#you see the trigger and it’s straight into fight/flight/freeze no warning

[takemetodragonstone]

there’s nothing like a phobia-induced panic attack to really wake you up in the morning

[soupsword]

Dream SMP - Fear/trauma response headcanons

Trigger warnings for discussions of trauma, abuse, depersonalization/dissociation

Tommy: we all know how Tommy acts when he’s scared. He gets defensive and angry and violent. It starts out just being rude, and it devolves into attacking people over the littlest things. He either does so to stop people from ever getting a chance to hurt him, or because he is so blinded by his fear and anger that he believes they deserve his anger. He’s been raised to know that if he shows weakness, it will be taken advantage of. And, with his time being vulnerable towards Dream during exile, he’s only become acutely more aware of this.

Post prison Tommy: he’s given up on most of that anger. He will tell people, straight up, that they are scaring or hurting him, without a care. He’s been shown that being angry does nothing but get him killed, and he is trying to be more submissive now, condense himself into someone people will want to kill less. We still see his anger and his violent nature, but it’s been toned down, because he has been traumatized beyond anything he has EVER experienced.

Tubbo: people don’t seem to realize, but Tubbo has a past linear to Tommy’s. He’s been taught the same lessons, he’s just got different teachers, different abusers. He will be as angry and as violent as he needs to be, he’s just quieter. He thinks about his actions and their impact more than Tommy. But, that thinking about his actions can lead to overthinking. At times, he panics, still as angry or cold as ever, but his thoughts are racing. Is he doing the right thing? Is he failing his country? His friends? His family? He pushes past these worries, though, and makes split-second decisions at times. He is also more defense geared than Tommy, preferring to present his weapons and make his intentions to fight known before he has to strike.

Ranboo: he is the freeze and the flight. Ranboo has been taught that anger and violence lead to exile and death and destruction. He tries to be passive and to care for both sides of a fight, but it often backfires. He can be angry, yes, but he usually leaps immediately to overthinking and anxiety. This often sends him into a spiral of self hatred and anxiety. He wonders, parallel to Tubbo: is this what I should be doing? Am I even doing this? Am I here? Is this me, are these my actions?

Techno: Techno is so much more careful than most. He doesn’t start with anger. In fact, he often pushes himself into depersonalization or brain-fog in an effort to become colder, to force himself to understand situations like an outside force, not himself. This can lead to him seeming like he doesn’t care. This can also lead to him spiraling into dissociation episodes, where instead of being detached, he feels completely unreal. But, if pushed, he will get angry. He’s not the good man to run away from when he goes to war. He IS the war, cold and calculated and roaring with a thousand voices. He plans his attacks on the fly and he wins.

Phil: Phil is old. He’s grieved thousands of people, his loved ones, his friends, his families. Phil is so chock full of things that would traumatize normal mortals that it almost becomes a game to him. Fly a little closer to the sun, Icarus. Let the blade fall a little slower, Angel. He’s not reckless, but he toys with the idea. He often dissociates the same as Techno, spending days in silence after something has triggered some long past trauma. But oh, if you get him angry? You’d better kill yourself before he reaches you. In the moments he gets mad, he’s like Tommy, like Techno, like Tubbo. He’s steely and cold and violent, and his reputation has been forged from blood.

Wilbur: Mania. He is everything at once - sad, fearful, cold, angry. He switches from being terrified of something to being angry at it an instant later, manipulating the people around him into doing what he wants as soon as he realizes how to change himself for them. But he also suffers horribly from depersonalization. His actions have no meaning, right? He’s not even alive! He’s not even real! It doesn’t matter. He is self destructive and violent in general, not caring for anyone it affects until his rare moments of lucidity. When that fog clears, though, and he recognizes what he’s done? He falls apart. There’s no energy left for anger or manipulation or hate. Just awful, pervasive, desperate misery and guilt.

Feel free to add on or argue with me! Just wanted to ramble a bit.

[itszemo]

(    *    & .    ---    RESCUE  ME .

*   helmut  zemo  x  gn!reader . warnings  for  heavy  angst,  referenced  rape  (  not  by  zemo  ),   aftermath  of  torture,  suicidal  ideation   &   suicide  attempt .   —    ‘   1812 words  ’

(   BLOOD   )  IT'S  THE  SMELL  of blood that makes Zemo gag. Not the sight of the wounds themselves, or the knowledge of what your captors must have done to you: it’s the thick and heady scent of copper in the air that shoves its way down his throat and almost makes him sick.

Almost. His hands are steady — slick with sweat and clammy from adrenaline, but perfectly capable of aiming his gun. He takes out the jailer in your cell. He takes out the men who rush to his aid. He stuns the agents running toward him down the hall.

He doesn’t touch you. The smell of burned armor and burnt skin replaces the scent of blood. He turns, and through the smoke he sees little flashes that will stay with him forever: hair matted with blood, skin bruised so dark that for one brief moment Zemo thinks it’s rotting.

Open wounds, circular burn marks from where someone pressed a hot weapon against your stomach and thighs. Dried blood, the crust of cum on your legs, your back, your chest, your face. The deep lines worn into your wrists from where your captors used wire instead of handcuffs, favoring pain over efficiency, confident that they’d broken you so badly you couldn’t escape.

You are his target. You are nude and barely breathing. You are the person who helped Wanda and Pietro which resulted in the destruction of his country. You are lying in your own urine on the floor, unable to stand.

You are one of Hydra's super powered experiment, and you've been raped by men who once called themselves SHIELD agents.

Zemo takes a deep breath and cuts the ties around your wrists.

(   THE   SERUM   )  “That’s all I can do.” Zemo says, standing from a crouch. He tosses his hands up, a muted gesture of helplessness. Your eyes follow his hands like you're expecting a blow, but your expression is weary, not cautious; if Zemo were to hit you, he doubts you would even flinch.

The serum running through your body has taken care of the deep wounds around your wrists, and it’s eradicated the infected cuts on your back and thighs. Perhaps it will dull the pain of your burn wounds; perhaps not. There was little that could be done by the time Zemo got to them. He stands over you, who sit half-dressed on a sofa in Zemo's hotel room, wrists crossed loosely over your knee.

Head bowed. If not for the strain and exhaustion in your posture, you might look natural. Even if you did look natural, the antiseptic smell hanging around you would give you away.

“You want to talk about it?” Zemo asks. He can see you staring at his worn leather boots; your own feet are bare, your bruised and bloody toes peeking out from behind bandages. Your toenails are gone, your soles flogged raw.

“What information do you need?” You ask, tone placid, conversational.

It takes Zemo a moment to realize you’re having different conversations. He wants to know how badly you were hurt; you think this is an interrogation. He hesitates, sits beside you on the sofa.

“They raped you.” He says.

You don’t meet his gaze. You lift your chin, stare at the tv opposite you with cool eyes and a tight jaw.

“I am their soldier.” You say with neither pride nor shame, just stating a fact. “I have been tortured before, Colonel. Haven’t you?”

Zemo’s lips lift in a half-smile, no real amusement. He says nothing.

After a moment, so subtly it could be classified as an accident, you shift in your seat, your arm brushing against his. A light touch, barely there. Zemo sneaks a glance at your face, sees a glaze of confusion in your eyes, a hint of fear. He understands the touch for what it is: not comfort, exactly, but grounding.

There are a million things Zemo could be doing, plotting his revenge plan against the avengers chief among them, but for now, he doesn’t move.

(   BRUISES   )  They won’t fade for weeks. They limit your movements in the shower. Zemo offers help, and you snap out a refusal so harsh that it makes you both freeze, Zemo flushing, you pale. You struggle on your own beneath the water spray, can barely move your arms or bend your legs.

You won’t be clean — truly clean — for quite some time. Won’t be able to rid yourself of the smell of humiliation which lingers on your skin. You wear one of Zemo's old shirts, but beneath the fresh scent of the clean shirt, you swear you catch whiffs of semen and piss. It doesn’t matter that it’s been days since you were rescued; the smell of blood is gone, but those two scents remain.

You stand before the mirror afterward, examine your face. The hum of the shower offers flawless soundproofing, allows you to do whatever you want in here without Zemo finding out. There are a thousand options.

What you do is line your knuckles up with your cheekbone, pull your fist back, and punch yourself in the face.

The first blow is soft, less painful than you want it to be. Your self-preservations instincts have kicked in, making you pull the punch. You don’t let that happen again. You pull back, strike yourself again and again in the same place, until every blow jars you, makes your bones shake in your head, leaves your skin heated and fragile to the touch.

You press your fingers to your cheekbone. You can almost feel the broken blood vessels stinging beneath your skin.

When you sit next to Zemo on the sofa that night, his eyes track up and linger on your new bruise.

He doesn’t say a word.

(   BED   )  At night, you lie stiff in your bed, unable to find comfort. Your body screams at you no matter how you sleep, but this is best: on your back, arms crossed as much as you can manage over your stomach, legs straight and slightly spread. You stare up at the ceiling, Zemo’s bed next to yours. You listen to the former soldier toss and turn in his sleep.

You feel your heart hammering in your chest. You tell yourself the sounds mean nothing; your nervous system tells you otherwise, insists that Zemo is waking, getting out of bed, coming your way. A trickle of heat burns through your chest, into your stomach and bladder, leaves you struggling to breathe as your muscles go limp. You can think of nothing but keeping yourself in control, not letting fight-or-flight get the best of you. You focus so hard on this that you can’t stop your breath from whistling through your teeth, nor can you stifle the frightened groan that escapes your lips, completely involuntary.

In the bed next to you, Zemo goes still. His voice is thick and rough from sleep.

“Are you alright?” He asks.

You clench your fist, drive your knuckles into a bruise on your ribs, let the pain bring you back. Your captor is asking you if you’re alright. When you say nothing, Zemo looks to his side and peeks at you, his face impossible to read.

“Don’t worry.” He says. “I won't harm you.”

He won't harm you. How the hell are you supposed to answer to that?

(   GUN   )  Zemo notices it’s missing from his holster at the worst time: when he’s fighting two HYDRA agents that came looking for you. He manages to fight them off, kills them and stands, nerves jangling, crossing to the cramped hotel room space that he and you have made into a temporary home.

He finds you sitting on the edge of your bed. Your shirt is lifted, revealing the blood-stained bandages beneath; they need changing, but there’s nothing left to change them with. Clasped loosely in your hand, which rests at your side, is Zemo's gun.

Zemo swallows. His throat is dry.

“Hey.” He says, his voice a rasp.

Your eyes meet his. You lift the gun a little, point it not at Zemo but at yourself. There’s no expression on your face, no emotion in your eyes, as you raise it and press the barrel beneath your chin.

You don’t speak as Zemo approaches. Your grip on the gun stays loose; you make no attempt to pull the trigger. When Zemo takes the gun away, sets it aside, you put up only the briefest of fights: your grip on the handle tightens, your hand spasms, you let it go.

You don’t react when Zemo's hands land on your shoulders, squeezing gently, turning you to face him. Your gaze is haughty, exasperated, dignified and unashamed; you're ready to argue that you have a right to kill yourself, that you won’t reveal any new secrets about your powers in another round of torture, that you don’t trust him and there’s nothing Zemo can do to convince you. Zemo can see the arguments boiling in your eyes.

But when he pulls you forward, you crumble into his arms.

(   BREATHE   )  The air in Sokovia is cold and misty in the morning, the kind of air that can coat your lungs in frost. But it will warm up soon, when the sun is high. For now, Zemo drapes his coat over your shoulders, places one hand flat between your shoulder blades for support.

You stand on the stairs of Zemo’s private plane, looking down at the rubble that remains of Sokovia. A few curious looks are thrown your way. Nobody rushes to put you in cuffs; few people seem to recognize you from the battle, and those who do only look at Zemo in surprise, then scowl and move along.

“I told you nobody would pay you too much attention.” Zemo says softly.

You say nothing. Your teeth are clenched, your face blank. You blink rapidly and wait for the mist to crash to the ground, for the image before you to fracture into nothing. For the space in front of you to glitch and turn into your cell walls, the scent of blood.

You blink. You blink again, the bruise on your cheekbone stinging in the cool air. Zemo's hand on your back is warm and broad and magnetic, keeping you upright, keeping you still. You swallow past a tight throat and watch the sky blur.

Now. Now it will dissolve, reveal itself for a hallucination. Now it will become your cell again.

But you blink and the blurriness intensifies then fades, a tear blazing down your cheek, over your self-inflicted bruise, too hot and immediate to ignore or classify as a delusion. You feel Zemo’s hand flex on your back, reminding you that he’s there.

“Breathe.” Zemo says. “And we can go down when you’re ready.”

You breathe.

‘   @noavengers   ’    —   comment to be added to my taglist .

[astro-rain]

delicate; b. barnes

chapter five - “fight or flight”

delicate masterlist

word count: 1.7k

synopsis: bucky and (Y/N) have their first official therapy session.

pairings: bucky barnes x fem!reader

[A/N]: this story is available my wattpad as an OC @/ typicaldaze :))

She stood in front of her bed, ringing out her hands. Her gaze trailed off to nowhere specific, feet planted firmly on the floor of her room, body rigid and straight. She was nervous. This was no foreign feeling, but unpleasant all the same. Today was the first ever therapy session with Bucky.

She hadn't realized how strange it felt until she really thought about her position here. She never worked as an official therapist. She studied neuroscience and psychology, and the relationship between neurobiology and behavior. Don't get her wrong, she knew psychology, she knew trauma and how it interacted with the brain. In fact, sometimes her knowledge seemed like the only thing she could rely on, a consistent comfort and constant truth to keep her feet on the ground.

She shook the thought with a shake of her head, cracked her knuckles, and went for the door. She would have to get used to the Wakandan royal-guest living quarters. It looked like a five star hotel. No, a six star hotel; there is no such thing as a six star hotel, but Wakanda made it happen. That's what Y/N thought, anyway.

Briefly, she wondered what Bucky thought of it. Was he staying in the same area? He could be across the lake for all she knew. The castle was huge and had extensions everywhere. She wondered if he felt lonely here. She wondered if he felt scared, or relaxed, or if he didn't care at all. She thought this was all a little intimidating. She was wary of getting lost as she followed the directions Shuri gave her yesterday.

Her hands found themselves fidgeting again as she continued walking. Before, she was standing by, assisting Shuri and Bucky when needed. Now, she was going to be sitting in a room alone with Bucky. One on one. This would be more personal. (Y/N) was again intimidated. Not by Bucky, but by the nature of their relationship. She just wanted to do well. She just wanted to do right by him.

-

Alone in a room, tips of fingers tapped restlessly on the arm of a chair. Simultaneously, while walking down the hall, tips of fingers tapped nervously on the side of a thigh.

(Y/N) stood up as a Wakandan royal-aid escorted Bucky into the room. Immediately, she noticed his eyes scanning over the room, undoubtedly and probably unconsciously surveying for exits, possible threats, etc.

A brain that never rests, she thought.

The two of them thanked the aid and bid him farewell before standing in an awkward silence.

"It's nice to see you again, Bucky. I trust you're doing well," (Y/N) cut the tension.

The eloquent politeness was a weird taste on her tongue. She put up with it.

Bucky offered a smile. "Yes, thank you."

It took her a second to realize they were still both standing.

"Oh! Please sit. We can get started."

There were two couches across from each other. One a deep green, the other a pale blue. They were a nice contrast again the walls, which were clad in beautiful Wakandan designs of various shades of orange, yellow, and red. Except for one. On the far end of the room was a huge glass window, taking up the entire span of the wall. There were two end tables on each couch, and a small desk in the one corner with a warm golden lamp. The room was calm and welcoming.

"So, today isn't gonna be huge," (Y/N) started. "It is our first session, so we'll just talk, ya know, settle in."

Bucky nodded.

"So, how have you been? Adjusting well? Hating it? Absolutely no opinion?"

There was then a slight lightheartedness in her professionalism. It helped to put him at ease.

Bucky looked at his hands. "I'm doing alright. This place still needs a little gettin' used to, but that's expected."

"That's good to hear." She smiled slightly. "Wakanda is... a lot for an outsider. I don't think it matters if you're from another century or not."

Bucky chuckled.

"To be honest, I don't even know what therapy really is. They didn't have much of it in the forties."

"Well, it can be pretty hard sometimes, so here's a fair warning. Especially seeing the stuff you went through, just be prepared for difficulty."

As soon as she mentioned this, his demeanor changed.

"Yeah," he rubbed the back of his neck. "I guess difficulty is to be expected... with me."

That last part was so quiet she almost didn't hear it.

"Hey," (Y/N) said softly, "difficult is fine. It just means a little extra work.

Bucky looked up at her.

His eyes are very blue.

"A little extra work," he repeated, thoughtfully. "I think can do that."

"Do you get escorted everywhere like you did earlier?"

"Pretty much, yeah. Security measure, I guess," Bucky shrugged.

"I can understand that. You don't look scary though."

He then looked very confused.

"Th...thank you?"

"I'm just saying-I feel like it would probably be fine to let you walk here by yourself. It's only a problem when you hear the trigger words, right?"

"I think so, but I can't be sure. Neither can they. It's best to just keep everyone safe."

"Safe from..."

"Me."

"Well, you look perfectly gentle to me. I think it's the Winter Soldier they want to keep at bay."

That threw him for a loop. Gentle. Never in Bucky's life has he been described as gentle. At least... he didn't think so. He wasn't overly trusting of his memory.

"Kinda the same thing, don't ya think?"

"No."

Simple and head first into the point. Bucky once looked confused at her sureness.

"No?"

"No. You and the Winter Soldier are separate. It's not like you decided to go down that road. You weren't given a choice."

"Yeah, I guess."

She didn't seem the least bit convinced of his answer, but she decided to leave it alone.

(Y/N) uncrossed and re-crossed her legs, changing the subject and the mood.

"So, tell me about Steve!"

"Steve?"

"Yeah, I mean he rebelled against like a hundred countries to help you. I assumed you guys were close."

"Well," he started, leaning back in his seat, "he's my oldest friend, and my only friend now, I suppose. Stubborn ass, isn't he?"

"Maybe," (Y/N) smiled. "Sometimes stubborn is good, though. I can admire that. He isn't easily pushed around, that I can tell."

Bucky nearly snorted. "You should've seen him back when we were kids. Pushed around was part of his daily routine."

She almost giggled. "Oh, man. Poor Steve. He was lucky to have you, I take it?"

"We were lucky to have each other. But an argument can be made in Steve's favor 'cause he always made me look good. Not even because he was small or whatever, but because he was always puttin' me in situations where I'd act like a hero. Ya know, savin' his ass in the back of an alley or somethin'."

He seemed to get more comfortable as he talked about things that made him happy. Familiarity and goodness opened him up like a blooming flower. (Y/N) wasn't sure how to describe the sight, but the word that came to mind was golden.

"Sounds like you guys had a lot of fun."

"Yeah..." Bucky trailed off with a smile, thoughts tinted by memories of the past. Memories of an easier time.

"Oh, I've been meaning to ask. What did you think of all the exams we did with Shuri? How was it for you?"

"There's so much... stuff, and I have no idea what any of it is or does. I mean, it's been fine so far, but I can't help feeling constantly... confused. And unaware."

"Is that uncomfortable? Being unaware?"

"Well it's not a pleasure, that's for sure," Bucky said with a slight chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck.

He seemed nervous.

"Does this place make you nervous, Bucky?"

"Nervous? I don't know if I'd say nervous, but it is a lot to take in."

"That is true. Is that why you looked around the room for exits when you first came in? And why you're sitting facing the door instead of having your back to it?"

Bucky straightened his back.

"Didn't realize you caught that," he shrugged. "Just a habit."

And the flower began to wilt.

"Do you do that in rooms that you feel comfortable in?"

"I-uh... I'm not sure."

"That's alright. It's called hyper-vigilance. You're on high alert at all times. It's a common symptom in PTSD."

"In what?"

Bucky began to wipe his hands on his knees.

"PTSD stands for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but we can get into all that in a later session."

"Do I... do I have that?"

"I think so," she answered calmly and surely, "but I'd wait 'til I got to know you before I formally made that diagnosis."

He glanced at the clock. A few dense moments of silence pass.

"Bucky?"

He cleared his throat. "Yeah?"

"Are you okay?"

The blue in his eyes looked like ice. They were frozen. Most people think that in stressful situations the body activates the fight or flight response, but there aren't only two options. There's fight, flight, and there's freeze. Bucky was freezing.

The irony, (Y/N) thought.

