home

and it feels like qBBH knows that the eggs might not come back but he's back in the denial phase because of the signs

[artificialqueens]

🏳️‍🌈 The Miracle of Living Pt.2 - Lita

In this world we're just beginning

To understand the miracle of living

Lmao I had you in the first half, this is not just a cutesy slice of life family AU and actually gets fucking awful and tragic from here on out, you have been warned. This was originally meant to be a single story but I decided to chunk it into two halves just so it's not unreadably long, which means ALL the suffering gets to be consigned into whatever this is. Anyway, see other part for author notes and shit, apologies in advance xo

Summary: Adore is an adult now, and life is simpler for Bianca. Until an unexpected tragedy shatters her world, and her relationship with her daughter. 

TW: Major character deaths, parental loss, accidental overdose, suicidal thoughts

[1] NEW MESSAGE Ben Putnam ✨🏳️‍🌈 12/9/46 19:08  jinkx is about to call you freaking tf out - don’t listen to them, im basically fine. got into an accident driving home, i look kinda banged up and i think my shoulders dislocated but nothing serious. pls call adore and tell her - if she says shes gonna ditch her concert or anything like that dont let her, she doesnt need to worry. if ur not busy and feel like coming to see me id like that (and i think jinkx could use some moral support lol, theyre taking this harder than i am) but don’t let j convince u that im on my deathbed. love ya, bitch! b xoxo

*****

November 12th, 2046

“Bea…”

Jinkx stands up as Bianca enters the waiting room. Their voice is cloying - too sickly. Too sympathetic.  

Of all of Ben’s various partners since the divorce, Jinkx was definitely Bianca’s favorite. Bianca had been Ben’s maid of honor (or ‘cunt of dishonor’ as he’d affectionately christened her) at their wedding last spring. Jinkx is kind, sensitive - their eccentricities line up perfectly with Ben’s, they’re a good step-parent to Adore, as resistant as she’d been to having a step-parent. However, Jinkx under pressure is prone to amateur dramatics - Ben’s text prediction regarding the nature of their impending phone call had been totally spot-on. 

So Bianca is surprised to see that they look drained - not sad. Not scared. Just tired - their shock of red hair disheveled, eyes puffy and face moist with half-dried tears. Bianca grips the strap of her purse a little tighter. She hadn’t expected this. They had been all catastrophe and hysterics on the phone - sobbing like their life depended on it. Why are they so calm? 

Per Ben’s instructions, Bianca hadn’t dropped everything to go to him. She’d been working late, supervising a bunch of bored, annoyed teenagers doing stocktake - she hadn’t exactly bided her time, heading straight for the hospital as soon as she’d clocked out, but she also hadn’t exactly rushed. 

Two lanes of the freeway were closed because of a car wreck. She figured it wouldn’t be the same one - it couldn’t have been that bad if Ben was awake, coherent, and texting her. As the backed-up traffic crawled past the remains of the scene at five miles an hour, she’d tried not to look. She knew she shouldn’t have looked. But she looked anyway - she’d caught sight of the remnants of Ben’s car at the front of a pile-up, crushed from behind by a smoldering pickup truck, and felt the sting of vomit rising up at the back of her throat. The driver’s side door looked intact. That was something. Ben was fine. Ben had told her himself that he was fine. So Ben was fucking fine. 

On the drive to the ER, Bianca called Adore - anxiety twisting below her ribcage, visions of shattering glass and crumpling metal scorching into her eyelids every time she blinked, desperate for a distraction. The phone had been picked up by her weirdo manager, Winona or Wilma or whatever her name was, who’d decided that a call from her mom, regardless of the matter at hand, wasn’t important enough to bother Adore with before a gig, and had hung up. 

And now she’s been taken into a side room that feels like a fucking morgue, and Jinkx is acting so calm and kind that it’s nauseating. This feels weird. There’s a bible on the table in the middle of the room. What the fuck is happening? 

Jinkx reaches out, and pulls Bianca into an oppressively tight hug. Bianca squirms, determined to extricate herself from the stifling embrace and start asking questions. She’s never known Jinkx to act anything but weird, but this was bizarre even by their standards. When they break away, Jinkx takes Bianca’s hand. It sets her teeth on edge. 

“Jinkx, what’s going on?” Bianca’s voice comes out sterner than she would have liked. 

“Did you call Adore?”

What kind of fucking response is that?

“I tried. Her manager picked up - she’s at a gig, I’ll talk to her tomorrow.” 

“I really think you should try and talk to her now.” 

Bianca really doesn’t like Jinkx’s tone. She also doesn’t know what to do with herself. She figured she was here as emotional support for Jinkx, who seems fine if a bit off-kilter and cryptic - or as a proxy for Adore, who was performing and/or wasted in Austin, enjoying the sudden and somewhat random success of her previously struggling music career. 

“Jinkx, where’s Ben? What happened?”

Jinkx grimaces. They try to convince her to sit down - urging her towards a ugly upholstered chair with their lips pursed. Bianca doesn’t move. 

“Jinkx.” Bianca repeats herself more insistently, folding her arms. Jinkx sits down, clenching their jaw and breathing shakily. “Where the fuck is Ben? I need to see him." 

“…he died, Bea.”

Bianca’s blood turns to ice in her veins. She takes a sharp breath in. 

“What do you mean he died?” Bianca’s voice is thin. Jinkx doesn’t say anything. “He texted me - he was fine like, an hour ago.” Jinkx stays silent. Bianca feels like she’s going to throw up. Why won’t they say anything?  “He’s- Jinkx, what do you mean he fucking died?”

