#when the addict brain meets the depression brain

[macchiatosdumptruck]

the way that terry sounds like an addict getting his first hit in years with the way he says "danny boy"

[rederiswrites]

I wrote this out for FB and then thought I might as well share it here as well. So if you have ADHD, are a late-diagnosed adult with ADHD, and most particular if you are a person with a uterus and/or have children, this one might be for you.

...

Last couple of days have been a little...weird. Let's start at the beginning. Buckle up and learn something.

As many of you already know, I have ADHD. It's a condition with a PR problem--a lot of people, often even medical professionals, have a very distorted idea of what it does, and a very limited one. For starters, it's not about parenting, or lead paint, or lack of discipline. It's genetic, *highly* heritable, starts in childhood and persists throughout life, and is a sufficiently severe disability that it comes with a decrease in life expectancy of up to 13 years. It is a visible difference that can be perceived in brain scans. These are all, at this point, well established and thoroughly attested in the scientific literature. ADHD affects up to 5% of the population and appears across cultures. It is very common.

It's not just about lack of attention--in fact, plenty of medical professionals think the name should be changed, as in fact the problem isn't the volume of attention but the way we struggle to direct it. We are motivated by interest, and struggle to properly weight future goals and consequences, specifically because they are in the future. If the robin outside the window is more immediately rewarding to our brain, we will watch that, and not the teacher. Our ability to properly weigh the consequences of that choice is negatively impacted by our own biochemistry.

We struggle with many of what are termed the "executive functions", the self management systems of the brain. Degree and presentation varies from person to person, but initiating tasks, completing tasks, staying ON task, restraining impulses, emotional regulation, and working memory are among the things impacted. My working memory is notoriously horrible. When they send you those activation codes on your phone? I often have to go back and read them out several times to enter a six digit number. I have to stop and remind myself what I'm doing between every step of my morning bathroom routine, or making tacos. Sometimes I take off my glasses to put on my contacts, reset, and reach for my pill bottles while I still can't see. My long-term memory is also affected, with my husband de facto serving as the memory-holder of the family.

Another common symptom I personally experience is "time blindness", which can mean both that you have no "internal clock" that has a clear idea of the passage of time, and that our ability to properly weight the importance of things in the future is impacted. So, for example, I can know intellectually what's coming, but it takes some really complex and exhausting antics to actually focus and work on those things if they're more than a week or sometimes even a couple days away.

Without externally imposed controls, many ADHD people flounder and fail to meet social markers of success. Estimates of how many ADHD people manage to complete college range from 5% to 15%. Again: 5% to 15%! I have failed twice myself. WITH externally imposed controls, ADHD people often have to work far harder to make their brains do what is required, and either fail and develop an image of themselves as failures (usually with plenty of external help), or keep fighting and suffer crippling burnout.

To that point, ADHD is HIGHLY comorbid with a whole range of knock-on conditions, some of which stem from the same brain patterns that give rise to the ADHD itself, and others from the trauma of living with a disability, but they include very high rates of depression, anxiety, fibromyalgia, social isolation, and addiction. I have dealt with depression, anxiety, and fibromyalgia my entire adult life. I have never ended up in the trap of self-medication but let's be real, that's partly about having supports and a healthy social environment. It's not some accomplishment I praise myself for, nor is addiction a sin I shame anyone for.

And anxiety has a very different texture to it when what you're really anxious about is the next time you fail in some catastrophic way. Lock your keys in the car. Completely space on a doctor's appointment. Go to pay for groceries and find that your wallet is next to your computer at home. Because the anxiety is not irrational fear of some generalized bad thing. These things do and will happen, regularly. Sometimes it feels like the only fix is getting good at recovering. Because no matter how many times you manage not to blow it, there's always another chance.

So, the struggle to be a reliable person, to be a consistent parent, to be a dependable life partner, is continuous. And it is so so so hard and it sometimes feels like you're not actually making any progress at all. I have tried therapy. I have tried three (or four??) different non-stimulant medications that sometimes help people. One of them DID help. ALL of them had catastrophic side effects. There were times as I was trialing these medications when I needed to be minded because I wasn't capable of taking care of anything, not even myself. Without Jacob, I don't know where I'd be. Not here. Probably in poverty, which is where he found me.

I have tried probably most organizational tools you know of. I have tried imposing schedules, all of which turned to dust and ash when the next fibromyalgia flareup or the next major life disruption happened. I don't think a new schedule has ever lasted a month before.

I HAVE felt like I'm made progress lately. I learned things that really helped my fibromyalgia, which gave me the space to work on other things--just like getting the borders of a puzzle finished. Enough things were spiraling upwards, and I think I might be cementing some gains. I have felt optimistic.

But in the meantime, I asked my doctor if, now that no less than three cardiologists have insisted my heart is Perfectly Healthy, I could finally try stimulant medications. After decades of use, Adderall, Ritalin, and a couple related stimulant drugs are still the gold standard for ADHD treatment and improve outcomes substantially for many people. And stimulants are in serious international shortage. Have been for many months. The only one she thought she could get me was Adderall. And she didn't dare try anything but the standard 30mg because nonstandard dosages would be even less attainable.

So now I'm taking Adderall. One week on 30mg, which I stopped when it was clear my function was being seriously impaired rather than improved. Reassessed with the doctor, now trying 60mg, because that's two of the pills I've already managed to obtain. It is....too much. And in some ways it fixes problems I wasn't working on, while so far making my executive function, my initiation or even *contemplation* of tasks, virtually nonexistant. Which was, of course, the thing I was trying to fix.

So yeah. When you have the context, I figure you can understand the substance of my frustration yourself. If you have children, I don't think you need my help to imagine what it would be like to know that you are unpredictable, or to see that your children are used to to you undergoing events that make you act strangely and erratically. I think just knowing that often, new medications introduce themselves by giving me a migraine, and I know this is possible when I take that first pill, is fairly self-explanatory. And so I expect you can imagine what it would be like, with all of this as a backdrop, to experience worsening of your symptoms, probably because of age-related hormonal changes. To in desperation try something you'd previously been denied. And to learn that it probably won't help.

In a week, I will either give up on Adderall for now or find a way to make it work. I'll put together the pieces yet again--at this point, possibly my strongest personal skill--and continue that upward climb as far as I can get. I'm incredibly fortunate in that regardless, I will be fed and dry and warm and loved. But right now, I feel justified in some serious dismay.

[samkerrworshipper]

the monsters gone

part 3 of beautiful girl series -> part 1 -> part 2

leah williamson x reader, jordan nobbs x reader (wobbs as moms)

warnings: drug addiction, drug abuse, talks of illicit substances, depression, intrusive thoughts, would not advise for people in a bad mental headspace

You wanted her to leave, or you were desperate for a fix and well aware that it wasn’t going to happen until she was gone and you could retreat up to your room like normal. 

You scratched at the incision on your forearm, it was hidden underneath your hoodie but you could feel it all the same, it made you feel guilty. 

You’d never felt guilty for taking drugs, why would you? It was your choice, your body, your brain that you were fucking with. Yet for some reason, the little mark that you knew was sitting right on top of your vein was making you feel guilty. You didn’t want to admit it, but it felt oddly like the start of something, you weren’t sure what though, whatever it was though, it didn’t feel good. 

When the door clicked open around 2 o’clock you felt far more at peace, watching your mom hobble through the door with Lia following her. Jordan stood up almost immediately and if the room hadn’t already been awkward then the awkwardness found a whole new definition as the two women looked at each other. 

“Hey Jord, thanks for hanging around, you’re looking good.”

Your mom looked relieved to see Jordan, your ma on the other side looked slightly terrified as she eyed up the two women. 

“It wasn’t an issue, you know I love spending time with my chick.”

Leah smiled, looking down at you on the couch, you buried your head in your phone, ignoring her gaze. 

“Whether she admits it or not she likes seeing you as well.”

Your ma laughed awkwardly, it took everything in you to not burst out laughing at all of the tension between the two of them. 

“Look I’ll be heading off, gotta me back in Birmingham for game review tonight but can we talk for a minute though Le?”

Your mom’s head cocked to the side, a look of curiosity evident on her face. 

“Yeah sure, come with me.”

Lia watches them with the same look of curiosity as you, your eyes meeting as the trail back from the doorway to Leah’s office that they both step into. 

“They’re talking about me.”

Lia doesn’t bother trying to ignore you or deny what you’re saying, she nodes her head. 

“Probably, that’s what most parents do.”

It’s a absentminded answer, and for a second your aware that maybe Lia is in on whatever is happening, that she knows exactly what is going on behind the door. If anything important came from the phone call earlier you know Lia would be the first to know, she was like the third parent you never asked for nor wanted, but somehow ended up with. 

“Ma thinks that Mom’s parenting is shit.”

Lia cocks her head, she’s harder to read then your moms, more calculated, more clean, less obviously emotional. 

“She just disagrees with some of the things that your mother does, so do I. Nobody else is in her shoes though, she makes the decisions that are necessary and best for you.”

Lia sounds convinced of her words, even though you doubt them. 

“Ma doesn’t think so.”

Lia bit down on her bottom lip, finishing with tucking her kit bag away so she could focus her attention on you. 

“She worries about you.”

You did your best to suppress the eye roll, it didn’t work. 

“She worries that mom is too nice and isn’t strict enough.”

Sometimes you thought that your mom compensated for the void between the two of you by letting you do whatever you wanted, other times you were reminded by your grandma that she’d told Leah she needed to go easy on you and that not everyone could be as perfect as Leah Williamson. 

“Your mom knows what you need better than anybody else.”

The conversation paused, the two of you flinching at the sound of yelling from the other side of the door, you couldn’t make out what was being said, both of them were yelling though. 

“Set the table for lunch for me, kiddo?”

You couldn’t pull your eyes from the door, you hadn’t hear your moms yell in a long time, it took you back to when they were breaking up, when they tried to act like they weren’t, when they saved the fighting and yelling for when you’d been tucked into bed and they’d thought you were asleep. 

“Kiddo, table.”

You stood up from the couch, your eyes staying stuck to the door, even as you pulled cutlery from the drawer and laid it out with the placemats on the table. Eventually, the yelling ceased, and the room was over come with a silence like no other, only being broken by the door opening and your two moms walking out, both of them looking far more content considering that it had sounded like they were screaming at each other, not thirty seconds ago. 

“Bubba, Jord is going to head off, if you want to say bye.”

Jordan’s arms opened up to you and as mad and confused as you were, you weren’t going to deny her. You walked around the table, leaning into her hug, wrapping your arms around her the same way she did for you, letting her hold on for a little bit longer. 

“I’ll be back when I can chicky, I love you so much.”

You wanted to tell her she was lying, that they were all lying, they didn’t fucking love you, it was so fucking obvious. But for the sake of keeping the peace you didn’t. 

“I love you too Ma.”

Jordan let go of you, pressing a kiss to your forehead. The same way she had when they’d adopted you when you were eight, the same way she had after your first game when you were 12, the same way she had when you were 14 and you’d been top of your form and given an award, the same way she had when she’d left for good when you were 16. It was the same kiss, yet everything about it was different, the meaning, the purpose, the intention, it was all different. 

You watched as she walked out the door, the same as every time, you listened to the sound of her car starting and the sound of gravel underneath her tires as she pulled out and onto the road. 

Once you were sure she was gone you turned around, sliding into a seat at the table, across from your mother, staring at her. 

“What were you guys talking about?”

Leah looked at you, poker face as good as ever. 

“Football, some other stuff.”

It was a obvious lie, both you and Lia knew it. 

“You were talking about me, what about me?” Leah rolled her eyes at you. 

“It was a conversation between your Ma and I, not for your ears.”

You didn’t bat an eye as Lia set lunch down in front of you, to fixated on your mother. 

“You don’t yell over nothing, what were you talking about.”

Leah pushed her tongue out against her lips. 

“Your ma had some concerns about you, that’s it, I told her she had nothing to worry about and that we were doing just fine.”

You knew that even if you didn’t want to admit it, Jordan probably had some valid points, your mom seemed unphased though. 

“That’s it?”

Leah looked at you, and you could tell that she was holding something back. 

“She told me that you’d told her you smoked weed last night and that you were vomiting this morning.”

You tried to keep your face from changing, keeping the confident exterior even if you were slightly scared on the inside. 

“I got drunk, I had some fun, it was no biggy.”

Leah’s eyebrow rose in the trademark question. 

“It’s a biggy to me because you told all you were doing was vaping and a little bit of drinking, you said you’d be honest with me and it’s clear you haven’t been.”

You hesitated for a second, the air thickening around you as suddenly the tension was between you and your mother. 

“I was just having some fun mom, I didn’t do anything stupid, I was safe, just like you asked.”

Leah’s face shrivelled up as you used her words against her. 

“You were out with friends I’ve never met, at a house on the opposite side of town that I’ve never been too, Jord said you looked like you’d been on a three day bender and I told her that I didn’t believe her but now you’re here admitting it.”

You reached into your pocket for your vape, desperate for something to take the edge of the conversation off, to make you feel calmer. 

You pulled it out and Leah’s face immediately pointed inwards.

“How many times do I have to say no vape at the table?”

You frowned, shoving it back in your pocket. 

“It was just a bit of weed mom, it’s what kids my age do.”

Leah shook her head. 

“It wasn’t just a bit of weed, I’ve been smelling it on your clothes for weeks and trying to tell myself I was being delusional because you’d told me you were just on the vape, that you had no interest in drugs and yet you were lying to me, you have been for a while bubba and I don’t know how to feel about it to be honest. I thought we were closer than most parents and kids, I thought we had boundaries and that I was giving you enough space, and now I don’t know what to think.”

You pursed your lips, struggling to find words. 

“And if you’re lying to me about weed then what else is there? What else is there you aren’t telling me because there has to be more. I let you drop football, I relaxed on the school because I know you were struggling but this doesn’t work if you aren’t honest with me.” 

You really didn’t know what to say, your mind was in a million different places, the container underneath your bed, the joints on your windowsill hidden behind the curtains, the three vapes in your bedside table, the drug dealer numbers in your phone, what had happened last night, the meth track mark on your arm. 

“Nothing, it was just some weed, I just wanted something to take the edge off, it was no big deal.”

Leah’s eyes closed for a second and you knew this was all about to get a lot harder. 

“Except it was a big deal because you’ve been doing it behind my backs for weeks, I’ve tried to be understanding bubba, I have, I know it’s been tough for you with me and Jords breakup, you’ve had a really hard year, I let the vaping slide, I let your attendance drop at school, but drugs bub, it’s no joke.”

You took a deep breath. 

“It’s just some weed, I don’t know what you want me to tell you.”

Leah wants to say that if you’re this relaxed about being caught doing weed then she doesn’t want to know what else you’re hiding from her that would make you less relaxed, but she keeps it to herself, or for this moment at least. 

“I want you to bring me whatever you have of it, I won’t have you smoking illicit and illegal substances underneath my roof.”

You figured there were worse things that could happen, she could find your stash, she could take your vape, she could ground you or make you go to school. 

“Okay.”

Your mom nodded, happy she had at least won a small battle. 

“After lunch.”

You nod again in agreeance, looking down at the caesar salad in front of you and stabbing your fork down onto it, picking up the different pieces of lettuce and chicken scattered throughout. 

You make it through half the meal before you grab your bowl and pick it up, walking into the kitchen to do you washing up, your mom follows behind you, her bowl empty. 

You take the dish from her, cleaning it out and stacking both of them in the dishwasher, knowing whats to come now. 

You slow yourself down on the stairs giving her the time to follow behind you as she dragged her bad leg up every individual stair. 

Leah had been putting in hours everyday for her rehab, it was her main focus, over everything else. 

Eventually the two of you made it to the top of the stairs, and eventually to your bedroom door.

You hesitated before opening it, you couldn’t remember the last time Leah had been inside it, way before her acl, ever since she’d gotten injured she’d been avoiding the staircase. 

You opened the door, hand pausing on the cold metal doorknob for a split second before pushing it open. 

Your room was still freezing, you didn’t miss how your mother shivered from the breeze that hit her face immediately, coming straight from the open window. 

“Jesus kiddo, you trying to replicate antarctica in here? You know I pay good money for heating, right?”