He snapped out of whatever trance he was in and stood up abruptly. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just-"

His head shot to the door and he wrung out his hands as his feet shifted in place. Mind undoubtedly going haywire trying to decide what to do.

"I think I need to go," Bucky said so fast he didn't realize he even said it.

He made a beeline for the door, restlessness all but pouring out of him.

"Buck-"

She couldn't get through the rest of his name before the door had open and shut, leaving her sitting alone on the couch.

Now she could check off freeze and flight...

-

PLS feel free to leave some feedback/constructive criticism, i’d really like to know what i can do to make this story better!

[bestintheparsec]

The Same Coin - Part 3

Masterlist

Pairing: Javier Peña x Reader

A/N: Alright, this chapter feels like a big boi compared to the previous ones😂 I’m sorry for the delay in posting this! But I hope you enjoy it, and as always comments and feedback are appreciated!❤️ Special thanks to my lovely friends @hiscyarika​ @murdermewithbooks​ @aerynwrites​ for helping me proof/edit this thing, it would not be what it is without their help❤️

Words: 5.0k

Warnings: canon-typical violence, angst, a slice of Tender™

You pull your gun out of its holster, readying yourself against the side of the wall as Steve and Peña do the same. The sun beats down on you as you wait for the search bloc’s cue. Even if today’s mission is just a small-scale one, you’re glad to be back out in the field—and so is Peña, since it was his tip to begin with. Late last night, Peña received a tip from a previous CI regarding the whereabouts of a small lab. The colonel only allowed the use of fifteen men and a few cars, but this should be more than enough for the takedown of this particular site. Without the need for verification by Centra Spike, all three of you were promptly able to get the ambassador and Messina on board with the plan.

You’re shoulder-to-shoulder with the two of them now, waiting on the colonel’s signal as the men break down the entrance and toss a flash bomb inside. You’re given the cue as yelling erupts from inside and the whole search bloc barges in, sweeping the building. Gunfire from either side rings out, and when the smoke clears you’re able to make out the few sicarios that have been taken out on the ground. 

The quiet only lasts a few seconds before more shouting and shots come from the stairwell. Suddenly, a slew of sicarios start flooding the warehouse, coming from all corners and every room. They fire continuously and your ears start to ring from the noise. You take some of them out, but the shots keep coming and never cease.

“What the fuck!” Steve yells beside you as he continues to aim and dodge bullets. The three of you split up and scan the whole area, but you’re unsure of what you’re even looking for now. Your adrenaline’s running so you can’t process for long. Peña said there would only be a few of Escobar’s men here, not a small army of them.

The bloc continues to take them down one by one, and you’ve already made your way through most of the building when a bullet flies past your arm, hitting the wall behind you. You dodge behind a shelf and watch as two sicarios fire at you, pushing themselves through the window in the room. One of them knocks a shelf over on his way out as a barricade, and you quickly follow suit, climbing over the hunk of metal and out the window. Javier and Steve hear the noise and make their way into the room, following after they see you throwing yourself onto the street outside.

Sweat starts to bead on your forehead as you chase after them, expertly dodging the objects they throw in your path. Innocent bystanders watch with concern and you dip past them—you’ve almost caught up and can hear Steve and Peña's racing footsteps behind you. You always outrun those two—your lungs haven’t been bogged down by cigarettes the way theirs have. 

One of the men turns and shoots at you before disappearing through a doorway on the other side of the road; you’ve almost caught up to the other one so you make a split-second decision, letting this one go and continue running straight ahead.

You’re closing in on him when the sicario abruptly turns into a narrow alleyway. You follow, but lose your footing and trip over a large piece of metal that he’d thrown to the ground. He dashes off and escapes as you get yourself up, groaning loudly. 

“Fuck!” you hiss at yourself.

As you go to pick up your gun off the ground, the other sicario that had slipped away earlier appears out of nowhere, his gun pointed at you and ready to fire. You freeze like a deer in the headlights, your hands ready to fly up in surrender when a shot rings out from behind you. The bullet goes straight through the sicario’s chest, sending his lifeless body to the ground.

You exhale in relief and whip your head around, meeting Peña’s eyes as he lowers his gun. He tries to catch his breath, giving you a curt nod. Seconds pass before you realize you’ve stopped breathing, but you return the nod after taking a deep breath. It’s the only thanks you’re able to give at the moment, since he gestures in the direction the sicario escaped towards. The chase is still on, so you grab your gun off the ground and run alongside him.

You sprint back out into an open street where you see Steve pointing his gun at the sicario, who’s got his own gun aimed right back. 

“¡Baja tu arma!” Peña yells at him, but he doesn’t budge.

Your gun is pointed as well, but you briefly scope your surroundings. Aside from a few cars parked along the sidewalk, the street is void of any people. 

No one else seems to notice the unsuspecting truck that’s parked to your left, carrying large tanks with the word “gasolina” stamped on them in faded white letters.

You turn your attention back to the sicario, but it’s too late—his eyes go to where you were just looking, and Peña and Steve see the truck at the same time he does. There’s a split second of silence, but then he jerks his gun in the truck’s direction and pulls the trigger before you can yell “No!”. At the same time, Peña shouts something you can’t make out, and you’re about to move when you feel the force of his large hand shoving you and Steve face-first behind a car for cover. Your arms brace the fall and you feel the vibrations from the explosion as you lie face-down on the ground. Following the sounds of shattering glass and debris, the street fills with blaring of car alarms and smoke.

You felt an impact on the way down, but now you’re not sure if it was because of your body hitting concrete, or the weight of Peña’s body on top of yours, shielding you. His free arm is over Steve and he quickly moves it off. He grips your arm with his hand, then releases it but keeps himself over you. The sharp ringing in your ears isn’t enough to distract you from the feeling of Peña’s chest against your back, pressing on you every time he breathes in and out.

All three of you stay on the ground for a few more moments before uncovering your faces and looking up to inspect the scene of complete chaos and destruction. Debris litters the ground and the dense smoke in the air burns your lungs. You know to always expect the unexpected, but this was definitely not part of the plan. 

The colonel’s going to lose his shit. You shift your position, still aware of his weight on you. Peña starts to get up first, but keeps his arm over you just a second longer than necessary. You don’t know why but you feel a hint of warmth rush to your cheeks. With a shaky exhale, you push yourself up as well. What the hell was that? you want to ask him. He offers no explanation or the slightest comment about the strange moment of contact, so you figure it’s just you, thinking too much as usual.

You sigh with relief when all of you are able to stand, seemingly unharmed. Peña looks relieved as well, looking around as you brush the dust off yourself.

“Anyone hurt? Or hit their head?” he asks, rubbing his shoulder. You and Steve each let out a huff of air and shake your heads as you all start to walk back towards the warehouse. No one has to say it, but you know you’re all in for some harsh words once you get back to the embassy.

~

The three of you sit in the ambassador’s office with Messina, and as predicted, they’re pissed. While you three were off chasing down those two sicarios, the search bloc had managed to capture a couple of sicarios back at the warehouse—alive. So while they’re off being questioned right now, you, Peña, and Steve are getting reprimanded for how indiscreet the mission was. You’ve been listening to their lecture for nearly twenty minutes and they’re only now slowing down. Not much has been said on your part; you’re fuming on the inside and trying to contain yourself. Your jaw is clenched and you’re bouncing your leg on the floor, waiting for it to be over. It won’t make a damn difference what any of you tell them; it never does.

“Ma’am, with all due respect, we have two high-tier sicarios in our custody,” Peña comments with a wave of the hand, barely concealing the irritation in his voice. His other hand grips the arm of his chair, his knuckles white from the pressure.

“Agent Peña, this mission was supposed to be covert—in and out, is that not what the informant said? You were supposed to go in there quietly, not create a goddamn war zone,” the ambassador retorts.

“How were we supposed to know all of that would happen?” Steve clips. His frustration mirrors your own. You’re about to mutter something sarcastic when you notice Peña’s eyes shift down to the ground, then back up. He clenches his teeth and grinds his jaw. It’s a tic of his, when he’s up to something. You’re not sure what he has to do with any of this, but now’s not the time to bring it up.

After you get dismissed, you go back and sink into the chair at your desk, sighing with exasperation. Peña and Steve sit down at their own desks across from you, stowing their guns and badges away.

You quietly observe them as they pretend to skim some paperwork. Steve has some small bruises starting to form on his arms, and you’ve got a busted lip—but other than that, the three of you aren’t hurt. You shake your head at the irony—one small stakeout with Peña resulted in him being shot in the leg, yet a whole explosion happens and the most you get is a bloody lip and some scratches. Go figure. 

Your fingers twitch and can’t stay still, and you can’t figure out why. It’s been a few hours since the event, and a scolding from the higher-ups has never fazed you before. Your fight-or-flight response has calmed down now. But you almost feel shaken by the incident, even though it was far from being your first encounter with danger. You didn’t do anything differently, and no one was hurt. But your mind can’t focus on anything else except those moments where you might’ve been harmed today—that sicario was ready to shoot, and the aftermath of it all could’ve been a lot worse. Your mind flashes to Peña’s hand on your back, and you feel your face getting warm again. Why the fuck are you thinking about this? You shake your head, immediately suppressing the thought.

As astute as you are, you don’t notice that Javier is observing you, too. He doesn’t miss the way you’re massaging your fingers again, something you haven’t done in a while—at least, not around him. You cross, then uncross them several times. He suddenly feels a pang of guilt; today must have affected you more than you’re letting on. He considers how this was yet another time he’s put you—and Murphy, of course—in harm’s way. His CI had greatly downplayed the amount of violence to expect, but his anger over this isn’t boiling quite as strongly as the nagging sensation of guilt that’s slowly making itself known again. He’s had worse problems with past intel, but for a reason unknown to him, this time it’s different. You might just be a coworker, but he can't help but feel like he's at fault for more than one thing today.

So when he watches you with your multiple nervous habits, he almost has to pull his eyes away. Steve picks up on your annoyance and says something to cheer you up, and a hint of a smile appears on your face. It’s not long before Javier's attention is inadvertently drawn to the cut on your lower lip; it’s a bit swollen along the area. He purses his own lips and forces himself to finally look away. It was just another day on the job. Why the hell does any of this bother him?

You stand up suddenly, tossing the files onto the desk and breaking his chain of thought. “I’m going to go get a coffee,” you tell them, pushing your chair in. They both nod as you pull your drawer out to grab your things and leave for your break. You don’t notice the frown on Peña’s face as he watches you leave, either.

~

As you sip on the steaming beverage and walk on the quiet sidewalk towards the benches on the outskirts of the embassy, you’re hit with the feeling that today’s events are going to linger in your mind for longer than they should. You wish they wouldn’t—you’ve seen so much worse. You exhale and take a seat on the bench, rubbing your temples and taking another long sip from the cup. 

You weren’t stupid when you joined the DEA; you knew what you were signing up for. But you also knew what you had to give up, or at least you had to try to. You’ve worked here for too long to not know better. You don’t get close to people; you try not to, anyways. Even though Steve is a good friend, there's a lot about you he doesn't know; things you’ve never offered. Loss and suffering is all you’ve seen during your time here—it wouldn’t do you any good to get attached. Does this have anything to do with Peña? No, of course not. You try to brush your thoughts off, instead pondering what kind of shady dealings Peña's been involved in. He knows more than he’s willing to tell, but you don’t know if you want to know any more than that. It’s not the first time he’s done questionable things, of that much you're sure. Eventually, he’s going to get himself hurt if he keeps up the reckless behavior. Why doesn’t he realize this, or care? And more importantly, why do you? 

You start to massage your fingers, as though it’ll wash the thoughts of your life choices away.

But you’re never allowed any reprieve. As if on cue, Peña’s voice interrupts your thoughts. “You’re in my spot,” he says, approaching the bench.

You’re about to make a smart remark, but hold back when you turn and see the resigned expression in his eyes. Peña takes a seat beside you and leans back, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and offering you one. You shake your head as he lights one for himself. 

“This is my thinking place, too,” he comments when you don’t say anything. He follows your gaze to the street, full of loud cars and pedestrians out and about.

“I, um—Thank you. For today, with the sicarios,” you finally add after a few moments, turning to look at him. “I mean it.”

Javier meets your eyes, only breaking his gaze when he realizes you’re still rubbing your fingers. His mouth presses into a hard line and he doesn’t really know how to respond to your thanks, so he just nods. 

“You don’t need to thank me. Just...doing my job,” he says quietly, practically under his breath. You were almost hurt again, and it would’ve been his fault.

“What is that job, Peña?” It’s a genuine question, and you don’t mean any harm by it. “I don’t know what you’re not telling us, but...you should be careful. If not for your own sake, then for ours.” 

He puts the cigarette to his lips and takes another draw before he answers. “I can take care of myself,” he states simply.

You scoff at that—not just because he’s stubborn but because you’ve told yourself the same thing many times. You've learned to fend for yourself here.

“Maybe,” you reply. “But there’s a lot more at stake than your own safety,” you tell him. He glances away then, but acknowledges the statement with another nod.

“Don’t worry. You’re not going to get in any trouble,” he adds quietly, and it’s not laced with the typical sarcasm you’re used to. 

“That’s not all I care about, you know.” If you sound a little defensive, you hope he can’t tell.

“Really, and what do you care about, agent?” He smirks, exhaling a puff of cigarette smoke.

“The same things you do,” you answer curtly with a shrug. “Catching that asshole, staying alive while I do it.”

“That’s all?” he asks with feigned disbelief.

“I think you know it’s for the best,” you say. “It’s best not to be attached to anything, or anyone else,” you add before you can stop yourself. Your eyes widen at the admission and you turn away—you didn’t mean to say that out loud.

There’s no way Peña misses the change in your tone, but he seems to spare you and makes no other comment. You exhale deeply and stand up, tossing your cup in the bin.

“We better get back inside,” you say, deftly changing the subject. “Let’s not give them another reason to make our lives difficult.”

He chuckles. “And when they do?”

“I’ve told you before,” you reply, a slight grin on your face. “I’m used to dealing with assholes.”

~

Lately, you’ve been getting a flood of potential new leads coming in. Some of them come from the sicarios that’d been captured days ago, but a lot of them seem to come out of nowhere. The phone’s been ringing more often than any of you have been used to recently, but more often than not the sources want to talk to an American; specifically, they ask for Peña. You and Steve occasionally question him about it, but he shrugs it off, reassuring you that these are all valid intel. 

The good thing about having so much new information is that the three of you are actually motivated to look into it, grateful for anything beyond the mindless busy work that’d become part of your routine. Falling into your prior routine from when Peña was working from home, you all bring the work home to his apartment almost every night. Each day seems to run into the next as you work tirelessly, plotting and digging to move forward. Late nights turn into even later nights, but you all seem to be running on fumes anyways.

You can’t help but feel like the dynamic between you and your partners is different now, too. Something seems to have shifted after your short conversation with Peña that day at the embassy, but you can’t put your finger on what it is. 

Steve catches on to something being off, too. One night when you’re all poring over one of the leads, Javier makes some darkly-humored remark about something and you let out a chuckle but make no other comment, continuing to focus on your work. Steve looks back and forth between you two with a wrinkle in his brow, racking his brain. He’s been used to being the middle-man, constantly mediating the hostility that was often present whenever you two worked together. The friendly banter—if that’s even what this is—is just a tad disorienting to him.

The three of you pass the liquor around; you have just enough to make you forget the exhaustion of another long day. Hours blend together and you continue to power through, but sometimes your minds give out for the night before you can make it home.

When Javier looks up and realizes you’re both out cold for the night, he sits up and stretches, getting up to head to bed himself. He’s mildly envious that you’re able to succumb to exhaustion so easily, because he knows it won’t be easy for him. But then again, it’s probably not much easier for either of you—sometimes you’re simply lucky enough to have a night where the baggage of the job is strong enough to allow you to rest. Steve’s got his face on his knuckle with his mouth agape, and you’re nestled into the side of the couch with your arms crossed. A gentle smile crosses Javier’s face and he shakes his head. His partners really are something else. 

The smile fades quickly when that nagging feeling of guilt hits him again. Sure, he’s been keeping contact with his informants; it’s the only way your bosses will take things seriously. But he’ll be damned before he lets any of them put you or anyone besides himself in danger again.

He walks over and pulls the blanket that’s draped over the side of the couch, covering you with it before picking up the papers off the floor and stacking them neatly on the table. He brings the glass of whiskey with him to his room, not bothering to shut the door behind him. 

~

A car horn blares in the distance and Steve jolts awake, realizing he dozed off even with the dim lights still on; he figures it’s time to call it a night. He stands and shrugs on his jacket, smirking when he sees your sleeping form slouching over on the couch. He takes another swig of whiskey from his glass, briefly deciding whether he should tell you to go home, too. He glances towards you, then to the paperwork on the table, then to Javier’s room, and smirks again before deciding to leave you alone. He places the glass down with a clink, turning off the lamp as he makes his way home to Connie.

~

Javier wakes up abruptly, his body still and his eyes adjusting to the surroundings of his bedroom. He can barely put together what he saw, but his heart beats rapidly and he can feel his pulse in his face. He remembers an indistinct image of broken glass and fire, nothing else. He steadies his breathing, in and out, willing the pounding in his chest to stop. The nightmares visit him so often that he’s never surprised by them anymore, but he’d like to be able to sleep through just one fucking night.

He exhales heavily and shuts his eyes again, knowing damn well he’s not going back to sleep. It only lasts a moment; he opens them again and sits up on his bed, running his hands through his hair and down his face. He pushes the comforter off himself and puts his feet on the ground, leaning forward with his face in his hands. He tries harder to remember what it was about this time, but it’s already been erased from his memory, leaving only the aftereffects. He’s so fucking tired. Not just from the lack of sleep, but from everything that leads him to dark places even in slumber.

He sighs deeply again, then stands to get his drink from the top of his dresser. It’s almost empty, so he pours himself another glass. He can’t tell if he’s a little buzzed from the earlier glass, or if it’s just his mind being too loud.

~ 

Your eyes open slowly as you try to reorient yourself—you’re still on Peña’s couch. The old leather cushion squeaks as you sit up, yawning. The lights are all off, so the space is completely dark, save for the blue-hued night’s sky shining through the window. You can’t have been out for more than a few hours, but you rub the sleep from your eyes before pushing the blanket off yourself and immediately shiver when the cool AC air hits your skin. You’ve only been tired enough to fall asleep here a few times, but every time you’ve woken up with this blanket on you. You can’t help but feel a hint of warmth in your chest, but push the feeling away before you let yourself think too hard about it.

At any rate, you need to go back to your own flat, so you get up and blindly try to find your things in the dark. You dig around and find your keys before swinging the bag over your shoulder. You’re about to head to the door when you hear a quiet groan and some shuffling coming from Peña’s room. You purse your lips, unsure if you should ignore it. But when you hear the clinks of glass and sounds of liquor being poured, you hesitantly remove your bag and gently place it back on the floor.

You’re afraid of breaking some unspoken boundary as you quietly walk towards his room. Coworkers—partners—watch each other’s backs, don’t they? This is normal. 

His door is wide open, so you tell yourself you’re not barging in. Standing just outside the door,  you nervously peer inside. You expect him to be under the covers, but instead find him sitting on the edge of his bed facing away from the door, his head in one hand, his free hand nursing a glass. If you leave now, he won’t notice. But you suddenly remember his protective hold over you and Steve during the incident. Before you can change your mind, you knock lightly on the door frame. You don't know what troubles him, but if it's anything like your own demons, he shouldn't have to be alone. 

“Peña?” you whisper, so quietly that you’re not even sure he can tell you’re there. 

He makes no response, but sits up straighter and rubs his face, so you know he heard you. 

“Are you…okay?” you ask with a meek voice, waiting for him to answer with sarcasm, or anger, or...anything. Honestly, you expect him to ask you to leave, and at another time you might have gladly done so. But now you’re not so sure.

“Yeah, great,” he mutters, but his voice cracks at the end of it. You swallow dryly, not knowing what you should do. But he doesn’t tell you to leave, so you rock on your feet for a few seconds as you wait for him to add anything else. When he doesn’t, a feeling of courage overcomes you and you take a step into his room, joining him in the darkness. Your breath hitches because while you don’t know what this is, you know that there’s no going back from it.

You walk towards his dark silhouette—your pulse is racing and you have no idea why—until you’re standing in front of him, your knees almost touching his. He barely lifts his head, not meeting your eyes. If he wanted you to go, he would’ve told you so already. 