“They thought he was fine,” Jinkx sniffs. “There were other people from the wreck who were hurt worse than he was - he kept saying he was okay so the doctors would focus on them, and then he coded out of nowhere. I think they said he was bleeding in his abdomen or something - nobody realized until it was too late. He was sitting up and talking to me, then he…” Jinkx stops, swallowing hard. Their eyes have welled up. 

“Why didn’t you call me? I would have tried to get here faster.” Bianca’s knees are shaking. She can’t move - can’t admit to the failure of her emotions. Frightening and all-consuming as they are. She’s still wearing her work lanyard, and it feels utterly stupid. Why hadn’t she just fucking left? Why had locking up a goddamn store she could burn to the ground without losing sleep been more important than this? Than Ben? 

“I didn’t know how to.” Jinkx won't make eye contact with her. “I couldn’t tell you over the phone - it didn’t feel right.” 

Bianca sits down before she collapses. Her hands are shaking. Her throat hurts like she needs to cry, but there are no tears. She isn’t crying, and she won’t - not until it’s essential. 

“But you were- you shouldn’t have waited all this time on your own. I would have been here sooner.” Bianca is barely able to talk. “I’m sorry.”

She doesn’t even know what she’s talking for - trying to fill the awful, empty air with some sort of noise, even if it is wilted platitudes. She’s horribly aware of her own breathing; how hard it is, how much effort it’s taking, how it feels like she’s choking. It’s like she’s drowning in the air and the silence - like a goldfish dropped out of the bowl. 

Jinkx puts an arm around her shoulders. There are tears rolling down their cheeks. 

“I really think you should call Adore again.” 

Adore. Adore didn’t get to say goodbye - Adore didn’t fucking know. That was her fucking dad, and she loved him, and she’d never-

Bianca stops. Something in her brain ticks. A somber conversation at the kitchen table. 

“His, uh- his advanced directive. San Juni-whatever -  Cookie heaven-“ Bianca blurts out, ejecting the words as soon as they appear in her head. The comfort feels cold, but it’s comfort nevertheless. 

She looks at Jinkx. Their face has crumpled. They’re shaking their head. No. 

“They tried - it all happened too quickly, it didn’t work. He was gone before they could…” Jinkx bites their lip. “I’m sorry - I know how much it means- meant to him, I know he wanted…”  

Bianca shakes her head, trying to get Jinkx to stop talking. It isn’t fair - they’ve just lost their husband, and yet it’s them trying to comfort her?  

“It’s okay.” 

It’s not. But Jinkx rests their head on Bianca’s shoulder anyway, and Bianca takes their hand, even though she feels like she’s only making everything worse. What warmth is she capable of? Her presence isn’t doing anything besides forcing Jinkx to stir up their own raw emotions, and reminding them both of the cavernous space between them that Ben’s daughter should be filling. 

Bianca fumbles her phone out of her purse with her shaking hands as Jinkx cries a wet patch into her collar. She needs to call Adore.  

*****

November 24th, 2046

The silence in the kitchen is uncomfortable. Neither Adore nor Bianca knows how to fill it. Ben’s funeral was yesterday morning. Bianca doesn’t know if Adore is okay, but she doesn’t know what to say to her either. She hasn’t seen her cry yet. 

She’s exhausted. The last couple of weeks have been a terrible, sleepless headfuck. All of the funeral planning and formality had fallen into Bianca’s lap - Jinkx had been too distraught to try and think about it, and she couldn’t ask Adore. It was the only real help she’d been able to offer; if there’s one thing that Bianca knows for a fucking fact, it’s that she’s awful at providing comfort. But as usual, she’d taken too much on, and she hadn’t had time to process what had happened - time to grieve, or even just to fucking take a breath and figure out where her own head was at. 

Bianca feels hollow. And Adore won’t speak to her. She’s sitting at the dinner table, with her bright blue hair piled on top of her head in a sloppy ponytail, wearing some tattered band shirt that doesn’t really fit her, and she seems…fine. She’s been home since Ben died, but they’ve been floating around the empty house on two completely different planets; barely making eye contact with each other, let alone talking. There’s a mug of coffee turning cold in Bianca’s hand, and her daughter won’t meet her gaze. 

Adore fidgets with the hair-tie around her wrist. She looks nervous. 

“Listen, Mom-”

“Are you okay?” Bianca blurts out, and then cringes - Adore looks at her with frustration in her glazed-over eyes. 

“I need to tell you something.”

“What’s up?” Bianca tries to inject some warmth into her voice. 

“I know I said I’d stay for a little longer, but I’m…”

Oh god. Bianca already doesn’t like where this is going. She clenches her teeth, trying to contain the stupid, defeated little whimper she can feel rising into the back of her throat.

“I got a call from my manager this morning. My new single drops in a week, and there’s- this big-deal band wants me to open for them on their tour. It’s two months on the road, and I know that I shouldn’t- I mean, it’s a huge opportunity, and the money is really fucking good, and I’m…” Adore’s words are stilted and awkward. 

Bianca takes a second to compose herself. 

“When would you be leaving?” Bianca eventually says. It’s the most neutral question she can think of, and her words come out flat and unbothered. She can’t say what she really wants to - can’t beg her to stay, can’t argue back. Can’t take this from her. 

“Day after tomorrow,” Adore says to the floor, still wringing her hands awkwardly. 

“And why do you sound like you’re asking for permission to go?" 

“Because- I don’t know.” Adore says, equally lacking in emotion. It’s felt for the last couple of weeks like she and Bianca have just been going through the motions of their relationship without any feeling. “I mean- fuck, you’re my mom. And everything is just- I can’t leave you right now. If you said no, then I can’t...” 

“Why do I have to say no?” Bianca tilts her head. Her neck is stiff from the sleepless nights. 