It’s a lighthearted joke, yet somehow it hurts for you, you don’t know how or why, you just know that it does. 

“I like it cold.”

Leah looks at you, both brows furrowed inwards. 

“Alright then polar bear.”

You try not to flinch away when her hand reaches up to ruffle your hair, it’s something she’s done to you since you were a kid, it feels wrong now though. 

“Let’s just get this over and done with.”

You walk over to your windowsill, reaching behind the curtain and reaching for the bag of joints that you have stashed behind the material. Leah frowns as you walk back over to her, shoving the bag into her hands before she can even ask. 

“This is all of them?”

She looks completely unconvinced, you probably would be too, most kids don’t give up their drugs willingly. 

“Yes.”

Leah looks at you, eye to eye, like she’s trying to reach into your soul, or read your mind. 

“Bubba, this is your chance, I’m giving you an opportunity to be straight with me, and whatever you tell me or give me I won’t be mad about. I might want to sit down and question your decisions, but I won’t be mad. Teenagers are stupid, they make mistakes, they try new things, I get it. Be honest with me bubba, please.”

You didn’t really know what Leah was insinuating, but it was clear that she knew there was a bigger picture here. 

“That’s it mom.”

You had to tear your eyes away from her, you couldn’t handle the way that she was looking at you, the mix of disappointment, resentment and worry mixed into her blue irises. 

“Bubba, don’t make me search your room, don’t make me have to ground you, don’t make me have to call Jord and get her to turn the car around to help me out.”

You brought your eyes back to Leah’s. 

“That’s it mom, I don’t know what you want me to tell you, I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

You were lying through your teeth and the fact you couldn’t look eye to eye with Leah would have been enough of a warning sign of that. 

“Drugs bubba, that’s what I’m talking about, you’re lying straight to my fucking face right now, I don’t know what about or why but you are.”

You didn’t know what to say, you weren’t going to admit it, you couldn’t, but you needed to say something. Fuck, you were so fucked. 

You tried to spin it in your head, tried to think about how you could make this work out. You were caught, you were done, this was bad. 

Your eyes darted to below your bed, rookie fucking mistake. 

Leah caught your line of sight, and you knew as soon as she did that it was all about to go to fucking shit, that you were done for. 

“Lia.”

Your mom’s voice was urgent, a yell that had the swiss woman bounding up the stairs in a matter of seconds. 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

You were so fucking fucked. 

You were frozen in your spot, your mom’s eyes looking at you like she’d just been stabbed in the heart. 

“Bubba, you can get whatever you are hiding from me or I will get Lia to tear this whole room a part, I’m not fucking around.”

You felt torn down the middle, your brain couldn’t think, you felt the same sickness sink in from this morning, instead of it being withdrawals from drugs though it was the realisation that your whole life was about to be turned upside down. 

You tried to think, tried to think about how you could spin this, make it a little bit better than it really was. 

Lia looked more uncomfortable then possible, you wished a blackhole would randomly pop up and swallow all three of you. 

Something hit you, it wasn’t a full resolution but it was better than what you currently had going for you. 

You walked over to your bed, with unsteadier legs then last night when you were so drunk the world was spinning, crouching down when you got to the edge, feeling for the familiar container that held all of your deepest darkest secrets, or at least that’s how it felt. 

It took you back to a time when you’d made Leah check under your bed everynight for the monsters under your bed, now though she was looking for the monsters in your head, the monsters that had turned her little perfect girl into whatever you were now. 

Your hand eventually met the hard plastic, you pulled it out, biting down on the inside of your cheek as you stood up and sat down on the edge of your bed. 

Leah took a couple steps closer to you, standing directly in front of you. 

“Look, it’s not mine, I only did it twice, my friends bought it over, I swear.”

Half of it was true. 

“Open the box, bubba.”

You felt your throat tighten, you felt like you were going to vomit, or pass out, or have a heart attack. 

“Mom, I didn’t want to, I don’t even like it, I just did it because my friends were, I swear.”

It was also another half truth. 

“Bubba, open the box.”

You bit down even harder on the inside of your cheek, reaching for the edge of the plastic box and opening it, revealing the two baggies of white powder inside of it. 

Leah’s face fell, in a way that you’d never seen, you’d seen her disappointed before, this wasn’t it, it was something else entirely and you weren’t sure what. 

“Bubba.”

Your mom was a overly emotional person, you couldn’t handle her crying right now though, you couldn’t do it, you couldn’t deal with her pretending she gave a shit when this was the first time in months that it felt like she cared, and it was all because of Jordan, not on her own volition. 

“I swear mom, I swear, it’s not mine, I promise.”

It wasn’t a lie, it hadn’t started out as yours, you’re friends had left it behind after a weekend hangout and had never asked for it back, so it technically wasn’t yours, technically. 

“Bubba, what is it?”

Leah reached for the box, picking up the two bags, the bags that you felt like held your whole life together. 

“Cocaine, it’s just a little bit of coke, my friends were using it before parties, I didn’t like it, it made me feel dizzy and it hurt my head.”

The cocaine bit was a lie, but the fact you didn’t like cocaine wasn’t, it was the kind of stimulant which put you into over drive, the high lasted no where near as long and it made you feel like you weren’t making sense.

You were hoping she would believe the cocaine, inevitably, cocaine was a pissy drug. Leah would have been at thousands of parties were cocaine was handed around, hell, you were fairly certain your mother had taken plenty of it. Cocaine was less addictive, good cocaine was also stupidly expensive, the value of it was fucked. Meth was cheap but a thousand times more addictive, cocaine was a better like. 

“Lia, get rid of it.”

Your mom handed the bag of joints over to Lia, as well as the bags of drugs, shoving them into her hands like they were burning her hands. “I don’t even know what to say to you bubba.”

Your mom looked genuinely at a loss for words, her eyes kept darting between your eyes and your hands, which were shaking in front of you. 

“Mom, I promise, it was only a one time thing, really, I was just keeping it for my friends.”

As soon as the tears started spilling down Leah’s face you knew it was about to get bad. 

She walked over to your desk, pulling the chair out from it and dragged it across the room until it was directly in front of you, your mother taking a seat. 

Her hands came out to rest on your knees, they were shaking like yours, not as badly but still shaking, though for different reasons you assumed. 

“You told me the weed was a one time thing, that was a lie. I don’t know what to believe anymore, you’ve put me in a impossible situation, bubba. On one hand, I want to believe you. I want to believe the kid I raised, on the other hand you haven’t given me reason to. You broke my trust, you lied to me, you broke the house rules. I don’t ask a lot of you, I let you get away with more than your ma would let you, and I was fine with it because you were showing me you were a good kid, but now I honestly don’t know what to think. You told me it was just the vapes, I thought you were using a little bit to much nicotine and now it turns out that you’re smoking pot and doing drugs. You’ve been hiding and lying and I just don’t get why. Why bubba? Tell me why.”

Big tears were dripping from your mothers eyes, big, wet, fat tears pooling in her icey blue eyes. 

“I don’t know, okay? I’m sorry mom, I’m really sorry. I’m sorry. I love you, I didn’t mean it, it was just some fun, it was a one time thing, I promise.”

Leah pursed her lips, the same way you were, the sleeve of her shirt was pressed to her face, picking up the tears that were dripping down her jaw. 

“I’m going to go and call your ma, this is a discussion we need to be having together, I need her here for this.”

Little did they know how bad it really was. 

Leah stood up, you thought she would just leave, heading back down to make a call to your ma that would inevitably change your life, instead, she sat down next to you, her arms opening up. 

You leaned into her side, letting her wrap both of her arms around you. 

“I’m sorry mom, I’m sorry.”

It was the only thing you could think of saying, the only thing that sounded right coming off the tip of your tongue. 

“I love you so much my beautiful girl, we’ll figure this out, your ma and I, we’re all going to figure this out.”

Leah held onto you for a little bit longer, her arms tightening onto you like you were holding her down to earth, like she would float away if she didn’t. 

Eventually she let go, her face was puffy and red, her sleeves were red and she sounded all sniffly. 

“I’m going to go and phone Jord, we’re going to sort it all out, we’ll figure this out, okay? We’re both here for you, we both love you so much, you’re our little girl.”

You found it weird how easy it slipped off of her tongue, you wondered if she actually believed that she meant it, you wondered if when your mother said it that she meant it without really meaning it. There were words but there were no actions to support those words, just empty syllables and letters all formed together in a intricate lie. 

You watched as Leah limped her way out of your room, her bad leg trailing behind her good one, rule number one of parenting a child you now know is drug addicted, never leave them alone in a room they can escape from when you’ve just confronted them. 

[vixenihy]

Reunion: A Flash Fiction

Summary: October 17, 1963. Mrs. Kennedy finally returns from her trip to Greece, and her husband is waiting for her and ready to welcome her home.

Tags/Notes + Pairing: jfk x jackie kennedy, mentions of past infidelity, improved relationship, loss of child mention, caroline and john jr. are in it too lol.

Word Count: 897 words

A/N: this one is shorter and a bit messier than my last fic :,( i’ve been having quite a bit of brain fog so unfortunately some things may be a little off. sorry guys!! i hope you enjoy it <3 divider was made by @/ aquazero. hope you guys caught the jackie 2016 reference ;)

Jack sits in the backseat of the car, nervously playing with his hands in the darkness. Every so often, he looks out onto the empty runway only illuminated by blinking lights. Jackie will be here any minute now, but why do those minutes have to pass so slowly?

The past few weeks had been awfully rough without Jackie; The depression and headaches he acquired from his withdrawals after finally being able to stay abstinent and cut himself away from the rest of his ‘women’ was rough. He’d been so used to that lifestyle, he never realized how addicted he was until he found himself desperately writing a letter at midnight to a woman he had ended his affair with over a year prior. When he read the letter the next morning, he embarrassingly shoved it in the bottom of his desk with the intention of discarding it.

Having to continue to mourn the loss of Patrick on his own after Jackie left was even worse. Sure, he had dealt with plenty of things on his own before, and Jackie had been there for him up until the day she left; but there were times at work where he felt so alone. He didn’t dare bother his wife about it when she was recuperating from the loss. So when he got off the phone with Jackie, there was no one to call, no one to talk to, and no one to see. Just cabinet members and paperwork. When he cried in his wife’s arms that day, he felt as if his eyes were opened to a new world. To be comforted by someone he loved dearly and not shunned for crying made him feel…loved… Though this was an incredible realization for him, he didn’t feel comfortable opening himself up like that with anyone else; at least not yet. Joan was there for him when he secluded himself in his room and didn’t come out, and he’d gotten a few sympathy calls here and there; but it just wasn’t the same as that morning when he felt Jackie lovingly wrap her arms around him as he let his emotions run like a river.

“Daddy, look!” Caroline exclaims, pointing out the window with that innocent smile she shares with her father. “I think I see mommy!” She continues, climbing over her dad and brother to see the plane landing in the once empty runway. Jack can’t help but smile at her excitement and

“I think you’re right, Buttons! Lets go out there and meet her. But stay close to me okay? Don’t run out in front of the plane before they put the stairs down.” He instructs, opening the car door and stepping out before taking Caroline and John’s hands into his.

“I wanna go on the plane!!” John shouts, pulling against his fathers hand as they approach the runway. Jack does his best to hide his own excitement as the stairs are placed in front of the door. And as soon as the door opens, Jack bends down as best he can.

“Go on, go give mommy a hug.” He tells them before rising and letting them rush off ahead of him and climb the stairs.

As Jack follows his children, he finally comes face to face with the woman he missed so dearly.

Jackie looks just as beautiful as she did when she left, and as she rises from greeting Caroline and John to look him in the eyes, she looks just as happy to see him as he does for her.

Without a word, Jack leans over and takes Jackie in his arms. His back issues and lack of experience in physical contact makes his hugs quite stiff, but Jackie doesn’t mind one bit.

Jackie pulls back slightly and wraps her arm around her husbands neck, pulling him in for a kiss.

“I missed you, Jack.” She sighs, shuffling the two of them away from the open door so that they can’t be photographed by the swarm of paparazzi outside and holding him close.

“I missed you too, Jackie…” Jack smiles, letting go of his wife and glancing at the open door leading out the crowds of photographers awaiting the First Lady’s return.

“You’ve got quite an audience out there…Are you ready?” He asks teasingly, brushing a lock of hair out of Jackie’s eyes.

“Of course, I love crowds.” She replies, her voice laced with sarcasm. She pulls away from her husband and reveals herself to the sea of cameras. They run their films and snap their flashbulbs at the family as they descend the stairs and make their way to the car waiting for them. Jackie is the first to enter the car, then the children, and finally Jack.

“It’s good to have you home, Mrs. Kennedy. Now, why don’t you tell me about Greece. I take it that you had a good time?” Jack teases, reaching his arm over their children clinging to their mother so that he can put his arm over her shoulder.

“You’ll know when we get home….” Jackie smiles back, giving her husband a discreet wink before looking down at Caroline and John, who had managed to fall asleep in their mothers lap. “But first, I think it’s time for bed.” She finishes quietly just as the car comes to a stop in front of the White House…

[prettynalilmagic]

ℙ𝕚𝕔𝕜 𝔸 ℂ𝕒𝕣𝕕: 𝕊𝕙𝕒𝕕𝕠𝕨 𝕎𝕠𝕣𝕜- ℝ𝕖𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕚𝕠𝕟

Decks: Considerate Cat Tarot Vol 2, The Dark Mirror, Tarot of Pagan Cats, The Wild Unknown Archetypes

This reading will be shadow work based on what exactly are we repressing and not aware of. And how to work through it with advice from me and tarot. Take everything as a small guide, tarot is a tool for guidance and not to see or predict the future.

Pile one

First things first, Go get therapy.

"Its not about choosing the chains.

Its about choosing them again and again."

Pile one welcome to your little section. So, I had a theme card for your overall shadow, which was Addicted. At first, I was troubled with finding out exactly what type of addiction was causing you to repress your shadow, and I kept pulling cards and I realized that your shadow is built on way too many situations that come back to your dissatisfaction from your life. Pile One your addicted to hating yourself. You have heavy cards that show me that there’s this feeling of self-inflicted despair. Your shadow emits contempt for life, you hate yourself and honestly hate life overall. The hanged Man in reverse shows me that you grew up very much internally, most of your experiences are based inwardly as you felt left behind on life. Everyone seemed to reject you. Your loved ones, and people who are supposed to be close, turned their backs on you at some point so in turn you did the same. The world rejected you growing up. Life showed you, that you aren’t deserving of love, so you internalized that and have subconsciously clung onto that delusion.

Pile one do you feel like nothing can change you? Nothing can fix you? That things will stay the same or get worse over time? Have you even thought about how you feel about yourself truly? When was the last time you willingly reflected on your own self-image? Do you think there's any motivation for you to live your life beyond what traps you? Going back to your theme card, your repression is very much self-imprisoned. You don’t see you can work through any internal conflict and you in turn have been chaining your own self to depression. Nobody is perfect, that's true, but self-discovery is beautiful however it's also difficult. This won't be an easy task.

Mentally, you’re at rock bottom almost every day. Do you dissociate a lot? Do you even know if you do? Because I recently discovered that I dissociate a whole lot throughout my life and have never known I was doing it. Human brains are truly mind blowing, it can take and hold so much stress and pain, then hide it away from us so when we don’t keep reliving and feeling all that hurt.

Nobody wants to struggle and be depressed, and our brain very much plays a part in helping us hide it away. Chances are you downplay or don’t care to think or consider your own shadow self.

I'm not fit to diagnose, but pile one look into Complex Trauma, C-PTSD, and being Shame Bound. Learn about various types of traumas, habits, and attachment styles on YouTube it will help you get a rough idea on understanding what you need to improve on without using therapy. However, please if you can, look into seeing a psychologist and a therapist.

I know life is super tough as it is for you and you might not be able to afford it but research if there's anything you can afford and if you truly have searched, look into self-help groups online and self-help programs as well. There are free eBooks you can illegally get, pirate that shit. Get a tarot deck for yourself and do shadow work readings. Also please stop reading all the dumbass future partner and next lover readings, invest love into your own damn self before investing it onto some person you most likely haven’t even met or aren’t going to meet. Sorry it's a pet peeve of mine. Chances are you’re reading this on your phone or computer, get on the notes app and write out that little ass of yours. Please there’s still so many ways to make your own mental stability easier on yourself. There's so much stuff you can do if you truly look into it, I recommend watching Patrick Teahan, Heidi Priebe, Psych2Go, and Kati Morton, they're my personal favorite therapy youtubers, and they can help you.