Your hands want to fidget, so you slowly reach out and gently take the glass out of his hand, setting it down on the nightstand beside him. He rubs his hands together hesitantly, looking up at you for a moment before turning away, unable to match your gaze for long. Your arms are at your side, your brows furrowed as you ponder what to do. You don't ask for an explanation because there's none needed. If only to distract yourself from the biting tension in the air, you reach out again, timidly brushing your fingers along his bare shoulder. You’re pretty sure your fingers are shaking, but when he doesn’t pull away you place your whole palm on his skin, running it down his upper arm in hopes of comforting him. You feel his muscles tense and then quickly relax, so you start to pull away—abruptly, he stops you by taking your hand and giving it a light squeeze with his calloused fingers, taking you by surprise; he quickly retracts as if he didn’t mean to do it. He still avoids your gaze, looking straight ahead at the wall behind you. You’re never this brazen unless you’re in the field, but you don’t want to leave him alone now. 

You lift your hand again, this time moving to softly run your fingers along his thick hair, smoothing it behind his ear. You swear you hear him inhale, and he seems to relax against the movement. You run the palm of your other hand along the smoothness of his back, then gently pull him in towards you. He doesn’t move his arms, but he almost instantly leans into you, his head pressing against your stomach. You wrap your other arm around him, and while he doesn’t do the same, he relaxes completely against you. Minutes pass but you don’t move, keeping your hold around him as you listen to him breathe in and out, occasionally lightly stroking the back of his head. The noises of the Colombian streets at night quietly fill the background, but all you can focus on is him. His skin is warm against yours and you almost feel comforted yourself, despite your best attempts to ignore the feeling. The heaviness of your tired eyes is long gone now.

You’re not sure how much longer it’s been when you suddenly feel him tense under your arms again. He gently pulls away as you let go. He finally looks up and meets your eyes, raising a hand towards your face. The tips of his fingers barely graze the skin on your cheeks and suddenly your heart rate picks up again; just as quickly, he removes his hand. You don’t even have time to let go of the breath you realize you’re holding. You take an inch of a step backwards, steadying yourself and tugging on the hem of your shirt. 

“I...should go," you whisper. Your voice falters and you hope it doesn’t betray you.

A beat passes. “Yeah, you should,” he agrees, but his voice is gentle.

You linger for a moment, then slowly turn and walk away, leaving his bedroom door open like you found it. You keep your steps quiet as you pick up your bag again and walk through the front door. Once you’re out in the hallway, you pause and take a deep breath, shaking off whatever feeling has suddenly taken over the emptiness in your chest.

~

Translations:

Baja tu arma = lower your weapon/put the gun down

~

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[a-court-of-healing]

Loving You Through it chapter 2 Jace Herondale x Reader

Disclaimer: I don’t own the mortal instruments or the gifs

Trigger warning: mentions of cutting, sexual abuse, sexual assault, ptsd, and depression

Y/N POV

Dean has been the best parabatai ever. You met Dean when you were 12 and just got your marks. He just turned 17 and he was looking for someone to be his parabatai. He entered the training room when you were there, and he saw you take on people who were older, wiser, and more trained. You learned from a young age it was either fight, flight, or freeze. For your father, it was always freeze. For most other men it was fight, but for emotions it was run. Dean was impressed and he liked the idea of being older and being a mentor to someone younger. You were honored, because honestly, Dean was a) hot b) a good fighter and c) a good friend. He knew all of your problems, the depression, ptsd, and cutting. He knew your history, but he trusted you completely. He knows that you would die for him in a heartbeat. He knows how much you love Jace, and he keeps trying to get you to tell him and to let him in, but it’s not that easy.

“Why don’t you explain it to him? You know he will be there for you! He loves you, Y/N!” Dean explains as he sits next to you. You shake your head and sigh. 

“Because Dean...what if he…you...abandon me? I don’t think I can survive that…” You have this habit of picking your fingers, even to the point where it bleeds. Dean looked at your hands and poked you. 

“Stop, stop worrying. I see the way he looks at you. He looks at you like you are the star of his world and he can’t survive without you. He won’t leave you because you have had a hard life and you have mental illnesses. That just isn’t like him.” You looked away and stood up and looked out the window. Dean makes it sound like it’s perfectly normal to be the way you are, and it will be so easy to talk about everything to Jace. You barely told Dean. You only told him because you thought as your parabatai he didn’t have a choice but to stay. 

“Have you talked to Dustin about this?” Dustin was your therapist. He was a really great man. You usually hate men and don’t trust them, but you were researching therapists and he was known for working with people like you with PTSD and people who have been abused. I shook my head and then somewhat nod my head. 

“Kinda...I mentioned how I was scared and the memories. Dean these flashbacks make life hell. I can’t stop thinking that either he’ll leave me...or he just wants me for sex...or maybe he’ll abuse me too....” Dean was listening and nodding. 

“Have you thought about talking to Alec about Jace? I mean, he knows him better than just about anyone. He could help ease your mind.” It was a really good idea. You loved Alec and Isabelle. They were like your brother and sister. You also love Magnus and Simon because they made them happy. Alec and Magnus were the cutest couple ever. Magnus is like your bisexual best friend. He’s been through hell as well and it’s like you both can tell what hell you’ve been through. 

“That sounds like a good idea...I think I’m going to message him...you don’t think he’ll tell…” 

“No...that isn’t like Alec and you know it. He wouldn’t tell unless you want him too. Magnus won’t tell either. It might hurt Jace though that you went to Alec...I mean you can tell your story to whoever you deem trustworthy.” Dean’s phone started ringing and it stopped my train of thought. 

“Oh speak of the devil. It’s Alec. Here, see what he wants.” He tosses you his phone and starts cleaning up his room. 

“Hello? Dean’s phone.” 

“Y/N?”

“Yeah, I’m here with Dean...is there something wrong?”

“No, I was just calling him to see if he could bring me some arrows from the armory, but anyway, how are you?” He sounded genuinely curious. 

“I’m fine, always fine. I can bring you some arrows...I thought maybe I could talk to you about something anyway…” 

“Of course! Does it matter that Magnus is here? He could leave if you don’t wa-”

“No, that’s fine. It’s just something about Jace. See you soon!”

You stop by your and Jace’s room and see that he fell asleep with his shoes still on. You smile lovingly and walk over to him and take off his shoes and kiss his forehead. You wrote a note and put it on the end table. If he woke up and you were there, he would be worried. You then grab some arrows and head over to Magnus and Alec’s apartment. You knocked on their door and waited for them to answer and Alec answered almost immediately and you saw that both him and Magnus were in their pajamas. 

“Hey Y/N what’s up?” You hand him the arrows, walk in, and walk over to the couch and sit down. Magnus was sitting on the love seat and walked over you and kissed your head and sat next to you. His kisses were different then Jace’s. A) because it wasn’t romantic b) he was bisexual c) he’s in a relationship with Alec d) Magnus is like her brother and e) he’s bisexual.

“Umm...I don’t want to say too much...but I have some trust issues…” That admission was hard enough, and Magnus snickered a little and Alec shot him a look, telling him to shut up.

“I...I love Jace more than I’ve ever loved anyone in this world. I just….don’t know if I can tell him about somethings...he deserves to know, he does. But I just don’t know if I can...cause I mean…” You were picking at your nails to try and calm down. You couldn’t speak anymore and you felt shame going straight through your veins. Silence rang out through the apartment. They both were expecting you to speak some more, but you couldn’t get the words out. You stared off at the wall, trying to numb the panic in your heart. Magnus stood up and walked out of the room and I felt fear creep in. I knew it. They would leave me. However, he came back in with a little ball of fluff. He put Chairman Meow in my lap and the kitty started purring. This cat has always liked you, and he never ran away. You instantly started petting him and smiled. He didn’t leave you, he was getting something to HELP you. 

“Y/N I can tell you this, Jace will protect you and he will die for you. He will take anything you give him and he will carry all your problems on his shoulders. He is your biggest supporter. He’s rooting for you. So you can talk to him. He will be there, and from past experience, I know for a fact he won’t abandon you.” He was sitting on the loveseats arm and he was speaking quietly, almost like he was speaking to a frightened animal. I studied Chairman Meow’s fur and tried to get lost in how soft it was. Believe it or not, you were a very tactile person. You think it has something to do with not getting good safe healthy touches throughout your entire life. They both wait silently and patiently waiting for you to digest what you were thinking and feeling. 

“I spent the majority of my life hiding who I was from my family and friends, and when I finally did come out, they were all there to support me. I thought they would leave as well, but it never even crossed their minds.” Alec stood up and walked over and sat on the couch, sandwiching you between Magnus and himself. 

“Darling, I can tell you’ve been through some sort of hell. It must be super hard to do it all alone. We’re here if you want to talk, but I think we all know you should be talking to jace.” Alec pulled the cat out of your arms and Magnus reached over and grabbed your hand and squeezed tightly. You felt loved. Then, you stood up and nodded your head. 

“Thanks you two...I really needed this.” 

“Call or text whenever you need to. We’re serious. We’re here for you.” Magnus said and Alec agreed. 

When you went back to the Institute, you noticed that Church meowed at you and you reached down to pet him. Then, this sharp stabbing pain burned on your forearm. Your parabatai rune. That meant Dean was in trouble. Oh no. 

“DEAN!!!! Church, take me to Dean!” Church couldn’t even do it. That meant that Dean wasn’t here. You pulled out your phone and called him. He didn’t answer. You called repeatedly and every time he didn’t answer, panic rose in your blood. 

“JACE!!!!” You ran as fast as you could to Jace’s room and Jace shot up from the bed. 

“Y/N, what’s wrong? Are you okay? What’s going on?” He grabbed your arms and you shook your head. 

“Get dressed and get your weapons. Dean is in trouble!”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know, we’ll have to use a navigation rune!” You were only meant to use this rune in absolute emergencies. 

Jace and you prepared as fast as you could and you pulled out your copper colored stele and had Jace give you the mark. But as soon as you found him, something happened. You felt a huge stab in your heart. Oh Lord, please no! Your heart felt as if you were stabbed with a sharp gripping stake and it was twisting and ripping out your heart. You gasp in agony. The rune on your arm went from a dark black mark to a clear scar. You felt a part of you die. You literally went from feeling normal to nothing. Pure emptiness. You grabbed Jace’s arm and all you could hear was this fuzz and static as Jace yelled asking you what was happening, but horror filled you and fell to your knees and screamed as loud as you could. Izzy and Simon ran in and you assumed that they were asking Jace what was happening, and Jace was on the floor with you holding your face in his and the look on his face showed pure concern, worry, love, fear, and tenderness all wrapped into one expression. Your lips were quivering and you felt the tears well in your eyes. 

“He’s dead. Dean is dead.”

[sweetwritertanya]

Stormy Night (Original)

Summary: A snow storm leads to you losing your chance to not only see your boyfriend, as it was planned, but also communicate at all with him as the blizzard worsens. Little did you know, that would be the last time you would ever spend a stormy night alone.

Warnings: HORROR! Nothing too bad, hopefully it just sends those spooky scary tingles down your back. No trigger warnings, no violence or anything of the sort. Tell me what you all think of it, if you can! Did it spook you a bit? Did you guess what was about to happen?

Word Count: 2345

“Hun, I hate this” you complain into the phone in your hand against your ear, pacing around in the living room and looking out the window to the dark threatening sky.

“I know, muffin, I know. I hate it too” your boyfriend reciprocates on the other side of the call.

“I mean, I had everything ready, I was going to make your favorite meal, went to the supermarket and got all the freaking ingredients and whatever, bought the expensive wine, booked the tickets to the play and…” you sigh heavily. “All for nothing.”

“We couldn’t have predicted this, Y/N. I mean, this storm came out of nowhere, not even the weathermen saw it coming” he tries and console you, like he always did whenever you were frustrated at something you couldn’t quite control.

“It just… sucks! I haven’t seen you in three months!”

You didn’t mean for the last sentence to come out almost like a sob, but your pent-up feelings surface quickly and you start snuffling as you try to keep the tears from falling.

“Fuck, baby, I know and it’s killing me too. I just want to hold you in my arms again and kiss the pout I know you have right now away” he confesses, sounding every bit as disappointed as you. A small smile comes to your lips when he mentions the pout that you, in fact, had been sporting the entire call. “If only I had booked a flight one day earlier, I could have been snowed in with you during the storm. Keep you protected and warm.”

“It’s not your fault you’re so busy with work. You know one of the things I love about you is how dedicated you are.” It’s your turn to console him and that somehow helps you feeling better, focusing on making him feel better instead of pitying yourself any further.

“The only thing I hate about my job is how it keeps me away from you so much” he murmurs, groggily.

“You know what? It’s fine. This is fine” you decide with a renewed determination, walking out of the living room you were at and making your way to the kitchen. “We’ll meet after the storm is all over and we’ll make it an even better stay! I’ll get refunded for the tickets, use the money to instead take us out for dinner so I don’t have to cook and we can have our own movie session at home. Which is better anyway, because we can get comfortable and snuggle how much we want without disapproving eyes all around.”

You gasp loudly and jump in place as a loud thunder shakes the ground, lightning tearing apart the cloudy sky outside. The wind seems to pick up in response and you can only see a blur of white snow falling out your windows.

“Y/N? M-ffin, are yo- o-y?”

The signal of your phone call weakens and you can barely make out what he is saying from the other side.

“Babe, I’m okay! Can you hear me? I’m fine, but I think I’m losing signal” you yell into the phone, hoping that he can still comprehend what you are saying so he doesn’t worry.

“I hea- you. Ok-y, you’re oka-. Cal- -morrow?”

“Yeah, I’ll call you tomorrow! Love you!”

“Lov- -ou, bye muff-” And the call ends abruptly.

“Damnit…” you whisper in a sigh. “Was supposed to be spending the day with him and now I can’t even have a phone call or a video chat with him. Stupid weather!”

As you had predicted, both your wi-fi and even the television feed were struggling due to the conditions outside, so you weren’t even bothering turning them on. Taking out all of the candles you had available, which were mainly scented candles you received from people you barely knew, you left at least one in each room and picked the largest one to carry with you around the house, expecting the lights to go out some time during the storm.

When living alone in a small one-bedroom house in the outskirts of town, one could never be too prepared. Especially a woman living alone. So, you have thought of every situation you could find yourself in and came up with solutions that didn’t depend on someone else coming over to fix. The candles were a wise decision, as it turned out, since early in the evening, while you were trying to entertain yourself by reading a book in bed, the only lamp turned on by your nightstand went out and the moonlight was all you had.

“Figures” you dryly say, reaching for the lighter you kept on the first drawer and lighting the large vanilla and coffee scented candle.

Even though it was earlier than when you usually went to sleep, there was really not much you could do without the modern commodities you were used to, especially in the dark of the young night, so you just laid down in bed and covered yourself with the blankets, keeping the candle going in case you needed to go to the bathroom during the night and the lights weren’t back on yet.

Surprisingly, it doesn’t take much for you to fall asleep, even with the wind owling loudly outside and the occasional thunder. And yet, it was a loud crash coming from somewhere in the house that wakes you in a jerk, sounding like one of your plant pots had fallen and shattered on the ground. You grimace just thinking of having to get up and clean it all up, but the thought of just leaving your plant on the ground to wither guilt trips you into doing so.

With a grunt, you remove the covers and put on your slippers, picking the candle up and opening your bedroom’s door. Walking to the kitchen, much like you suspected, you find that the plant you kept on the windowsill above your sink had fallen to the ground and the window’s doors were blasted open with the furious wind, making you shiver from head to toe at how cold it was.

Automatically, you go and close the window before anything else, making sure to close the latch securely this time. It was such a mundane task, something you did every night before going to bed, that you almost missed it.

Just as you were about to turn around and pick up the broken pieces off the floor, your numb mind picks up something strange. You look back outside, frowning as you don’t quite understand what seems strange. It takes you maybe five solid seconds of staring for you to see it.

The footprints, on an otherwise completely immaculate white veil above the ground. The snow was falling so quick and so much that the tracks were starting to be covered up again, soon to disappear beneath a newly fresh layer of pristine snow. But you still saw them.

And they were leading straight to your window.

Your whole body freezes, heart stops and your breathing comes to a frightening halt. Blankly, you stare at the outside for a few more moments before the terrifying realizations hits you. Your silent hammer switches to a hammering beat against your chest, blood rushing loudly in your ears and sold sweats prickling up your skin as you slowly turn around and scan your house.

The dirt of the pot, it had been moved. A snow trail melting in your wooden floors, from your sink where the open window was to across the kitchen. Your eyes follow it and you fight back a fearful whimper once you notice the opened door to the small basement. A door you always closed and seldomly opened.

Your mind races, working in overpower as survival mode seems to set in. There was someone at your house. Someone broke in. Your first thought is to run to your phone and call for help, but your last phone call proved that the storm was interfering with means of communication. And you didn’t have a landline.

You slap your hand against your mouth as a shriek escapes you and you scrunch down to your knees when a creak comes from bellow. Your eyes start to swell up with dread and you force yourself to silently move away. The basement door was made of cement, which meant the creaking could only be made if someone was coming up the stairs.

There were only two options in your brain now. Fight or flight. You couldn’t call for help, hiding would do you no good when there were only a handful of places to do so, and even if you screamed in hopes that your only neighbors from across the street would hear you, the loud storm would drown you out.

The stairs creak again and you are maybe seven feet away from your front door. The door to the basement is still within your view and you wide scared eyes miss nothing at this second. So you see it. Even with the only light sources being the candle you left on the counter and the streetlight from outside, you see it.

The large grey hand with dark dirty nails that clutches around the side of the door, as if about to open it. And the sparkle of something metallic coming from the darkness.

Gathering all of the strength you could master in your panicked state, you stand up and run towards the front door, fighting with the latch to open just as you hear heavy footsteps that didn’t belong to you. Swinging the door open, you run into the blizzard with a shrieking scream that contended with the owling wind, barefoot and only in your pajamas, too caught up in the moment to even feel how cold it was.

You are screaming the entire path across the street, even as you hammer against your neighbor’s door so heavily you might actually break down their door.

“HELP! HELP, I NEED HELP! SOMEBODY! HELP!”

The man from the mid-aged couple is the one who opens the door for you, looking half worried and half annoyed, the woman coming down the stairs hurled up in her robe with concern.

“What the hell is go-”

“Call the police! Somebody broke in to my house and they are there right now. Please, call the police!” you beg, starting to shiver as the cold starts to get to you.

“Dear God, let her in a lock the doors!” the woman tells her husband immediately, taking off her robe and giving it to you as you enter their home.

Thankfully, their landline telephone was still functioning despite the storm and the police was contacted. They arrive an excruciatingly long thirty minutes later, knocking at your neighbor’s door and asking what happened.

That’s when the weirdest thing happens. You walk with the officers back to your house, feeling more secure now that you had two people with guns next to you. The blizzard had almost erased the footsteps from you running away from the house, your door still swinging open and moving with the strong wind. Looking around, you don’t see any tracks other than yours leading out of the house. One of them goes inside the house first, the other keeping you safe outside.

“All clear!” the policeman yells from inside.

Frowning and uncertain, you and the other officer enter the house to inspect.

It’s mind boggling, really. How immaculate all of it was. The flowerpot that had fell to the ground was gone, no indications of any dirt on the ground, all completely clean as if it never happened. The window was still shut just as you left it, candle still burning on your kitchen’s counter. No snow or water trails on the floor anywhere.

They checked the basement and found nothing; it was just as you always left it. The policemen made you search for any lost valuables, any expensive items you might have had that could be stolen, but everything was in its place. Nothing was missing.

You beg them to look for fingerprints, namely on the door where you know you saw a hand. After a bit of pressure, they grant your request and gather all of the fingerprints around the spot you assured them the person had their hands. It would take a few days for them to come back with any result.

Obviously, you didn’t stay back in that house. In fact, you were almost entirely decisive on moving out as soon as possible. The only way you would even consider staying there again was if the police found and imprisoned the person who broke in.

They never did. The fingerprints they collected at the scene, as it turned out, were all yours. There was no indication of anyone ever having broken in. And with nothing stolen or damaged, they couldn’t continue the case and it was closed.

Up until months after you moved out, you were still bothered by vivid nightmares of that night. If you were ever home alone and it was dark, you would see grey nasty hands in the darkest corners. And you made sure from the on to never spend a stormy night alone ever again.

[1zashreena1]

I Am Having a Snuggle -10

18+, m/f, technically OCxDiego Jimenez [Power]

Summary: Princess doesn’t sleep much after her long distance meltdown. Soft Murder Panther to the rescue! Well, except for that one hard part.