“Because I don’t want to.”

That answer frustrates Bianca, and she can tell from Adore’s body language that she knows it. Adore picks at a loose thread on her shirt - she’s never been able to sit still. Bianca pinches the bridge of her nose.

“I’m not gonna be the bad guy, Dorey - even if you want me to. We’re talking about your career here - not doing it would be fucking stupid,” Bianca says, toneless and insincere again. She pauses. “Do they know that your dad just died?” 

“…No,” Adore grimaces. The first small twinge of emotion flashes across her face for a second, and then it’s gone. “They might give it to someone else. They’ll think I’m gonna be unstable or unreliable or something.”  

“Are you?”

“Maybe,” Adore purses her lips. “It’s kinda still not real. Maybe it’ll stay like that if I’m distracted.”

“And maybe it’ll get real when you’re on the road - you need to think about yourself.”

Adore murmurs something unintelligible by way of response, shakily trying to affirm that she can do it. Bianca stares into her coffee cup. They seem to have reached some level of nonverbal understanding that they’re not gonna talk about this any more. Adore is leaving tomorrow, and Bianca better make peace with that. 

“You’re not mad about me leaving you by yourself, are you?” Adore’s meek voice cuts through the icy reticence. 

“What? No - I’m a big girl, I’ll survive,” Bianca shrugs her shoulders. Why does Adore default to the assumption that she’s always mad? Why does she have to be the villain all the goddamn time? Can’t she just be upset? 

“But like…do you have friends?" 

“Yes, I have fucking friends, Adore.”

And then she thinks about it. Her family doesn’t give a shit, and Raja had broken things off with her a couple of weeks before Ben dropped dead out of fucking nowhere - and yeah, maybe she’s close enough with a couple of people from work that she’d be able to talk to them, but the thought makes her squirm.

She’d not so much asked Adore to stick around for a couple of weeks after the funeral as she had begged her to. The loneliness is choking her, and her daughter is the only person she can face - because they never really talked about their feelings, and even this wasn’t enough to make them start. She just needed someone to be quietly sad alongside. The more that she thinks about it, the more she realizes that the only person she wants to talk to about the pain inflicted by Ben’s death is Ben himself. 

Which she should be able to do. She’s grown more attached to the San Junipero concept than she ever wanted to be. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she’d gotten comfortable with the two of them never having to live without each other. Except that didn't work, and now he’s gone. Forever. 

Bianca had friends. A friend. She’d never needed anyone else, and so she’d never bothered trying to find them. She hadn’t planned for an eventuality in which he’d be dead by forty-six. 

Bianca is crying. Horrible, huge, ugly floods of tears. Adore looks nervous - like she doesn’t know what to do with herself. This isn’t fair. She can’t make Adore deal with her like this. But she can’t stop. Twelve days of awful emotional blockage are clearing themselves all at once, and Bianca’s face is soaking wet and there’s snot running down her chin, and she feels about as disgusting as she probably looks. Adore’s chair scrapes the tiled floor, and she’s standing behind Bianca - wrapping her arms around her, resting her sharp chin on Bianca’s shoulder. 

Adore’s body is starting to heave against hers, and as Bianca tries to blink through some of the blur to her vision and catch her trembling breath, she realizes Adore is crying too. Is this progress? 

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to, baby.” Bianca takes one of Adore’s hands in hers, running a thumb across her tattooed knuckles. “It’s okay - it’s okay to be sad.”

“I’m not sad.” Adore’s voice is thin. “And I have to go. I don’t want to be here. I can’t be here without him.”

Adore mutters the admission like it’s blasphemy, and Bianca doesn’t like it, but she knows. Ben’s ghost lingers in every brick and board and fiber of this house. It hurts - that she isn’t capable of being what Adore needs right now. But she understands. 

*****

June 7th, 2047

“Don’t fucking put that on me - don’t screw up my childhood and then keep making me miserable as a fucking adult, it’s not fair-" 

“Ob, cry me a fucking river - you had a great childhood!”

“Did I? Getting dragged up by some fucking idiot who didn’t know what she was doing-" 

“I was a fucking kid, Adore - I was trying my fucking best-” 

It’s dark outside. Bianca feels like shit. She wishes Adore hadn’t left. 

She hasn’t been able to sleep without sedatives since Ben died, and she hates it. She also doesn’t know why - she wasn’t there. It didn’t happen to her. It’s not her tragedy. She fishes the blister pack of xanax out of her purse and swallows one with the tail end of her glass of wine. Sleep. She needs sleep. She needs this shitty, awful, horrible day to be over. Maybe when she wakes up, Adore will be over her tantrum. 

She drops the pills on the kitchen counter. The last dregs of the wine are eyeing her up through the bottle. Bianca hesitates for a moment, refills her glass, and swiftly empties it down her throat. 

She walks through the empty living room, put off by the silence. It’s too quiet in this house. She wishes she hadn’t kept it. Ben deserved it more - he had a partner, and a good life, and hope for the future. Not the pathetic remains of half a dozen short-lived, shitty relationships, and a dead-end job. Adore loved him - she clearly can’t fucking stand Bianca. There would still be life in these walls if he’d taken it, and Bianca had hiked all her stupid clothes and coffee table books and vanity and venom to a crappy bachelor apartment.

It was Ben’s fucking house - it was his career that had paid for it. Bianca felt sick enough with guilt and frustration that he’d insisted she stayed and he left, and then kept ‘forgetting’ to cancel the mortgage auto-payments when he was still alive - just like he kept ‘forgetting’ to stop making her car payments, or kept sending her cheques from some ‘investment account’ they’d apparently set up years ago that she had no memory of. She’d stolen a better quality of life than she was owed from a guy that she was tethered to based on one night of bad decisions when they were in their twenties. It would have been easier on her conscience if Ben had resented her for it. But he didn’t. He’d looked out for her and loved her right up until the ugly end and she didn’t deserve any of it. 

