#after the ptsd part and the healing part and all the way forward to the Living part

[daydreamsandcrashingwaves]

Keeping It Close To The Chest Pt 1

Edited 12/25/23 ~~ Here's Part Two ~~

Part Three Part Four

I devoured the Damian Wayne and Danny Fenton are Twins tags and had to make something of my own to add. This is my first fanfic I've decided to post. I'm much more familiar with the DP side of things but I gave it my best shot. Hope this brings joy anyway. If I decide to post this on A03 I will have it beta'd since I made this in like four parts and then wove them together so the flow may not always be there whoopps.. but for now I just wanted to share this with all you!

TW/CW: Medical experimentation and trauma, parental abuse/neglect, wound description, blood-ectoplasm and human, death (it's danny, he's the culprit lol will apply to Jason too if I add to this), body horror (to be safe), PTSD and flashbacks, childhood trauma and abuse, dehumanization

If I missed a tag/warning please let me know! I've never been an extensive tagger so i tried real hard to get everything, but I am human and could've missed something. Much love, stay safe.

~Ren

He had to keep moving. He could still hear their screams of rage ringing in his ears. Faster, he had to be faster. His blind panic had created an opportunity, a sliver of hope Danyal was determined to twist to his advantage. He was limping forward on uncertain legs. His vision swayed with the movement, and he fought to keep upright. His chest was on fire, Danny pressed his hands tightly to the wound there in a desperate attempt to keep his organs from spilling out like confetti. He kept his arms tucked close and rounded his shoulders to try and keep his torso still while he moved quickly through the empty streets of his once home. His chest was by far injured the worst, but he had paid no mind to the others. If he dared to stop, he would fully die.

Even in his human form, Danny just knows he's leaving a glowing blood trail behind him, the ectoplasm burning into the ground behind him. Whatever side of his transformation his body was currently showing it didn't matter, he was simultaneously both, always. The trail was evidence he transformed due to necessity, he became so durable after dying that it took a lot to hurt him. Danny risked a glance down and paled further. The green he spilled as Phantom mixed with red. A fucked up corrosive bread trail right to him. He was sure he truly was in deep shit. He just had to get to his go bag. Over time with his parent's inventions getting more dangerous the more Danny had to think about putting into motion The Great Escape.

Anything important he had always kept hidden, but Danny had taken everything out of his room once he had died the second time, and Danny was grateful for the convenience to be able to phase things into walls, floors, ceilings. It made his things pretty secure; no human could find it and any ghost that came through was too focused on their obsession or fighting him to go on a treasure hunt for his hidden things.

Danny's willful ignorance of his body as he stumbles farther from FentonWorks doesn’t stop the slight burn of his ectoplasm against the edges of his wounds and the tatters of his hazmat suit pulling on the scabbing blood or the smell. Ancients the smell. It’s rancid, he hasn’t been able to cycle it properly without his normal supply of fresh ectoplasm from the Zone. Only provided in small bursts when his parents wanted to see how his body healed with and without ectoplasm. He can feel the whispers of his terror, anger, grief that’s flowing through his blood.

He had been overconfident way back when he had threatened Vlad with exposing his secret. He had thought they'd love him despite having kept his halfa status from them, he hadn't been prepared for the distrust, the hatred, the way they moved farther and farther from thought out experiments to revenge. Danny knows Maddie and Jack still see him as the quiet, shaken child so desperate to be good, craving acceptance by the eccentric family that took him in when they look at him. If Danny had to guess they had been so blinded in their rage to even realized it was their machine, their failure that made him this way. Now they really did want him dead.

He’s whole somehow, despite their best effort, he just needs time. Ancients, He’s not exactly the monster they pictured, but He's not human... He’s whole.

The thought tastes bitter and Danny strangles it before it can expand. He must be focused. Taking a measured breath Danny turns down a familiar alley, he goes intangible with a slight twinge in his core, slipping into the bathroom of Nasty Burger. He’s done this so many times the familiar path brings comfort, reassurance. Like maybe things will start to turn for the better. Making his way over to the stall Danny debated whether it was worth climbing the toilet or floating up there. No, it was better to grit his teeth and bare it. There were only three containers of ectoplasm in his bag, he needed to preserve what strength he had. He would soon have no way to access the Zone for a refill.