WARNINGS: Ridiculous descriptions and ‘the code is more like guidelines’ outlook on grammar. Is it OOC if the character was given essentially zero development in canon???

FEELS. SMUT (aka The Good Stuff), the L word, plus size woman+fit man, soft!Diego (srsly disgusting and if you bring it up later he will stab you), coddled Princess, mentions of... The Belt*tm,  is a relationship happening?? apparently. Leftover high school Spanish.

A/N:  Princess took on a life of her own and has essentially become an OC. There are infrequent mentions of her description (specifically as plus size) and her actual name in later pieces (its Bicki). She started as self-insert so she looks like me (plus size, white, short, blue eyes, curly hair). If that is not your thing, I totally understand. And do not feel obligated to read this, I will not be offended!

I’m not a fan of “plot” so be aware that most of this series is just meandering through their relationship, angst-fluff-smut whiplash style. But with dick jokes.

Special thanks to @chelsfic for the shared Diego headcanons re: coffee preferences. ILY Mommy

TAGLIST: @chelsfic @symbiont13 @nicke0115 @bunnykjm @rosee-sensuelle @girlpornparadise @mandoplease @heresathreebee @xxsteph-enrixx @jetiikad @joalsglasses @mutantcookiesecrets @demoncatstone @squidlywiddly87 @lockedoutofmyotherblog @poeedamerons

You snap awake with a gasp. What woke you up? You lay there for a second, holding your breath and listening. With your vision being so horrible your hearing is a much more reliable sense. Its pitch black tonight, no moonlight breaking through the cloud cover. You don't keep any ambient lighting on while you sleep so you couldn't see anything if you tried.

There. A soft bang outside somewhere. Then another. It almost sounds like car doors. I wonder if the baby is sick again and First Floor Mark is taking her to the hospital?

Your worry is cut short when you jolt to full awareness because your apartment door is opening. You flip over to your back and dive for the nightstand. Glasses first, Smithfield 911 second. You sit up to brace yourself against the wall and hold the gun in your lap, fingering the safety. 

The door closes and you hear it being locked. 

With a heaved sigh you make sure the safety is on and wait. Heavy footsteps come ever closer to your bedroom and you can see the light of his phone before he appears in your doorway.

Diego freezes when he sees you sitting up in bed. Then he smiles. Wide and sparkling in the low light, you can't see them but you know the dimples are there.

"Princess, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you." He greets you warmly, voice like liquid velvet, wrapping you in heated comfort. You can tell he is wearing most of a suit, the jacket is gone, but you have no idea what color. His collar is unbuttoned. That's not distracting at all.

You arch one brow and struggle not to smirk. "Damnit Diego, you almost got shot." You display the gun, barrel pointed to the ceiling.

He rumbles lowly at you, purring in pleasure, as he spreads his arms open. "Princess, that is hot. Come here, now!"

With a bark of laughter you drop the gun to the bed and launch yourself at him. He staggers back a step but catches you securely. You wrap all your limbs around him and squeeze. His hands cup your ass and he returns the gesture with enthusiasm. Diego turns his face into yours, you know exactly what he wants and you give it to him with no hesitation. 

His lips are soft but his beard is all scratchy tickles. You delight in the contrasting textures, moaning softly as you try to merge your bodies into one entity. His left hand climbs up your back to squeeze your neck right where you always carry all of your tension. 

"Ohhhhhh..." Your mouth drops open and you go boneless in his grip. He gives no quarter and shuts you up with his tongue while his groan vibrates against your chest. Your nipples respond with alacrity. 

He tastes like coffee and chocolate, maybe a hint of cinnamon. What the hell did he eat? You can't get enough of it. 

You never favored long bouts of kissing, makeout sessions were too intimate and your previous partners were more than happy to skip right to the main event. But its different with Diego. He doesn't drool on you and his mouth is consistently at least ten degrees hotter than your own. He always tastes like coffee and some outlandishly ridiculous flavored creamer. The instant a new variety of non-dairy creamer is released he has to try it. His child-like excitement over it is incredibly endearing to witness.

You sink both hands into his hair to pull him back. His eyes are huge and you watch with rapt attention as he licks his bottom lip. "Princess. Bed. Now." He croaks, nodding his own head like he's trying to peer pressure you into consenting. 

Completely unnecessary, baby. 

"Yeah." Your soft whimper is stupidly needy. Only Diego does this to you. Has this effect on you. You feel like the cover of a really bad romance novel. A strumpet. The ludicrous term makes you giggle. You gaspingly add another request, "But naked!"

Diego jumps into motion and takes two huge steps to the bed. You're already fighting with the buttons on his shirt and you don't quit as he lays you down on your back. There is only absolute faith that he won't drop you. 

The moment you're down his hands go to your cami, fingers sliding under the elastic band of the shelf bra and gathering the whole thing up to go over your head. You have to let go of him for a split second so he can fully remove it and that makes you whine unhappily. Diego tosses the shirt over his shoulder carelessly and smushes both of your breasts together to attempt a self-smothering. You laugh breathlessly until he latches onto a nipple.

"Ohhhhhh. Fuck. Yeah. Yeahhh." Nice porn moan, only practicing self-affirmation here. You still can't believe this works. The strong suckling sensations go straight to your cunt. No wonder other women always said they liked it. This is unique to Diego, too. He is the only person that your body has ever responded to in this. Sure, you liked your breasts fondled, squeezed, compressed utterly flat. But your nipples? No, they had some kind of epiphany the first time Diego sealed his lips around one and sucked.

You pet over his hair and he rumbles into your skin, the vibrations make your back arch. Your hands push on his shirt collar. You wanted bare skin earlier, now you need it. His hands disappear, then so does his shirt, but the attention to your nipple never falters. His sneaky fingers snake down over your stomach, he pauses to squeeze the squishy middle, then continue to your pants.

"No!" You yelp and Diego freezes. He releases your harried nipple to look up at you in puzzlement. 

With his brows drawn together he questions you, "Princess. What is--"

You don't let him finish. "Take your damn pants off right fucking now! I missed you, not your clothes!" You even sound frantic to yourself. Desperate. And you don't care.

He growls at you but straightens up and reaches for his belt. 

Oh god. His belt. Your gulp is audible. Its the same belt from that time he detained you on the jet. Spanked you delirious with it and then fucked you over a seat. All as punishment, of course, for sending a booty pic to Julio. You spent the next day on your belly while Diego torturously worshiped your ass. It was amazing.

His slow, evil smile confirms that he witnessed the entire memory play out across your face. That predatory stare never leaves yours as he opens the buckle and whips the soft leather free of the pant loops. He holds the belt up in the air, then drops it to the floor off the side of the bed. "Next time, Princess. We have the whole flight together. Maybe this time I'll make you keep count of how many times you come."

The threatening promise (promising threat??) makes you keen, high and piercing. Diego laughs at your obvious need, but he resumes stripping at a faster pace. You pop upright to get your pants off and complete the maneuver just in time to witness his cock achieve freedom. Before either one of you realizes it your hand is wrapped around him.

Diego collapses forward into you but catches himself on his hands before you get crushed. Not a bad way to go. You think. Crushed by hottest criminal sugar daddy with a heart of gold just for her. A beautiful obituary. 

You tighten your fingers around him; each one individually and in consecutive order, creating a rippling effect. He drops his forehead to your shoulder with a purr. You turn into his face to nuzzle up along his jawline. "Baby," you breathe, punctuating it with a long lick up the shell of his ear. "I missed you. So. Much."

His answering growl triggers violent shivers. He uses those wide shoulders to force you down onto your back. Planting one knee on the bed between your legs, he insinuates both hands under your ribcage and shoulders to slide you up the bed. His hands are so massive that they span the entire width of your back. That fact should scare you, instead you feel secure, even treasured, with how gently he handles you. He can be delightfully rough, you've been on the receiving end of that before. But right now is Soft Murder Panther hours.

He has to move up with you because you are not relinquishing that magnificent erection. 

"Princess," he rumbles directly into your ear, "Let go now or you will be disappointed later. I spent the entire flight thinking about every soft inch of you. Need to be inside you. Nowww." His confession ends in a breathy sigh as he begins pressing kisses over your entire face. 

You reach up to take off your glasses but he's already there, holding them by the frame around the lenses and not the easily bent arms. You blink back tears as you watch him stretch over to set them on your nightstand exactly how you do it. 

When he comes back you cradle his face with your hands, holding him still so you can just take this all in. His eyes search your face, looking for any hint of discomfort as he rests more of weight onto you. You nod gently and he gingerly, deliberately gives you the rest of his bulk. His presence drowns out everything else. All you know is Diego. Everything you ever wanted.

With minimal effort you guide him down until his forehead meets yours. He whimpers softly for you and your hands pet down his stubbled cheeks. This kiss is no less passionate than the wild ones earlier but somehow sweeter. You open your eyes to find him watching you, gaze unguarded and face completely open.

You stroke over his cheeks again, one thumb gliding along his plush lower lip. Diego nips your thumb, then engulfs it in his mouth to suck. Your moan is pure need, "Please, baby."

His hips roll and you feel the underside of his shaft rub the entire length of your labia. You arch and move with him this next time. The third pass lands the perfect angle and his thick heat spreads you wide. Your mouth opens but no sound comes out as you press your head back into the bed. He keeps pushing until you're completely filled. And then he pushes a little more. Just enough. 

You gasp in a shuddering breath and your back arches off the bed while you clench down around him in waves. He groans long and low as he watches you come on him. "Ohh, Bonita. Good girl."

Your quiet huff of laughter dissolves into a moan as he sets a steady pace. Long, solid strokes so you can feel every glorious inch, an inexorable push on your cervix every time he bottoms out. Your fingers claw into his shoulders, clinging like your life depends on it.

He burrows into your neck to sear your skin with his beard, soothing the burn with soft licks and velvet kisses. "Princess. Diego's perfect little princess. Its good? Tell me." He pants, open-mouthed and greedy.

You nod into his hair. "Perfect. Is perfect. You're perfect." He shakes his head 'no', rubbing his face on you. His right hand reaches down, gripping your thigh with purpose. He pulls your leg up, wrapping it around his waist, the other follows of its own accord. His knees spread, widening his stance and shifting the angle of his thrusts. Incredibly, he manages to get deeper inside you. Without a conscious command your mouth opens to spill out pure desperation and mangled ecstasy. "Yes, baby. All of you. Give me everything…"

He drops frenzied kisses all over your face while you two share the same air. His tone turns emotional, raspier, "Want to. Please. Please, please, please let me. Take care of my princess, be better. Just for you. Please, mi amor." 

That's new. New and heart-wrenching. You can't decide if its being used as a pet name or a declaration. It doesn't matter, the agonizing emotion behind it still makes you seize up with pleasure. He moans in approval, moving continuously throughout your entire climax. Just as your back begins to loosen he accelerates his thrusts, driving you right back up into another orgasm. You realize the ringing in your ears is actually a noise being made by your mouth.

"Yes, Princess. Come for me. Let Diego please this pretty little pussy." I am never going to regret admitting that I love his dirty talk. You congratulate yourself for that moment of successful communication. Diego hasn't shut up since then and you are so very grateful. 

He sweeps hands down your sides to grasp your hips. Even at your current size 16 his fingers still curve around both your front and back. He makes you feel small and delicate, vulnerable and fiercely protected. Cherished. Loved.

He half kneels under you, pulling your pelvis into his lap. Every intense, short thrust hits your g-spot and makes your vision swim. Your trembling never stops, its just constant rolling pleasure. You reach up for him, needing to be joined together endlessly. The muscles in his arms ripple and contract as he scoops you up. 

He has you sitting upright in his lap, legs around his waist and your arms tight behind his neck. Your entire weight rests on his left arm under your butt, holding you steady while he thrusts up into you with abandon. The right arm climbs up your back for him to thread fingers into your curls and press your forehead to his. Your mouth hangs open while you sob in bliss. 

"Si, Princess. Dame uno mas, come for your Diego. Be mine." You have no defense for his fierce begging whispered directly into your face. 

"Diego. Diego, baby, yes I-I-" Your voice cuts out as your orgasm sends you into convulsions. He presses your hips down fast to his so he can pump his own climax deep with a gravelly moan. 

He collapses forward, both of you dropping to the bed like a stone, then proceeds to just lay on you and pant. After an undefinable amount of time, Diego rubs his cheek against yours. He is purring again, the deep vibrations rumble through your chest. You pet over his hair, scratching his scalp with your short, practical nails. His back arches and his hips roll; he's still buried deep inside you. "Princessss. Bicki. Mi amor." His sigh is content.

You kiss his temple. Murmuring breathlessly to him, "Love you too, Murder Panther." You nuzzle into his beard, relishing all the textures. His breath catches, then his chest heaves. He pulls back from you, extricating his limbs so he can flop onto his side next to you. Your head turns for a kiss and he is already there, sealing his mouth to your own languidly.

 With one last fleeting peck to your chin, he rolls you onto your side and pulls you back against him in one fluid movement. Your head is pillowed on his left bicep and you wrap his right arm up tight to your chest. The entire length of his body is spooned up behind you. Instead of being suffocating you find it soothing. His soft little snuffling snores lull you back to sleep.

I am having a snuggle.

[shineonmalcolmbright]

Shine On, Bright: Twenty-Three

Table of Contents

Present

Malcolm keeps an unsteady beat going on the dashboard while looking at a building right outside Gil’s car. It’s hard for Gil to pay any mind to the building because while the radio is on low, Malcolm isn’t keeping any sort of relevant beat. Doesn’t seem like he notices until he looks over at Gil and mouths What?

Gil scowls. You know what.

But if he let’s the beat stop, it’ll continue to quake inside him without a chance of escape. For Gil’s sake, he stops his fidgeting on the dashboard and almost considers sitting on his hands. “Sorry.”

“I don’t like this, Bright.”

To make the situation worse, Malcolm lowers the window a bit looking out even though he sinks into his seat a bit. He says nothing as he curls into himself and starts to put the window up. Anything to get the anxiety out, movement helps. It doesn’t actually help, but it’s nice to pretend it helps. All that pent of energy building up.

“Owen Shannon was a bad cop.” Gil sighs, keeping an eye on him. “I don’t need to remind you of that.”

Malcolm stares at the pavement, the window is open halfway. He can’t look up at the door. So much energy thrumming inside of him almost as if little insects are crawling all over his insides. As if wasps with their brassy legs are walking all around him and at any moment ready to sting him, hurt him, wound him.

“Shannon was the last partner Ian Turner had before he was promoted to chief,” Malcolm admits for the conversation, and it’s a truth, a truth he needs to get back out there in the open between him and Gil. He turns his attention to Gil, stares right at him. It’s a lead. With way too much force, Malcolm opens the door.

Gil sighs watching him leave for the door. He pulls his keys from the ignition because what else is he going to do? Let Malcolm run straight into some more nonsense? No. The kid does that enough. At least he can offer him some company in this chaos.

It’s as if Malcolm’s hidden the fact he’s super fast all along. One second he’s on the curb and the next he’s up some rickety stairs about to bang on the door forcing Gil to power walk the rest of the way to join him.

Before Gil can say anything to Malcolm, Malcolm’s knocking on the door. Real loud, too. There’s an urgency ricocheting off his built of anxiety. The whole time Gil observes him, partially turned to the side as if he’s not too invested in the moment.

You sure you’re ok seeing him? Gil ends up asking knowing the answer is going to be no.

It was a long time ago, Malcolm lies.

The lie isn’t the long time ago but the false yes the response provides.

I’m not scared anymore. Another clear lie even though Malcolm makes eye contact like it’d make the lie any less false. “And he probably won’t recognize me.” This he says out loud because it’ll sure look odd the longer the two stand there conversing just between themselves.

Poor timing because the metal door he’d been banging on crashes open. Owen Shannon practically bursts out, all guns blazing. He has a handgun aimed right at Malcolm’s head as if he should eat his lies. Nobody’s believing in them.

The pent up energy of anxiety melts away, drains straight through his feet as flight, fight, or freeze kicks into motion. He stands there staring right back up at Owen Shannon, they’ve met before and here they are meeting again. The past has a bad habit of haunting him and for somebody who sees ghosts, the past somehow winds up being scarier and more dangerous.

Malcolm can’t find words as he gawks at Owen Shannon who rapidly looks between him and Gil. At least, Gil’s reaching for his weapon leaving Macolm still stuck there on freeze. Owen Shannon grimaces, he manages to spit out a “Well, look who it is.” Trigger finger still all tied up with his weapon.

Breathe, Bright, Breathe.

Malcolm’s not breathing though. The ability to inhale and exhale left him along with all the anxiety, his system is all locked up.

“Gil Arroyo,” Owen Shannon continues. “What you want, Lucky Boy?”

Malcolm manages to breathe in coming close to counting the seconds. You’re supposed to count up to five, hold your breath then for seven seconds then release it for another five. It’s not about him. Not about him at all.

It’s not always about you, Bright. “Don’t call me that.”

“I heard you’re in major crimes, congratulations.”

Anxiety’s back with a vengeance. Coursing through Malcolm’s veins, his heart might have palpitations. It’s never easy to tell when panic picks up. “Is that how you greet all your guests?” he retorts, his voice sounding so even as if there’s nothing wrong in the world. As if there’s no bad blood between him and Owen Shannon.

Owen Shannon smirks. He leans into the door frame. “There’s someone out there killing cops and I’m sure as hell not gonna be the next one.” His voice sounds all rough, the exhaustion of the world weighing in on each word.

Gil’s been stock still the whole time. “How’d you know Turner’s dead?”

“My partner dies, I’m gonna hear about it. Now show some respect, Lucky Boy.”

Right when it appears this conversation isn’t going anywhere, it does. It goes inside. Inside with Owen and Gil following him right away. Freeze continues to win as Malcolm watches them enter. Once he shrugs past the doorway, there won’t be a lot of room for an escape, if need be. Gil pauses in the doorway, he gives Malcolm a look without any input. Instead, there’s only white noise churning in his mind. Whatever he’s thinking, he’s not about to let Malcolm in on it, which means, Malcolm’s stuck on the first step with Gil disappearing by the second.

Inhale. One. Two. Malcolm holding his breath. Three. It’s up to him to let the door close behind him. Four. The clash of metal forces oxygen to escape. He never made it to five.

There aren’t any lights on and not even a whole lot of natural light. Shudders block the sun out, Owen walks them towards his living room area grumbling away in his head. I worked The Surgeon case for years. And one phone call from some dumb kid and-and Lucky Boy. . .

Jokes on him, Owen crosses his clutter to land on a seat not realizing how much the two can actually hear. His words echo in Gil’s mind as Malcolm stays quiet and behind a few steps. Any wrong move and he could trip over the mess on Owen’s floor then fall face-first into the past at the Overlook. Somehow they were all there and now they were all here.

The past is cyclical.

Maybe Owen doesn’t even care because he speaks his thoughts, word for word, out loud. Shaking his head on his seat. “. . .gets the biggest collar of the century.”

At least Gil can have a valid comeback. “Still can’t let that go, can you?”

“There was more to that story,” Owen snaps back. “I knew it. Nobody. . .nobody listened to me.”

There’s the one poem by Robert Frost where he illustrates the world ending in either fire and ice. Anybody with anxiety knows how the two can work with one another. How fire and unfurl inside of you only to be consumed by ice. Freezing up the flames, slowly dripping through your veins as if the warning is unclear to what danger is at hand.

Malcolm watches Owen sit there unable to come any closer. There’s a disconnect between his brain and his feet. He does what he can to study Owen, how Owen talks, how Owen moves, how Owen keeps repeating his words out loud and in his head Nobody. . .nobody listened to me, and how he moves his handgun making sure it points at them even though his fingers aren’t anywhere on it. He cracks open a beer, it’s impossible to say if it’s a cold one or a warm one. A crown of cans decorates Owen’s feet.

“Good to see some things never change,” Gil says, “but we’re here about your old partner. After The Surgeon case. . .”

It’s a jolt to the senses, Malcolm grits his teeth not meaning to shoot Gil a look, but it happens so fast.

Gil fails to notice, he’s too busy. “. . .You got reassigned to Turner.”

Behind Gil there’s plaques on the wall commemorating Owen’s previous life. His past haunts him as well, his whole house is haunted with it in fact. Each plaque announces: NYPD Award for Outstanding Marksmanship.

Owen’s at least cooperating as he talks with Gil, “And I hope he rots in hell.” Beer in hand, he uses it and his finger to jab at the empty space in front of Gil. “He ruined me.”