If Ben had stayed here, he would have had to drive a different route to work. That’s why they bought the house - it was close to his job. Maybe he’d still be alive. Maybe it would have been her that died after a rush hour car wreck, of an internal hemorrhage that every medical professional in the vicinity was too busy and too stupid to notice. Maybe things would be better that way. 

The house is too quiet, and there’s too much space - Bianca traipses up the stairs, her fingers brushing over the lingering texture of Adore’s childhood crayon-on-wall scribbles, long since painted over. 

The wine is making her feel worse. She’s angry - hurt, frustrated, upset. But not with Adore. With herself for making her this way. 

Ben was warm, Ben was supportive. Ben could never see a single fault in her - not like Bianca. Bianca was the Bad Cop; the enforcer, the prison warden. Bianca nagged Adore about her homework and her curfew and her room being a mess - Bianca questioned her judgment, Bianca shat on her fashion choices. Bianca tried her best to make sure the kid didn’t turn out like she had. And she’d done it - Adore was successful, she was living a life she could look back on and be proud of. So, no fucking wonder Adore’s ideal future was one that didn’t have Bianca in it.  

“Bull-fucking-shit. You weren’t a kid, you were in your twenties-“ 

“I was two years younger than you are, you think you’d be great at raising a child now? Forget about finding out you’re pregnant when you were twenty-one and having to give up everything you’ve ever wanted in life for-“

“Nobody asked you to do that.”  

“No, they didn’t - but I had to do what was fucking best for you. Fuck my dreams, fuck what I wanted. You think anybody is working in a goddamn Urban Outfitters age forty-fucking-seven because they want to be?”

“I’ve been out of your house for five years, you’ve had time. Go live your dreams, since I’m not a fucking burden on you any more-“

“You’re not fucking getting it - the ‘living my dreams’ ship has sailed, since I had to drop out of fucking college for you. I had to put my life on hold indefinitely for you, and so did your father, so stop being such an ungrateful little shit-“

Bianca keeps replaying the fight in her head. Tonight had started well. Adore was back in town between tour dates and album sessions - not for Bianca. To see friends, and to meet with some record execs that Bianca was too uncool to know the names of. But when Bianca had asked if she had a free night, Adore had humored her. They’d ordered pizza, bought a couple bottles of wine, and for a moment, things felt the way they used to. Bianca was happy, for a fleeting second. 

Adore had been her best friend until she was thirteen. Then some awful melting pot of Adore’s pubescent bitch tendencies and Bianca’s stubbornness and short fuse had kicked off a bizarre ongoing war between the two of them that only seemed to mellow out once Adore left home and they weren’t constantly in each other’s way. It was normal teenager shit - Bianca remembered things being the same way between herself and her mother when she was in junior high. Her mother that she doesn’t fucking speak to any more. 

Bianca loves Adore so much that it’s physically painful, and she felt like a monster the entire time they were at odds. But she didn’t know how to stop it - she didn’t know how to be whatever Adore seemed to need from her. 

Not that there hadn’t been good moments. Adore’s first concert. The family vacation to Cancun. The weekend shopping sprees. Every so often, Bianca caught a glimpse of the fully-formed human being that Adore was starting to become, and she…well, adored her. But sooner or later, the shit would start again; Bianca could feel herself failing her daughter in real time. 

Just like when Adore was a teenager, things had fallen apart tonight just as Bianca was starting to enjoy the good.  

It was her fault. Like usual. Bianca had too much to drink too quickly, and she got emotional. She’d phrased some stuff poorly. She’d upset Adore. It was always her fault - it was always her that made the first wrong step. Adore just reacted to her shitty parenting.  

She’d made an off-handed comment about Adore ‘abandoning’ her. Which, in her crappier moments, she often felt but resolved never to say to her. Adore was an adult with her own life and her own burgeoning fame to deal with, and she’d lost her dad less than a year ago. Bianca’s feelings didn’t matter; she should be seeking her emotional support from someone her own age. So fucking what if Adore had better things to deal with than her mom’s grief and loneliness? 

But she’d said it anyway, and then she’d doubled down. Just like she always did. Adore started crying. Bianca got frustrated. God, she misses Ben. He wouldn’t have let this happen. 

“Leave Daddy the fuck out of this, he’s the only person I never doubted cared about me and I-" 

“Yeah, he did. He really, really fucking cared about you - enough to spend nearly his entire adult life closeted because he wanted to give you some semblance of a normal childhood, enough that the night he fucking died he didn’t want me to call you because he didn’t want to worry you-“

“That’s not a good thing! I wish I’d been there! I wish I knew, instead of coming offstage to find out that my dad had fucking died and my stupid, selfish, uptight bitch of a mother didn’t think it was worth her time to tell me that he was in that accident-“ 

“I told Willam - she said it wasn’t important enough to get you on the goddamn phone! Blame her!”

“You should have tried harder!”

“I didn’t think I had to. Your dad didn’t know how bad it was, he didn’t know what was going to happen - none of us knew, obviously if we did I would have put you on a flight as soon as I-“

Bianca has been trying to write that stupid fucking San Junipero bullshit out of her will for months now. If Ben wanted it and didn’t get it, she’s sure as shit not doing it now. However, the process is a fucking nightmare - eight hundred stupid phone calls to eight hundred useless morons who need to refer her to the next person, to try and sell her on an upgrade or ask her if this is because she wants the payout for the unused credit on her plan. It’s demoralizing and exhausting - the evil spiritual stepsister of canceling fucking cable, but a hundred times harder and with constant reminders of her fucking dead ex-husband and the last request he never got. 