Okay going back to the cards, and not my own personal input, the hanged man in reversed also shows me that it was your environment growing up that has formed you into who you are. Life for you looked like everything was so big and almost outta reach for you to grasp, but you’re still here, you have developed habits that has made growing up easier, you learn to get by.

Which leads me to the present, you got the 9 of cups, meaning that your experiences have made you who you are. It ties back to all those built of moments of isolation and lack of love for yourself that you grew up with. Obviously when we grow up knowing others are treating or making you feel some type of way, you take from that and build your mindset on all those experiences.

This hatred is what we use to get by and we build ourselves up to work with our hatred. You know you felt like you are replaceable or have a deep fear of being left behind, we go outta our way to justify being the ones to leave others and replace other people with anything else to get that same feeling, until the same trigger happens. It's a never-ending cycle and growing up it can actually be helpful. As a child we only experienced all the heavy emotions and were not shown consistent or significant amount of effort for our needs, so we learn to not expect that and run away from anything that triggers that little child in you. No one was there to show love so obviously unhealthy habits and mindsets get developed and grow up with us and only gets worse and worse as time flies by. Pile one, you are depressed and hopeless but cheer up, just because your life hasn’t been the best does not equate to that being a set-in stone reality for the rest of your life.

You can make your own life better; the daughter of cups reverse shows me that there's this desire to play around with stuff, just do it. Stop thinking about it, do it. Fuck shit up, stop being afraid of messing stuff up, you think the ones who have hurt you stopped when they were making you feel not cared for or loved? Nope, so just have fun.

Do that fun hobby idea you been thinking about. Get messy with life, even if it is creating something very sloppy. You want to express yourself some type of way but feel like you shouldn’t? Well just do it, even if you feel like a joke or an idiot just try it and see how it feels. Even if you don’t necessarily want to do something or show off a different look or skill, and your more so afraid of making mistakes and not being perfect, just push that thought to the back of your head.

If you spill your drink and make a mess, guess what you can clean it up, you don't have to get mad at yourself or at the drink. Shit happens, and why should you submerge yourself into all the small things with these big emotions like anger and sadness. Relax and rest those pretty eyes. Which goes into your last main card, Four of Swords. Again, relax for once, don’t guilt yourself. Everyone who has it easy, allows themself to relax from time. Even if they don’t doesn't mean that you should do the same thing. Have fun, learn more about who you are and why you are here. There’s so much self-sabotage that goes unnoticed by everyone.

Learn from yourself, thank who you had to become to get to here, and learn how to work past that when that shadow side doesn't help you anymore. You don’t have to 100% love yourself to overcome your shadow. Because here’s the thing, you’re not overcoming it, you’re learning to accept it and work with it to do better. Your shadow is who you are and use it to your ability to grow. Pile one get outta here and watch some therapy videos pls, you will be happier even for just a second.

Pile Two

"What I can't have forever, I will have for a minute. What I can't have for a minute, I will hold to me for one second."

Hello pile two, welcome to your pile. I assume for the most part your shadow is not something you shy away from because quite frankly there's not a significant amount of repression that is being displayed; I feel like this kind of shifted into a little bit of a motivational reading from your guides to tell you about one specific flaw in you rather to tackle down one serious hindering issue.

You guys got two theme cards for your theme of the overall shadow side that you're repressing. I pulled Masquerade and Queen of my world, for you pile two. Both cards have one thing in common. Both are attached to the word Bargain. Which tells me that you tend to do the most to procrastinate the process of bad emotions or habits. Masquerade is all about living in the moment and doing everything in your power to savor and dwell into the fleeting moments you so desperately want to hold onto and stick to. Queen of my world is all about holding onto a facade that hinders the possibility of being seen as anything other than graceful and powerful. You also pulled the daughter of wands in reversed. Which tells me that you procrastinate as well, and you can honestly be very disorderly as well.

You repress your shadow self because of how uncomfortable you are for being seen as who you wish you could be.

You know when we live our whole lives trying to maintain a certain image, it can be so hard and honestly draining. It makes sense why you want to slack off and just live in the moment because maintaining the way you think you have to come off to other people is very draining and if you think about it, your facade is stressful weather you are or aren't aware of it. Having live off of short moments and a false persona is only going to fulfill you for so long, do you think pretending to be stronger, smarter, or fiercer than you really going to stop you from embracing your true inner strength? Because aren't you tired of always having to consistently perform? I don't know if you are even doing it for yourself because doing that for so long will tire you out and make you unsure of who you are deep down.

Pile two, I did pull the son of cups. Which is a very charming and very appealing person to be around, this just reinforces that you will be this at all times for everyone and everything. Given that this is the card that's supposed to represent your present reality, I believe that you are a very much cookie cutter desired person. Someone who is always on top of how you appear as. All I see is that there's this big grand facade of being this person that is so desirable and welcoming. Everyone wants to present themselves in a good light to an extent but for you pile two it's very apparent that this isn't a want for you, it is a need and you do whatever needs to be done to be this beautiful picture-perfect version of yourself, but your human, so guess what? You are at a point where you have to chill out and learn to be yourself, not the ideal version at all times. It's okay to not be what everyone else wants you to be, or what your parents want you to be or whoever else you want to idealize you. You're a human, you're only capable of so much, you're flawed, and you can want to do or partake in things that are different from what should be expected from you. 

I pulled The High Priestess in reversed for you as clarification for Son of Cups.  Which tells me that you are a very spiritual person, which would make sense, you are reading a tarot reading. Besides that, it brings up to light that your inner self is not being done justice.

Do you even understand who you truly are? Not what you think you have to be to maintain approval.

This facade habit is not aligned with your highest potential. Because face it, do you think you will be happy for the rest of your life pretending to be something that isn't the real you? Just because others think you will be does not make that idea a reality, stop deceiving your true potential.

I don't want to assume but my guess is you may or may not have immigrant parents that have kind of forced this urgency to be a certain way to please them. At the end of the day, you know how you want to be or wish to be. If you don't relate to that portion obviously disregard it, it could be anything from grades, skills, and appearance. Maybe it's a controlling figure, which could be a lover or a person in power over you causing you to feel like you cannot be authentically yourself. 

The next card for you is Chariot, which is all about heading straight to where you want to be. Who you want to be. Nobody is going to be able to do it for you. You have built a wonderful mask for yourself for so long that it'll be hard to take it off and learn what you look like when you aren't wearing one. It will be unnatural to you at first, but you will get used to it. You got this pile two. I hope the best for you beautiful. 

Pile Three

"I cannot recognize myself. But I'm still me."

Welcome to your reading Pile three. I pulled two oracle cards; Downcast Pride and Is this Me, which the purpose is to reflect on the main themes of your reading. Is this Me is associated with the last stage the Dark Mirrors Oracle grief cycle, which the stage of acceptance, whereas Downcast Pride is associated with the depression stage.

Which brings up the primary point- your shadow self that is being repressed, is your own lack of attachment to joy or fulfillment for your life. This pile does remind me a lot about pile one, as both were attached to the stage of depression. There's been this emptiness in our lives for so long, that we become very dull in life and don't bother to work or see things in a way outside of that empty feeling. Yet, on contrast to pile one, pile three is more so at the phrase of depression morphing into the stage of acceptance. Pile three has wisdom and more insight compared to both previous piles. Pile three you have this inward recognition that everyone is within means of having the capacity to alter your method of thinking and act based on that. You're the more self-aware pile so congratulations on that. I got the High Priestess reversed, Nine of Cups reversed, and Two of Swords as the cards to represent what is being repressed from your past. Nine of Cups was the overall main card for the first question and when it's in reversed I read it as dissatisfaction despite all the opportunities that have been given to us. Perhaps, we overestimated what should be given or granted to us and are disappointed that we don't feel satisfied even if our needs have generally been met. In other words, even though you didn't have the worst hand in life, you're not content. It's possible, you have taken your status, or a piece of your own identity for granted. Given the length of time we have used certain facets of our identity for so long, or maybe even briefly; our perspective of our identity can very much be impacted with that facet we once were attached to and what we used to represent. And it also plays a significant role in preserving our happiness and contentment. Now, this "opportunity" or fragment of identify has gotten away as time gives space for it to vanish off. Life is all about change, it's difficult to accept yet we can't and shouldn't allow it to dictate our personal fulfillment. Change is devasting but so is self-pity, a little self-pity is healthy for you, too much is detrimental for us to expand ourselves onto newer and better things. This could mean anything, such as growing up thin and gorgeous. Years go by and now you've gained more weight than you like, eyes have become dull and wrinkly skin has formed in the corners of your eyes, forehead, arms and almost your entire body. Maybe you're blaming yourself for not earning as much money or for not being able to get the same level of love, appreciation or attention from other people. It could be anything—even a passion that ignited a fire in your life that has gradually faded over time. (Mind you, I am not saying that if you picked pile three you have to be old enough to be worrying about wrinkles or having to make more money from the previous year, any age group could pick this. School, family and mental/physical illnesses can be factors as well not just time itself.) Two of Swords also brings up a different point, that highlights being at a standoff with decision-making. Pile three, did you make a lot of decisions based off of what someone else told you was better or what would best suit someone else? Two of swords displays a lot of lack of self-assurance and I think that part of your fulfillment that's displayed from Downcast Pride roots from not being more assertive in your own personal decisions. The High Priestess is a very spiritual card, and as it is included in the spread's earlier sections, I interpret this to mean that either an inner wisdom has been present but has been clouded by the lack of purpose and achievement. You have potential, but with all this chaotic energy, you have suppressed a lot of this fulfillment. Even after all this time has passed and you still feel as though you are in the same place in life. How come you never knew or tried to figure out what you wanted to do? You're not content and have felt like happiness and fulfillment hasn't been present in life. Pile three, it has to feel devastating for you.

Another way that I’m reading the high priestess is that the high priestess is all about our inner calling and inner wisdom. Based on the other two cards, I would say that this is what is blocking off all this magical, inner wisdom being brought up. Meaning, we must solve our own issues to let our inner voice be shined. Seek assistance from anyone or any place that might help you becoming more aware of your inner reality.

You also got the Son of Cups and Judgement reversed. Which just reinforces what I said the previous paragraph. Son of Cups represents a charming and idealistic person that everyone loves and desires. Whilst Judgement reversed is highlighting missed opportunities and failure. Failure to be the Sun of Cups. Failure to grow past who you used to be.

Mourn your past. Accept it’s not with you anymore. Move on so you can grow. I am aware it’s easier said than done, but it still needs to be addressed.

Lamenting over who you wish you still were, or where you want to be is rather pointless. Stop wishing for something thats now unattainable for you. Look for the new you, answers and solutions for yourself. Morph into something better so that the old you would’ve been jealous of new present you. When you think about it, it’s actually good that some things cannot be changed because then there’s a plethora of options for growth and numerous outcomes for who we can be.

Now, I pulled Father of Swords, for advice for you to help you work through accepting your shadow self. This card is pretty straightforward, Father of Swords is a very authoritative and is someone who strives onward. He’s also someone who’s very logical and knows that in order for blessings we have to work and set ourselves up for blessings. He does what he has to do to get to where he wants to be. He dosn’t live in the past, he lives in the present while working for the future. Spirt wants me to tell you to do the same so you can work through your repression of your shadow.

[cmncisspnandmore]

Turned Tables

Spencer x hearing impaired reader

Summary: If someone had told you that one day you would be the one who needed saving you would have told them they were crazy. But when you find yourself going through something that you vowed you would never let happen. Only one person knows enough to be able to pull you out of the endless hole you seem to be falling deeper into.

Warning: mentions of injury, drug addiction, drug abuse, depression, overdose, chronic illness, 

~~~~~

It was like the entire event was playing in your head in slow motion, all the time. Sure there were moments of relief. When something requires your attention fully, and there were moments where you just shoved it down. But those moments have been coming less and less lately. It was becoming harder and harder to ignore it. The gnawing in your gut, the feeling of utter hopelessness and despair you felt in those moments. In the moments where you attempted to commit every feature of his face to memory hoping that they would be your last. 

It never came.

~~~

The next thing you know you were in the hospital and had to learn to deal with the aftermath. 

With the pain.

The side effects. 

The loss of your hearing.

The coffee shop was beautiful at sunset. The warm yellow glow from the lights strung in the window giving it a mystical feeling. It was cozy, it felt right, the only thing missing was Spencer. He was supposed to be meeting you here, it was your usual Saturday night coffee date, you had already ordered him his salted caramel and mocha latte, you were sipping on your vanilla latte. The sky was a dusty pink and purple as the sun set over the skyline. 

There weren't many people in the coffee shop but that wasn't unusual, who drank coffee at 7:30pm. Not many people, most of the time it was you and Spencer and maybe a few other people working late. Tonight was no different, you lean your elbows on the table and stare out the door watching as people stroll by. 

Then it was like time slowed, there was a moment when people started running, there was a commotion in the streets. The crowd outside moved faster, then a man appeared, his back to the window where you were sitting. His movements were strange and jerky, and then he turned. His glassy brown eyes made contact with yours, and the moment you glanced down you noticed the web of explosives taped to his chest. Your mind reeled as you watched him take his finger off the button, the world seemed to slow.

You didn't remember what happened immediately after the explosion, you were knocked unconscious for a little while, but when you came to. The ringing in your ears was enough to make you vomit. And so you did, right next to where you lay in a pile of rubble. Every bone, every muscle, every fiber of your body hurts. 

You couldn't move your legs, the pieces of brick from the front of the building pinned you down. You tried to push yourself up, but your arms felt like jello, you weren't even sure they were still attached. You couldn't hear anything over the ringing in your ears, it was deafening. Every movement felt like it took the strength of a 100 bodybuilders to do it. You turn your head to the side, rubble raining down from the ceiling every few seconds, causing you to cough and squint through the dust. 

As some of the dust settled you could see the friendly barista who took your order, a local high school girl. She was in her senior year, her brown hair was a matted bloody mess, her green eyes glassy. The blood spilling from her mouth, the stillness of her chest. It took only moments for you to figure out she was dead. 

You turn away from her, the image of her glassy eyes burned into your brain. It would haunt you for years. You laid there, every passing moment felt like eternity. The shock slowly wore off and you were becoming more and more aware of your injuries. Pain laced your chest, your breathing becoming rapid, as you struggled to pull air into your lungs. Pain seared through every part of your battered body.

You saw the lights, but never heard the sirens, you could see the shadows of people moving around, the lights of their flashlights coming through the settling dust. You could feel the vibrations of their heavy boots coming closer. Not wanting to be missed you throw your arm up with everything you had, and sure enough someone saw you.

A fireman came over to you, his mouth was moving, but you couldn't hear what he was saying. He slowed his talking down and you were able to make out what he was saying by the movements of his mouth. 

“Are you okay?” He asked, his brow furrowed. 

“N-No… I-I need… you to call someone… F-FBI.. Agent Spencer… Spencer Reid…” You managed to gasp out, and the fireman nodded. His mouth moved again and you struggled to make out what he was saying… something about getting you out you assumed because he left. You struggled to keep your emotions in check as he left, panic coursing through your veins. But he came back with a few others, as they started to remove the rubble and debris from around you and on top of you.

They worked around you, under the instruction of a paramedic who was sitting by your head. You managed to catch a few words she was saying, “Crush syndrome, Heart, Arrest.” But that was all, the ringing in your ears was the same, and the vertigo was still unbearable if you moved. It felt like you were on the worst worst free dive from an airplane. Endlessly spinning towards earth with no parachute to slow you down. 

The paramedic placed an IV and gave you fluids through a bag she held up, she would look down at you and tell you that you were going to be okay. At least that's what you assumed she was saying. She gave you oxygen, and held the mask over your mouth, she mimed deep breaths to you when you would start gasping. The Paramedic and the Firemen worked carefully to free you. It was a painfully slow process. 