Danny took one hand and placed it on the wall before careful stepping up. Lifting his leg had sent waves of pain across his nerves but with a grunt he leveraged himself up. His vision went black at the edges, he was dizzy, and bile clawed at the back of his throat. Danny took a few breaths, while he might not need to breathe, he’s been human longer than not, and well.. he’s only half ghost so the habit carried over to when he's Phantom. Danny was immensely grateful for his time in the League, the training was brutal, he still has nightmares about dying the first time but.. he did learn how to survive in situations that if he was truly a Fenton, would've killed him many times over. As Danny was Danyal Al Ghul Fenton, he always had back up plans. His Mother had been heavy handed with those lessons.

It was painful to think about Talia. She had been Grandfather’s favored child and the weight of his expectations of his grandsons was enforced by her. Lessons or punishment, very rarely praise was given to Danny by his Mother's hand. Each milestone was meticulously observed and reported back, doubly so for their failures. Tiny bodies with too big of weapons, green and blue eyes, a face mirroring his own but twisted in determination, competition. His older brother, his twin. They were inseparable, until they weren't.

Danny's core throbs in his chest, he wanted to shy away from the thought, yet the inconsolable part of him screams at the injustice of being the only one to escape their Grandfather. If only Danny could've proven himself, perhaps his brother would've had a chance to leave in his stead, but Danny knows just how much he was lacking in comparison to his brother, and it was their skill, or lack thereof in Danny's case, that sealed their fates. Danny was able to avoid Ra's overseeing eyes when they moved off the failure of a Spare and homed in on his true Heir. The grandson who took to their lessons like a duck in water. Deathly beautiful, Danny used to think as he watched his brother dance and fly through his training. Talia couldn't defy Ra's orders but if she just.. misplaced.. the Spare that was abandoned, well, no one has come for him yet.

Danny knows she loved him, somewhere hidden, deep inside his Grandfather's perfect pet assassin. She loved him enough to send him away when it became clear Ra’s saw no need in the Spare that was no longer needed, she had loved him when she had beaten him and left mortal wounds-their only chance to fool Grandfather, she loved him when she had given him his packed bag and left him outside that orphanage in Chicago with lazarus water raging in his veins, and she loved him when she told him to forget.

Forget about the League her and his brother, his family.

With brief tight squeeze to his small shoulder her she told him if he was in danger to find Bruce Wayne and then Talia Al Ghul was gone and Danyal-just Danyal now- was left truly on his own for the first time ever.

Danny was definitely in danger now; his situation was grave and despite everything the pun brought a small smile to his face. He couldn’t go back home to the Fenton's. He tries to forget how he froze in his surprise when he realized his parents didn’t take his reveal as Phantom as well as they had let on. They had smiled and stalled until they had found a way to contain him. By then it was too late, he had gotten too complacent in his run on a normal life.

Only after Ancients knows how long he had been resisting, pleading, screaming-I’m still Danny, it hurts mom please, I’m still me, Dad I’m alive- did Maddie find his core. Too tired to move it away from her gaze any longer and when her fingers brushed it the wave of mind-numbing terror exploded out of him. Something must've been on her gloves because his core burned. It ripped a wail from his throat while he writhed on the table. Ice responded like it never was taken from him by the anti-ghost restraints.

Danny could still distantly feel the ghostly ice that had trapped them in place and shattered his restraints under the pressure the frozen water bursting into existence. Even trapped in his ghost ice they were steadily working on getting out and would be on the hunt for him again soon. He wouldn't allow them to catch him again.

The mere idea they’d be on their way already spurred Danny back into action. Slipping his hand into the wall he grabbed the strap and pulled his bag out, careful to keep it weightless, and slid off the toilet and back down to the floor. He hasn't seen his dagger in months, it hurt too much to practice without Dami, his other half. Here it is though, innocently tied to his bag and his gaze traced it lovingly, before searching inside the biggest pocket for his first aid kit. He didn't have time for stiches, so he reaches for the butterfly bandages and starts to pull the skin together before securing it. It's really the first proper look he gets, it's... unsettling at the very least, horrifying, to see a wound reserved for autopsies on his chest.