Everything is depressing and shit, and she’s tired. She wants it to end - she wants to return to a normal that she can never get back. 

Bianca lingers at the open door of Adore’s teenage bedroom. It’s a shitshow. She hadn’t tidied up after herself when she left after Ben’s funeral - if anything she’d made more mess, rummaging around in her things and packing and unpacking for that fucking tour she had to go on. Which had done good things for her. In the last six months, her opening spots had turned into festival headliners and talk show appearances; she had an album in the works, and was watching her teenage dream blossom in real time to heights she’d never imagined it would reach. Bianca is glad that she went. Even if she hates her for it a little bit.

Bianca doesn’t want to touch anything. She treads carefully across the messy floor, trying not to disrupt anything; trying to preserve her daughter’s chaos, learn to live in it and love it as she did. Adore’s bed is unmade. The sheets smell like her. 

There’s a framed picture by her bed - a print of a blurry selfie taken at Ben’s niece’s bat mitzvah. She remembers that night. Adore had just turned twenty-one and her hair was purple. They’d gotten irresponsibly drunk on kosher wine, and Adore had climbed into Bianca’s lap to take the picture, pressing her gloss-sticky lips to Bianca’s cheek and telling her she loved her. They’re both smiling like maniacs. 

Adore had just turned twenty-one. That picture hadn’t been there when Adore last occupied that room - she’d moved into her college dorm a few days before her nineteenth birthday. She’d brought that here. And left it here. Bianca feels queasy. She picks it up gently, like it’s a precious artifact. The frame is bright red hard plastic, shaped like a heart - painted on one side, in Adore’s endearingly shitty handwriting: LOVE YOU MOMMY XO

Bianca’s eyes well up. It was a fucking gift that Adore never gave to her. Probably because she’d ruined Adore’s last visit home. Just like she ruined tonight. Just like she ruined her. Bianca drops the frame like it burns to touch, and she hears the glass shatter against the hardwood floor.  

She closes the door as she leaves, hearing it slam and her own breath becoming frantic. She feels that familiar ache, a sob building up in the depths of her chest.  

She’s pressed against Adore’s wall and staring directly into Ben’s old room. She’d transformed it into a pitiful sewing workspace that she’d barely used when he moved out - a weird attempt to kick some sense of purpose back into her life when Adore had flown the nest and Ben was out living his own life, picking up an old hobby that had dominated her teens and fuelled her plans for the future. Plans that had died a death in the bathroom of her old apartment downtown. The mannequin torso sits gathering dust, half-finished sketches litter the table. A waste - like everything else. 

She can’t do this. She doesn’t want to be here. She wants Adore back. Wants to hold her in her arms, breathe in her scent and her warmth, and tell her she forgives her for every horrible thing that had come out of her mouth tonight. 

No, she wants to tell her that she’s sorry. For everything. 

Sleep. She needs to sleep. 

“You just don’t want to admit that you screwed me out of a chance to say goodbye! You feel like I’ve abandoned you? Fuck you! You didn’t love him!” 

“I did-" 

“He was your friend - he was my fucking dad. Don’t try and pretend that what you’re feeling right now is anything like what I’m feeling, because it’s not.”

“It doesn’t have to be - Dorey, we can deal with this together. I want to be there for you. I want to help you. And I miss you, is that such a fucking crime?”

“You miss being a bitch to me - you miss telling me that I’ve wasted my life. You miss having someone else to boss around, because that’s all you wanna do.”

“Adore, I tried my fucking best for you. I didn’t have it in me to be a perfect mother - I didn’t have one, I wasn’t set up to be good at this. I tried my best, and if you feel like I’ve failed then I’m really fucking sorry. But I love you, and-“

Why the fuck are her pills on the kitchen counter? Bianca pops one out and swallows it dry, desperate for her mind to shut the fuck up. She’s drunk and confused and alone and fucking sad, and she wants to sleep.

Should she call Adore? No, that feels desperate. She needs to leave her alone; let her get over this at her own pace, let her come back on her own. If she wants to come back. She’ll come back. 

Bianca didn’t come back. Bianca didn’t forgive her mom for the sin of setting her expectations too high, so why the hell would Adore do the same? Maybe her mom feels the same way about her - maybe she feels deprived of a presence in the life she created, and maybe she loses sleep and paces around the house at night like a madwoman and cries over her too. That feels vindicating - so why does it hurt so much that Adore is probably gonna commit her to the same fate? 

Bianca collapses into the couch. Her body feels heavy. The clock on the wall says it’s just after midnight. There’s an empty pizza box on the coffee table. Adore’s lipstick is stained onto the rim of her glass. 

“God, can you not go five minutes without trying to make me feel like shit? I know. I know you tried, I’m sorry I didn’t turn out the way you wanted me to-“

“Do you think this is what your dad would have fucking wanted?”

“Don’t talk about what he would have wanted - what he would have wanted doesn’t matter. He’s dead, mom. He’s fucking gone. He’s gone, and I’m never gonna get him back, and now I’m stuck with you.”  

“The fuck do you mean ‘stuck with’ me?”

“You know exactly what I fucking mean.”

“What, you wish it was me? You wish I was the one that had fucking died? If that’s what you mean, say it.” 

“If I have to choose one of you then yeah. Yeah, I wish it was him that was still here.”

The couch is soft and warm and Bianca is falling asleep. She’s comfortable - but she feels wrong. Her head is swimming. 

It’s getting dark outside. Bianca watches for headlights in the driveway. Maybe Adore will come home and forgive her. Bianca is tired, and her head is heavy, and she wants to go to sleep. Sleep and forget. Maybe Adore will love her again when she wakes up. 