Again, the weight of the world on each of his words. Malcolm turns his attention back to the conversation at hand. He’s not too sure if he meant to say the following in his head or out loud, either way doesn’t matter the intent because he says it all out loud. “Looks like you did all that yourself.”

Bright.

“You’re a drunk, Shannon.” There’s an anger buried somewhere in Malcolm’s words.

Owen doesn’t seem to notice, he casually scoffs at the comment. “Really? Well, everybody needs a hobby.”

Malcolm’s stepping forward. The anger burns inside him along with the frozen anxiety. Off to the side, Gil’s still attempting a silent warning of Bright, but it’s so easy to sweep past it. “Turner made the right call. You were a bad cop, and he knew it. . .” It’s not gonna stop. All the words are spilling over and the anger isn’t buried so much anymore but right in the open. “So he tipped off Internal Affairs and had you fired.”

This time, Gil warns him out loud, “Bright. . .”

“You have a long-held grudge against our victim. You're erratic and angry and six beers in at 11:00 AM.”

Owen rolls his eyes. “Bah, humbug.”

Bright. . .

“You’re also in possession of a likely unregistered handgun that you jammed in our faces when we so much as knocked on your door.” It’s no longer fight, flight or freeze but instead just fight. Fight with words, fight with whatever you’ve got. Fight. Malcolm doesn’t stop moving across the floor. “You’re our prime suspect!”

That does it.

Bright!

Owen slams the beer down and leaps from his seat, it’s as close as to a lunge as he can manage. His quickness dulled by alcohol. It’s too late to hold Malcolm back but Gil comes between them putting his hands up to stop Owen from barreling straight into Malcolm.

Personal space is gone. Even with Gil between the two, Owen snaps in Malcolm’s face. His anger is a different sort. One full of spit and something else lurking underneath all his words. “If I wanted Turner dead, I would have killed him years ago.” There’s no way to get a good read on him. His anger’s also a lot of confuddled colors at once. Emotions wrestling with one another creating a lot of nothing but anger, anger, anger.

Owen’s voice tastes of stale beer, a scent almost bringing Malcolm straight back into the bar area of the Overlook. Malcolm leans back a bit, he needs to abort, peel himself away. His hand quakes as energy returns and he looks at his feet in an attempt to stay present. Owen watches his movement, how his hand shakes with all Malcolm’s pent of energy. Malcolm tries to squeeze it all into the palm of his hands, his knuckles cracking as he forms a fist settling in anger. He looks up to find Owen observing him.

Bright. . .

This house, it’s a haunted house, haunted by a past Owen can’t let go. “You did it last night!” Malcolm continues. “You killed Ian Turner for getting you fired! And you hated him so much that you murdered an innocent woman, too!”

Bright! Gil’s reconsidering holding Malcolm back. Maybe he can hold the two back from each other.

Yet something about Owen deflates. “What woman?” He focuses on Gil expecting an answer there. Some of his thoughts clear up, not much. They almost taste sour of jealousy and confusion. There aren’t words or images.

“Turner was found with a sex worker,” Gil explains.

The colors continue as Owen surveys the two again and again. His thoughts are nothing but a scratching record. “A hooker? What? A-A female hooker?”

The letters can’t connect in his mind. They’re jumbled up in all of the confusion. Only the record needle comes down, it starts to play again, his thoughts return to normal. Some laughter in the back of his mind. Owen’s hands collapse on both Gil’s and Malcolm’s shoulder, holding them there.

A memory blunders its way up to the forefront, it’s a mess, such a mess. Malcolm almost squeezes his eyes shut. Each thought’s a stabbing pain in his brain as some old tune plays as the past meets a narrative for Owen.

But you will come to a place where the only thing you feel are loaded guns in your face and you’ll have to deal with (Pressure). “Chief Ian Turner. . .was gay.” You used to call me paranoid (Pressure). But even you cannot avoid (Pressure). You turned the tap dance into your crusade. His words leave Malcolm and Gil stuck next to each other, staring at one another without further comment. Now here you are with your faith and your Peter Pan advice, you have no scars on your face and you cannot handle pressure. Somehow Owen’s chuckling about this and neither Malcolm nor Gil can work through it but it’s getting loud, it’s getting too loud inside. Too loud with Owen’s growing thoughts of him, a Billy Joel song, and (All grown up and no place to go, Psych 1, Psych 2. What do you know?) and Turner, together, but for a split second in time.

“I think you two should leave now,” Owen comments with Gil taking the lead for the exit.

Malcolm is stuck still studying Owen who falls back onto his seat with a grunt. Gil goes back, he grabs Malcolm by the shoulder bringing him back. Come on, Bright. His hand quakes again, he’s watching Owen as Gil leads him out, and not once does Owen look away from the two of them in their exit.

[amazingmsme]

Down and Under

AN: This is the third fic in my saf fake interrogation series. You don’t have to have read the other two in order to get this fic, but it might help you understand some references. Here’s Mission Gone Right and Round and Round if you want to read them! Hope you enjoy!

WARNINGS: Mentions of animal trafficking, torture techniques, British jokes

Ever since Owen had pulled the little spinning wheel knife stunt, Curt had been itching for revenge. Owen still rubbed it in his face when they saw each other, and his hair had only just grown out to normal. He had ended up having to get a buzzcut to even out where Owen had chopped off a fist full of his hair like a damn trophy. He was tempted to do the same to him, but Owen was even more obsessed with his hair than he was. He might literally mount his head on his wall if he did that, so he'd have to get his kicks another way.

He was ecstatic when he found out he and Owen would be busting an underground drug and exotic animal smuggling ring and saw his chance to enact his revenge. Cynthia had told him he probably wouldn't see Owen since he was handling the drugs and Curt himself was in charge of finding the animal cages and taking down anyone who got in his way. He always had a way with animals, and it had come in handy on more than one occasion. But he figured once he located the animals, it wouldn't hurt if he also tracked down Owen to, help him with his task. 

Curt pressed himself against the side of the building, creeping closer to the door to knock out the guards. According to the mission briefing, Owen was supposed to already be inside the hanger where they were loading planes with cocaine and opioids. Curt had a sneaking suspicion they were either keeping the animals in either the warehouse or barn, or maybe even both depending on how many they had.

Curt snuck up on the two men and hit a pressure point on one guard's neck, sending him to the ground in instant slumber. The other one aimed his rifle at Curt, and he swiftly yanked it from his grasp and slammed the butt of the gun on his forehead, knocking him unconscious. He tied them up before dragging them to his truck and chucking them in the back. The agency would take them into custody and deal with them from there.

Inside the warehouse was dark and empty. Too empty... Something must've happened to draw their attention away from their posts because there's no reason a building this big would be so empty. He walked down a flight of stairs and found rows of cages and crates containing wild animals, the calls and snorts echoing through the metal building. He had his gun at the ready just in case he were to encounter someone else.

He passed by a cage he thought was empty, but erupted with manic laughter that scared the shit out of him. He pointed his gun, fully expecting to see a mad man ready to fight but was instead met with a hyena cackling in the corner. He walked throughout the building tallying all the animals and keeping track of what was where. He made his way towards the barn, and got a sick feeling when there weren't any guards their either. But it was in the middle of the night and it was a small operation, so he hoped they just didn't have many people on site.

He snuck in through a back door and just like the warehouse, the air was alive with the sounds of animals in distress. They paced their small cells, some just giving up completely and laying down. He was about to leave and call Cynthia on his watch and tell her where the animals were. She'd send in the animal control team to rescue and relocate them so they wouldn't have to live this shitty life anymore.

He was walking down the middle isle when a small lump caught his eye. At first he didn't pay it any mind but then it started moving and he gasped. A little joey started making its way towards him, and he looked over his shoulder to check no one was there before he knelt down and picked it up. It was small, definitely too small to be without its mom. And he knew enough about kangaroos to know that a baby this young shouldn't be out of a pouch. It tried to burrow closer to his body, and he felt his heart melt. He picked up a tote bag and let him crawl inside, slinging the strap over his shoulder and supporting the joey's weight with his arm. He still felt like something wasn't right and made his way to the hanger and snuck in.

It wasn't pretty. It looked like a massacre, blood and bodies strewn across the floor. Curt counted about 26. Looks like things got a little messy for Owen. Oh well, he'd rather he not be the one to get chewed out by his boss, but that still didn't tell him where Owen was. He heard a noise in the next room and ducked behind a small plane. A man walked out and grabbed a few things: rope, pliers, a whip, Curt knew what that meant. And he could bet he knew the British agent he planned to use it on.

He crept along silently and peaked inside the room he had just left and lo and behold, there was Owen, tied to a chair and unconscious. He drew his gun  and hid behind the door, waiting for him to come back in, and when he did, he pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the back of his head and he fell to the ground. He drug the body out of the room before glancing back at his unconscious friend and smirked to himself. Since that part was already done, he might as well get his revenge and have a good time.

He stripped one of the bodies and used their clothes as a disguise so that Owen wouldn't recognize him straight away. He pulled the red bandana over his nose to conceal his face and pulled his Akubra lower, casting his face in shadow. He gently placed the bag with the joey in the corner for him to keep an eye on. He checked his watch, and he had all the time in the world if he wanted. Cynthia told him to take however long he needed to find the animals and help Owen with his part of the mission if he finished early. He considered this helping.

He grabbed the short whip off the ground and stood back, raising his hand in the air and bringing it down fast with a loud crack. Owen jerked awake with a gasp and struggled in his bonds before narrowing his eyes at Curt.

He opened his mouth and spoke with a thick Australian accent. "'Ello sleepy head. Nice to see you're awake." When he got no response, he took a step forward. "Looks like you had a lotta fun with my men out there. Now if ya don't mind, I'd like to have me own fun."

"Be my guest, I was getting quite bored," Owen drawled, an amused and cocky smirk plastered on his face. God he wanted to smack it off. Then he remembered: he could. He delivered a nasty backhand to his right cheek, and Owen chuckled.

"You hit like a bitch."

"Why do you think I have so many tools mate?" Now it was Curt who was smirking seeing the fleeting look of fear pass over his friend's face. He grabbed the large bowie knife from his belt and yanked Owen forward by the collar of his shirt. He reeled his head back, a rough gurgling sound coming from the back of his throat before leaning up again and launched a loogie in Curt's face. Thankfully it landed on the bandana, and he laughed.

"Shouldn't a done that." He took the knife and slowly sliced open Owen's kaki shirt, watching each button as it popped off. He applied just enough pressure to break the skin, leaving a pencil thin line of blood on his chest, but not hard enough to do any real damage. He stepped back to admire his bare chest, slowly rising and falling with steady, even breaths.

"Now tell me, what all do you know about us?"

"Well obviously I know where your base is," he quipped. Curt rolled his eyes and grabbed the large bucket of ice water. He splashed him with it and relished how Owen sputtered and shivered. Revenge was a dish best served cold after all. "I also know I killed a good bit of your men-"

"Enough!" He threw more of the freezing water in his face. Owen shook his head like a dog trying to dry himself off since he couldn't wipe his face. "I don't like your cocky tone, so I'm gonna set you straight."

"Pft, that won't work-" Okay Curt had to hand it to him, that one was pretty good. The fact that he winked at him didn't help either, and now Curt wondered if he had him figured out. Regardless, he still had more tricks up his sleeve. After all, most of the fun in their little game came from playing along with the other's antics.

"What do you know about the drug smugglin' operation?" He made a show of cracking the whip again. Owen smirked and met his eyes, "Everything. And I'll have you know I've already alerted my men, and they're already on their way. You'll be surrounded within the hour," he bluffed.

"Well then, I better get busy shouldn't I?" Curt took a step back, putting enough distance between himself and Owen so that the whip would sting but wouldn't cut deep into his skin. He barely even flinched each time it bit into his skin. Curt admired his bare chest, seeing the small red whelps start to rise.

A small rustling sound made him look in the corner and he saw the little joey crawl out of the sack. Owen looked over and gasped.

"Where the bloody hell did that thing come from?" he asked incredulously.

"That's none a your bloody business!" he hissed, gingerly picking him up. He got a devilish idea and tugged the bandana down so that Owen could see his evil grin. "Y'know, this fella's gonna grow up nice an' strong. A full grown kangaroo can disembowel a predator in a fight, but they're more well known for their kicks." Curt shifted his hold from a cradling position in favor of holding his sides underneath the armpits. Even though he was a baby, he was still pretty heavy and Curt's arms were getting tired. He was much easier to hold in the sack.

Apparently he wasn't a fan of the new technique and started squirming: perfect. Owen's legs were tied to each of the front legs of the chair, leaving him wide open. Curt brought the kangaroo closer and just as he planned, it kicked his square in the balls. Owen let out a loud groan and doubled forward as best as he could. The joey delivered another swift kick before Curt pulled away and took him back to the bag.

"In ya go lil guy, good work," he praised. He turned back to Owen, who was still recovering. He was having a great time, but knew he should start to wrap it up. He glanced at the coiled rope by his foot then back at Owen. Well, let's just say it wouldn't be the first time he choked him.

"Last chance mate. You wanna tell me what you know?" he said, crouching in front of him. Owen slammed their skulls together, and Curt brought his hand up to rub his forehead. He was even more excited to do this after that.

He unwound the rope and stood behind him. "Better take a deep breath mate. You're gonna need it." Before Owen could undeniably make some smart ass remark, Curt wrapped it around his throat and pulled back. He used the perfect amount of pressure that he knew Owen liked. He held for a few more seconds before letting the rope go slack. Owen gasped, and Curt leaned over his shoulder and whispered.

"Enjoying yourself Carvour?"

His face was flushed from lack of breath and embarrassment.

"How'd you know I like being choked?"

"You of all people should know personal history has its benefits," he said with a flourish, taking off his hat and shoving it on Owen's, rubbing it harshly to thoroughly mess up his hair. Based on his expression, he knew he would bat his hand away if he wasn't tied to the chair.

"Curt Mega you sly dog, I'd know that ass anywhere," he teased. Curt scoffed, "Really? My ass is what gave it away?"

"Well you hid your face so well I that I could barely tell it was you, barely."

Curt rolled his eyes, "Yeah I'm not like you," he said, beginning to untie him. Owen furrowed his brows, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Curt smirked, "That jaw's a dead give away," he gently grabbed his chin. Owen jerked his head away.

"You ass, you know I'm sensitive about that."

Curt finished untying him and cupped his face, "I meant it as a compliment. It makes you unique." Owen tried to bite his hand and he yanked it away.

"You sure enjoyed doing a number to me," he mused, brushing himself off and lightly slapping Curt's arm. "Loved the accent though, very sexy."

Curt shrugged, "Well Australian is just a sexier version of British." Owen pulled him a bit closer and growled, "I'll make you take that back."

"I'll look forward to it. But first we should probably get out of here." Owen sighed, "You're right. I will say, the kangaroo was a surprise. Where'd you find him?"

"He was out of his cage and needed a pouch, so I put him in that bag and brought him with me," he explained, walking over and picking him back up. He gently bounced him in his arms. He's a kangaroo, it should be comforting, right? Owen smiled at him.

"You really are just a big softie aren't you?" he teased. Curt narrowed his eyes, "Careful, or I just might let him kick you in the balls again." Now it was his turn to smirk as the smile fell from Owen's face. Curt called Cynthia as they made their way outside.

"Mega, it's about damn time I heard from you."

"You're the one who said to take my time," he justified. Cynthia frowned.

"Yes, but if I'd known you'd be so fucking slow I would've told you to get your ass in gear! Now where are they keeping the animals?"

"In both the barn and the warehouse, looks like there's just over a hundred."

"Alright, I'll send the animal control unit in and you can head back to base."

Owen shoved his head next to Curt's so that his face could be seen by the watch's camera, "Why don't you show her your cute little pet?" Curt made a motion to tell him to shut up, but Cynthia cut him off.

"What the fuck is he talking about Mega?"

"First of all, it's not that bad and I was going to tell you as soon as I saw you, but I found a little joey without its mom, so I let it climb in this sack," he explained. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath through her nose before taking a long drag from her cigarette.

"Let me see it." Curt furrowed his brow in confusion, "What?"

"Baby kangaroos are cute as fuck, let me see it!" she ordered. Curt scrambled to fold down the opening of the bag, showing her the sleeping joey. She placed a hand over her heart and a warm smile was plastered on her face. "God that's cute. But we'll put it in an animal rehab center where someone actually qualified can care for it."

Curt nodded, "That's for the best. And just a warning, things got a bit messy on Owen's end, and I wanted to make sure you knew I had no part in it." Owen smacked him on the back of the head, and he snickered. "You should've seen it; it looked like the Boston Massacre!"

"Is that a Brit joke?" Owen asked in shock the same time as Cynthia threw her head back in laughter.

"That's a good one Curt, remind me to tell Susan, he'll get a kick out of it!" She took another puff from her cigarette, "Yeah they sure do love staining everything as red as their coats," she joked at his expense, and Curt laughed along with her. "Hey Owen," she said, gaining his attention.

"Yes dear?" he asked, slight annoyance in his voice. "What's a British person's favorite restaurant?" She didn't give him a chance to answer before she spoke again. "Red Lobster. Get it?" Owen nodded, staring at the ground. Damnit, that was a pretty good one. "There should be a team arriving in a half hour, after that you can leave." Curt nodded and turned off his watch.

"She's always more pleasant over the comms." When over didn't answer he looked over at him and was met with a hard glare.

"Oh c'mon you know we're only joking! We love you posh bastards! We're American, we can't help making British jokes," he defended.

"Oh shut up and shove a cheeseburger down your gob." Curt chuckled and slung an arm over his shoulder. He felt accomplished, and he knew he couldn't wait to see what Owen had up his sleeve next.

[sseizonsha]

five times kissed ~

Disclaimer: this drabble features a lot of triggers. You’ve been warned.

one.

   Physics demands that moving objects remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. When he’s not in the thick of everything, it often feels like the sheer force of will alone keeps him going.

   The return flight from Greece makes a long and uneventful thirteen hours, but after the riots and discourse that saw him fetching the Economic Officer from a compromised location, doing absolutely nothing at all beats getting punched in the back by an M84. Turns out a bruised kidney and a number of fractured fingers are actually enough to earn a leave of absence.

  Mister Diplomat exits the plane first, all smiles and PR-worthy waves for the waiting cameras, and Leon steps gingerly out after him as the first of several protective agents in detail. It burns the question to know how the press would’ve played the narrative differently, were it public information that the rescued man pissed himself after a firebomb detonated close enough to ignite his jacket. But Leon’s lips are sealed: a matter-of-fact promise offered to soothe the hysterics out of a stumbling man coming up at twice his weight.

  “You live to fight the good fight another day, Sir. There’s no shame in that.” Pretty words for the sole benefit of a man who’d only ever been caught in the crossfire. Leon holds no truth in them for himself.

   It’s not a sizeable envoy of congratulations and well-wishes that greets him off the tarmac’s edge, but she’s more than a welcome sight. He sees her coming: spots the worry lining her brow and the red denim jacket that’s almost faded to pink in its age, and his pace quickens faster than is probably recommended. Rushing into a reunion hug is a pipedream when his back screams the way it does, but Claire shoulders that burden by meeting him more than halfway. She folds herself into his edges, mindful, and Leon groans in relief as she tugs his backpack from a white-knuckled hand.

   “You’ve gotten scruffy,” she says.

   He flashes a smile laced with aching and shoots back the reminder that ladies love the stubble. He’s gotten too old, too rough around the edges, to keep the boyish charm of a baby face. As for a full-on beard? Well. It’s not for lack of trying. “How do you like it?”

   Claire’s smile twists, unceremoniously flirtatious. “You’re a dreamboat. Who could possibly resist that jawline? Now give me a proper hug so we can get out of here, and maybe I’ll wax poetic on the drive back.”

   It’s an opportunity if he ever got one, and Leon seizes it—hungrily and with both hands. He slides his touch from her wrists and higher: along her bare forearms and up proud shoulders, to both sides of her neck.

   Claire’s hair trickles between his fingers, splashes over his knuckles. Her pulse ticks just this side of wild, and if he could he’d gather the rhythm in his palms and carry the memory of her back to a drab, empty apartment. She feels real. She feels warm. She feels here, welcoming, open—anything but mindless or hostile, and when he tips her head back to lay his mouth against her brow, Leon closes his eyes.

  And he breathes in a lungful of home.

two.

   Sometimes the force thrust upon an object is violent and sudden and out of anyone’s control, and the only thing left to do is rediscover ground zero, pick up the pieces, and heave it all straight into a fucking fire.