Out of the corner of your eye a pair of white and black converse, mismatched socks and jeans.You couldn't hold the tears back anymore, they cascaded down your cheeks in messy trails. Leaving streaks of clean skin beneath the dirt and dust, Spencer slid on his knees next to the paramedic and looked down at you.

His frantic words were lost to you as he conversed with the Paramedic. His hazel eyes locked with yours. His hand comes to rest on your forehead and brushes some of your Y/H/C hair out of your face. His eyes shining with unshed tears, as he speaks slowly, “You’re okay, you’ll be okay. I’m here.” his soundless words promised. 

Your eyes raked over his face, trying to commit every feature to memory, “It’s okay… I love you spencer.” You whispered, your voice barely audible between the background noise you couldn't hear.

“I love you too,” you knew how those words looked. You had watched those lips say those words hundreds of times. There was a moment where something was said and Spencer's face changed. The Paramedic injected something into your IV line and you glanced at Spencer your eyes wide. 

“You’ll be okay.” He mouthed, and then they removed the final piece of rubble, you gasped for breath, and then nothing. The world went dark.

~~~

Someone's hand tapped your shoulder and you jolted in your seat. You glanced over at who startled you, Spencer stood there, his hand outstretched to you. In his hand lay your hearing aids, you sigh, reaching over and putting them in. They didn't give you your hearing back, you were still significantly hearing impaired. They helped you catch every third word or so, you relied mainly on lip reading and signed English in combination with the hearing aids. 

“We need to talk,” Spencer said after you had your hearing aids in, his hands moving to sign as he spoke. 

“About?” You seethed, you were pissed off this morning, you hadn’t slept well. You suffered from frequent bouts of Tinnitus, it was debilitating at times. 

Spencer sighs, although you couldn't actually hear it, you saw the way his chest heaved, the exasperated look on his face as he reached into his pocket and pulled out an orange pill bottle. Your blood ran cold, your fingertips numb. You suddenly felt like you were floating out in space unanchored. 

“Why didn't you tell me you needed more of your meds? You know that you’re supposed to keep them on hand for when the headaches get bad.” He shook his head, and an annoyed expression on his face.

“I’m sorry. I forgot.” You lied, it fell easily off your tongue. You found yourself lying more and more, and the more you lied the easier it got. It didn't leave a bitter taste in your mouth anymore, you didn't feel guilty about lying anymore. It didn't even occur to you to correct Spencer that you HAD filled your prescription. Last week actually, but you had taken them all. 

You didn't know when it started, but the weightless feeling, the good floating feeling that the opioids gave you. They turned from relief to a way of surviving. They no longer were there to just take the pain away, they numbed you to everything. When you took them off and took your hearing aids out, the silence that followed was nothing short of bliss.

You found yourself taking them more often, not because of the headaches, but because you craved those feelings again. For those moments, the scene didn't play over and over. You didn't repeat the moment your hearing was stolen from you. It was just nothing. Pure nothingless bliss. 

Staring at Spencer you realize he's been talking to you, but now that your hearing was mostly gone it was easy to pretend you just didn't understand it, that you weren't lost in your own world. His hands waved at you and your eyes slid to his lips. 

“Sorry, i didn't get that, can you say it again?” You ask, watching him closely.

“I asked if you needed me to pick up your meds, i can grab them on the way into the office,” he signs again, slower this time. 

“No, no, i”ll go out and get them,” you smile, if Spencer stopped by the pharmacy he would find out that you just refilled. He would learn your dirty little secret. “You’re gonna be late,” You gesture to the grandfather clock standing against the far wall.

Spencer looks over, and runs a hand through his curls, “I’ll see you later?” He comes to kneel in front of you, his hands resting on your blanket clad legs. You give him a small nod, and lean forward pressing your lips to his. The taste of his extra sweet coffee still lingers on his pink lips, his hands squeeze your knees and he sits back on his heels. “I love you,” he says, pressing another kiss to your forehead before standing.

“I love you too” You call after him, you watch as he closes the front door of your shared apartment, and let out a sigh. You reach up, ripping the hearing aid from your ears and letting them clatter to the coffee table. You pick up your phone, open a text message thread and send a text. 

Y/N: park noon?

D: Yes. 40?

Y/N: Yes. 300?

D: See you then.

You smile at the phone, and quickly erase the text thread, and put it down on the table. You glance at the time again, you had a few hours to kill before you had to go meet your dealer. At first it felt wrong, and weird. Meeting a drug dealer when your boyfriend was an FBI agent, but when you learnt just how easy it was to get pain meds you changed your feelings about it.

It was better to buy them on the street, fill the bottle that you got refilled monthly and act as if they were the same. Spencer never noticed, since the accident he had become accustomed to your tuned out personality, he understood you were dealing with a lot. You had a life changing event and it would never get better. If anything the audiologist prepared you for the fact that you would probably lose more of your hearing within the next 10 years. 

You would never hear Spencer whisper how much he loved you after making love, never hear his laugh, or his ramblings. You would never hear the way he sounded when he woke up, or be able to listen to your favorite songs in the same way again. You’d never hear your future children first cry or their first laughs. 

You wiped the tears that were tracking down your cheeks, now wasn't the time to cry. You pulled yourself off the couch, grabbing your hearing aids as you left the living room and headed into the bedroom. You changed out of your pajama shorts and put on a pair of leggings and one of Spencers’ sweaters. You sighed, glancing at the hearing aids that lay on the bed, the beige and clear material staring back at you. One more physical reminder of what you lost. That was all those were. You despised them. Some days you refused to wear them, against Spencers protests. But you never left the house without them, fearing that the lack of ambient noise and the inability to catch even part of what was happening around you making you anxious. 

It was time to leave by the time you had finished getting ready to go, hearing aids in tow. You grabbed the keys from the counter and started the 15 minute walk to the park. After arriving at the park you take a seat on the park bench you usually meet on and wait. 10 minutes later Dylan walks up, his hands in his pockets, he looks the part of a man out on a jog, his armband with his phone nestled inside it. 

He sits down on the bench next to you, and looks over at you. “Beautiful day,” his voice is distorted and hard to make out. But you just smile, and nod. He never expects his questions to be answered. After another moment he leans over and taps your shoulder, “Ma’am, i think you dropped this.” He holds out a case, it's small no bigger than a man's wallet and as you reach over you ‘accidentally’ knock over your bag, some of the contents spilling out. Dylan leans down to help you put the items back in and while doing so exchanges the case with the identical one you have in your purse effectively transferring the money from you to him and the pills from him to you.

“Thank you” You smile as you grab your bag and stand, and Dylan gives you a head nod. The whole exchange takes no more than 2 minutes, then you are back on your way home. Pills in hand, as you enter the apartment the ringing in your ears from the night before starts again. You reach up taking your hearing aids out, hoping that will help somewhat. But much to your dismay it doesn't stop the persistent high pitched sounds that your brain is trying to interpret as sound. 

You put your hand to your head, and squeeze your eyes closed. You reach into your bag blindly and find the case of pills, taking 2 out you pop them in your mouth and swallow them dry. You stumble over to the couch and lay down, trying to move as little as possible. Hoping for the seet relief the pills bring to happen soon, 

A few hours later the ringing was still there, unable to take another moment of it you forced yourself to your feet, heading into the kitchen to once again grab the case and take 2 more. Normally you would never take more than 2, but they don't seem to be working anymore. You dry swallow 2 more, and sit on the floor in the kitchen with your back pressed against the bottom cabinets. Your head is back against them, focusing on taking slow even breaths, your eyes closed to try to calm the vertigo. 

After some time you drifted off to sleep…

~~~~~~

Cold water raining down on you from above startled you awake, you were aware of the warm body pressed against your back. Their hands brushing your hair away from your face, the tidal wave of nausea crashes into you and you throw up all over yourself. It’s quickly washed down the drain from the torrent of icy water from the shower head. 

You gasp and sputter as the water continues to assault you. Hands run soothingly up and down your arms, you can feel the vibrations of someone talking behind you. Turning slightly in your seated position in the bottom of the claw foot tub you look over your shoulder and see Spencer, his own hair is soaking wet. His lips slightly blue as he shivers under the cold water. His lips are moving as he talks to you, but between the water running into your eyes and the chattering of his teeth. 

“I cant… I don't know what you’re saying,” You manage to gasp out as your own teeth start to chatter. Reluctantly Spencer removes his hands from your arms, he reaches over and turns off the cold water. You let out a sigh of relief as the cold water stops cascading down your already numb body.

Spencer reaches out and grabs your chin in his long fingers, ‘You overdosed,” he mouths slowly, and realization hits you. You took 4 of the pain meds Dylan gave you. You took 4 within 2 hours of each other. 

“I-Its not what you think,” you mutter, pushing yourself to stand and step out of the tub. Your clothes weigh a million pounds from the water. Your eyes fall to the floor that is slowly becoming soaked beneath you. You see Spencer climb out of the tub after you, his own soaked clothes adding to the water accumulating on the floor. His hand comes under your chin again, forcing you to look at him as he speaks. 

“Why did you lie to me?” His browns pull together as he signs the question, the betrayal on his face is evident. 

“I don't know what you mean.” You grab a towel from the rack and wrap it around yourself, your entire body feels drained. Like it was hit by a Semi truck at 100 miles an hour. You start to dry yourself off as Spencer stares at you. The heart of his gaze is overwhelming, the disappointment rolling off him in waves. 

‘

“Don’t. Don’t lie to me Y/N.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Really? So the pharmacist was lying? He just told me that they filed your prescription last week for no reason?” He gestures wildly, you know hes yelling. You don't have to be able to hear to know that he was yelling at you. It was visible in the way his chest heaved, the way he signed the words to you. His entire body language screamed ‘anger’ like a giant flashing sign. 

“OKAY! I lied!” You yell back, and the shock is evident on his face. The anger disappears to something you recognize instantly. The same look you get from everyone who knew you before. Pity.  “So what? People lie all the time. It doesn't mean I have a problem.” 

“Then why when I pulled your phone records did it show that for the last 6 months you have been meeting a guy once a week, a guy who by the way is a known drug dealer?!” Spencer is yelling again, and the shame slams into you. You never wanted him to be angry at you, you just wanted the pain to stop.

“If i hadn't come home early today, if i hadn't shoved my fingers down your throat while you were unconscious, you would be dead. Do you get that? You need help, Y/N. Let me help you. I’ve been there before i've been in your shoes. I can help you, I can get you the help you need.” His face softens, his hands brushing away the tears that started falling down your cheeks.

“But… I just wanted it to-to stop… “ you sob, as Spencer reaches for you and wraps you in his arms. This whole situation felt familiar, only this time it was you with the problem. Not him. When you had first met Spencer he was in the throes of his own addiction. When your long time friend Penelope Garcia called you one rainy afternoon after not hearing from her teammate, she asked if you could stop over. You only lived a block from Spencer apartment, so you trudged through knee high snow, making the short trip to his building. There you found the door unlocked and heard what sounded like someone struggling to breathe. Your instincts kicked in and you entered the apartment calling out your arrival.

That’s where you found spencer sitting on the floor of his living room, his head down on his knees. His entire body shook as he fell into a panicked spiral. You sunk down onto the wood floor and whispered to him that he wasn’t alone. That he was okay, that someone was there. When he finally calmed down enough he blurted to you that he was withdrawing from Dilaudid, alone. 

Your heart thundered in your chest as he sobbed, as the shaking wracked his body, and stole the little energy he had left. You decided at that moment that he wouldn’t be doing it alone anymore. You were going to help this stranger whose soul was shattered by battling demons you could only imagine.

Now standing soaking wet in the bathroom, Spencer was promising to do the same for you as you did him. He would be your anchor in the rocky waters of addiction. He would hold your hand through the vicious mood swings and physical pain that came along with getting clean. He had already done so much for you after the accident. You weren’t sure why you felt surprised he was still here. Why was he still holding you and telling you everything would be okay, when the last few months you had been distant and even cruel towards him. You had no idea.

“I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not angry. I’m going to be here for you. Through it all okay?” He says holding you slightly away from his chest so you can read his lips.

“Okay…” you whisper, a small smile spreading over Spencer’s lips.

“Okay. We’ll do this, we’ll face this together.” 

[blackangelism]

Born to Die

hey, so, basically, i was writing this fanfiction called born to die based upon kurt cobain and an original character called nirvana lacey anhedönia and, well, i never finished it and i think i’ve lost the inspiration to. but, i still want it to see the light of day because i think it’s beautiful (sort of). so, here we are.

Gibson Girl.

1480 words.

July 6, 1981.

Aberdeen.

Washington.

[ You wanna… ]

Lovelace.

That’s what I’m fucking carving into my arm. With that oh-so-American size of the knife, the cut was deep and my handwriting as unhinged as it could be, probably and possibly worse than the cruel (upon me!) variety of forms it takes; like it was in my journal (I’ve always adored the copulation of the words probably and possibly as it tends so well to my seeming lack of sincerity and existential confusion), but worse, worse. Tingling all over I was in not an aroused, sexual way—but in the way it tingles when the high becomes scary, when the swirly faces start to scratch at you and when your belly feels scarily pregnant (everyone whom I know wants children; I wonder, am I sociopathic or a prophetess? Probably both, they’re primarily synonymous anyway). I knew so damnéd well I was addicted to this shit, the little, translucent, hallucinatory blotters (I prefer ’em trippy on both the outside and in, and pink; but I’m an addict! I’ll take whatever anyways) I get by shaking my ass to the guy whose name I do not wish to have my married brain clouded with. He still cut into my head like the knife that was working with all it’s effort and my inputs carving that v on my plump, ripe forearm. I was addicted as fuck; and I fucking loved it. At the very fucking least, I was pumping out poems like a heroine of the fifties. It’s what it was: the fifties had Sylvia Plath and the eighties had me. Downright iconic. The blood by now—I felt like a lamb, but I knew I was the dragon—was flooding my lap on which that forearm of mine was settled. I apologise if my writing, grammer, thoughts, anything else is fucked up in this or don’t make sense—I’m drugged up into Cloud Nineteen (ten blotters, two packs of Marlboro Reds over this evening).

I know I sound fucking insane and I probably am, and I treat myself to pain Virgin Mary couldn’t have dreamt off—but, I promise I’m not mean. Just a hard, excessive exterior and a tight, eager posterior in this dollhood of mine. Does that even make sense…? I don’t fucking know shit… “Ah, fuck…” I whispered with the most disappointing one I could muster when I fucked up the second l of Lovelace.

Lovelace, Lovelace… Great, I have to recall him.

The fucker who got me into this.

Norwegian trucker in India who was friends with my greaser pa, Norman Anhedönia, called Gibson Lovelace. The chap had forty years worth of oxygen wasted in his shallow breathing (he always breathed shallow, even when he came; I had noticed), a nine-incher monster of a dick, pedophilia, a drunkard wife and an obsession with me. I’d always been what Nabokovian terms would term nymphet, and I do say I’m split on it. I’m a shit daughter and a demon child, or am I? Maybe I’m just depressed and suicidal, or I’m fucking divine and the reincarnation of Eve meant to meet her Adam through a senseless act of violence upon myself (I didn’t know at the time, but I was fucking foreshadowing; go me.). Every girl needs a senseless act of violence properly upon herself but rarely upon the other to discover her one and only cult leader.

Anywho, Gibson led me into his truck away from my father who was too busy cleaning his shades listening to Elvis on the records: January of ’77, I was seven going to turn eight in the November of that year. He fucked me raw, smashed my head so hard into the steering wheel that I bled (I was questioning too much), kissed my cuts and made me promise I wouldn’t pick up a knife again but didn’t do shit about what I actually felt; he told me to stick my tongue out and placed this thin translucent sheet of pink from a little booklet he kept in his glovebox. And I decided that I loved it. I’m at fault, I’m at fault… Fuck Waheguru.

