there's nothing really wrong with me; i'm just choking almost constantly || Polyam! Ghostface x GN! Reader
title from Twinkle Lights by The Sonder Bombs
Reader is dealing with the aftermath of their sexual assault, to which they still haven't told Billy and Stu that it was even a thing that happened. After a particularly rough night, the boys comfort them.
1st person POV
TRIGGER WARNINGS: there is reference to past SA, but it's not too graphic. the reader talks about it and there's like, references about it through out the text- and I know it can be really traumatic for some to read it so PLEASE be careful and read at your own risk. panic attacks, nightmares, i believe that's it !! let me know if I need to add more warnings!!
I blink awake, filled with an erratic, heart-pounding panic. It takes a moment to realize where I am- home, in my bed, by myself. I'm not at the trailer and I can't feel his breath down my neck anymore.
I let out a shaky breath and sit up slowly, trying not to shock my body anymore.
My body feels unstable and wrong as I walk through the house. My mind and body caught in a fuzzy sort of dream state.
I dial Stu's phone number, because I know he'll ask less questions than Billy- and that's what I needed right now. Just a distraction.
I school my voice to properly fake that sort of "I'm fine, nothing bad has ever happened to me" tone.
I clear my throat. "Stuey? I know it's a little late, but-"
"Nah, it's okay, baby. Whaddya need?"
I laugh- of course Stu sounds so chipper, he was likely up looking at Play Boys or watching total torture porn (aka a load of trash).
"Could you pick me up? It'd be nice to stay at your place tonight."
I can practically hear him grin on the other line. "Ab-so-LUTE-ly!"
I kind of half-giggle and thank him. I pull on an extra-long hoodie and grab the handmade Michael Myers plush my friend gave me off my bed. I wait out on the front porch for him to arrive.
I settle into Stu's bed, and he hurriedly puts his magazines and other items under his bed, careless to the minor scrumpling to his merchandise.
“Hey baby,” he kisses the top of my head and I try not to shrink away too much when he does so. I know it’s Stu, I know I’m safe- I can still feel his touch around my body, his hands at my throat, though. It’s so hard not to think he’s there with me, in bed next to Stu and I.
I smile at him and let him turn his lamp off even if the darkness and the looming shadows in his room are wholly disorienting.
I can feel a light tickle against the shell of my ear, like someone is whispering, “I won't be able to stop myself.” I shake him off of me and turn to my other side.
Just leave me alone, please.
I probably toss in my sleep the whole night, but Stu doesn’t seem bothered when we wake in the morning. My eyes are bleary and blinking back tears, hoping he doesn’t see.
I should know better than to think Stu could keep any secret from Billy. I'm still surprised, however, that Billy jostles into the Macher's kitchen at 9am, already with a prickled attitude.
I drop the spoon into my bowl of cereal, milk splashing up and over onto the counter. I try to school my expression into something more neutral, so my surprise doesn’t hurt him.
“Billy,” I greet.
He replies back with my name, which I can only half-hear through the fuzzy, distant feeling in my body.
Billy sits on a stool next to me, moving my bowl a little further from my reach. “Why were you up so late?”
I half-laugh, still tired, still groggy. “What, I’m not allowed to stay up?” I tease. And the hurt sick feeling settles in my throat.
Billy shakes his head and sighs- he’s clearly frustrated.
Stupid. Stop teasing him, he’s- I physically shake the thought off. Trying desperately to repel the negative energy like water to oil. Get it together.
“C’mon,” Billy tries again. He seems abnormally pissy, and I wonder what Stu told him on the phone. It’s no way that either of them could have figured it out, but the lump in my throat still grows at the possibility.
“Just- missed Stu. That’s all.”
“You brought along your plushy,” he says, like that’s supposed to prove anything. “And that big hoodie of yours that you only wear when you’re sad.”
“Did Stu tell you that?” I try not to sound too antsy or annoyed. I know they’re only worried. Of course they’re worried- of course they know my tells like the back of their hands. I should have just stayed home, even if that meant waking up with the feeling of him pressed against my body.
He nods. “You always tell us what’s wrong,” and he whispers my name in that hard-soft tone he gets when he’s anxious. I shiver.
“Nothing’s. . . nothing’s wrong.” I try and I know it’s bullshit. It’s a dumb attempt and Billy sees right through it. “Nothing that you can fix.”