The Y incision is inflamed and still bleeding so he carefully follows its path until he's done. Grabbing gauze, he starts to reinforce pad, wrapping a roll of bandages around to hold everything in place. Danny bites his lip and thinks for a moment, he will need stitches, he's been wounded enough in this half-life to know that. The likelihood for his work to stay in place while he flies is less than he'd like. Making a decision and with a mental shrug he takes an ectoshot from the smaller pocket and stabbed it into his thigh before pressing the depressor. Pure energy zapped through his system hard, angerly surges to settle in his chest. Feeling a bit better but more.. wired Danny takes a second to calm. Steeling himself he tries to nudge his core, it responds in a weak pulse.

Danny's body protests, he can feel his muscles shred and reform, his bones twist like taffy, his organs melt together before settling to form his ectobody. It's all over in a flash of bright light, yet the pain felt endless. Overwhelming in its intensity but gone just as quickly as it came leaving Danny sweaty and panting. Transforming injured was tricky, he had to carefully picture where the bandages were, so he didn't lose all his hard work.

Confusion settled as a fog, clinging to his thoughts, making them murky. His hands were covered in blood, his body hurt, and he couldn't quite remember why, there was a siren coming closer. Everything in him screamed to run, to escape, but his hunters were too close now, freed from his ice to kill him fully. On instinct Danny's nails grew to claws, ripping into space to create a portal. He was weak, always had been, but he was good at running, hiding away in the shadows. Ghost was once a name of his, a proud title, not just what he is now.

Just as the doors burst open in a teal and orange blur Danny dove into the swirling green and hoped Clockwork was watching so at least someone knew things had exploded here in Amity. He hasn't needed to be on his own like this since after Jazz first saw him and demanded that her parents bring Danny home with them. He misses her now as the path out of Nasty Burger closes behind him. Danny's falling, dropping towards the ground too fast for eyes to track but his impact had definitely shaken the room. With a pained whine and a flash Danny was back to being human again, his landing had pulled at whatever scab was able to form in the twentyish minutes it took him to drag himself away from the basement. Danny was going to be sick, the sticky cool liquid that had his clothes clinging to him, was going to be very alarming when he finally could give himself a proper once over. He could feel the new bruises as he tried to roll off the pallets he had crushed.

"Oh! Someone decided to drop by! " A man called out with glee as he sauntered in his direction. "Shall we see who our special guest is?" Danny could feel the rotten soul as he got closer. Too close. Forgoing moving Danny tensed in anticipation. He was hurt, yes, but he would go down fighting. He could do that much to make his brother proud, even if he never realized Danny lived to 15 not 5. Before he could uncurl to swing at the man there was the soft sound of fabric rustling and a blade being drawn. Curling tighter Danny hoped he had enough juice to go intangible.

"You will not reach your goal Joker; Do you not get sick of trying?" The voice was smooth, deeper than he remembered but it's been 10 years, it's understandable that puberty changed his brother's voice. Danny would recognize it anywhere. Danny jinxed himself, somehow. How he ended up in the same room as the brother he hadn't seen in a decade, Danny wasn't sure. He was terrified though. Where Damian was the League and their Grandfather wasn't far behind. Damian had carefully hidden away his care as a child but would shower Danny in it in the darkness of their room. After years apart and Grandfather's continued influence Danny was uncertain how much of Damian truly remained.

There was a burst of noise, of movement and a struggle then silence covered the room. Danny's hands were shaking. "Nightwing, first aid is required inside, bring the kit." His brother paused, "No, a civilian, a metahuman if his unusually colored blood is to be taken into account."

Danny could feel his brother's scrutiny, his gaze held weight as it scanned over his collapsed form, he tried to curl more but a hand brushing his shoulder had Danny screaming and scrambling away.

Damian's hands twitched at his side, an aborted motion to draw his sword. He seemed to pause then they flew up empty, placating- it didn't bring Danny any comfort.