I’m finished. I squeezed my arm as hard as I could, the blood spraying over the marble floor (I had tucked the rug away; I can’t let Mumma see). My incisors with the utmost force to keep my vocal chords at bay dug into my chapped bottom lip and drew blood there too. It trickled down to my chin and came to nirvana at my lap resting amongst the other red molecules; it left a ferric taste on the tip of my tongue, slightly bitter and quite sweet. Bittersweet. Blood, blood, blood, blood, blood… Blood, everywhere. Gibson would’ve rubbed it all over my nipples and told me to lick it up like it was his sperm all over my asscheeks or, well, just cheeks. I did have quite big tits for an almost twelve-year-old, I must admit… I’ve always had more estrogen and my estrogen was also more sensitive: susceptible. Susceptible to manipulation, fuckery, religion, what not… Finally, I could fucking feel something except for the stimuli of my g-spot and the irritation in my nostrils that still blossomed when I chainsmoked indoors or that itching feeling in me when I go too much time without my LSD. I have this delusion that I only pump men good or pump out good stuff when I’m pumped on those little squares: He said that LSD would be good for me when I told him that I write; I’ve been pumpin’ poetry for my baby ever since. I hate children, and I sincerely wish that all babies die alongside their parents and the doctors and the nurses and the medical’s parents and me…

My disorders kicked in (Borderline Personality Disorder, majorly untreated) and I fucking panicked. After so much shit, I fucking panicked. Panicked. Jumping up almost to slam my head to the sink I was cutting up like ham under, I had to hold onto the sink to make myself stand actually. I slowly experienced my hand creep up to switch on the faucet (like Gibby did to the faucet in my eyes everytime he crossed my neurocircuitry) and my other arm (I’m right-handed) creep to wash the blood from Lovelace off. Thankfully, I had a few bottles of peroxide, a pack of Reds, a babydoll dress all set up, razor and men’s shaving cream, my skincare, makeup—all of that set up, and the shower prepped as well. Today, I was to die.

The same year as Gibson’s arrival to me, I spiralled and ended up flinging my curvy body down the roof of some pretentious hotel in Seattle. I didn’t die, unfortunately. Then, well, I was transferred to a crazy people place for four years until I got out in March of ’81 (this year!) equally, if not more, fucked up. I had glowed so much surrounded by my little hellspawns, my creatures... My paradise is dying in the arms of nobody. But, I couldn’t care when the blotters kicked in and helped my cerebrum in distorting so fucking shittily my face into some eldritch horror that passed the likes of werewolves mid-transformation and golems. I giggled manically at the twistings of my eyes into the hair and my ears into halo, my mouth stretched through the giggle was transmuted to the petrified image of a dog and a lady and what fucking not. Oh, I need my pen… Pen, pen, pen, pen,... pen!

The lad

I tried to write into the journal page I had kept open on the small settee of my bathroom that I had also made sure to drip some of my essence onto (not like that, pervs; the blood, I’m saying) but my mouth wouldn’t co-operate with my cerebellum or my cerebrum. The giggles just wouldn’t stop and they just got more and more distorted like guitars fitted into amps and amps and shredding. I fell back on the ground, it cushioned by my ass, and held my head in my arms, shaking my head as if to curate outside of my all the fogginess and to shake out of my trip. I wanted to write, write! Not whatever the fuck this was. My eyes were squeezed so hard, I was crying. And, I couldn’t fucking stop laughing like a shitshow.

“Oh, God, stop, stop, stop, just fucking stop…!” Hadn’t even realised I was sobbing but in that moment that epiphany hit me like a freight train (whatever the fuck a freight train is; I just picked up on the writing tool from whatever I read using this). My arm was still bleeding, smearing blood over my cheeks; my lip was still cut from my teeth, bleeding the smaller bits too; I was shaking like a fucking banyan leaf in the rainstorms of Wash.

• • •

Strangers.

5010 words.

July 6, 1981.

Aberdeen.

Washington.

[ Don’t talk to strangers, or you might fall in love ]

Even the isolation, deprave, and mesophilia of our fucked-up, Lacey, crazies hospital was better than this drenched, little town. What was better than any of those two fucking disasters, though, was my stance on the railway tracks. Sittin’ there like teke-teke, waitin’ for my gorgeous guts to be smashed over, destroyed, violated, clawed out by the grinders of the train. I’d never seen starry nights—the ladies at Lacey would never have enough testicles to let me watch a shooting star and hope that it crash into me, the fuckin’ meteorite. My years at Cawnpore already were quite less in number, and it eternally was too polluted for us to see something more than the dhruv star and a few other killers; I’d never seen starry nights. According to this astronomical magazine I picked up while the nurses took us out to the local stores of Lacey for us teenage girls to detoxify our battlefields for minds, today was a meteor shower and I was thoroughly intrigued by blazing space rocks in the skies, so I bluffed and fucked my way out of the hospital. My egg and sperm donors did not believe for a major nanosecond that I was cured. At two years of pained age, I was standing in the middle of the gray-like-me roads, conscious of the act; at four, I burnt my pierced earlobe on purpose, using the steam-fuelled iron to; at six, any blade I pranced upon would find it’s metallic way to scent the room in the aroma of my equally metally blood, I only wished for one to kiss those marks and draw about them, to be what the lyre was to Apollo; at eight, this curvy brain of mine finally snapped into her hemispheres and told me to fling my curvy body down the highest story of our hotel. At eight, my suppliers abandoned their Catholic mistake of a dolly into a mental hospital in my Americana birthplace, Lacey.

There, I morphed myself like the blesséd Phoenix, curse, profanity I am into The Mother. Mother Lace, Mother Nirvana, Messiah of thee, and the literary combo of Three. One of the only times I shall ever cherish are my years with those six girls… My girls: my loves, only ones who would ever succeed in enveloping me with so much heat that the outward exterior, the exoskeleton of middle fingers and catty hisses, melts into a puddle of rot beneath me and the inner delicacy of my wretched fragility and mortality is on display for all those mental fuckers to eat.

Needless to say…, I missed my bundle of little women, my packets of compressed, oppressed joy. So, I lay there longing with my arms stretched onward craving hiraeth in the Heavens—now that I look back, it never was hiraeth. I knew exactly what my home was: the browned mental hospital where I spent four formative years of my Jim Morrison's life in. I longed for the hug of my collected daughters, their soft digits brushing my hair as they softly inquired escape from the hellhole I promised to save them from. My girls... I loved them, like the mother they never received. I had promised, I had promised… I was a betrayer. What mother to those girls…

On instinct I experienced my hands reach to the crown of my head, relief coursing through my blood the moment a thorn stung me. Their entity had crafted for me a crown of thorns to relish me as their Lady and Saviour. I did feel blood seep from the pinch, but I stuck my finger between my lips and thrashed my tongue around, gazing at the dying glows of the starry night.

I pretended to be Jesus.

I am Judas, or am I?

I don’t even know what I’m writing. You’re hallucinating while interpreting strange symbols written left-to-right in lead and antimony compounds upon thin, delicate tablet-like structures made of tree sap, so I guess we two are never too far apart in our crazy.

Well, to them (my girls: Laine Jean Ray, Bonita Ana Dios, Aurora May-Belle Long, Theresa Midge Check, Verbena de Baïa Voisin, Margaret Sarah Check), I still remain Yeshua. Yet, I feel a wolf in lamb’s skin as myself; a panther in the throes of the night sky that I stare emptily, tearily, upon. I fake it so real, I am beyond fake (translation: you people are fucking dumb).

In my convulsing tubule of thoughts birthed by my cerebral quality, I failed in my life to notice movement, possibly a metre from me. I was laid over the railway track like a corpse, eyes empty yet body warm for no reason at all. It truly seems bizarre how the movement noticed me neither—maybe dissolved so much in the grief were they that they were as heady as me, as crazy as I! Trapped inside the fever dream of their own thoughts, vowed to never spit it out, bit tongues and summertimes spent in clawing bedsheets and clamping hands over the own lips so as to refrain from the awareness that might spread. That might say…: I am iron. I am usable, extremely so. Exploit me, as if you have not already. Though, I might have not warneth thou… I rot as vigorously as I am used, keep me out in the world and I will break down and become ash of myself. In the velvet night, a puff of air as a sigh crawled out of me, liquid dripping down the corneas of I, ruining not the night (this was to be, I planned to die today for fuck’s sake) but my precious mascara and eyeliner. Oh, how I worked on that lining to accentuate my inherited, unwanted, auto-appreciated felinity. I’d be the prettiest girl in the morgue.

Someday you will ache like I ache.

Anyhow, the shower from the atmosphere had concluded a few minutes prior. And, well, finally, the train I was waiting for to scramble and crumble my guts into nothing but wasted potential, like I already was, had arrived… Only, it arrived wrong. It ran over the steel beside me, beside us (counting in the movement I am). A severe monsoon bummer filled my chest, the void in my heart had been concealed tightly and packed with Lyssa, Eris, what not. I craved to screech at the tyrant Father for his sin, for his fucking disruptive mercy on me—I did not want mercy! I needed death to fuck me like his personal, unpaid, loyal servant-girl; I needed it violent! So, as soon as all registered in my voluminous cerebrum, I recoiled in my pose, resorting to the protection of a foetal position as I screamed out my sobs and muffled them by staining my shaved thighs with my lipstick and drool smelling of minty chew-gum that I chewed last minute, tears of brown-black from my mascara and liner, hitting my head against my knees and punching the bloody rails that I was once moonbathing over until I experienced my knuckles burn and bruise, actual slivers of blood peek through the skin. I continued then too, but was too passionate in my quiet wailing to keep up the aggression.

And, thence, I swiped my tears with my bleeding knuckles, unrealising in my little girl’s misery of the fact, and smeared blood over my eyes and mascara over my blood. By some distance, I could hear some twigs crunching, maybe it was the movement I hadn’t noticed beforehand. When I did notice in that current moment, fear struck my gut like Cupid’s arrow when I had seen Priscilla Presley for the first time in forever. Naturally, a response occurred within the fatty mass of electric muscle in my head and I recoiled within myself, burying my face in my knees that I had pulled to my tits, only my eyes blinking up like a defensing cat—if I had been a cat, my pupils would have shrunken to that reptilian, creepy glare. I saw that the thing was lighting a cigarette, my cravings relit alongside (the appearance of the thing was half-revealed in the dim spark).

Stupidly as I ever could be, I murmured from my coil, “Do you have a light?” However softly I did speak, the boy did hear because it was the death of the night in wherever we were, the railroad was as quiet as could be with the crickets around chirping and inaudible bats may or may not be sauntering about. Dim moonlight that I somedays worshipped (as a witch, I did) proved herself, and I saw him. The first predicament was that he’s cute: blond, ice eyes, hopeless swagger, shaky legs. He paused himself in his trek, and slowly but mildly clumsily, turned to see my form. Perhaps cold moonlight proved her importance to hallucinatory pages of dead sap’s inkéd words of feel-good love. Wow, fuck, I went overboard on there. So, he scrutinised me for a moment, squinting to gaze at me carefully.

I’ll never forget what came out of my future husband’s mouth the first time he spoke a single thing to me…: You look very pretty when you’re crying; tears suit you. I don’t think that I can emphasise the moan that was nearly to escape me at that very moment, it was a shockwave of whatever down my spine to my ladyness. My knees dropped to become flat, just legs, and I did acknowledge the gashes in my doll heart bleeding so vigorously, it matched my swallowed drool.

“You don’t mean that, you’re drunk.”

His honeyed voice, sort of scratchy as I observed he was pubescent and hormonal in his blue jeans, white striped shirt—walked into the room, you know you made my eyes burn!—and black-y jacket he kept open, pushed me to experience the yayo-type, giggly joy of his chuckle, he shook his head in amuséd denial of his drunkenness. He was poetic, he had a slur, he had his thin lips wrapped around a cigarette—shit, I needed them wrapped around mine… And, I loved it. Why the fuck was I enamoured? “You’re a hypocrite,” He paused for a moment, maintaining that smile. Two distinct holes, punctures in muscle, were noticed by thee truly, myself, at that very moment; I felt my ribcaged heart palpitate. “You’re bawling your eyes out here like Virgin Mary.”

“Oh, fuck me, that’s beautiful.” The moan that was slowly and gradually, steadily and irresistibly, mountaineering up my throat finally escaped in the form of this: *Oh, fuck me, that’s beautiful*. Which, I did mean—how could I not mean *this*? I’m not Lisa Rowe, you buzz (although I wish to be—have you not read the sheer charisma produced from the description Kaysen emits of her? She was definitely the prettiest girl in the morgue!).

Hands of his extended to mine, both, and I took them, shakingly wobbling from my psych-out. I felt drunk. As terror-inducin’ it seems, drugs had exhilarated me, no cock of a man who had money this nymphet had onlooked had been left out, I was such a La Lolita for my crazy desires—but I had never had a swig before. Smelling the booze off my falling, twisted guy as he pulled me up from my literal and mental death—I only knew that my heart was hitting at my sinews, she felt a depraved wanderlust. Some wanderlust it was to, like a man in a Prime Minister pose, mark that free, angel Earth mine with maybe a flag (a tattoo) or a hole (a lovebite), something, somewhat. I held onto his shoulders for both metaphorical and literal support, he held onto the curve of the lower back I possessed, though the fabric of his jackie didn’t benefit friction and he kept slipping his arm off accidentally because, one, he adorned too much weight on; two, the fabircs intermingled like our forms, the cheap satin and whatever the fuck his jacket was made of. “Why am I a hypocrite, though?” I finally asked this little blond dude what had been pestering me (I am not to blame for this worthy-of-disdain obsessiveness, I have Borderline Personality Disorder. I am Cool Girl: I am nothing in my soul if not obsessive) for how millennium long. His ocean eyes matched mine for a moment, and he seemed to think through for a momento before he permitted the giggle of a hyena break out of him: Because you’re pretty when you cry, and I’m not.

“Yes, you are.” No hesitation was laced through me, none of that unaware uncertainty that I usually experienced leaking through my tune when I comforted one of my girls—my girls...—and instead was there an ignorant stubbornness. I was always stubborn, but what the fuck? I, having registered in my still plush cerebrum that my crown of thorns (gifted to me by Laine specifically, although all the girls worked on it) had fallen like my Lucifer when I had risen, thence I bent to grab my status, injuring my already injured hand thus further as the thorns pierced and pricked into my skin. And, I didn’t even cry…

He recoiled almost physically at my olden compliment (remember the first dialogue of the previous paragraphed rambling?) and I was due a breakdown of my psyche in that very singular fraction of a minute when my man suddenly perked up, “I only have this cig,”, changing the subject. Yahweh, my knuckles burnt. I ohed a tiny bit, and chuckled, extending one of my quivering, weak limbs and bending to wrap my lipstickéd lips on the ass of that cigarette, same one he took a drag from not fifteen seconds ago. His Atlantic eyes widened for a twiddling momentous, and, possibly and probably in drunken stupor and marijuana heights of his death wish, he giggled—I physically felt my pupils dilate, what the fuck? Maybe it was the nicotine, maybe it was the aftershocks of my tiny-teeny mental breakdown on the rail, maybe it was hisself… Damn, I think I understood Grant so well in that miniscule moment: Heaven is a place on Earth with you.

The world was built for two.

Delusional, I was convinced that it was us two the moment he grabbed the cigarette from me for his chance, and he examined the matte, messy mark of my lip stamped on it.

With the dumbest smile he could muster in my damnéd opinion, this little, blond, territorial, underdeveloped man adjusted his lips on the exact place I had left my shine, suckling it like it was some part of me. He knew what he was doing, I could pluck it from the glitter in his pretty orbs that told me shit he’d never be able to spit out in our tragic, magic relationship of some thirteen years. We kissed in death like we kissed in that moment, he blew smoke into my mouth and I giggled, almost extracting the alcohol of his from the roof of his mouth as my tongue felt her way around. We parted for perhaps, well, a second (I don’t remember the details, I’m writing this after our wedding sex, 1988. We’re in our flight back to Olympia from Honolulu, and he’s sleeping on my tits), and rejoint as I adjusted the angle to kiss-fuck this virginal Cherub better. “Darling, is this your first?”, he nodded, responsive—to be frank, that was adorable...! I’m pretty sure I squeaked out of sheer kiddy excitement, squeezing the sides of his face (cheeks). My grip migrated to around his neck, form bent for he was teenier than I. I didn’t even know his name and we were kissing in the blue dark…

Parting, I only gazed into his oceanic gaze and breathlessly giggled, “Oh, wow, fuck,... That was…, yeah.” A grand total of seven partners (three females, four males) I had engaged in before this merman, and I had never felt myself stolen of breathe ever in my existence after a mere kiss. Possibly was it the intoxication, the nicotine fucking over my senses so that my taste buds tickled with the enriching experience of his glazed cavern, but was it not thrilling, oh Mary! I had enchanted outward the sweetest giggle, and he in his still stupor snuggled his head inside the curve of my shoulder and chest; he was only that much tall. I was not lanky in any aspect, neither I am still—on the flipside, truth is that my mother repeatedly insisted upon me to not drown in my head and force her to onlook, rather to go outside, soak some tan (I am racially brown, thence I don’t require a tan) and run some. I decline profusely, tangling in blankets again and writing what, if discovered, would have positively filed me into the South Sound Behavioral Hospital yet again for a term not of four years now but of God-knows-how-long.