*****

[1] MISSED CALL  Adore DR 💕😻👩‍👧 00:21

[3] NEW MESSAGES  Adore DR 💕😻👩‍👧 00:23 mom im rlly sorry. i love you. can we talk <33 mom are you okay? talk to me 

[3] MISSED CALLS Adore DR 💕😻👩‍👧 00:29

[4] NEW MESSAGES Adore DR  00:34 mom PLEASE answer ur phone  im sorry  talk to me please im coming over

[5] MISSED CALLS Adore DR 💕😻👩‍👧 00:58

[3] NEW MESSAGES Adore DR 💕😻👩‍👧 01:01 im outside answer the door  mommy i know ur mad at me but i want to talk to u, im rlly sorry i love u so much pls answer the door mom MOM

[8] MISSED CALLS Adore DR 💕😻👩‍👧 01:07

[2] NEW MESSAGES Adore DR 💕😻👩‍👧 01:11 mommy please  im sorry. i love you. 

****

Pride Challenge Points: 6662

[yellowdevilkitten]

7/8/1982

The call comes late at night, Steve’s trying to sleep but assuming it’s his mother calling from the hotel he gets out of bed. He ventures down stairs, phone ringing ominously. He walks faster, the phone’s ringing starts louder too. It stops ringing by the time he makes it down the stairs with an irritated huff he walks towards the stairs again ready to get under his covers and sleep, then the phone rings ruining his dreams of sleeping. 

“Yes?” He answers, the irritation evident in his voice. 

“Steve, oh thank goodness!” It isn’t his mother but instead her sister, Diane. He’s confused on why she’s calling; she never usually calls just shows up and would never call at, he looks at the clock which reads four-forty-five. Good thing it’s summer break he thinks bitterly. 

“What’s wrong aunt Diane?” Steve questions hoping to get the conversation over with quickly. 

“It’s your parents,” Is all she gets out before all the possible outcomes of what she’s about to say next come to mind none of them partially happy.

[thequeenofsastiel]

It's my first birthday without my dad, and I have to admit, it's hard. He always liked to take me out to dinner on my birthday, so not getting to do that with him is rough. I'm in an airport struggling to hold back tears. However, I'm going to have a birthday dinner tonight with so many people whom I care for, which will make it easier. While I do feel like I'm far too young to lose my father, I know all I can do is continue to grow and become the best version of myself, which is what he always wanted for me.

Here's to 34. I've got this.

[mchiti]

my friends i usually don't make post like this because I choose peace usually n I don't like to indirect ppl but like. I guess i've reblogged a total of 3 old posts in recent times from aj*x gud days and I only went to check on one of those acc out of curiosity and I saw them posting about finding this amusing/weird. as in "what's up with the nostalgia from fans of these players, it's been years, u weren't even watching aj*x" (i guess this was about the ziy-ech ona-na post from yesterday lol) and on one side it was funny bc i watched *counting* 5+ years worth of eredivisi-e I should get a medal for that alone. My usb drive full of old memories I occasionally go through to feel happy. u want to know something about aja*x those days I have everything at ur disposal. 16 april 2019 in ams, I was there. I mean just to say we can't really assume what people liked or didn't like before just to shame strangers having fun u know

[lostandfoundfm]

𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠 ⸻ 𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐤𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐫 𝐨'𝐤𝐚𝐧𝐞

if you’re hearing SCRAWNY by WALLOWS playing, you have to know ALEKSANDR “ALEKS” O’KANE (HE/HIM/HIS; CIS MAN) is near by! the TWENTY-EIGHT year old WILDLIFE REHABILITATOR has been in denver for, like, TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS. they’re known to be quite EXCITABLE, but being CLEVER seems to balance that out. or maybe it’s the fact that they resemble DYLAN O’BRIEN. personally, i’d love to know more about them seeing as how they’ve got those HALF A DOZEN EMPTY FOUR LOKO CANS ON A COFFEE TABLE, SUBCONSCIOUS FIDGETING, FURRY COMPANIONSHIP, and CRYING AT THE END OF THE NOTEBOOK vibes. and maybe i’ll get my chance if i hang out around the RIVER NORTH ART DISTRICT long enough!

hello, i'm lauryn! i'm twenty-two years old and currently reside in the cst timezone. my preferred pronouns are she/her/hers. i'm looking forward to writing with everyone! below is some information about aleks.

✗ ⸻ BACKGROUND

[ ! ] TRIGGER WARNING : unplanned child, adhd, medication, parental loss (maternal), car accident, anxiety & panic attacks, coming out, breakup

0 0 1 ⸻ aleksandr was born in denver, colorado, to two loving parents. he was an “accident”, but was cherished nonetheless. john and johanna were young and in love, ready to take on the world with a baby carrier in hand. aleks made this an easy task for them; he was a joy as a baby.

0 0 2 ⸻ come toddler age, though, aleks was a bit of a terror. if he was tasked with doing something that didn’t interest him, he simply wouldn’t do it. most times, he would actually forget all about it. chores were a concept that were not understood by aleks, and his parents eventually gave up trying to implement them into his life.

0 0 3 ⸻ always the peculiar, excitable child, aleks had trouble making friends early on in school. his parents grew to understand his mannerisms pretty well, but his teachers and peers were not as patient with him. he would get into trouble often, despite the fact that he maintained decent grades. aleks was gifted, but teachers noted that he “didn’t apply himself”. it wasn’t until the fifth grade that his parents really took note of his behaviors, and had aleks evaluated.