   Ten years to the day of Raccoon City’s destruction, the US government and subsequent do-gooders publicly announce the plans to construct a memorial site outside the quarantine zone. When Claire sends a resentful text about the entire thing sounding like a capitalization on “lessons learned” and “better tomorrows” before the upcoming election, Leon agrees in half as many words: that’s exactly what it is.

   Leon’s position as a government agent guarantees a secure place out of the spotlight, but Claire’s rising influence through TerraSave lands her right under the hottest beam of it. Tell us about the gravity of it all, Miss Redfield. What was it like, surviving Raccoon?  “It was…a nightmare,” she says at first, reluctantly agreeing to answer touch-and-go questions between public appearances. “I wouldn’t want to wish the experience on anyone. It doesn’t make a good story.”  

   The buzzards disagree. Demands for exclusive interviews swoop in every time she changes location and when one particularly chaotic pursuit resulted in a broken camera, Claire calls him mid-way through an anxiety attack. He’s on a plane within the hour.

   Adam grants him an official order to accompany her to and from every PR function that month. Press conferences called to discuss TerraSave’s latest global and local community cleanup projects derail off topic once Claire Redfield opens the floor. It’s all about Raccoon City and the final hours before the fire. Did anyone else escape? Did you find help any children? Did you have to kill—?  Claire stops answering questions after that.

   She takes a vacation. Leon’s orders still stand, but they’re nothing more than a letterhead: a favor granted with the knowledge that he wouldn’t have left her side—authorized or not.

   Despite the invitations, they don’t attend the ribbon cutting ceremony. Or agree to promote any of the sensationalized media plugs in the weeks following. Leon would’ve preferred to keep the tv off, but Claire insists they watch it beginning to end. Maybe she thought the anger would be easier to mute with a screen and several hundred miles of distance between.

   It doesn’t. She watches the tv, he watches her, and for the first time in a long time he worries that ghosts have finally clawed their way in to make a home.

   The program fades out on a sober but hopeful note that carries on as the shot pans into a cloudless sky and one lasting message: We survive. We remember. We endure. Remote in hand, Leon sends a picture of the American flag collapsing in on itself, and his chest pangs with the dread that she might end up doing the same.  

   Wordlessly, Claire unfolds from the couch and slips into the other room. Her silhouette spills across the floor when the bathroom light flicks on, and as the door closes, the light wanes into a needle-thin sliver. Then even that piece of her is gone.

   Five minutes pass. He checks his watch. Ten. Pushing a hand through his hair, Leon stands and paces to the kitchen twice and checks his watch again. He paces. Spins on his heel. He paces right up to the closed bathroom door, lifts a knuckle, and raps gently upon the wood.

   “Claire?”

   “Leon.”

   He lets himself in. Thick, warm air fills his mouth as he takes in a deep breath and glances about the room. Nothing looks out of the ordinary for a woman taking a bubble bath. He worried, God, but he worried—and that’s something he doesn’t apologize for. Even if he does feel like an idiot. “I thought you were…”

   “Making a break for it out the back window?” Claire smiles without teeth, and she tips her head back onto the water-speckled tile. Her hair, though damp and dark at the ends, sits in a messy knot at the top of her head. One stray piece falls loose along her collarbone. “No. I haven’t done that since I was fifteen.”

  Leon shakes his head and strides farther into the room. He tries again. “I thought you’d—”

   “Drowned in the tub?” Claire hums, thoughtful. When she inhales in preparation for a long, cathartic sigh, the bubbles froth and hiss around her bare shoulders. “Sometimes I think that might be easier. I’m doing what I can to keep my head above…everything.”

   Leon nods. He turns, sinks down to press his back up against the cool porcelain, and balances both arms on either knee. A splash and a trickle of wet heat spreads down the back of his shirt before Claire’s fingers curl into his hair. He turns into the touch—and freezes when her mouth brushes against his jaw.

   The idea of Claire floundering as she sinks into a place he can’t reach twists something ugly in his belly. It grabs and twists so hard that his dinner lurches and burns on its way up and gets stuck at the back of his throat. “You aren’t alone here.”

   “No,” she agrees, moving to settle her chin against his shoulder.  “It’s just you, me, and all the demons we forgot to burn.”

three.

   Real survival stories don’t nicely wrap up with ribbons and foiled edges trimmed in sunrise gold, and the people in them don’t walk into the horizon so much as into a space free of the darkness where monsters liked to hide.

   There’s always something to wear by the end of it: a smile for the picture, a medal for the commendation, a splint or two for the fractured bones. He never remembers how he gets there—only that the smile is the always first of those things to go.

   Smiles insinuate there’s something to celebrate; and living when others have died in his place never gave him much cause to pop the champagne. But guilt? Relief? One feels like being drawn and quartered, and the other like the release after waking up from that god-awful fucking dream, only to realize—no, no, it wasn’t. None of it was.

  It feels like being frayed at every seam and that smile is the last thing that needs stitching. At least the pieces that are left aren’t not sloughing off so badly that it’ll take a well-placed warhead to fix.

   For the first time in ten years, they drive to Raccoon City, and it feels like everything’s come leading up to this return—this inevitability. Only it doesn’t feel like they’re coming home; it feels like they’re walking back into the graveyard they’d crawled out of. If it wasn’t for the chain-link fence and the quarantine wall rising up behind that, maybe the city would’ve opened a hundred thousand pairs of fire-glassed eyes, gnashed a hundred thousand sets of teeth, and finally succeeded in swallowing them both whole.

   He parks his Jeep a few dozen yards from the memorial site. Kills the gas with a sharp turn of his wrist. Beside him, Claire releases a shaky breath.

   In the distance, a rainbow of sun-faded ribbons snaps and waves along the chain-link fence. The flowers planted there have already wilted and died in a cracked plot; nothing grows around the edges anymore.

   He wants to blast the whole granite slab from its base and tear it out of existence. He wants to smother this shining fucking beacon of hope—and the government’s greatest theatrical excuse for an apology along with it. He wants to crush each and every fucking one of those ribbons under his shoes and cut his hands on that rusted chain-link fence. That’s what the city wanted, right? Blood? Maybe then the ground would drink. Maybe then it’d take its fill and finally leave him—and Claire—alone.

   “We’re here.”

   “Yeah.”

   “Do you want to get out?”

   “No.”

   Slender fingers slide across his hand, and it’s only then that he realizes it’s been closed into a fist this entire time. He lets go. Color bleeds back into his knuckles, and feeling too, and then his seams are torn, ripped open. His eyes are burning—he’s blind, all but for the warm splash of red that turns him bodily and rises up to shoulder his brow.

   I’m sorry, he says, I’m sorry.

   Claire thanks him for the apology. She combs her fingers through his hair and presses her lips to his crown, and when she hums a soft, mindless tune, it reverberates behind his ribcage like she’s found all his cracks and poured herself between them. When he quiets, gradual and sputtering like the last dregs of a heavy storm, Leon wraps his arms around her, tightening his grip in a hungry, silent squeeze.

   Monsters aren’t the only ones who refuse to let him go.

four.

   Two objects can only gravitate closer and closer so many times before collision becomes the inevitable result. Leon counts his lucky stars for a well-recorded history of crashing into things, and for a while he believes it’s his experience in avoiding the pitfalls that keeps their relationship from steering off course.

   By the time Claire careens into him, welcome and without warning, Leon quickly realizes she’s been the one at the wheel from the start.

   Uninterrupted furloughs are so rare that when opportunity presents itself, it takes everything in his power not to board up the windows, uncork a bottle, and unplug the phone. The only variable stopping him from doing just that is respect to his councilor to get out there, get busy, get lost anywhere else but his own idle headspace.  But when Claire visits? When Claire visits, having a quiet, uneventful evening is the best thing he could hope for.

   Hope never feels more within reach than when he’s with her, and reach he does—mindlessly and often. When Claire curls up beside him on the couch, Leon frames his palm around the nape of her neck and works his fingers into the tenseness he finds. It bleeds out of her posture like ink across water, quietly bubbles up from her mouth in what he dares to call a sigh of pleasure.

   His mouth quirks up at one corner. “You need a massage.” Before she has a chance to point out the technicality, Leon adds, “A real one. From a professional.”

   She reaches up to pinch his chin between thumb and forefinger, and Claire gives him a little shake. “And you need more than one good of sleep. You’re starting to get eye bags.”

   “We could just call it a night right now.”

   She hums an insinuating note that twists up in question, and the sound draws his attention like the slide of a fingertip across his jaw. In the cool light spilling out from the tv, Leon fixes his gaze on her expression. Somewhere quiet, nestled between his breath and the allowance of a shrug, he hears himself say, “You make it easier.”

   Claire softens. Her mouth sets into the thoughtful, stubborn line he’s seen a million times before, but then she leans close—really close. Her breath warms his mouth, her lips are soft, and where her palm slides up against his chest, it feels like he’s taken a nosedive off a cliff and made a break for water. Except there is no water at the bottom; she keeps kissing him and he keeps falling, and it’s getting more goddamn difficult by the minute not to drag her over the edge with him.

   When she pushes up and mounts his lap, Leon hisses in a breath between clenched teeth. He’s excited and they both can feel it, and fuck, he can’t decide if the worst thing to do right now would be to stop her or let her continue.

   “Claire—”

   “I’m here,” she says. “Aren’t you?”  

   He wonders if this is what feels like, coming alive a second time. His arms wind around her waist, and it’s all he can do not to tangle her hair between his fingers and tighten them into a fist. Claire rolls her weight down into him. Again. A firebomb goes off in his chest. Flames spread, licking up and over his eyes, in his mouth, across his tongue.

   I’m here, she told him. No. She isn’t—she’s not just here. She’s above him, on top of him, in his lungs every time he comes up for air. She’s shaking in his hands and arching against his chest, and her gasp shudders in his ears more than even his own pulse.  She says his name to warn of the head-on collision, and when he doesn’t get out of the way, Claire shatters—

   Everywhere.

five.

   Physics demands that objects at rest remain at rest unless acted upon by an unbalanced, outside force. Given who they are: one rescuer, one fighter—two survivors trying to do more than just exist again? Leon suspects none of this ever will truly stop. Not until they do.

   He’s never liked the big cities; they serve too great a reminder that there are innocent people waiting to be trapped like rats in a goddamn science experiment—that there are too many variables and too many wild cards for one man to account for twice. But when he’s with Claire? When he’s with Claire, her smile lights up like a clear horizon free of nooks and crannies.

   When he’s with Claire, those skyscrapers look less like rows of jagged teeth and more like the fingers of an outstretched hand.

   She takes him to a cafe that’s got a good view of the cityscape before it wakes up. Claire corrects him on that note, reminds him around a mug of tea that New York never truly sleeps—in fact, it’s almost as restless as he is.

   Restless. A good word for a man who never stops moving long enough to enjoy a coffee on the government’s watch. His phone rings. Right on time.

   Claire turns her face toward the window and smiles into the sun, and something about that expression feels like surrender, like acceptance. Leon’s chest pangs. She never did like the finality of goodbye, and so they never say it, content to substitute it with temporary noncommittals. Call me later. Don’t be a stranger.

   “Gotta go,” he says. Leon dips his head into the unfolded frame of his sunglasses, chair scraping as he gets to his feet. Claire doesn’t rise to meet him. He doesn’t mind.

   Her mouth is warm where he presses a kiss to the corner of it, and Claire’s exhale quakes at the touch. She won’t cry. He doesn’t either. Tears are for the couch and for the car—you don’t pour them over coffee when it’s there’s already one bitter taste on your tongue.

   “Try not to get killed.”

   “You, too.”

[soldier76speaks-archive]

Come Back...

(Trigger Warning for death, violence, suicide, suicidal thoughts, flashbacks, nightmares, etc.)

-

-

It hurts. God, it hurts.

The smell of burnt flesh, the pounding in his head. There is no one, single area of pain; he's composed of it, every fiber of his being left screaming. His eyes flicker open to find a world of clutter and fire, every bit of it out of focus. He rubs his eyes to regain clearer vision, only to find hot, tacky blood pouring from his face. Pushing through the confusion, he crawls out from the rubble crushing his body, and a thought smashes into him like a bullet straight to the chest.

Gabe.

Panic. Sheer, animalistic panic consumes him. He's screaming, crying, begging for any sign of life amongst the rubble and fire, amongst Hell itself. Finally, like a beacon of hope, a lighthouse to the dream that maybe everything would be alright, he finds him. His torso sticks out with his lower half trapped under tons of stone and drywall: pieces of the very organization they built together. “Fuck. Gabe! Gabe, can you hear me?”

He crouches down lightly slapping Gabe’s cheeks. Shit. He stands up again, moving to push the rubble from his friend’s legs and abdomen. It won't budge, not even an inch. He pushes with all his might, like the fate of the whole world depends on it, because to him, it does.

It won't move.

Diving back down to Gabe’s side, he cups the man’s cheeks, which are startlingly cold to the touch. “Gabe?” he croaks out like a frightened child. Frantically, he presses his fingers to the man’s neck, searching for the steady drum of a pulse. Nothing. “Gabe!” he cries, the panic swelling in his chest even more. He presses his ear to Gabe’s chest and pleads to whatever God is listening that he'll find even something to grasp onto.

Silence.

He flies into complete hysteria. Performing chest compressions on a mangled corpse, screaming his name over and over again to come back. “Gabe! Gabe, please! Don't leave me here! Don't go!” He shakes with sobs before collapsing onto the dead man’s chest. “I'm sorry, Gabe! It's all my fault…it's all my fault…” He buries his face into the man’s hoodie sobbing. “Please…”

It seems like an eternity he lies there, crying over the cold, motionless form of Gabriel Reyes. Suddenly, he hears a noise, a footstep, a shout. It brakes the horrible silence of choked sobs. Someone’s coming. He can't watch this. He can't see them take him away in a body bag. He should be going to the cold slab, not Gabe. It was his fault, all his fault. He remembers that gun in his holster.

Emergency use.

Clumsily, he pulls out the gun and fidgets with the mechanisms. He slowly puts the pistol to his temple, the blood pounding against his eardrums speeding up from the contact. It'll be alright. It'll all be okay. We can all be together now. Just like we were meant to be. His finger tightens on the trigger.

Click.

No, the universe could never be so cruel. He pulls again and again before pulling it down from his head into his shaking fingers. Empty. Not a single bullet left.

He tosses it to the ground with a rage unlike any he'd ever felt. Of course, the world would never be kind enough to let him join Gabe and Ana.

The voices sound closer. Shouts. Shouting, they're calling his name.

Gabriel’s name.

He looks down at the man. His face was already paler, the vibrancy leaving his body. At least his eyes were closed. Maybe if he tried hard enough, he could just pretend he was sleeping.

“Jack! Gabriel! Are you out there? Please, answer us!”

He stumbles, the fight or flight instinct taking over. He can't stay here. He can't. He can't see them take him away. He trips before breaking out in a sprint, only to have something grab his leg. He falls to the ground, face sliding in the dust.

A woman. It’s a woman. Something is wrong. His mind grows cloudy.

She’s not supposed to be here.

He looks into her face only to freeze in absolute terror. A bullet hole goes straight through her head. Her eye, the one that's left, is cloudy, white, and glossed over like a dead fish. Her Overwatch uniform is stained a deep crimson.

“Jack, why did you leave us?” she asks him sadly.

“Ana! Ana, no! I—“

Another figure appears by her side. Gabriel.

“You left us Jack. Why would you leave us behind?” he says accusingly.

“No! No, I didn't mean to—“

“Jack! Come back for us! Jack!” they wailed on loop, over and over and over.

He stands up, hastily and clumsily trying to regain his footing.

“Come back! Jack, don't leave us!” he hears them cry in the distance.

His mind is racing, adrenaline pumping, and confusion and fear clouding every judgement. Suddenly, a woman appears almost out of nowhere. “Sir?” she asks, concerned. “Sir? Can you hear me? Sir?”

-

-

His eyes fly open and he's left panting, trying to regain his bearings. It's dark, the steady hum of the bus’s engine meets his ear. A woman wearing a uniform stands next to his seat. “Sir, are you alright? I heard complaints that you were shouting in your sleep.”

Jack sat up straighter running a hand through his hair. He took a deep breath, trying to calm down his racing heart. “Yeah. Yeah, I'm alright," he lied, "Sorry about that."

She nodded hesitantly. “Alright…well if there's anything you need sir, please let me know.”

She walked away and Jack was left alone in the dark, trying to forget about the nightmare he just lived through. He lived it nearly every night, but it was worse this time. Maybe the nerves of facing his old friends was getting to him. He gave up on sleep and resigned to staring out the window into the inky night: the dead eyes of his friends still etched into his brain.

[allthethingswecoulddo]

Being a Bi Survivor- 11 Reflections

This Bi Visibility Day I want to share my story of being a survivor. Before we begin, some content warnings. 

Read with care.  ❤️

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In this post, I talk about coercive relationships and sexual violence including mentions of rape in an intimate relationship. I explore my experience of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and other mental health issues including thoughts of suicide. 

I’ve used asterisks for some difficult words e.g. I write s****l violence and r**e  

You can find links to services in this post. If you don’t feel like reading on, that’s cool!

When I read the statistics on bi experiences of s****l violence, a whole cacophony of feelings surface. I see myself and my friends reflected; surviving, processing and trying to pave a way through the rest of our lives after abuse. I hear echoes of the invalidation and ridicule that permeates public consciousness about bi identities. I’m reminded of the voices within the queer community that erase and degrade bi people, with off-hand comments or sustained attacks. And it’s not easy to find the words for those feelings or the words to explain that biphobia leads to deep and lasting harm.

Bisexual women are five times more likely than heterosexual women to be abused by a partner. In one study, 10.8 per cent of bi women reported having been abused, compared to 8.2 per cent of lesbians and 6 per cent of straight women. *

Bisexuals who experience multiple oppressions, such as trans, BAME or disabled people, face even higher rates of sexual violence. Evidence from America shows that while trans people face higher rates of sexual violence, bi trans women are the most at risk.*

I hope that by sharing my experience, other survivors will feel less alone and discover tools to navigate their way through the uncharted terrain of trauma. The role of biphobia in the abuse I experienced might not seem obvious, but it is front and center - biphobia made me vulnerable to abuse, biphobia played a part in sustaining my self-doubt and biphobia strengthened my fear that no one would believe me.

It’s important to emphasize that abuse can happen to anyone. Whether or not you are bi or LGBT+, I hope that this is useful for you.

I was trapped, and only when I left did the fear flood in.

Whilst I was in an abusive relationship, I couldn’t see it. My mental health spiraled, and my friends expressed concern about the dynamics of the relationship. I was much better at finding flaws in myself and other reasons I felt tangled up than I was at recognizing the ways my boundaries were being crossed, and my trust abused. In other words, I blamed myself from the start.

Only after I had left the relationship did I start to recognize what had been happening; that coercion and manipulation were at the heart of the way my abuser had been communicating with me and treating me. The dislocation between my inner world of turmoil and the realities of the relationship suddenly make sense, and that’s when I started to feel the fear.

I felt it hit me like a tonne of bricks.

It might seem like a strange concept, to ‘realise’ that you’ve been fearful of someone or to ‘realise’ that you’ve been harmed. How could I not know that I’d been s******y assaulted?

The saying ‘the penny dropped’, ‘it hit me like a tonne of bricks’ and ‘my world turned upside down’ had never felt so literal as when I started to recognise that I’d escaped an abusive relationship.

My body kept secrets until I was ready to survive them.

Even at this time, when symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) kicked in and I was at my lowest, I remember being so grateful and in awe of my body. It was as if it had held onto all the feelings I couldn’t have processed and managed within the relationship.

My body waited until I was safe to release all the feelings that you’d expect in a situation of threat. I could feel the chemicals in my bloodstream, keeping me awake, alert, poised for defense. 

Hypervigilance plagued my days and nights - it was exhausting, and at the time I didn’t understand what was happening. I felt like I was losing control, and didn’t know what to believe.

Fight. Flight. Freeze. 

I’d heard of the fight or flight response, but I didn’t know you could freeze. It makes sense. When it happened I left my body, I left the room, I went into another world because the one I was in was unbearable. That’s how my body and mind protected me.

But then dissociation became a way for my mind and body to cope in the aftermath too. For me, it felt like a powerful anesthetic, numbing out every feeling indiscriminately, even the good stuff.

Random things would trigger panic or dissociation - most annoyingly, for a long time, I couldn’t listen to the song Golden Years by David Bowie. If I smelt damp clothes or saw a red rain jacket, a whole string of associations fired through me and I was hurtling towards a panic attack.