Eventually, I figured: some other day, this nymph may or may not have only prolonged my life now, and I told myself it. By the railway roads were grasses uncared for (like most daughters were; the human was their mother and the stain’d, tall grasses were the lost), we decided unconsciously to sit by those and talk the dimlight of the night off the clouds, to dawn we conversed. As unbelievable as it may sound considering the turbulence not even Athena might have dreamt of that had plagued the twisty courses of my lifetime, I had not sipped upon the liver eater yet: alcohol! With my newfound darling, that was precisely what I did.

We were dwelling inside uncanny synchronisation with our acts: we looked around at the same time, fixated on the same piece of cement, reached to gasp one another’s hands the same moment. I didn’t flinch, neither did the blond darling. Which..., was quite, well, it was especially choking as I... Usually froze at contact of the physique from someone whom I loved. Around this time, with my drink-induced lover, it felt good.

We curled up by grass, against a gray boulder-like structure, perhaps a part of a rotten or demolished building of some sort, debris. There, I suckled upon the lengthy cancerstick and inquired like an owl: “Why were you here, anyway?” In a casual tone I did, as if it was something so normal that I was nonchalant. “Oh, y’know, to kill myself.” The answer delivered by this sweetness would dwelling in me a day or so afterward (take that very literally) was just as nonchalant, confirming the suspicion conjured by my despaired subconscious that he was just as heady as me, as crazy as me, someone who would rot along me like iron all the while fearing the rot, hiding from something murmuring within thyself and teetering about; aura as a nymphic call and melancholia as the default ring of the mood. GOD is a teenaged girl of grunge and glitter, and I am a doll (soulless, empty, pretty with no matter on the inside yet pretty from the back—it matched!).

“No, no, like, why?” I repeated with an accentuated tone and my regular gestures of hand and eye, “The reason you wanted to kill yourself. I don’t judge, promise.” I shrugged, chuckling a bit as I passed the miniature cancer to him for a drag. “Clearly.” He chuckled too, widening his eyes momentarily to allude to my appearance; as I remember it, that elicited out from me a little giggle. I mean, it was the factual; darling, not lying. A girl; a girl dressed in a pearly babydoll dress with lacy tights (opaque white-like, frilled, a bow on top of each, knee-high) and no footwear with mascara smeared down her face from a clear breakdown of her battlefield for mind, manic brown eyes with a grape-coloured lipstick on pouty heart-shaped lips, blood and dirt also staining her optic area due to her bleeding knuckles from which she punched the steel of the rails because the train did not run over her? Paired alongside the fresh wounds on display littered across that fatty arm of hers? Oh, she was a crazy chick—and I could tell that this little guy loved it. He loved my mania, he loved my blood, he loved my crazy, he loved everything that I loved about myself. Maybe it was his alcohol that urged him this way, but I loved him for he loved what he saw.

But is she pretty on the inside?

“Well,” I spaced back in with the thrill of his voice curling the air around us; I wish we were plunged into steel. Sound travels best in something like steel… What would his voice be in steel? The thought messaged down my spine a shiver. “’s mostly everything about my life. Wouldn’t say I’m addicted, but all I do these days is mope and get high, or drink. I’ve been this since last month. Last year, I saw this… This dead boy who hung himself in the woods. That really affected me, I think; I’ve got suicide genes.” He paused a bit, sighing as he was passed the smokestick again. I puckered up a bit and drew closer to his pretty face, rounding my lips out and pushing out a ring of cigarette smoke. On impulse, he stuck nose through the centre of the dissipating smoke ring which drew from me another giggle—he was just like me! I did that too! I’d never thought someone else would…? What the fuck is going on?

Taking a drag, he then resuméd: “My parents are divorced… I’m really embarrassed of that.” He added a bit hesitantly, I could gauge that he still felt the shame of it all; which perplexed me. A divorce is shameful? How so? It’s a fucking life decision… But, that’s okay because this little one was clearly less mature and emotionally developed than I, although that amount still was remarkable considering his physique and my presumé of his age (which I thought to be elder to me, but still not too much so). “Why?”

“I want my real family back. My dad promised me he wouldn’t remarry, and he fucking did; to a bitch nonetheless. I hate her and her children are so… Phoney…!” Humming at his hurt words, I was analysing him: eyes gliding over the pasty, smooth contours of his vanilla face; staring into the trench of his pupils surrounded by his ocean eyes as he passed back the almost dead cigarette to me. The guard he wore over his exterior again was forming as he read that I was reading him without contempt (he thought I was feeling that, but I was simply analysing him emotionlessly—as if he was a labrat and I was dissecting him to figure out the following: what the fuck is this little shit?). But, I got him before he leaned away or apologised: Don’t worry, go on. Say it. I hate my cousins too. He relaxed yet again, I could see his shoulders come down and he leaned into me again,. Our heads were almost leaning against each other’s, breathes intermixing with each intake and out. “Go on.” I repeated, tapping his knee to accentuate my point.

He snapped out of whatever daze (he was reading me too, perhaps; mentally dissecting my Barbie body too, perhaps) and his hand came to clasp mine. I bit back a giggle and a smile at the contact, he did notice the corner of my lips tilt upward so he took that as a positive for further lacing of his fingers with mine. I, now a bit assured in myself, squeezed his hand and nudged him again: go on.

“Right,” He chuckled, “So, well, I just feel… Alien. You know, when I was little, I used to look at the stars,” He pointed briefly to the stars that were shining above the both of us, “And imagine my real family because I just felt like I wasn’t from here, like I was from another planet. I think I like that feeling, I was homesick for a place that didn’t even exist. And, to be honest, you’re the only other alien I’ve met.” That made me giggle after I muttered hiraeth at the sentence spoken second to the last. I found in my nicotined mindscape that this… Theory, was almost verbatim of a theory I myself had gardened in my meadow for mind. “Y’know…! I felt like that too, still do actually. I just used different terms for it. I called whatever the fuck our species are Earth Angels, angels on Earth. I read somewhere once that a person with scars of cuts on their arms was called an angel by a kid, and I think I really internalised… That.”

He chuckled, “Your mind is divine, Pretty. Yeah, I think my family is also a reason in why… I want to kill myself, y’know?”

“Oh, absolutely. I love them so much so I do what they want and they hate me for every speck of originality; I don’t know if it’s my mental disorders or it’s my hormones, but every small inconvenience makes me wanna kill myself. I’m also a hater! I hate everything and I do nothing to change it which, admittedly, makes me an arsehole—but, fuck it.” We both had laughter crawling up our throats and I could tell it wasn’t actual laughter. Oh, no. It was mania, laughing not because it threatened to spill; laughing because you had nothing else to do. Like crazy people (I do think that I am insane, in some way, shape or form. But, I also think that I’m supersane. Who fucking knows? I think a lot, don’t I?).

The cigarette had gone out by now, I think I had stubbed it out by pressing to the moist ground after he had truly started opening the shells of himself, not wishing to be distracted by drugs when I had the most addictive and healthy sedative offering his lifestory to a little shit like me. “Well, what’s it for you? I haven’t ever seen… You around…” He slurred out as we jumped down from our maniacal, little, episodic bursts of sacrilege or insanity… Well, are they not synonyms?

“Ah, so, I just moved here about a… Maybe a few days ago? I think a week or so. I moved from Lacey, though I’m actually Indian. Well… It’s a fucked-up fairytale, really. My whole ancestry and family is the following: sexist, racist, extremist to Sikhism, religious, doomed, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, very, very Indian. It’s only my grandmother who acknowledges the sexism floating between our family; she dreamt high and was ambition incarnate but her marriage to this horrible fucking man led her to be so oppressed she couldn't speak a word of English without being thoroughly taunted for it.” His face clearly contorted into a gnarly grimace, and I felt my nose start to itch and burn again remembering all this up… Never had I ever trauma-puked this well or been so comfortable vomiting it out to someone I did not know.

“’s just… Fuckin’ Hell. I can’t translate it into words, I can only feel.” Shaking my head in a paternal sort of disappointment (no matter how much I despise the fact, I am my father’s daughter; his copy of carbon) at my inability, I felt myself pulled in again… How? How was he doing this shit? Being so fucking kind? It made me anxious, admittedly. Why was he so kind? What did the fucker want?

I’m being too cynical. I wanted to cry; instead I accepted his tentative comfort and shoved my face into the nook of his neck, breathing down it like a vampire in the night. I had the purely feminine, feline urge to wrap myself around him like Sarin and never let go to slowly dissolve into him even if maggots eat us out. Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why…? For a few minutes I think, we stayed in that exact position, in a sort of silence that neutered my turmoil. His arms were gel onto my wounds, and I, terrified, readily crept in like the Dutch beetle on the elm.

“Don’t.” I eventually muttered out into the tender, pale, untouched flesh of temptation on his neck; I don’t know why I did it, don’t decipher or discover the root at all. What is a girl to do when offered love on a silver spoon when she only possesses a forked tongue of venom caused from licking slivers of love off a parental knife? I was a black, not racially but spiritually. I was corrupt, disgust, free-use trash for swollen cocks with zero semblance of any soul and only a pretty body. It’s my pretty power which is my ugly. I am disgusting… I sometimes feel the scorching need to cleanse myself, to face redemption, to hurry to salvation; and other days I revel in the hellfire of lust that would surround me once I am liberated of this uséd body.

[yeahspider]

DIAL TONE 🕸️

Ve’s note - 100% self indulgent . sobriety is hard . it’s a struggle but we up yk . minho x fem reader . mdni . hurt/comfort . adult themes . mentions of alcohol and depression . if you’re struggling with addiction just know i love you and that recovery isn’t linear . not proofread . requests are open . enjoy <3

you didn’t want to be in this party any more . the music was too loud and you were too drunk . but you didn’t want to go back to your dorm either . what awaits you there ? silence ? isolation ? you couldn’t take another night of staring at your ceiling . it’s been weeks since you last talked to him . not that you could blame him , you were a mess . a mess that didn’t want to be cleaned . you said some things you didn’t mean , and now you’re left to suffer the consequence of your never ending stream of red solo cups .

nothing is as making the void he left better . but somewhere deep in your brain , the darkest part convinced you if you filled the hole with another drink that it would be alright . but that one drink turned into another and another and eventually the hole spilled over . so here you were pressed up against the wall by some random . his kisses up your neck left you filling emptier than before but it’s hard to tell when you’re knee deep in a binge .

another shot was all you needed . after two more the stranger started to look like minho . but then he would say something and like a jolt to your system your visage would shatter . this isn’t what you wanted . pushing the man off you and grabbing another bottle . you left the party and the terribly loud music . steeping out into the rain you felt the rest of your resolve crumbling . not even the rain could hide your tears as you you opened another bottle .

you didn’t want to live like this anymore . it’s been two years . minho was with you threw it all . and the only thing you did was push him away . you don’t know how long you’ve been sitting at the bench . could he thirty minutes could’ve been two hours . time seemed muddle when you were in this state . the rain had started to slow and you started to shiver . unlocking your phone you see the lock screen of minho you could never bring yourself to change . his smile that graced his face in rare occasion never failed to blow you away .

two minutes of indecision later . your dialing his number . and then two rings in you start to regret it . he owes you nothing . has saved you more times than he could count . so you couldn’t blame him if he didn’t pick up . not after how that last conversation ended in you slamming the door and storming out his apartment . after two more rings he picked up . you couldn’t stop the shock that flooded through you . why did you call him again ? you foundry remember . you barely registered his voice gently asking if you’re alright , or you’re shaky response that resembled a small no .

“send me your location.” you heard him say . and for the first time in your relationship you listened . he told you to stay out and that’s what you did . you couldn’t tell if it’s the liquor coursing through your veins that kept you rooted or sheer desperation to see him again . it took him five minutes to pull up . you know your shivered and soaked form was a sight to see . he stood in front of you for a second . taking in all your rock bottom glory . it room you a second to meet his eyes , and second more for you to whisper out a thank you . he only hummed as he led you to his car and back to his aortemng . only speaking in small bouts as he let you shower and change into a hoodie of his and a pair of leggings you had left at his house awhile ago .

after drying off and sobering up as much as you could you joined him in his bed you’ve spent so many nights in . his eyes caught sight of the bruises left on your neck from earlier and the bags that never seemed to leave from under your eyes . you looked a mess . but to him you were still as beautiful as ever . still his girl . even if you were a little lost . minho twirled a piece of your hair between his finger and that’s all it took for you to break into sobs . clinging on to his shirt his body heat seeped into you as you repeated your sorrys to him like a prayer . he just held you and shushed your apologies .

“i will never give up on you my love. you’ll always have me.” said into your hair . and you beloved him . minho would never fail to dave you no matter how many times you needed it . you wanted to do anything to keep him . even if that meant getting better and healing . because you knew that he would be with you every step of the way .

[it-happened-one-fic]

Only Love - Alhaitham

Author Notes: This fic has been sitting in google docs for quite some time now, but what with Christmas coming up fast, I'm running into trouble finding time to write and/or edit anything so I'm going through my backlog. This fic was written while I listened to "Only Love Can Hurt Like This" by Paloma Faith. As per usual, reader is gender-neutral. I hope you enjoy.

Type: Gender-neutral/ pining/ romantic

Word Count 595

Alhaitham let out a sigh as he lay back on his bed. The door was safely shut in the hopes of dulling the racket Kaveh was currently causing as he banged away at his latest project. 

Alhaitham was alone yet again, though, in the solace of his room. Usually one of his favorite places to be.

Alone, unbothered, and actually able to concentrate on whatever he pleased without fear of being interrupted. And yet, Alhaitham could not focus.

Instead, his brain kept clinging to you. Bringing up images of your face during previous experiences and posing random, inconsequential questions about you and your goings-on. 

Such was the source of his current mood. Not depressed or solemn, but also not one of comfort or pleasure. If he had to name the feeling, he would say confusion came closest, or perhaps frustration.

Alhaitham had a feeling that he knew why you lingered in his mind for such a length of time after any meeting the two of you shared. And it never failed.

You would interact with him for only a short time, smiling all the while like he was a dear companion as the two of you chatted before you both, inevitably, parted ways. 

You strolling away to continue your day while he…. He was trapped with thoughts of you that almost seemed to be a source of his current frustrations.

Alhaitham did not dislike you. In fact, it was far from it. He’d found that he quite enjoyed your presence.

 When you left, he longed for your return. And when he saw you, there was a certain pleasure that seemed to be unmatched by other sensations.

Logically, you shouldn’t have such an effect on him, and, logically, he knew he did not require your presence to exist in a perfectly healthy state. But Alhaitham also recognized that this was a perfectly human reaction to have, just like he knew exactly what feeling it was that consumed him when it came to you.

If Kaveh could peer into Alhaitham’s head at this moment, the architect would be squealing with delight. Either at the suffering the Akademiya’s Scribe was currently going through or at the fact that it all seemed like something out of a cheesy romance movie.

Alhaitham huffed out a bitter laugh. To think that he’d decided early on he would never become consumed by such folly that turned rational men into fools. And yet here he was, stretched across his bed and staring up at the ceiling with only one thing on his hopelessly addicted mind. You.

You and your bright smiles. You and your clever wit. You and your consistently charming ways. You and the way you seemed like something built specifically to drag the Akademiya’s great and much disliked scribe, who till now had seemed unshakeable, to his knees.

Yes, Alhaitham knew exactly what this feeling was that you inspired within him. Because only love could hurt, consume, and distract like this.

But Alhaitham had also learned his lesson well already. He was, after all, a fast learner.