And I know Billy takes it as a personal attack- that I think he can’t take care of me. That his comfort isn’t enough, that he isn’t enough. I don’t know how to tell him that’s not what I meant, though, without telling him what happened. It feels hard to breathe, I take a shaky, sharp breath in. It doesn’t help.
I don’t even know what’s going on, my eyes teary and blurred. My ears are ringing out. My body feels so fuzzy and too soft at the edges. My thoughts muddle in my brain and I don’t know if I'm breathing or talking or breathing or- I gasp out.
Stu’s hands hold my shoulders tightly, trying to ground me. He’s done it a hundred times before, and it works nearly every time.
My breath is labored, heavy and quick. Too quick. I still can’t feel myself breathing.
Billy and Stu both try to reassure me- I think. Their voices still unclear through the fog.
“‘M sorry, ‘m sorry, sorry, sorry,” I repeat, till the word feels unsafe and garbled through my lips. “Shouldn't have to- shouldn’t have, shouldn’t have to. Have to- have to worry.”
My voice sounds so far away, like I’m speaking into a dying microphone, to the clashing, screaming crowd before me. Feeling so unheard, so unseen, even at center stage.
The fog fades around Billy’s voice. “Hey, hey, it’s fine. Just- stop apologizing,” my name is slow on his tongue. “Can you hear me? C’mon, baby, you’re worrying Stu.”
And I should respond. But everything just feels so- off. I’m not even sure what I’d say.
I don’t want to explain myself.
When the fog finally finally cuts through, I can breathe again. I’m sitting on the tiled floor of the Macher kitchen, with my knees pulled up against my chest. Billy and Stu sit on either side of me, their hands tentatively retracted from my body.
I can finally breathe in the clearing. I could cry, if feeling my feelings didn’t hurt so much. If everything didn’t hurt.
My breath takes a while to steady, and when it does, Billy takes this as a sign to pounce on me again.
“What happened, baby?” And he sounds so . . . concerned. It hurts to know I’m hurting him. My body aches with every pound of my heart against my chest.
“I think I had a panic attack,” I managed.
Stu lets out an awkward laugh, and I don’t freak out this time when he touches my shoulder. “No shit!”
He murmurs an apology and repeats himself, quieter now. It was sweet. Stu was so sweet and I can’t get over myself to just- live and not cause all this . . . all this angst and trial and tribulations between us. Billy would remind me- if I vocalized this ache - in my own words, that having tough emotions aren’t a burden. It feels like it is though.
“I’m sorry,” I try and Billy shushes me. He seems annoyed still, I know it’s just the look he has when he’s scared, though.
Fuck, he’s scared. Get yourself together.
I swallow down the lump in my throat.
“Okay, fine. I can’t apologize, I get it.” I realize now that my voice croaks out, like I'd been crying.
My eyes still feel hazy around the edges and they still struggle to focus on anything properly.
“What can I say then?” I teasingly ask, and I feel sick to my stomach.
Please don’t ask me why. Please don’t ask why. Please don’t ask why. Please.
“What’s up with you?” Billy asks. I’m not sure if that’s any better of a question though.
“I- I can’t tell you.”
Billy rolls his eyes. “We can’t help you if we don’t know what’s wrong.”
Stu sighs, giving my shoulder a gentle squeeze. His fingers tense when he speaks. “Please? We won’t- Stu glances at Billy and then back at myself- I won’t ask any other questions, I promise.”
I give a humorless laugh in response. “Real assuring.”
“C’mon, I can’t control what Billy does,” he whines.
And there it is again. The lump in my throat. His breath tickling against my face. “I just can’t control myself around you.”
The attempts to shake off his incessant greed seem to only be in vain.
“Just- just get off of me, please,” I have to wrench the words out of my throat. “Please, ‘m sorry for- I’m sorry- just. Let go.”
Stu quickly winds his hand from my shoulder and puts his hands up, in defense. He looks at me all confused, his eyes wide and his brows furrowed.
He lowers his hands and gives me those stupid, big blue puppy eyes. “What’s wrong?” And he says it so gently. His voice felt warm and comforting.
“Just- I. Give me a moment.”
“Okay,” both boys reply.