0 0 4 ⸻ as it turns out, he had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, better known as ADHD. his diagnosis was a relief to his parents, who finally had answers for his mannerisms. aleks, however, couldn’t really care less. he was very much absorbed in his own thoughts and his own world. he began cognitive behavioral therapy and started taking stimulant medication around age eleven. it took some trial and error, but john, johanna, and aleks found a treatment plan that worked well for their needs.

0 0 5 ⸻ aleks went into middle school with far more tools at his disposal, and was able to perform better in school. homework wasn’t as much of a drag, though he still often avoided assignments when he could. his interests took up all of his free time. aleks was always interested in fantasy, the ocean, and animals, and would spend much of his time finding out everything he could about them. fantasy interested him because it was multifaceted and was pretty much what you made it. the ocean interested him in the way that no one really knows much about it because the vast majority of it was unexplored. that idea both exhausted and fascinated him; he had grandiose ideas of exploring it himself, but he didn’t think that was a burden he really wanted to take on. one thing stuck out to him about animals, though: they were constantly evolving.

0 0 6 ⸻ aleks struggled with monotony, so the evolutionary traits of animals and their behaviors fascinated him. while there were constants between species, he figured that field of work would have very little repetitive, boring moments. whenever his parents were willing and able, aleks would insist that they took him to the zoo, sanctuaries, exhibits, the mountains… wherever he could observe the animals. his parents also allowed him to volunteer for certain programs that allowed him to work with animals, which was helpful because aleks benefited from hands-on work. he also kept notebooks, writing down what he could about his findings because he was likely to forget them by the next day.

0 0 7 ⸻ aleks’s childhood was a curious one void of hardship. he made some friends and was so caught up in what mattered to him that on the occasion that people were rude to him or excluded him, he paid no mind to it. sometimes, it was aleks who was the troublemaker, anyway; he wasn’t known to have a filter.

0 0 8 ⸻ it wasn’t until high school that aleks experienced his first tragedy: the loss of his mother. johanna’s car was t-boned in an accident in which she was the only fatality. the news of this crushed aleks. in his world, there was no tragedy or death; he hardly understood the concept. even his great grandparents were still kicking. it brought him into a fairly dark and confused state.

0 0 9 ⸻ his mother was his best friend, and portrayed a sort of innocence in aleks’s mind. his father took over parenting responsibilities that she had previously manned, but aleks could tell that something was different in his father. he rarely cried around aleks, insisting that things were going to be okay, but aleks could tell that things were unlikely to ever be okay for his father again. in places where aleks could pick up the slack, he did. his father would try to object in these instances, saying aleks need not worry about them, but aleks would insist that it was no big deal.

0 1 0 ⸻ he appeared strong for his father, and vice versa, even though both needed to come together and mourn as a now two-person family. there was a year of increased silence and sad smiles and weary movements until the anniversary of johanna’s death came along. it seemed that the two couldn’t go on pretending everything was okay, it wasn’t. everything had changed, forever. when aleks caught sight of his father sobbing on the couch, he joined him and the two finally began grieving together. johanna’s death was more of an open discussion now, something that was acknowledged. they honored her as best as they could, taking the time to be sad but also the time to smile. smile for the life that she had lived, smile for the days that they still had together.

0 1 1 ⸻ by the time aleks graduated from high school, he was much more rooted in reality. his interests still occupied much of his time, but he segued well into adulthood with the help of loved ones. he had come out as gay in his senior year, which most of his family and friends were indifferent toward. aleks had never been a super social person, so no one had ever really questioned whether he was dating or not. he had always seemed so consumed in his own world. aleks had been aware of his sexuality for some time, but no one had ever really caught his eye romantically, so he had decided not to make it public knowledge until he felt comfortable saying it aloud.

0 1 2 ⸻ the year that aleks graduated was a tough one for him. perhaps it was the monumental change and the loss of his mother catching up to him, but he developed anxiety and struggled with panic attacks. therapy helped him through these difficulties, as did supplementary medication, but some traumas just couldn’t be healed. this would also be the year that aleks entered his first relationship.

0 1 3 ⸻ as it would come to be known, aleks struggled in romantic relationships. he had a tendency to be inattentive to his partners, and found difficulty in sacrificing his free time for others. it wasn’t that he didn’t care or wasn’t attracted to them, aleks was just a little clueless. perhaps he just hadn’t met the right person, he would tell himself. either way, aleks has trouble settling down with anyone.

0 1 4 ⸻ zane and aleks dated for around a year, and experienced a lot of hardships together. zane with his family disowning him, and aleks with his panic attacks and processing his trauma. they were each other’s first loves, and that almost always comes with messy drama. though both of them seemed to cling to the relationship, they both eventually realized that it wasn’t right for either one of them and went their separate ways. after this relationship, aleks had one more fling and has now been single since the age of twenty-five, sticking to more casual hookups when the need for connection arises.

0 1 5 ⸻ aleks enrolled in university as a fisheries and wildlife major with a concentration in zoo animal care, as well as wildlife ecology and management. many of the required classes for his concentrations were the same, and aleks wasn’t quite sure which one he was more interested in, so he chose to do both; he figured it would also give him a bit more flexibility career-wise. he made some new friends, who are still to this day family to him. their adventures and sentimental moments were the silver linings to his early twenties. aleks also joined a fraternity in college and spent one year in his frat house before getting his own sketchy one bedroom apartment.

0 1 6 ⸻ despite some struggles keeping a tidy space and forgetting to grab his mail for two months at a time, aleks was a relatively stable adult. he had a dungeons and dragons group that met weekly, he often hiked with friends, he started a podcast, and he wasn’t afraid to ask for help and support when he needed it. he made a living as a bartender, and maintained a wonderful relationship with his father. the two would meet biweekly for some necessary father-son time. aleks began to blossom in his adulthood; his emotions seemed to stabilize a bit more, and he possessed a sort of sureness of who he was.