Bittersweet. That was the flavor that this love had taught him, and he was ready to move on to simpler days. And for that, there was only one solution.

So Alhaitham sat up, having made up his mind about what he knew must be done. 

If you were going to plague him with thoughts of you, then he would do the same to you. After all, there was only one cure for the fascinating affliction that was you. So he would achieve that cure.

[disciplinedselfrya]

Music

I think one of the most underrated topics when it comes to self-improvement is music. I mean it. No one really talks about it. And not in the “listen to classical/jazz music, go to the opera, become a cultured individual” way. In the “stop listening to music all the time” way.

And before jumping at conclusions, hear me out.

I am and I’ve always been a fan of music. I don’t have a type - I listen to everything that I like. I had so many phases - Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, kpop, depressive music (let’s keep it a secret ok). You name it, I’ve been there.

For about two years, I listened to music nonstop. Not in the “music is my life” way, but in the “let’s open spotify while I’m getting dressed up” kind of way. I was listening to music in the morning, after I woke up. I was listening while I was doing homework, while I was getting ready, while I was eating. All the time. And I liked it - it’s not like I was scrolling, right?

I only noticed everything two weeks ago, when I was in an awful mental state. I was feeling like the pressure was too much, like the world was too much. I couldn’t hear my thoughts. Why? Partly because of the music that I was listening to.

Music blocks the outside noise. It is an escaping mechanism, much like social media or watching series. It makes you numb, or happy, or sad, according to the lyrics and the beat. In the end, music is content.

Let’s get back to the story. After that, I decided to search about the effect music (with lyrics, especially) has on people, and here, loves, is what I discovered:

Dopamine Desensitization: Excessive listening to highly stimulating music can lead to dopamine over-release, causing temporary pleasure desensitization, where one needs more intense stimuli to feel pleasure. Eventually, you may find it harder to feel good without intense music. Over time, this can feel almost addictive.

Dependency on Music: As many people do (and I am no exception), you might be tempted to use music as a coping mechanism, a way to escape the reality or regulate your stress levels. Over the time, though, this dependency may hinder emotional self-regulation and negatively impact your mental resilience.

False Cure for Loneliness: Listening to music is often perceived as a “cure” for loneliness. You’ve probably experienced it. Songs are relatable - they talk about love, family, trauma and all that - and this the reason for the overconsumption. And loneliness, as we know, is the no. 1 cause of depression and mental illnesses. The thing is, which I hope you are aware of, the only cure for loneliness is meeting other people, socializing. Music makes you think everything is getting better. Well, no. Everything is getting worse.

Mood Manipulation: As well as music boosts your mood…it can always take it down. Let’s say you got a bad grade. You listen to depressive music. It feels good for a moment, right? Your feelings are validated. But then the trauma and the mommy issues come to light and that bad grade leads a feeling tsunami. Music won’t let you live in the present. Wake up, love.

Internalizing Negative Messages: As a note to no. 4, humans tend to mimic everything they see and understand. So when a song is telling you that no one will miss you when you’re gone or some other bs, you believe it, huh? Because you are human. You’ve heard of the subconscious mind - find some other posts about it and read (I don’t have any, but there are plenty on tumblr - you can even find articles so dive in).

Overstimulation. Your brain is fried. Why, love, why? You need music 24/7? No, what you need is a walk in the nature and a therapy session, not living in a world inside of your head. When you can’t hear your thoughts and all you can hear are the lyrics…it’s time to stop. Please.

Note: by any means, I am not telling you to quit listening to music. What I want you to understand is that you have to live the present and be aware of your own feelings, without being influences by the break-up song of whatever singer. What I did after I noticed all this: I switched to classical music. It rebuilt my focus, it helps me stay calm and relieve stress and I don’t have to deal with the drama. Now, feel free to choose your own path. Or even keep listening to music if you think you can manage it - but stay present. I’m telling you once again.

I hope this helps! Rya

[yuutryingtowrite]

Not a request, more like a thirst because god I love your writing and you just understand the vibe of yandere I've neen obsessed with. Your ocs are so great too!

I was drooling over the salaryman one and just thought about his darling getting berated by a coworker or boss in front of him.

Hope you don't mind this little blurb!

How could they get mad at you? You were an angel in this competitive capitalistic hell?! Salaryman goes through the lengths of glaring down said coworker. Side commenting on their flaws in meetings, messing with their computer files, and going through the lengths of finding blackmail on them.

You notice this before he can actually threaten your coworker, and drag him to an empty meeting room. It's just you and him. In this dark room. His mind goes a mile a minute thinking about all the things you were possibly gonna do to him.

He was pretty sure you found out about his plans. You were more than smart enough to do so, but are you about to praise him? Or are you about to punish him for being out of line.

He thought it would hurt to hear insults from you, to feel the leftover sting as he gets slapped for 'not staying in his own lane', but he could not care any less.

Your hand pinning him down and your scent filling his nose. His brain hasn't been given the chance to think about explaining himself. It was that addictive dizzy feeling again, and he was falling in it.

Sorry for being late. Thank you so much! When I began writing, I wasn’t sure if people would be into more softish/pathetic Yanderes, I am glad you find my content appealing !

And of course I don’t mind! I truly feel honored that you wrote for my pookie 🥹💕 We never say no to food in this house.

I love how petty you made Salaryman. Like yeah he is depressed and antisocial, but he KNOWS how to nitpick and talkback. He is good at his job too. Crazy how entire Excel sheets are gone from your coworker’s computer.

Imagine if darling didn’t intercept him and next person who comes in the meeting room sees a bloody corpse. How do you explain this to HR.

I didn’t expect the slap, that was brutal. Totally deserved though

[flamingo-writes]

Hello Flamingo!!! how are you? I hope ok.

This is an idea that came to my head a few weeks ago, if you'd like to write it, it's up to you! I hope you like it💕

Reader who was generating a great addiction to the medications that were prescribed for his anxiety and depression, adding other types of addictions such as cigarettes or alcohol, meets Hobie/Spider-Punk and helps they with this problem, empathizing with their situation, Hobie would visit Reader from time to time to ask how things are going or develop some kind of relationship with they.

I think it's an essence of Hobie that you don't often see and I think it's something he would do quite often.

I am finally replying to this! Jesus, I am so SORRY for the delay!

I absolutely loved this request! And I learned so much about addictions during my research. And got google constantly concerned offering me hotlines every google search.

Flirting With An Addiction — Hobie x GN!Reader

Title based of the song Particles by Nothing But Thieves. Love this band, love this song, helped me set the mood for the angsty parts. Especially any live or acoustic version 😭

A/N: i have to clear some stuff first, because some of you are too quick to feel victimised. I do not specify colour nor gender of the reader. I do mention the reader looks pale at some point. Now, because it happened to me once, that someone tried to get sassy with me because dark skin can’t get pale, yes, yes it can. If you have a heartbeat you can get pale, period. Pale is not only a synonym for white, paleness is a medical term used to describe the loss of normal colour in skin or membranes. Pale is a way to describe someone who presents paleness. If you have dark skin, you can still get pale when you’re sick.

Warnings: drug consumption, needles, depictions of several withdrawals symptoms like stomach issues (emetophobia), depression, anxiety,

Word count: 2.7K

Hearing from your parents first hand that you had gone missing was the worst that could have happened to Hobie Brown. You were his favourite person, his best friend, his go to confidant, his partner in crime. And hearing you had gone missing felt like the ground on his feet started crumpling down. His lungs ran out of breath as he mouthed:

"What?”

And your mother explained, drowning in her own tears. And even as she did, he couldn’t understand what was coming out of her mouth, as a horrendous buzz was drilling his brain. He simply heard: "drugs" "weed" "ecstasy" "used needle" "gone". His stomach turned, making him feel nauseous as he couldn’t find anything to say to your parents other than:

"I’m so sorry" he said. "I could’ve helped them" he said. "I wasn’t there for them," he said. And with that, he was gone. Somewhere along the line, he put his mask back on and took off.

Pav and Gwen were there with him when it happened. What started as an innocent hangout at his place, turned into a search party. When Hobie thought of inviting you over as well and realising you weren’t picking up the phone in your house, he decided to look for you. You weren’t at your place, you weren’t at his, your coworkers said you hadn’t showed up for work in three days, and that’s when he went to your mother.

"They’ve been gone for the last five days…" were the last things he heard before that painful buzz started echoing in his head.

He took off. And he’d never swung so fast in his entire life. Pav and Gwen didn’t even have the chance to exchange glances when both of them were running after him. "Running". Between not being familiarised with Old York’s building distribution, nor being familiarised with the streets, they had absolutely no clue where Hobie was heading. They simply guessed Hobie knew where you were.

Boy, we’re they wrong.

Hobie had not the faintest clue where you were. He had a notion of where you could be. But with every fibre in his body he wished he was wrong. "Used needle" was perhaps his best clue, and possibly the one that terrified him the most.

He had a pretty decent notion of where the most famous crack houses were. He’d grown in the streets, of course he knew. More than once he’d been in them, not to make business, but because he was looking for something or someone, or doing Spider-Man duties. And truth was, the very last person he thought he’d ever go looking into a crack house was you.

As he arrived to the first one and kicked the door open, the few junkies there flinched, expecting to see a copper. But instead they saw Spider-Man. He looked around. Pushers, burnouts, and crunched junkies passed out on the floor. Some, Hobie wasn’t even sure they were still alive. He walked around looking for you.

Pav and Gwen caught up with him, and soon realised what was going on. Hobie did not know where you were, he was looking for you. Gwen didn’t have much experience with the darker side of her New York, she was creeped out. Pav, on the other hand, was the youngest of the gang. And he’d been Spider-Man for so little, he hadn’t had the misfortune to end up in the lower parts of Mumbattan. Pav was terrified.

"Hobie?” Gwen asked as he quickly walked out of the flat.

"Not ‘ere" He mumbled, more to himself and took off again.

It went on like that for the next few hours. Crack house after crack house. Desperately looking for you, whether you were baked out of your mind, or simply OD. But the fact that with every place he went to, his chances of finding you grew narrower and narrower, he didn’t know what he preferred. To find you dead on the floor of one of those nasty places, or not finding you at all. With each location, Hobie’s anxiety grew, his movements became clumsier, rougher, even more aggressive.

"Hobie, wait—" Pav yelled after the fifth crack house.

But Hobie didn’t stop. He listened, but his mind was rushing with adrenaline, hyper focusing on his task at hand: finding you.

The guilt accumulated in his chest, weighting more and more with every passing minute. Why was he even feeling guilty for? It’s not like he’d given you the drugs, and forced a needle up your arm. But he knew you had problems with loneliness, he knew about your consuming anxiety and your seasonal depression. He knew you had a strange relationship with your medication. He knew you were picking up a liking for recreational drugs. Harmless stuff like weed and shrooms. Acid at most. He should’ve imagined you’d eventually try to stray into the drugs you swore never to mess with. Ice, dust, junk…He should’ve guessed something like this was going to happen. But he was busy. He was busy being Spider-Man, he was busy jumping between universes. He was busy helping others, but not helping you. Not when he knew you had it rough. That guilt consumed him. He was busy helping everyone else, but you. He was busy helping people from another universe, but not that one person who he considered his family, his world. And boy, that guilt was drowning him.

Was it good luck or bad luck when he found you? He couldn’t tell. He felt his blood turn cold the moment he saw you.

Despite the pale look on your face, and the dark circles under your eyes, but you looked so peaceful. Lying on a dirty mattress, eyes closed, mouth slightly open, relaxed face. You looked so beautiful in the most disturbing way. Thinner than what Hobie remembered. And so terrifyingly still. Were you alive and lost in some euphoric dream? Or were you dead? It was hard to tell. You didn’t seem to be breathing.

Hobie rushed to your side, and he quickly checked your pulse. He called your name, almost in a desperate cry as his eyes quickly teared up behind his mask with the most suffocating feeling of powerlessness and incompetence that he’d ever felt washed over him. You groaned in response, unable to form coherent words and simply stuck to noises, your mind was far too dissolved, drowned in heroine, trapping you in a haze.

He checked your pulse. He checked your breathing. Your eyes of course were almost completely black due to the high. And you had a couple of marks on your arms from needles. Hobie didn’t even dare to count them, the less he knew about your newfound addiction the better for him, or so he thought. He looked around and next to the mattress there were various classic heroine use paraphernalia, making Hobie’s throat close.

"No, no, no, no baby…" Hobie whispered as he stared at you as you lied there, relaxed and heavy in his arms. He pulled his mask off to better look at you. For you to look at him if you were there by any chance. "Not heroine, why heroine…" He whispered as he pulled you closer and kissed your forehead. "You knew heroine wasn’t to be messed with, one time is fine, two makes you an addict, sweet’eart…" He purred with his lips pressed against your skin.

"Hobie…" Gwen said gently touching his shoulder.

"We have to go," Hobie said at once as he carried you.

Once in his boathouse, Hobie gently set you down on his bed as he sat on the edge and stared at you attentively. His eyes looking miserable, as he caressed your cheek delicately.

"Hobie?” Pav said, slowly walking inside his room. "We’re very sorry…"

"I am too…" He murmured in response.

"Can we help?” Gwen asked softly.

Hobie was ready to tell them to leave him alone for a while, when he actually thought of something.

"Yes…"

He then gave them a short shopping list with food and over the counter painkillers and some medication for stomach issues. It seemed very random to them, but in that moment Hobie thought he’d keep you in his boat and help you through your detox. At least as long as he could. A week or two, to start, and from then, he’d improvise along the way.

His impulsive and spontaneous thought of keeping you there over the period of detox didn’t really prepare him for the absolute torture it turned out to be.

To him, it was terribly, awfully, agonisingly painful. Watching you suffer like that. The way you whined and curled up on his bed, crying in silence from the pain, dealing with the tummy issues. The nausea, the not being able to leave the bathroom, looking weak, constantly upset, the shivering, and awful ups and downs in your anxiety and your mood.

Everything hurt, your head, your limbs, every muscle in your body, your stomach, even organs you couldn’t exactly pin point where they were, now you could because of the sharp pain. Even the smell of food made you excruciatingly nauseous, and puke green bile across the room, even feeling nausea was painful. It was hell. You were dying, you were sure your entire body was shutting down and you were going to die in this aching hell. Too anxious to sleep, to weak to move, too nauseous to do as much as roll over on the bed, too shaky to even be able to hold things in your hands. Sometimes you didn’t even feel your limbs at all for hours.

He could only imagine how it was like for you. How it was going inside your head. But sitting and watching was awful for him. He wanted to help, and from an objective point of view he knew he was helping, but he didn’t want you to hurt. He wished time and time again that he was able to take that pain away from you. The first three days were the peak of your suffering. And there was nothing Hobie could do other than keep an eye on you and get you what you needed.

When the physical symptoms started to subside, when you were able to keep food in your stomach, and when you stopped complaining about everything hurting, the psychological symptoms began. The consuming guilt and anxiety, the fear of showing up at work or at your parents’ house, the fear of the disappointment. Pitying yourself, pulling yourself down into that depressive hole you’d been digging.

Crying every night before going to bed became a recurrent event. You crying your heart out as Hobie held you tightly in his arms, comforted you until you’d fall asleep. You cried several times a day, but the one before bed was always the worst.

And soon, it became a recurrent event. Hobie keeping you all in one piece, as you cried and your heart broke all over again. His long yet strong and warm arms managed to hold you together every single night. Soon, sleeping together became a habit. And more than a habit, soon, Hobie’s company became a better painkiller than the pills you took. His scent managed to soothe the nausea which was thankfully decreasing with every day. His warmth seemed to help you control the shivers and the goosebumps. His voice quieted down the mean anxious thoughts in your brain. His company drifted you to sleep for several hours without waking up with tachycardia and short breath.

Falling asleep in his arms became just the right medication, although the long term effects were still there. But they were much bearable. The mornings were the best time of the day. First thing in the morning, drowned in the aftermath of that sleepy haze, you’d always find yourself staring at Hobie.

He didn't like mornings, he wasn’t a morning person. But something about seeing him sleep, his face relaxed, thick lips slightly parted, and the dim sunlight hitting his face, making him look absolutely gorgeous. Had he always been this attractive? Easy, yes; he had always been an attractive lad. But had you always felt that feeling in your heart? That was new. And you were sure it was not the usual tachycardia you’d get from the drugs, but something Hobie did unconsciously.