“I- I think I was sexually assaulted.” My voice comes out in a tight whisper, lodged somewhere between my throat and the tension of the kitchen conversation. “I thought- I thought it was my fault or maybe it didn’t- it didn’t happen. Or- or maybe I misremembered it but-”
My voice gets caught and I let out a measly sob.
“Woah,” Billy carefully reaches a hand out towards me, but doesn’t touch me. “Woah, woah. Baby,” he whispers. “What- who did this to you?”
I sniffle.
I didn’t want to tell them.
It felt so much more real speaking it aloud.
His voice feels dirty against my body, and I just want to get away from him. But he’s in the walls, he’s in my dreams. And I can’t escape. He’s sitting with me as my boyfriend’s try to comfort me.
“I know better than that. I should have known better than that and-” my throat feels all funny, like I can’t breathe again. A sharp intake in, a shaky breath out. “And I still let him put his grubby hands all over me.”
“Woah, baby,” Billy’s voice is impossibly quiet and calm. He appears more apologetic and concerned with how I am, than the dark, revengefulness that usually seeps out of him when someone hurts me. “Baby, look at me, okay?”
I keep my head snuggled at the top of my knees, straining my eyes to look in his direction. I hum, not trusting myself to speak without crying.
“It’s not- it’s not your fault. Whatever happened, it’s-”
My mouth seems to be on its own agenda. And my head feels impossibly fuzzy again. Everything is so . . . so disconnected. I tap my fingers against my shins, and they don’t feel like they’re really there at all. No matter how many times I tap them in the same familiar pattern.
Nothing feels right.
“I shouldn't have been such a tease. I- he told me to stop, said he wouldn’t be able to control himself if- and, and I didn’t listen, Billy. Was so confused, didn’t know where I was, Stuey and- and he- I told him that. But I should’ve listened. He w-warned me and I should have- I’m sorry.”
“Hey, shh,” Billy tries once more. “It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s not your fault, baby. Whatever- whoever it was, who convinced you . . . it doesn’t matter, okay? He doesn’t- you didn’t make him do anything. You-” even Billy struggles with it.
He sighs, “what do you need from us? Just right now- what do you need at this moment, okay?”
Stu tries, as well. Learning from his previous mistake.
“Is it okay to hug you or touch your shoulder right now?”
I shake my head. His hands at my throat, his voice tickled against my face.
His hands at my throat, telling me to behave.
Taking my “i’m fine”s and “okay”s out of context, blatant ignorance of my confusion.
“Could we just- could we sit on the couch maybe?”
It felt better, safer, in the openness of the living room.
Like I wasn't going to suffocate and, like, explode or something.
Stu's hanging his limbs off one end of the couch, and Billy tentatively perches on a couch arm. I assume Billy is sitting strangely to give me space- Stu's position is natural though. He always sits weird, and does things weird, which I love. I love him. I love Billy, and I'm just. I'm hurting them- I'm sitting in the middle of the couch, shaky and strange, and hurting them.
“What can we do?” Billy sounds gentle. He sounds sincere. I think . . . he is. The whole situation is strange and terrifying. I want to go back to sleep and hope when I wake that the past few months were some fever dream instead.
I let out a shaky, heaving sigh.
“I don’t- I don’t know.”
“That’s- that's okay. Baby,” his voice is sturdy, despite the uncertainty bleeding in.
“Yeah!” Stu smiles at me, and it feels sort of warm. It feels almost good.
“You shouldn’t have to deal with someone so damaged.” I stare at my feet and my hands fidgeting absently in my lap. Tears pricking, stinging at my eyes.
I stumble over and retract apologies in my head. Trying to justify what he had done to me, to pin what he said, to pin his hands around my neck and push me down, as my own fault. As my own actions.
I can’t tell Billy that. Not to him, not to Stu.
Billy has this restrained look in his eyes, and his face is twisted into an almost scowl. I don’t know what he’s thinking, but I know I shouldn’t have said that. Because Billy thinks he’s broken, all the time.
He’s told me or alluded to his mom’s disappearance, to his asshole father. About the disconnect between himself and his own thoughts, his hands and his actions. He’s told us why he’s only ever felt safe and trusting in the arms of his lovers.
And that he’s so afraid that one day, we’ll up and leave him, too.
That he’s too damaged, too broken, to be loved.