She told me to respect my coping mechanisms. I hated them. 

My therapist (who I could barely afford - that’s a whole topic of its own) explained that this was a coping mechanism and that I should respect it and work with it. But I was impatient and frustrated. I wanted to get over this, quick.

Looking back, I was struggling to accept what had happened. It was like a story I was telling myself, about someone else’s misfortune.

Time was my enemy.

This period of time, in my memory, feels warped and strange. I remember feeling minutes passing, and time was like sinking sand - it was so hard to keep moving forward and I couldn’t see a future.

I started to have thoughts of suicide. I hadn’t experienced that before and felt really scared and confused. Above all, I felt completely alone, like no one would understand - even if I had the words.

Just above the city, our dinghy, my lifeboat- Survivors’ Network.

Something that surprised me and I’ve never forgotten is how a reserve of resilience and determination, an energy that I never knew I had, surged forward just when I thought I wanted to give up. 

I found Survivors’ Network and started to go to group meet-ups. At first, I’d sit in the circle and drink the tea, eat the biscuits and smile like I was at a community meeting about, I don’t know...a litter problem in the city!?

I fooled myself into believing I didn’t belong there, that it was inconsequential and I was just coming along for the ride. I was keeping my own experience at arm's length so I didn’t have to face the fallout. But as I listened to other survivors’ stories and got to know them, I became comfortable enough to start sharing and chipping away at my shame. 

The group became like a transient family, and a lifeline when I needed it most. 

She told me she believed me.

Only a few friends knew what was going on. I started using other services like Samaritans, RISE and Rape Crisis for extra support. One night I called a hotline for survivors and confessed (to myself as much as the volunteer at the end of the line) that I couldn’t tell anyone what had happened, because I was scared they wouldn’t believe me. They just paused and said, I believe you. I felt relief radiate my chest and hot tears melting the frozen numbness I’d been trying to break out of.

Every good night’s sleep is a Fuck You.

After that, barrages of feelings were set free. One of the most difficult being anger. I didn’t know how to channel it or what to do with it.

I played Golden Years really loudly in my room, pushed myself to go places I desperately wanted to avoid because they were associated with my trauma or ran the risk of seeing my abuser by attending things I would usually go to.

I later learned that intentionally triggering yourself after abuse isn’t unusual. It was partly a way of feeling alive through the numbness, and partly my rage starting to bubble to the surface. I wasn’t going to be kept silent and hidden.

But over time I learned to redefine defiance. I remember the first time I said my abusers' name in therapy without disappearing into dissociation, I called them a wanker and my therapist - who was quite posh and quite serious- said, ‘I see your strength come back when you say that.’

My successes in recovery were small, slow and quiet - I learned to celebrate every single one. And to start sharing my journey with the people I love and trust.

It took a long time to feel like a ‘survivor.’ 

A friend who supported me at the time told me once to ‘make the abuser small, in your mind.’ For me, PTSD flashbacks were not the only way that I felt I was ‘reliving’ the trauma. Fear had permeated every aspect of my life, making me feel as if I was still living through it. The idea of shrinking down my abuser in my mind started to help me see that there was no looming, invisible threat, ready to strike at any moment. It was over, and I was safe.

It became something I had survived. Bit by bit I befriended my body again, and started to heal - recalibrating into the present and mapping my ‘new normal.’

My ‘new normal’.

I wish I had known that although trauma would devastate my life, it would give me an opportunity to rebuild it with self-compassion at the center. When people told me, ‘you won’t always feel like this’, or ‘you’ll adjust’- I thought they meant that I would get used to living in darkness.

Survival for me has meant a lot of private, proud moments. Managing to sleep through the night, laughing with friends, finding coping mechanisms that make me feel safe and above all, learning to open up to meaningful connection with others in a way I don’t think I did even before all of this.

Recovery is a process and one that isn’t always linear. There’s no right way to do it. If like me, you take two steps forward and one step back - just know you are never alone.

Thank you so much for reading.

Here’s that post featuring some survivor services again.

Want to know about any future posts, zines or projects about I do about being a survivor? Pop me an email at mollymaher93@gmail.com

* Both stats are taken from here: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bisexual-lgbt-pride-sexual-assault-violence-invisible-minority-survivors-a8435226.html

*Here’s a definition of bi from Stonewall: https://www.stonewall.org.uk/help-advice/glossary-terms#b

[sebbytrash]

Shiver

Summary - You and Steve are on a mission together, stuck out in the middle of Russia in the freezing cold, waiting on your pickup. Forever the gentleman, Steve keeps you warm. At least, he’s trying to be a gentleman anyway.

Pairing - Steve Rogers x Reader

Warnings - Mentions of death (not graphic), endless lusting over Steve, Steve is a sweetheart and you will love him.

A/N -  This is a late, very late, birthday present for one of my closest friends @watchmemarvel  Charlie my love, I’m sorry it’s late but I hope it’s worth the wait. I love you more <3

A shiver wracks through your body again, cold seeping further into you, into every cell until your mind is blank with it. Your muscles are stiff and losing feeling as you huddle in the empty building, out of sight and out of the cold. That was the plan, anyway.

Fucking Russia.

You glance at Steve, see him tucked sort of into himself, his hulking limbs wrapping around him like a sturdy muscle blanket. Your eyes skim along the hard lines and settle on the set of his jaw, you let the thoughts that come along with it warm you a little, use them like a blanket against the ice slipping up your spine and the dark edges of your mind.

“How much longer, Steve?” You ask again, again because you’d asked before but hadn't really listened, hearing nothing past the deep throb of cold in your eardrums.

“Quinjet will be back in a couple hours. Y/N.” He repeats, gives you a look like maybe he’s getting worried about you, then shuffles closer, hesitates for a beat then slips an arm around you. The warmth, the niceness of it feels like heaven and you lean into him, pulled towards the heat of him. “It wasn't your fault, you know?” He says, low but solid, surety in his voice.

“Sure feels like it.” You whisper back, sucking in your bottom lip and chewing on it so he can’t see the quiver in it.

“You tried. We tried. It came down to you or him.” His arm tightens a little around you, “I’m glad you chose you. If you hadn’t… I- I don’t know what I’d do without you, sweetheart.”

You glance towards him, watching his throat work as he swallows, getting a little distracted in wondering how a neck can be so sturdy. You tilt your head and rest your cheek against his chest, forehead touching his neck, “Thanks, Stevie.”

“God, Y/N, you're freezing. Hey- get in here.” He slides your body along the concrete like you weigh nothing, hooks under your knees and lifts you, settles you in front of him right between his legs. He opens the front of his jacket and slips the sides round you so you're both snug inside, his thighs tight against the sides of yours, his arms crossed over your stomach and over your wrists. The heat spreads through you, every single part of you that’s touching Steve feels like its scorched, tight and hot from more than just body heat.

“This okay?” His voice in your ear makes you jump and muscles tense, his fingers gripping a little tighter on your wrists, only loosening when you force yourself to relax against him again.

“Yeah, uh, yes. More than.” Did you sound as shaken as you feel? Probably. Did he? Maybe.

The mission had gone well, at first, you and Steve tasked with retrieving plans held on a poorly guarded Hydra mainframe in Kazan, Russia. It hadn't taken a whole lot of effort to take out the two guards in the building, and Tony had given you a neat little flash drive that did all the hard work for you, all you had to do was plug it in. Get in, get out, 30 mins tops. You just hadn't counted on...him. No older than his teen years, manipulated into a dark seated loyalty by Hydra, a new low for them really. Child soldiers. It’s what you saw, in any case. You hadn’t wanted to do it, take him out, you desperately tried not to. Steve had tried to reason with him, explaining the lies Hydra had told him, pleaded with him to lower his weapon but in the end it hadn't been enough. You saw it, the second he made his decision, saw the resignation, saw his face go slack and his eyes turn dead as he tightened his finger on the trigger. You felt the pain of his life taken before your bullet even hit him, time slowing till it was almost laughing at you, extending out the moments like a lifetime and taunting you.

10 minutes. That’s all it took, between meeting and killing the boy. 10 whole minutes.

The mission had been budgeted for a few hours and your pick up wasn't due for a while. Since Steve was so well known, Mr Captain America, there’s no way you could chance being spotted, not since tensions between the US and Russia were already at their peak since, well, forever really but most recent since the Siberia. Yeah, that was a shit storm that no one wanted to touch, never mind have in their back garden. So here you were, skulking in some abandoned building which reeked of death and horror like a slaughterhouse, the large open space doing nothing to quell the harsh temperatures of mid-winter Russia and the boys face playing in a loop in your head. The only thing that kept you from drowning in that image was sheer proximity to Steve.

The hard concrete floor is unforgiving, you shift a little to get more comfortable but also to keep as much of your weight off Steve as possible, trying to resist the urge to brush your ass back just a little and answer that too-ever-present question in your mind about the Serum and if it affected everythings size. You take in a couple of deep breaths, attempt to drag your mind from the gutter which is entirely unlikely given the object of your most recent ‘self-love’ episodes was pressed against you. Glancing down makes it worse- thighsthighsthighs- but at least you're no longer in danger of hypothermia… right? Steve shifts behind you, the muscles in his legs tensing against yours and sending heat straight to your gut. A yawn sneaks out, prompted by the long flight here and the emotionally beating you’d been through.

“Tired? You can sleep if you want, I’ll wake you up when we can leave.”

“S’ok Ste-” You fight the yawn this time, but he knows anyway, hand coming up to press against your forehead till your head has rolled back against him.

“Sleep, Y/N. I’ll keep you safe.” His voice sounds further away as your eyes close, the soft scent of Steve lulling you into a light sleep, his body pulling you tighter, heat wrapping like a blanket over you.

You hover in and out of consciousness, not quite awake and not quite asleep. Aware of the ache of sitting on the floor, shifting occasionally to ease it, mostly followed by another shifting of Steve. You vaguely wonder if you are too heavy, half flickering between that and sleep induced thoughts of arms and thighs and everything inbetween. Before you can get lost there, get too settled in those thoughts you force yourself up, blink yourself awake and straight up to stretch out those stiff muscles again. Steve releases his grip on your wrists to give you movement to do so, and you roll your back a little to relieve the ache.

That’s when it happens, the shock of it sending you both scrambling to your feet. As you arched your back to stretch, your ass brushed against Steve, against him, full, solid, hard. He’s just as affected as you to the close proximity and the thought alone thrills you as much as it terrfies you.

“I’m sorry!” You both rush out, looking everywhere but at each other. His face snaps to yours, tight with confusion, “Wait, why are you sorry?”

“I didn’t mean to rub against you, shit. Was an accident.” You rub at your face and eyes, the last remnants of sleep shoved from your body as the adrenaline lights up your veins.

“No, I’m sorry. I just- uh, god, Y/N. You kept moving around in your sleep and I just…” You hear the desperation in his voice as he searches for a way to explain this, most guys would have laughed it off by now but not Steve, ever the gentleman, he needs to explain. He needs a reason.

“Hey, Steve, Steve it’s ok. No big deal.” You take a few steps, close the gap but not quite, “These things happen, yeah?”

“No, Y/N. It’s just that- fuck, how do I even...” He runs a hand over his face, dragging his skin a little, looking so lost.

You tut at him, shaking your head and fighting the smile on your face, “Steven, did you just cuss?”

He looks at you now, see’s the smile on your face and his shoulders loosen a little, a tentative smile working at his lips, eyes brimming with unsaid words. He reaches for you, steps up close so that your chests touch with each breath, slips his hand round your waist to the small of your back. Each action is slow, deliberate and laced with intent.

“Alright, Captain Ice Age, your chariot has arrived.” The static of the comms radio jolts you both, Tony’s voice like a bucket of ice on the situation and prompts Steve to take a step back away from you.

“On our way, Tony.” He replies, looks at you sort of haunted and hungry, like he’s not sure which is worse, lingers there a minute before blinking back into Captain America mode. Passive face, professional attitude, you see it all snap into place as he nods towards the door, making sure you leave first. You sigh but do as he says, following orders like the good little soldier.

You can hear the engines from the jet, but can’t see it anywhere. What is Tony doing?

“You need to uncloak, Spare Parts Man.”

“Ohhh, somebody's in a bad mood. What’s wrong, Y/N?” The jet flickers into view. “Did I interrupt? R-Rated handholding and cheek pecking?”

“Fuck off, Stark.” You say as you climb inside, followed by Steve who undoubtedly hears the whole exchange in his ear piece but says nothing.

The journey home is long but comfortable, a damn sight more comfortable than the building you’d just been stranded in. Steve sits up front with Tony, fills him in on the mission and takes over so Tony can start decrypting the data you had obtained. It keeps him busy, getting lost in his work is Tony’s trademark so you don’t see much of either of them for the duration. The quiet hum of the engine fills your head, leaving you with nothing to focus on but your own thoughts and today’s events. The boy's face flickers in and out, hovering with dark edges and void eyes. You shake the thought, try to focus on something else to drown him out, notice Steve’s silhouette against the front screen, shoulder hunched and fingers tight on the controls.

Steve. Focus on Steve.

Was he really going to kiss you? Certainly seemed like he was, unless you're reading too much into it but really, he leaned. Your fingertips vibrate with the need to trace his lines, all his lines of muscle and full, firmness. You’d always had a thing for him, sure, but had never given much thought to him reciprocating. Now, though, now you're thinking and it's a nice train of thought. Now the real question of the hour, what do you do? Nothing, you suppose, let him decide if he wants to continue the quiet almost moment you shared, pretend you're not avoiding out-and-out rejection.  

“Okay guys, preparing to land.” Steve’s voice cuts through your musing. You make your way to your seat and buckle in, giving him a thumbs up to let him know you're ready. Tony does the same, sliding in next to you instead of joining Steve in the cab up front.

“Doing okay, kid?” He asks, halting you when you realise what he means.

“Yeah, Tony. I’m ok.” You offer him a small smile which he returns, the moment remaining untarnished by your equal measures of sarcasm and sass. Tony was a kindred spirit, meeting you toe to toe in snark and love. He was a true friend.

“Enjoy your alone time with Stone Cold Steve Rogers?” And there it was, moment gone, Tony back. He loved to give you a hard time for that crush of yours.

“I hate you.” You say but laugh anyway, because it’s Tony and he always knows how to do that.

“Except you don’t.” He smirks at you, jostling a little as Steve finally puts the jet down.

You're both up and out as soon as it lands, you give him a punch to the shoulder on your way out and hear him cracking up behind you. Steve appears at the door, arm stretching out to help you down and your heart responds with an extra thumpthump.

“Thanks, Steve.”

He leans towards you a little, a smile working its way on to his face, “You know, you’ve been pretty thankful today. That’s 3 I count.”

Was he...was he flirting?

“What’s not to be thankful for, when a handsome man keeps you warm in the cold?” You arch an eyebrow, a silent dare to take the bait.

“Handsome, huh?” Bait taken.

“Definitely.” This time, your smiles mirror the other but with layers of intent and want. Tony catches your eye as he walks around, giving you an exaggerated thumbs up over Steve's shoulder. You roll your eyes and flip him off, Steve turns to see who you're aiming at and catches Tony blowing you a kiss. He turns back to you, eyebrows raised in question, you murmur a “Don’t ask.”

“I need to do the mission report, but can I come see you later?” Steve says, taking a few steps backwards but never breaking eye contact.

“Doors always open.” Like you could say no to him? He gives you a smile, the kind that makes your knee joints wobble and rushes away to do whatever it is a Captain does. You make it back to your room, showering quickly and changing into some lounge pants and a tank, the blue one that shows off a little cleavage that definitely wasn't deliberate. You tidy up a little, vacuum the lounge, straighten the bed because you never know and throw out the chinese take-out cartons that have been there for...a while. It’s been maybe an hour when there’s a knock at the front door. You make you way over to open the door, heart vibrating in your chest with how fast it’s beating, the dip your stomach takes ties you in knots.

The door opens to reveal Steve, as you suspected, changed out of his uniform to loose sweats and a white t-shirt. You roll your bottom lip absentmindedly as you take in the dips of his abs visible through the tight material, your blood hums in anticipation. When you finally meet his eyes you see the way he lingers on your neck and lower, see his pupils expand until his eyes are darker than you've ever seen. He steps forward, into your room, moving you back with him automatically and closing the door softly behind him,

“Thought we might continue where we left off earlier?” He murmurs low, closing the distance between you but not touching.

“Would be rude not to.” You reply, releasing him from his invisible binds he reaches for you, hands slipping around your waist again, so natural and easy like you were built for this.

You slip your hands up his chest, a slow path over the muscles you’ve been so desperate to feel and finally hook around his neck. His lips hover just out of reach, his breath mingling with yours and your heartbeat finally making it to your ears, drowning out everything but it and the sound of Steve's labored breaths. He tips forward and closes the distance, a soft brush of skin against yours before pressing more firmly, more deliberately with a feeling that reaches right down to your toes and back. You moan, quiet and low, and Steve uses it to deepen the kiss, mouth working against yours till your breathless and yet so full of him. It’s deep and thorough, and layered with feeling. You grip his neck tighter, needing him closer still and good God this man can kiss. His fingers inch under your tank, fingertips whispering gentling on the soft skin with goosebumps chasing them. A shiver wracks your body, this time it's a welcome one.

“Wait, wait- this isn’t…” His chest heaves with each breath, forehead pressed against yours and his words create a little panic in your heart.

“We don’t have to-” You whisper, mistaking it for nerves or something worse.

“No. No, it’s not that. Believe me it’s not that.” His look is like gasoline on the very open flame of your body and it slides down from head to toe. He looks wrecked.

“Then what?”

“I want to take you out. On a date.” He says, linking his fingers with yours and bringing them up to kiss your knuckles, his bottom lip catching on the them in the sexiest way. “You deserve to be wooed.”

A smile fights loose on your face, Steve Rogers, always the gentleman. An absolute sweetheart and seriously, how did you deserve this man?

“Okay, Steve. I think I’d like that.”

[natobeeyo-blog]

"I'm here"

I wrote this a ways back, but I came across it and I got kind of excited about it! It’s kind of dark and touches on some dark stuff including suicide. You hath been warned.

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Markiplier fanfic Trigger Warning: Talk of suicide Angst, anger

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

My skin danced under his hands, taking in the warmth of every touch, fingers wrapped around my wrist and fingers dug into my hip. My throat burned and my face was hot, arms tensed and feet sliding on the wooden floor. Love, hate, anger, confusion. He tried to pull me close but my body couldn’t let it happen. Stubborn turned to disgust and revolt. I hated who I saw.

Oh but how I loved the memories. I cherished them deep within. I’m scared, I want to keep those memories with him, but the man I see in front of me now was not the one who resides there. The person who lives in my mind is gentle, sweet and caring. Docile, afraid to lace our fingers together. Asking permission to kiss me. Too timid to fight back. I see him fidgeting with his hands, his words, shoulders small and voice quiet.

But now his voice booms, shaking me to my core. He stands above me with his shoulders set and back straight. His face is hardened and makes the tears flow from me even more. I’m so scared, I don’t know how much longer I can yell, how much longer I can listen to him.

“Will you just stop this already!?” He shouts, pulling me toward him. I am trying to be freed but I have only so much power against him.

“If you’ll just let me go already!” My throat can’t take much more and I want it to be over.

“You know I can’t do that Ellie.”

“Yes you can! Just let me go!” I ripped my arms away from him, feeling the final strokes of his fingertips leaving my skin.

“Please just listen to me Ellie! I can help if you’d just let me-“ “No Mark! You can’t!” I turned to stand my ground, planting myself firmly to the floor but ready for flight.

“Yes I can. Please Ellie.” He took a step toward me and I took one back in return, making him freeze.

“I’m not him.” My heart burst into flames and my tongue immediately regretted its words. The pain that flickered in his eyes hurt, but I knew I meant it. “I’m not him… I know you feel like you could’ve helped but the truth is you couldn’t have! It’s just how it is! You can’t help everyone!”

“…Ellie…that’s not…” His eyes welled and his nose scrunched. I couldn’t breathe.

“No. You couldn’t help him and you can’t help me.”

“…I…I’m here…”

“That’s not enough Mark and you know it-“

“NO!” The word burst from his chest and made me jump. He paused, and realized he had silenced me. “No! I’m here! I’m here Ellie! I wasn’t there for him and I can never forgive myself for that but god damnit I am here now and I am here for you. I love you Ellie and I promised a long time ago I’d always be here for you. I’m here!” His voice was desperate and full of love and hate, bringing himself towards me as I stumbled backwards.