"You know it’s real creepy that you stare at people while they sleep…” He whispered softly as he woke up slowly, opening his eyes slowly and seeing you staring at him with a subtle and sweet smile on your lips.

"Shut up" You chuckled.

"How are you feeling?" His voice was low and raspy, still creeping with sleep.

"Better…although that might change in a couple of hours" You sighed, already getting mentally ready for the awful up and downs in your mood and anxiety.

"I’m sorry"

"That my life now, I guess"

"It’ll get better…it’s been getting better hasn’t it?" He immediately added as he looked at you, slightly more awake, taking in the details of your face, as you were snuggled next to him, most of your body touching his, sharing the same comforting heat.

"Yeah I think so" You purred.

"Hey, I’ve got you, okay? Not letting you fall again into that dark place"He whispered, leaning forward, bumping his forehead against yours, as one of his hands caressed you cheek, making your heart skip a beat.

"Thank you" You closed you eyes, as you savoured this sweet intimate moment with Hobie.

"Don’t mention it, luv"

"But I mean it…" You whispered. "You’ve been basically the entire time here…keeping an eye on me…ignoring your Spider-Man duties…I’ve heard you argue with that Miguel guy over your watch…"

"He can fuck off," He said with a cheerful whisper and a chuckle "he’s got another hundreds of spider-people at his service, he doesn’t miss me, he just likes to be patronising…"

"I still appreciate it very much…" Your eyes opened slowly with your statement as you stared into his eyes, and he seemed to immediately get lost in yours.

"No problem…I’d do anything for you…"

You both stared into each other’s eyes. And something about his eyes was slightly different. The eyes you grew up looking at, those eyes you knew how to read perfectly, almost being able to read his thoughts, now had something slightly different about them. Something that made your heart race and your cheeks grow hot. Something Hobie saw reflected in your own.

And you both read each other’s minds. And you both leaned forward without having to be told. Closing your eyes, you felt your breath leave your lungs when you felt his warm lips against yours.

Hobie wasn’t by any means a slow tender guy, he was the passionate dude who knew how to use his tongue. Not this time. This time he felt the world stop, time stop, and all there was, was you. And he wanted to savour it. He kissed you slower than he was used to. The kiss was gentler than what he was used to. He was used to kissing strangers, perhaps someone he shared chemistry with, but never really someone he cared for as much as you. This felt far more special, far more unique. This felt like something he could get addicted to, and something he wanted to relive often.

As he broke the kiss slowly, catching his breath, he opened his eyes and stared at you as you remained with your eyes closed, still processing what you’d felt. He smiled and bumped his forehead against yours.

"I promise you, you’ll be alright, okay? I’ll make sure you’re safe and sound…even if it kills me" He reassured you.

"Please don’t say that," You murmured.

"What?" He chuckled.

"Anything that’s in some way related to you dying," Hobie chuckled, thinking your concerns were very cute, although very understandable as well.

"Fine…" He replied "I’ll make sure you’re safe and sound even if…it’s a near death experience…better?"

“No, not really…" You chuckled, "but I appreciate the effort

"Hey, you mean so much to me, you know that?"

"You mean mean so much to me too…"

[crescentmoonlupin]

If you need help, I'm here to listen..

There are days that are easier than others. When you have depression, you tend to feel like the world is against you and it just feels like a constant battle that no matter how hard you fight, how much experience you have with it, it just never seems to be enough to throw at the problem. And of course, giving up is never ever an option cause once you do, the monster you are battling just gets bigger. Bigger to the point you just must live with the drooling, foaming beast.

I’ve had depression for a number of years, as of 2024, it’s been about 14 years since I was originally diagnosed, but about 17 since it first manifested itself within my mind. It's never been an easy beast to live with. I’ve tried destroying it by destroying myself. I held it down, but the bubbles never stopped coming up. I tried to drown it in sex, making it seem like the reason I was upset so much was because I was alone and needed the company to get me through, I cut myself so I could hold some sort of “control” over it but, of course that never works. Eventually it becomes an addiction that you don't realize you started, and it takes everything in you to stop. Years even.

To this day, I am still self-destructive. Some days, I wish I could still continue hurting myself, but I know its counterproductive, it’ll never solve anything. It just hurts everyone else who happens to catch it when the wounds are fresh. Cutting myself didn’t make me feel better in the sense I thought it would, it just gave me a false sense of control over something I didn’t have control over. The chemicals in my brain didn’t do what they were supposed to when they were supposed to, and I suffered the consequences.

I wanted to blame everyone else for my problems. My mother, my father, my stepparents. Sisters. Everyone who wasn’t me. “You made me do this!” I’d say, when really, I was the one who put the razor or knife to my skin and pulled. I made it count, I counted every mark, and it’s not a pretty number. Not only did I cut but I carved words into my skin, so I would remember why I did it in the first place. So many initials. Failure. Perfect. HIT ME! I’M NOTHING! Sorry :] Smile. And the list goes on from there. Now it’s just a bunch of scars.

I’m not ashamed of them, and I don’t really regret them, they’re part of me and it was what I thought I needed at the time, ultimately, I was wrong in the end, but teenagers never listen, do they?

I do wish I could go back though, and just talk to myself. Tell myself it does, eventually, gets better. That things do start going right, years down the road. That it’s not worth it to be so angry all the time, and to learn to love myself sooner so I didn’t have t struggle as badly as I am now at almost 30, because yes, we do make it past the age of 18, as surprising as that is for me to even believe to this day. Eventually we meet a man who loves us in his own special way, and we have the most beautiful son to raise together. And he loves that little boy as if he was made from his own blood. He reads him bedtime stories and helps him learn to walk. He teaches him to ride a bike and plays in his sandbox with him, the one he made him for his second birthday.

Things do get better, but you have to fall down so you can get back up, so you can grow up the way you need to, because it is necessary. Because as soon as you heard that little boy’s heartbeat for the first time, you know, you just knew, that everything was going to change and you knew that you would do anything for him, even if it meant changing everything so he could grow up better than you did. So, he can go farther than you ever got. So, you can make sure he is actually stable and doesn’t have to recover from his childhood. Make sure he is okay and knows he is heard.

I just hope I’m doing the right things when it comes to that little boy because I don’t know where I’d be or who I would be without him. There’re days where I struggle and all I want to do is to curl up into a ball and cry till I fall asleep. But I have this little boy watching me every day and I just have to keep going to make sure he has everything he needs to grow into a respectable human and a caring man. Fight for what’s right but know when to step back as well.

[episodeoftv]

Round 2 of 8, Group 1 of 4

propaganda and summaries are under the cut (May include spoilers)

Doctor Who (2005): 5.10 Vincent and the Doctor

Tw: is about Vincent Van Gough so does deal with self harm, depression, and suicide (but not graphically, just this is what happened in his life and they acknowledge it)

The Doctor and Amy travel back in time to meet Vincent Van Gogh and face an invisible monster that only the painter can see.

Not the showiest or even the best episode of Dr Who, but the one that I can’t watch without tearing up at the end. Really well written and performed and generally gorgeous to watch as well. I first saw it when I was ten and the speech at the end has imprinted on my brain and given me a language to help understand the ups and downs that life brings. It’s just a lovely one.

Supernatural: 5.04 The End

tw for drug addiction

Dean refuses Sam's efforts to help him battle the Devil, and then wakes up to find himself five years in the future, in a wasteland where Lucifer has begun his endgame by unleashing a virus that transforms humans into zombies.

Flashforward to the Dark Ending Zombie AU of the apocalypse storyline that spawned a subgenre of Fill-in-the-blanks with Extreme Angst fanfiction. Our first look at Castiel as a human and still the best. What if everyone was miserable forever then died but we also learned about Rhonda Hurley and the pink satiny panties.

[lord-squiggletits]

OH, I am so interested in your idea for SG Tarnma.

Okay so my exact ideas for SG Tarnma vary a lot, because I think there's two different canon varieties of Shattered Glass: the original Fun Publications SG where everything was completely flipped and turned into crack-canon, and then what IDW later did with Shattered Glass IDW1 where it was more or less just role reversal IDW1 with only some "complete flipping" of lore and personality. There's also my own personal Shattered Glass universe that I built for Pay Unto Evil, so I could also answer this question as "what would Tarnma be in the SG PUE universe."

That being said I'll do my best to explain all of the different ideas I've had for SG Tarnma. All of them are pretty different so I'm not really particularly attached to any one, but here goes

Version 1: FunPub complete role reversal style. Pharma was originally a mere energon farmer get it lol and has a very meek, shy, unconfident personality. He got enlisted by the Autobots, but he spoke too quietly when they asked for his name (Farmer), so they started calling him Pharma. Then at some point Ratchet is like "yo I'm gonna make this completely untrained guy do medical operations. No I'm not gonna send him to medical school he can learn on the job!" And so Pharma becomes Ratchet's apprentice and develops even more anxiety from the hundreds of times he murders patients either on accident bc he literally has no medical training, or on purpose bc Ratchet made him. He's literally just trying his best and doesn't even want to be here. Meanwhile, the SG DJD is known as the Decepticon Jokester Division, formed as a sort of circus troupe meant to bring good cheer to the Decepticons in a time of depressing war. The members of the DJD are codenamed after the first cities they toured right before/when the war started. How reluctant medic Pharma and literal clown Tarn meet in this universe is anyone's guess.

Version 2: IDW style. Tarn and Pharma still have basically the same backstories as canon IDW1 except that Pharma is a professional assassin instead of a doctor (yknow, role reversal where Pharma is an expert at killing people instead of healing them). Also this universe's Pharma has the posh and aristocratic personality fandom thinks he has in canon lol. Maybe Pharma finds out about Tarn having a secret t-cog addiction, and he starts bringing t-cogs to Tarn in exchange for Tarn providing him intel (or some other service, idk). Maybe in this universe instead of Tarn torturing Pharma into insanity, Pharma somehow develops guilt for killing people because of Tarn, then defects from the Autobots willingly? Or they kick him out like in canon

Version 3: Pay Unto Evil SG. Tarn and Pharma would have their FunPub style backgrounds (though maybe Tarn's would be slightly more serious) with the added caveat of Pharma having the evil Matrix's mind control embedded in his brain. He still didn't join the Autobots willingly and wasn't even trained to be a doctor. Somehow he and Tarn meet and fall in love across faction lines because Tarn sees how much Pharma is suffering under mind slavery and feeling like he doesn't belong among his cruel comrades. It's a bit of a tragic one though, as Pharma warns Tarn that the Prime can look through his mind at any time thanks to the Matrix. If he finds out that Pharma is Tarn's vulnerability, he could use that against him somehow, or worse, mind control Pharma into trying to kill Tarn himself. They were both devastated when the universe swap happened and they thought they would never see each other again. Though Pharma secretly felt some relief that Tarn was now a universe away and can find someone else to love who isn't a mind-controlled walking time bomb that could try to murder him at any moment.

[random-writer-4884]

There's a Silence (Tony Stark X Stephen Strange)

There's a Silence

Tony Stark x Stephen Strange

Description: Stephen finds Tony hidden in his room with a knife in his hands and silence in his brain.

Warnings: Self Harm

AO3 Link

There’s a silence in depression. The quietness of being alone in your own space. That fear knowing that you’re entirely alone and no one will ever know what you do here. All Tony can hear is the ringing in his own head as he sits on the floor. The small space between the bed and the wall. The tiny space where you cannot be seen from the door. It's small and comforting. 

Isolating.

Lonely…

Silent…

He swore he would never do this, he tells himself as he stares at the pocket knife in his hands. It's a pretty little thing, a black blade that hides in a black handle. It looks like the wing of a bird, and the carving on the handle looks like feathers. He’s owned it for years… and it had good usage at the beginning… But then it was moved to the bedside table.

And oh it became convenient.

Its blade was so sharp… it was perfect for the job…

After the first time, he swore he would never do it again. It was an act of desperation. One small mistake he would never repeat.

But then he repeated the mistake… 

Suddenly it was no longer a mistake. It was an addiction.

In the silence, the pain is like a soothing voice. Its sharpness soothes the silent wounds you hold inside.

Anthony Stark was not a dumb man. He knew he had to hide this addiction. It hid on his upper thighs. He didn’t sleep around like the press claims he does, at least not anymore. 

He had stopped a while ago. Once he had begun dating Stephen, he was happy, and the urge to feel pain had dulled. He had been doing wonderfully, but the urge returned stronger than ever.

Now? Now he’s sitting alone in the small space between his bed and the wall. A small black knife in his hand. He watches, the tight lonely feeling in his chest, as the blade slices against his thighs. Tony watches silently as the cuts begin to bleed. It's satisfying.

Blood lying on his thigh, grasping his attention fully, and he does not hear the soft sparks of a portal opening on the other side of the room. He doesn’t hear the soft footsteps or the voice calling his name. He doesn’t notice until there's a yellow-gloved hand ripping the knife from his hand.

That is when Tony looked up and was greeted by Stephen Strange. He holds the bloodied black knife in his yellow leather gloves, and his eyes scream with heartbreak. “Tony…” Stephen says softly, dropping slowly to his knees as he slides the knife behind him. 

Tony’s eyes are wide, and panic fills him as soon as he sees Stephen. He tries to move away but only bumps into the bedside table. The bed and the wall corner him in his small little space.  Stephen looks at him, his face gentle and his movements slow.

“Tony, honey, I need you to look at me.” He says. When Tony doesn’t look at him he continues softly “I’m not mad. Let me help you.”

That was enough for Tony to lift his eyes. He looks up at Stephen, and as soon as their eyes meet, tears begin to pool in Tony’s eyes. “May I touch you?” Stephen asks softly. Tony nods his head slowly, and Stephen slowly takes his gloves off. His shaky hands lift to caress Tony’s cheeks and his thumbs brush the tears as they fall.

The two of them sit there on the floor, Stephen gently brushing Tony’s tears as they fall. His hands shake and tremble as he holds Tony’s face, but Tony doesn’t notice over his own shaking. 

After a short while, Stephen taps the cloak on his shoulders and whispers something to it that Tony doesn’t hear. The cloak lifts from his shoulders and flies somewhere, returning a few minutes later with a handful of items. Tony sits quietly as Stephen takes items from the cloak, carefully cleaning the cuts on his thighs. He disinfects them, apologizing repeatedly as the solution burns. Before Tony knows it, the wounds have been cleaned, sterilized, and bandaged. The cloak of levitation wraps itself around Tony, and he can’t help but notice that the cloak is surprisingly warm. It wraps him like a burrito, lifting him up onto the bed gently. Stephen stands and sits next to him placing his shaking hand on top of Tony’s. “Why didn’t you tell me, darling?” Stephen asks softly, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

Tony doesn’t speak for a moment, and when he does it sounds weak. His voice shakes “I didn’t…” He mumbles softly trying to get his thoughts before trying again. “I didn’t want to scare you away.” Stephen’s heart breaks at the words, but he doesn't mention it. “You will never scare me away.” He says softly. “I love you, and I want to be here for you.”  He doesn’t press for an explanation, and Tony is silently thankful for that. 

Stephen stands up and rifles through the closet for a minute before pulling out a set of Pajamas for Tony. “Here. You’ll be more comfortable in these.” Stephen says softly. It's only then that he remembers that he is in a button-up and tie. He takes the clothing offered and puts it on. 

He watches Stephen go to the bathroom to change, and he knows it's because he struggles to button the pajama shirt. He won’t mention it though. 

Slowly, Stephen climbs into the bed, opening his arms for Tony to crawl into. He does without hesitation, burying his nose into Stephen’s collarbone, and wrapping his arms tightly around him. Stephen’s hands weave into Tony’s hair, soothing him with the soft touch. The cloak of levitation floats by the bed, somehow managing to look annoyed. Stephen pats the bed and the cloak lays on top of the blankets, softly wiggling into its place like a dog. 

It doesn’t take long for Tony to fall asleep in Stephen’s arms, and the doctor sighs as he lets his own eyes fall closed. The two men and their cloak resting comfortably on the bed. There was a difficult conversation that needed to happen, but that was for tomorrow.