And I go and fuck it up again. I only know how to hurt.
“That’s, wait- that’s not. I’m sorry, Billy. I-”
And his voice is uncharacteristically sweet. It’s calm and low, and I can’t hear held back anger.
“It’s okay.”
“What?” My voice is small and squeaks out, unsure.
“It’s okay. Baby," Billy says my name with my name with care. “You’re not- you will never be too fucked up to be loved by us.”
Stu smiles, protective. “I- we will never let that happen to you again.”
They offer physical comforts, they lean closer but not close enough to touch me.
Maybe I shouldn’t be so trusting. He had promised to never hurt me and I followed him blindly. But Billy & Stu aren’t him. And I should be allowed to put my faith into others, without fearing I'll be hurt again.
I lean into Billy's touch, allowing him to encase me in his strong arms. Stu leans against us, bringing his long, sweater-clad arms around the huddled mess of us.
Maybe it's against my better judgements.
Maybe it's a mistake.
But maybe, too, this is safety. This is love.
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The Flash Files: Folder 06
Brought to you by The Flash Gordon Archive of Howard C. Rushbourne in collaboration with Midjourney AI & The Friends of Flash Foundation.
Flash, Dale, Aura and Barin in a Disney promotional campaign for “Adventures at Intergalactic High: Senior Year” (2015)
Jeffrey Hudson (with roommate Gregory Kant), (1955)
Jeffrey and Gregory’s famous bachelor pad. (1955)
FROM THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, 25 JULY, 1955
In this golden age of Hollywood, two dashing actors have caught the public's eye with their incredible talent and undeniable charm: Jeffrey Hudson and Gregory Kant. These two heartthrobs, best known for their roles as Flash Gordon the space hero and Buck Howard, (sheriff of Dustbowl in the TV series “Hardwood”), are two of the most eligible bachelors on the planet! Nevertheless, these two bachelors seem to enjoy spending time with each other just as much as they enjoy attending glamorous star-studded premiers with a beautiful starlet on their arm.
Their shared home, an elegant sanctuary hidden in the Hollywood Hills, is the epitome of style and sophistication. Decorated with tasteful, modern furnishings, the living room is a testament to their shared love for contemporary design. This warm, inviting space is where Jeffrey and Gregory spend countless hours discussing their craft, sharing stories, and enjoying each other's company and with close friends invited for a weekend getaway.
Will these best friends stay single forever or will they find that special someone to marry and call their own then finally give up their bachelor’s paradise?
Jeffrey Hudson and Gregory Kant (1955)
“Flash Gordon and the Happening on Planet Mongo” (1968)
Brian Morse as Prince Thun (1994)
Dorothy Thompson as Dale Arden in “Flash Gordon and the Invisible Phantom” (1951)
Dale Arden, Flash Gordon fashion photo spread for Vogue Magazine, (2021)
Kenneth Williams as Emperor Omipalone in “Flash Gordon and the Conquest of Planet Polari” (1966)
Emperor Omipalone and his henchmen, Julian and Sandy, “Flash Gordon and the Conquest of Planet Polari” (1966)
Williams controversially only spoke in Polari during the entire film leaving some audience members baffled and confused. Subtitles were suggested for some theatres, (especially those located outside of large metropolitan areas), but this proved difficult as Polari was fairly obscure even in the 1960s, (although it had come into more common consciousness through some radio broadcasts).
Finally, a small company called “Bona Lingo” was hired from a little shop in Soho, London, which was able to provide the translations. The following is a sample of Williams announcing his plans for universal domination:
“As Emperor Omipalone, the villainous nanti-bona emperor of the cosmos, I've nattered to me palones and omies about me bijou plan to troll over the universe, naffing it up as I go. Vardering me lacoddy, all zhooshed up, and me basket well-crammed, I cackle to them, "Varder at me, omies and palones, we'll dish the dirt on all the other planets, scarpering their bijou dreams and turning them into a meshigener mess. We'll screech our Polari lingo from the zhooshy stars to the naffest corners, leaving chaos in our wake. Let's charper the universe together and make it bow before our wickedly fantabulosa reign!"”
Kenneth Williams as Emperor Omipalone in “Flash Gordon and the Conquest of Planet Polari” (1966)
Flash Gordon costume design by Jennifer Sonders, (1989)
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