“I’m here. I always want to be here. Listening to you sing in the shower, watching Ghost Adventures, trying the new chip flavors. I want to be here holding you when you fall asleep and when you wake up. I want to be here when there are dogs peeing on the carpet and babies crying at 3 am. I want to be here when your little birds fly the coop and when you feel like you don’t know what you’re going to do anymore. I want to be here when we lose our hair and lose our minds. I want to be here when you go, and when your last breath goes the last thing you know is how much I love you. I’ll always be here. I’ll be here then. And I’m here now.”

My chest ached and my neck stiffened. I stood frozen as he looked down to me, looking into our future with promises and love. He was hysterical, gripping my shoulders, inches from me. I’d never seen him break so much before.

Suddenly, I knew him again. I collapsed into him, falling into my memories again, falling in love with him over again. He clutched me tight as we lowered to the floor, my head against his chest.

“It’s alright Ellie, you’re alright.” He held my head as I wept into his t-shirt, breathing in all he was. I danced under his touch again. My body against his, warm, and grateful. I listened to his heart and melted into him further as he spoke.

“I’m here.”

[stillness-in-green]

Human Debris Masterpost (4/?)

Holy crap, you guys, I have got a lot to say about Episode 13.  The other episodes, somewhat less so.  Shall we?

EPISODE THIRTEEN — Funeral Rites

We pick up where we left off last episode, wherein Masahiro, despite his brief turn to the terrifyingly prophetic, finds himself stricken with a memory of his and his Akihiro’s younger, happier days, and is unwilling to help Kudal with murdering him. He pushes his brother away from Kudal’s blow at the last moment, and Gusion’s hammer has way too much momentum going to turn away, if indeed Kudal would bother to try (unlikely).

Mikazuki is still hot on Kudal’s trail, however, and the brothers are left alone again.  Akihiro doesn’t have a tremendous amount of real mobile suit experience at this point, but with his history piloting mobile workers (coffins on wheels in a fight with a mobile suit) and the simulations run against Lafter, and from the wordless scream he makes as he returns to Masahiro’s side, I suspect he already knows his brother is done for.

We return briefly to the ship infiltration Shino is leading, which does indeed include Dante.  I include this screenshot for two reasons. Firstly to note how much better armored they are this time around—I imagine that since they were specifically trying to keep their clash with the Turbines as bloodless as possible, as they’d been planning to ask for Teiwaz’s help, they geared up as lightly as they could to keep themselves light and mobile.  Here, on the other hand, there’s no such need to hold back, so they’re wearing the bulky armor.  Secondly, and completely unrelated to the scope of this project, to note that yes, just like his mobile worker and every mobile suit he gets his grubby hands on, Shino has painted his helmet visor pink.  Ryuusei-go Mk. 1.5, perhaps?  (This does mean that the shot from the last post that I thought was Dante was indeed Shino; the visor was pink there, too.)

The two of them and the rest of the team find a group of red-stripes cowering in a dark room, glowering and braced to get shot to pieces.  And here I’ll point out something that I somehow missed in the previous episode—all of the Brewers’ Human Debris are still wearing a manacle on their left wrists. These kids, Masahiro’s group, even the ones on the bridge—every one of them whose left wrist is visible (it doesn’t show under the long sleeves and gloves of their flight suits, for example) has a huge chunk of metal fastened around their wrist.  I wish we had just a little more context for this so we could guess at whether the Brewers or CGS are a bit more “typical” of red-stripe existence, because holy hell, CGS was bad, but at least Akihiro and the others there weren’t actively shackled.  Something to keep an eye out for when we get to the Dawn Horizon Corps stuff in the second season.

In any case, Shino gives them a few pacifying lines and heads on his way, waving his group after him. If the subtitles are to be believed—“It’s all kids here, too,”—it would seen that this is not the first group they’ve found, which might explain why neither Dante nor the other two in Shino’s team show any hesitation at leaving the kids be.  In this case, though, this leniency gets one member of the team immediately killed, when the kids prove to be hiding some fairly heavy duty firearms and very panicky trigger fingers.

Shino freezes, but Dante, in what’s probably one of his more revealing moments, doesn’t even hesitate in swinging back in and unloading the contents of a high-powered magazine into a room full of children in exactly the same child slavery position he himself was once in.

It does make me wonder how much resistance he was expecting the Brewers’ Human Debris to be putting up, though—was he relieved that Shino decided to leave that unseen first group alone, or was he reluctant?  Did he say anything at any point, or keep his opinions to himself mid-mission? Whatever the case was, this is a shockingly dark thirty seconds of screentime, though as ever, the show doesn’t linger on it.   

We return instead to space, where Akihiro has left his mobile suit and is trying to reach Masahiro in the latter’s crushed cockpit.

Masahiro, despite having saved Akihiro’s life in an almost involuntary spasm of remembered love, remains fatalistic, bringing up Derma’s reincarnation story, and his certainty that Debris like him die in space, asking if Akihiro understands now. Akihiro, of course, protests, yelling that Masahiro will be reborn and will come back to their home.  I have difficulty believing Akihiro’s even thought much about such things before now; this sounds very much like he’s just desperate to give his brother even a scrap of hope in his dying moments, and will seize on anything presented to him to do so. 

Masahiro, though I don’t think he believes it, smiles ruefully and says he’ll go first and see, and finally reaches out to take Akihiro’s grasping hand.  In that last moment, too, he switches from “aniki” to “nii-chan” in addressing Akihiro.  He’s been using the former since their reunion, but rewatching Akihiro’s flashbacks, he used the latter when they were children.  “Aniki” is not exactly formal itself—it’s the same word Orga uses to address Naze; it’s kind of boyish and slangy, and frequently heard in the context of gang hierarchy (like, again, Orga and Naze)—but “nii-chan” is far more childish and intimate.  In its usage here, we can see Masahiro allowing Akihiro back into his heart, and perhaps forgiving him, as he passes away.  

The world is full of less-accepting red-stripe children, though, we find as we return to the ship, heralded by the shot of a drifting child’s body and blood in the air, and Shino cursing on the vocal track, wondering why these kids won’t just give up and surrender.  It all seems to go back to a recurring theme in the show’s more frontier organizations—that there is strength in the group you’re with, and even if life with that group can be cruel and unforgiving, it is still life, and therefore more to be trusted and believed in than the uncertainty of trusting outsiders.  

In that regard, if there is one thing I appreciate about Kudan and Brooke Kabayan, the Brewers’ horrible orcish captain, it’s the way their design reflects how completely they’ve thrown off the social mores of the setting.  You see this a bit with the Turbines, with their skimpy clothes and Amida’s loud makeup, and a little bit with Tekkadan, who have hygiene priorities somewhere on the level of Lord of the Flies, but it’s most obvious with the Brewers.  They’ve completely forsaken any chance of being accepted by society, and therefore have rejected any morals society might have about (most obviously) child abuse, and damn if you can’t see that in their design: the extremely dyed hair, the piercings, and some fairly extreme body modification in Kudal’s Joker-esque slash of a mouth and Kabayan’s bizarre nose.  CGS had some transparent villain designs, but Todo and the other First Division guys had nothing on these two.  

Getting back on track, though, we hit the opening—the last episode to feature Raise Your Flag—and we return to a glance at what high society looks like via a fancy party thrown by some combination of the Bauduin and Fareed families.  By the time we get back to the main characters, combat has finally been quelled, absent a few pockets of activity, and we get our last major red-stripe-centric scene of the season. 

Someone—I’d bet on Orga, Biscuit or Chad—has had the good sense to post red-stripe guards around the rounded-up batch of Brewers’ kids. Aston’s in this group, as is Derma, which kind of begs the question of how they were made to stand down from mobile suit combat, particularly given the pure venom in Aston’s eyes here. 

Dante gets about half of a warning out to Orga about them, having just had some up-close-and-personal experience with their willingness to keep fighting even in battles deeply stacked against them. He’s clearly had a bit of time to reflect on it, given his expression here. 

Orga claps a hand on his shoulder reassuringly, though, and gets down on the kids’ level to talk to them, very pragmatically opening up with talk about basics of life like better food than the Brewers are (plainly) providing to these malnourished children. He’s talked to Naze already, and says that Tekkadan will be taking care of the surviving children. 

Derma has the swiftest reaction, looking around while Orga’s still talking, but Aston is the one to openly ask—why?  When we were just now trying to kill you?  Orga reassures them that he knows it was just their jobs, and that it isn’t as if they particularly wanted to do it, right? Aston flares up with a response affirming that he didn’t, that he’d just never thought about it before, for himself. 

We get a few very understanding looks from Chad and Dante as he’s talking— 

—up until Orga cuts him off with by far the nicest spin on Human Debris anyone in the show will ever put forth.

“Born in space, and not scared to die in space.  You’re the proud, chosen ones.” 

And my god, the look Dante is giving him here just kills me.  He’s clearly never heard anything this life-affirming about his existence before, and while the other two Tekkadan red-stripes here (Chad and one of the unnamed ones) take it pretty straight-faced, the kids break down immediately when Orga finishes by saying that Tekkadan welcomes them all. 

Derma actually had tears in his eyes by halfway through this speech, and is the first one to begin audibly weeping, and man, I didn’t realize until this rewatch what a total sweetheart this kid is.  Ugh, I love Derma; I love Derma so much. 

Dante speaks, probably, for the group, thanking Orga for the olive branch, which draws the scene to a close. (I’d been thinking, incidentally, that the one red-stripe with glasses was the third Tekkadan Human Debris here, but we never get a clear look at the unnamed red-stripe’s face here, so I guess I was mistaken.  Ah, well.) 

A bit of bargaining with the defeated Kabayan later, we return to the Hammerhead to discuss what to do with the spoils of victory, after which the conversation turns to the titular funeral rites, and we get a particularly interesting look at the more spiritual side of the setting.  I could talk about it pretty extensively (I, er, kind of have 500 words written up about it that I had to cut out of this post), but it would take us way, way off-topic, so I’ll save it for another time.  

Shino opines that he’d like to hold one of these funeral things, and is seconded by Akihiro.  Both of them are clearly distraught at the idea of the spirits of the dead lingering or suffering, so grab at the idea of a funeral to ease both the dead and, subconsciously, their own consciences. Orga, a bit put-out by it all, nonetheless agrees. He stays on the ship for the event itself, as does Chad, back in his normal place at the helm.  

Akihiro can be seen outside, as well as some kids who might be the Brewers kids or might be Yukinojo’s hangar helper lot—their features in the helmets are too indistinct to say for sure, and they’re shown from an angle that would hide Aston’s scar.  Given their enthusiasm about Yamagi’s flower fireworks, I’m inclined to think they’re the Tekkadan kids, though. 

Much as Shino did before the combat, Eugene goes specifically to Akihiro’s side to offer him a bit of commiseration about the brevity of death compared to the long racket of life, in what’s probably his most openly sensitive gesture in the whole show, and it’s really sweet.  It speaks, I think, to some of the extra-canonical information about Eugene being the leader of the Third Division kids before Orga and Mikazuki started working there—though they interact far less, he clearly has a much less confrontational relationship with Akihiro than he does with Orga.  He keeps his arm around Akihiro’s shoulders for the rest of the sequence.  You can catch a brief look of Dante out on the hull as well, just before the scene ends. 

We close out the red-stripe stuff this episode with Akihiro requesting that Orga let him keep Gusion. He says that he thought about the departed at the funeral, that even those with Tekkadan that he rarely talked to, he has bits and pieces of memories of.  For Masahiro, though, he has only his childhood memories, with the strongest and most recent one now being his brother’s death.  At least, then, he wants to stay together with Masahiro’s memory from now on.   

I’m inclined to call this a pretty strained bit of writing—the advertisers needed another Gundam for the home team, and obviously no one but the Brewers’ ace was going to be piloting any Gundams the Brewers had, so the writers had to come up with some kind of reason for Akihiro to want to keep the specific machine that slew his brother.  What they come up with is—well, it’s pretty morbid, but it’s certainly an interesting bit of characterization!  

I’d love to see more ghost-in-the-machine type fanart for it, though.  

And thus, we reach the end of the Brewers arc.  Thankfully, the next batch of episodes will require far less writing on my part, so lets get right to it, starting with the new opening!  

OP 2 — Survivor

So Dante and Chad are much more prominent in this intro, and it makes me happy.  Where in the first intro, you have to be keeping a pretty close eye out for them, here, they’re much closer to the screen.

In the opening shot, Akihiro is in a separate shot from the other two (reflecting something that will not really be true of the show until the second season), but they’re in the shot immediately following, very clearly displayed.  (I mention this mostly to complain some more about no one seeming to remember who they are, because come on, they’re right there.) 

There’s also this rather nice shot of the three of them in some dimmer area indoors.  More than the more “posed” shots, this one looks very much like something that could have happened, a shot out of some serious conversation they were having among the three of them.  I freely admit, though, that my opinion there is probably colored by how much I wanted to ever see the three of them actually talk amongst themselves about their situation.

If you’re extremely quick with the pause button, you can catch this shot of the bridge during a fast zoom-out from Orga’s face to show the exterior of the Isaribi:

I left out the mecha shots, as I did last time, but here is Akihiro getting shouty, sandwiched between similar shots of Orga, Biscuit, Eugene, Shino, and Atra: 

This opening closes on Kudelia, rather than a group shot, so that’ll be it until the closing.

EPISODE FOURTEEN — Vessel of Hope

We have a brief shot of the bridge crew+Atra looking at the approaching Earth, which it’s very possible none of them but Biscuit have ever seen in person before—even Kudelia, in that conversation with Mikazuki about the moon way back in episode four, only talks about it in secondhand terms, as something she’s heard/read about. 

Akihiro, meanwhile, is hanging out in the Hammerhead bay, watching the Gusion get stripped down and getting lightly poked-at by Lafter who, like the rest of us, is having some trouble processing Akihiro’s decision.  He seems at peace with it, though. 

After dropping off the shopping group, the Isaribi is hailed by a guide ship sent to escort them, the speaker on which calls them young heroes.  Eugene and Chad are puzzled by this designation.   

So, this takes us into the beginning of the Dort Colony material, and one thing I’ll note now is that Dort has no red-stripes on it anywhere.  I suppose it’s possible that the signature red stripe is just much more subtly displayed in the Inner Sphere, but we never see any indication of Human Debris on Earth, either, and this suggests that the practice is largely kept to the Outer Sphere.  I suspect the slave trade is quasi-legal at best, and I’m certain wealthy people from Earth would consider it unsightly.  However, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that there’s a certain amount of illicit slave-trade going on in the Inner Sphere—the sort of thing that we see today in first-world nations, of people being brought to e.g. the United States on false pretenses and then getting locked into menial, ill-paying jobs as personal servants or worse in the homes of the wealthy, threatened with deportation if they try to speak out.   

On a total side note, we do at last begin to see a bit less gender segregation, which is a nice change of pace—Gjallarhorn is 100% dudes with the sole exception of Carta Issue, a special case, and likewise CGS was all-male.  The upper leadership of Teiwaz is entirely male, with certain members actively scorning Naze for “using” women to rise up; the long-distance freight shipping business is, according to Amida and Naze’s flashback, almost entirely done by women.  Dort and Earth are the only places we see a bit more mix—the uprising has the intermittent female face, and the politicians on Earth have, likewise, a few women mixed in. I think there might be a little mix at the agricultural plant Hashmal destroyed, but on the whole, this setting is pretty badly gender-segregated, though comments on it are rare and oblique.

In any case, once the uprising breaks out, Orga contacts Merribit on the ship, where she’s going over the shipment manifesto on the bridge, with Chad hanging out on the helm as usual.   

It strikes me that this is probably the first time Chad’s been alone with Merribit (or, like, any woman ever) in the show, and I wonder if this is where he started developing his (implied in season two) crush on her?  I’ll be keeping an eye out for other openings for this going forward.

Orga tells them to get the blazes out of there, presumably concerned about the whole ship getting compounded, and the two of them comply.  This brings us to the end of the episode, and with it, the new closer.

ED 2 — STEEL ~Iron-Blooded Bonds~

The second intro has a bit more going on in it than the pan-arounds of a single image in the first one, though not more of our red-stripes than one would reasonably expect. Starting off, we have Chad and Dante examining the murals that crop up all over the Isaribi with increasing frequency as the show goes on. Chad has no particular expression, though it’s a little telling, perhaps, that he’s crouched down to look so closely.  Dante, meanwhile, looks pleased enough, smiling slightly as he walks along the hall. 

On an unrelated note, it’s a nice detail that you can see Ride with a paintbrush in the background here. He’s the one who designed the Tekkadan logo to begin with, and is apparently behind a lot of the onboard graffiti, too; I kind of wish the show allowed him a bit more attention for his artistic streak.

Again with the kids (just the normal kids we tend to see hanging around Yukinojo or Kudelia’s reading classes, not the Brewers kids, who’ll have to wait for next season), we get our trio and a Random Brunette red-stripe.  It looks like the kids have finished their own food and came over to chat? I wonder what the topic is?

You can spot the group in this picture in the wide shot that Orga and Mikazuki begin to walk towards at the end, but they’re pretty tiny, and not differently posed than they are here, so lets move on, to…

EPISODE FIFTEEN — Trail of Footprints 

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! As mentioned before, there aren’t any red-stripes (at least not openly marked ones) on Dort, not in the crowd scenes nor in the slums.  Likewise, we didn’t see any of the Isaribi in this episode. In lieu of the usual red-stripe stuff, then, have one small observation about the unusually clever use of non-Japanese language in this show. If you want to read about world-building minutiae, read on.  If not, feel free to skip ahead.

So, this is a bag from a rather upscale-looking clothing and accessory store Kudelia was shopping in while Fumitan and Mikazuki were having their conversation about responsibility. The Dort colonies are a project of the African Union, which like all the show’s economic blocs encompasses a great many places, but the pertinent one to this aside is modern-day France. Lefebvre is a French name—a fairly common surname in the north of the country.  

I did a touch of digging, and turned up a few persons of interest.

This is a French model and actress, one Germaine Hélène Irène Lefebvre.  She’s more commonly known by her stage name Capucine, pictured here in The Pink Panther (1963).  She modeled for Givenchy and Christian Dior, and was close friends with Audrey Hepburn.  I’d consider her to be the most likely in-world reference, though I doubt very much that records of old Hollywood comedies made it out of the Calamity War in anything even vaguely resembling wide circulation.   

Interestingly, though, there is one other Lefebvre who’s significant to the themes and events on Dort—Henri Lefebvre, a French Marxist philosopher and sociologist, active in the mid-1900s.  He had a great deal to say about the problems of capitalism, and how the intersection of autonomy, helplessless, natural bodily rhythms and social routines he called “everyday life” had to be revolutionized, lest rampant consumerism lead to consumptionism, a diminishing quality of life, and a decline in self-expression.

More pertinently, he was a respected professor who both influenced and analyzed an upswelling of civil unrest in 1968, starting with student protests and sit-ins, leading to widespread strikes, and culminating in violent clashes with the police, with suspected undercover police slipped in to provoke protesters.  In the end, the political party in power at the time strengthened their hold on the country, but it did herald a new push for social progressivism.  Sounds a bit like the Dort Uprising and subsequent fallout, no?

As ever, I remain thoroughly impressed with IBO’s canny use of language in the setting.  The grammar, the spelling, even things like general readability of large blocks of text feel very naturalistic, and the deployment of terminology—like the stuff above, but also all of Gjallarhorn’s Norse references, the Gundam naming scheme, and even the consistency of the fishing and nautical names you tend to find associated with the non-Gjallarhorn spaceships. It’s all exceptionally strong worldbuilding.  

In any case, lets move on. We’ve got exactly one relevant scene in the next episode! 

EPISODE SIXTEEN — Fumitan Admoss

Our only bit of red-stripe activity here is Akihiro in the Turbines’ bay, bleeding from the nose and straining against his Alaya-Vijnana hookup.   

Based on what we’ve seen from him to date, I expect Akihiro was planning on spending the Dort visit learning how to handle Gusion by sparring with Lafter in the Turbines’ simulator.  The schedule for being able to do so on demand just got pushed ahead somewhat, so he’s straining under all that Gundam information overload in the same way we usually see pilots reacting the first time they get in a Gundam, especially one that hasn’t been tuned up for their own tolerance levels.  We saw it with Mikazuki early on, with Akihiro here, and there’s another instance I’m looking forward to that we'll be seeing in the next episode.  Look forward to it next time!