0 1 7 ⸻ in true aleks fashion, he also managed to finish college at the age of twenty-five. it took him seven years, but he had finally done it and was proud of himself for getting his degree before the ten year mark. a year and a half before obtaining his degree, he began working at the denver zoo. he was aiming more for a sanctuary placement, but figured any foot in the door would be helpful. plus, he needed a change from bartending. he had been volunteering there for years, so he was trusted with a job as a docent.

0 1 8 ⸻ college graduation was a bittersweet thing for aleks. now, he had to really buckle up and take control of his life. the denver area, however, wasn’t a hotspot for wildlife rehabilitation. he ended up having to accept a job that was almost half an hour away, but he remained in denver. he wasn’t quite sure when he would be ready to leave the denver area. there was a small desire there to skip out, but he was scared to be farther away from his loved ones. they would encourage him to go on, get out of here, but he just wasn’t ready yet. the reality was that aleks wasn’t ready to lose more people. even if he would only have to drive an hour or two to see them, it felt like too much. so, for now, he’s taking it slow. he’ll know when he’s ready to skedaddle… right?

0 1 9 ⸻ fast forward to now and aleks’s sense of security remains rattled. he continues to work through his anxiety and trauma in therapy, and is working at an animal sanctuary just outside of denver, though he remains firmly planted here. aleks specifically works with the intake, care, and release of bears, and adores his job (and his furry companions). he moved into a rino artist’s alley apartment not long ago, and has been in the process of slowly tricking it out. his podcast has a decent little following (around 300 listeners per episode), and he has plenty of friends to lean on in times of hardship.

tldr ; a denver native who has adhd and makes a living rehabilitating bears. kind of an asshole but very loyal to the people he loves. lost his mom when he was a teenager and has issues with anxiety, but is working hard in therapy. has a podcast and is pretty much just chillin nowadays wondering if he’ll ever leave denver

✗ ⸻ PERSONALITY

0 0 1 ⸻ aleks is pretty much just a walking meme. he’s only really had one bad thing happen to him, though, to his credit, it was a monumental tragedy. he tends to joke about most things, but part of that is just a coping mechanism to balance out his anxiety. aleks is perpetually scared of just about everything, though he does attempt to mask that. it’s not that he can’t be vulnerable, but it is a little uncomfortable for him to let his guard down and let others really see what’s going on there. it happens sometimes when he breaks down and can’t really control it, or when he needs to comfort others, but other than that, he doesn’t readily reveal what he’s feeling. he suspects that other people have caught onto this.

0 0 2 ⸻ he’s pretty much just a big ole jokester. he thrives off of pulling small pranks on other people and making dumb jokes. quite frankly, he thinks he’s hilarious. aleks exudes a strong confidence, though there is some insecurity there. despite a never-ending stream of dad jokes, he is far from being the dad friend. if anything, everyone else would have to take care of him on a wild night out. he isn’t necessarily a happy-go-lucky social guy around strangers, or even loved ones. honestly, aleks can be kind of an asshole. he lacks a filter and isn’t afraid to let you know what he thinks or if he has a problem. in fact, some would call him rather argumentative. basically, he’s a lot. he’s prone to being self-centered, but when it comes down to it, aleks would do pretty much anything for the people he cares about. he possesses a strong loyalty, possibly fueled by his fear that they will no longer be around one day.

0 0 3 ⸻ aleks does have combined type adhd. he is medicated for it and has some strong and effective strategies for navigating his weak points, but he can be all over the place (in a relatively controlled manner). he tends to be fidgety and sometimes over-interested in certain topics or conversations. aleks can be really chatty or appear entirely lost in thought. a consistency in his personality is that he is incredibly impatient, and can make others nervous in some situations as a result. he doesn’t always interact well with others in the way that he can struggle to understand the consequences of his words, but that’s usually fairly evident from the start of talking to him. aleks is a pretty analytical guy, but he doesn’t really retain any information, so his analyses are often useless. he will, however, remember if you wrong him or if you’re just generally an asshole. on the off chance that you meet an unmedicated aleks, he may seem a bit more chaotic. his forgetfulness is amped up and his brain, which usually has seven tabs open on medication, will now have around twenty open and two of them are playing audio.

about. statistics. headcanons. playlist. wanted connections.

[aiden-stevens]

👔

"He's dead, if that's what you wanna know. Yeah, uhm, Mount Hope. It's on Market Street, if you know the area."

Aiden cups his hand around the end of his cigarette and brings a lighter up to set a flame to it. There isn't much of a breeze out back of Tejas, but the door opening and closing for anyone going out to the back storage creates a small gust that can put it out. He takes a drag followed by a sip of his Monster energy drink.

Raising his eyebrows, he shrugs and realizes the conversation isn't over. "Nah, he died from health complications. See, he kinda cheated on my mom. Didn't actually, uh..." The can is placed between his feet by the box crate he is sitting on and his cigarette in his mouth to create the gesture of his finger going through the circle shape of his pointer and thumb on the other hand.

"Yet. She found out when it was just talking. It was his argument when she decided to take everything she could, but my mom, she's a shark and there was blood in the water."

Served him right, Aiden thought at the time, but as he got older, a shred of mercy wouldn't have killed Anastasia. She'd always liked money, more than anything else.

"But anyway, she put him in a small apartment, the girl he was talking to eventually took off, and he had a stroke or whatever. Lived for some time after, I'd go visit him even if he didn't care if I showed up, but whatever. Doesn't matter much now."

[sminkus]

02/12/2023 - a poem about my mother's slow descent into the grave