An assassin's greatest tool was always their hands. Green eyes tracked him, narrowing at the way Danny was shrinking into the shadows. Dread swam down his spine to settle hard in his gut. Of all the ways to meet his brother again, it had to be when he was dying, for a third time. Danny reached blindly for whatever was next to him to pull himself up, his knees wobbled precariously but he would be standing for this. He had to be. Black spots were now in his vision, but he forced a smirk onto his face. Danny was sure he was a sight to see, torn clothes, skin riddled with bruises, green and red blood splattered all over like a kindergartener's messy painting of Christmas, limp dirty hair.

Danny knows Damian is assessing him, taking in what he can see in front of him to efficiently deal with it as they were trained to do. potential strengths and weaknesses. Behind both the domino mask and his calm exterior Damian is taking in a snapshot. Danny wonders what he sees, if his brother recognizes the boy he’s grown into, Danny’s core thrums wildly and he tries not to fidget. The slight frown that pulls at Damian’s mouth means he caught the aborted motion.

"Damn, green, yellow and red... You look like a traffic light!" He gets one giggle in before he chokes on it. Danny can't breathe. His brother had gone deathly still when Danny spoke. He could see the war of emotions fighting through his brother, suspicion was quickly doused with rage. "How dare she." The Arabic was an unexpected comfort, but Danny felt confusion at the words. He's severely out of practice, he thought he understood but doubt settled in. He wasn't sure.

Damian had always stood firm next to him in the League, calm, driven and decisive, the perfect heir for their Grandfather. He was always warm to Danny though, would allow traces of his true feelings to be visible when Damian would inevitably catch Danny sneaking out of his bed to stargaze. Danny would get scolded, every time. Grandfather would punish him harshly for such indulgences, he knew it. Attachments were weaknesses and Grandfather would not grow weakness in the League, in his heirs. Danny may be weak and the Spare but he was smart. He knows what the looks of distaste meant from his Grandfather. He knew how his failures would catch up to him and how Grandfather disapproved of his influence on Damian. Yet Danny kept going back, hiding in the shadows to gaze at the stars and wait for his brother to come find him.

Danny had braced for Damian to be mad when he realizes Danny didn’t truly die that day and has stayed away from his brother, but Danny couldn’t have expected this.

Pure hatred lights up in Damian’s eyes when he finally realizes what is in front of him. It's Danny’s undoing. Everything else that has happened seemed like a cakewalk compared to being rejected by the person who had always understood him most. Ghosts are the manifestation of their emotions. Frostbite had explained once how injuries can manifest in a ghost's form on their own. Emotional pain could make them unravel down to their cores, until even that disappeared.

For Danny, there was uncertainty, halfas were so rare that there wasn’t much off hand knowledge, but Danny has always known from the second he died. There was no separation between his human and ghost halves. He just was. What fancy wrapping he showed off hardly mattered. Things bleed so easily between them, Danny Fenton and Phantom.

"I'll kill her painfully for this, but you abomination it will be swift." Damian has balanced on his toes, ready for a quick burst of speed. His sword now clenched so tightly in his hands it almost shakes.

An abomination the words looped through Danny's mind. The wounded sob that came forth when he opened his mouth to reply was unexpected. Danny took halting steps back from his twin. The hitching breath brought his attention back to his chest. This wasn't how Danny had pictured this moment, all those years of stolen daydreams. His core felt wrong in his chest. He felt cold, cold and brittle but his chest was on fire-and wet. The surgical cut seeping like its minutes fresh, this was by far Danny’s worst idea, to believe to ever hope, his brother would ever keep a monster by his side Danny was a fool to hope even for a moment-hands hands reaching for him to bring him back, grabbing his arm-

“No! I don't know! No please” Danny gasps as he flails weakly “I’m sorry I’m sorry!”

Damian hesitates again, before his resolve firms, "Danyal-" His name cracks over his brother's tongue. Danny isn't aware enough to unpack the way his brother's face twists in heartbreak the longer he watches Danny bleed. A warm body comes up behind him, blocking him in, he’s crying now, a weakness that he never could smother. "No!" Danny avoids his gaze scrambling to grip onto whatever fabric is in his hands. Danny wants the moment to last but he knows what’s coming. Damian won’t protect him now. His older brother had been steadfast by his side in their childhood, but now… now maybe it was better he’s bleeding out.

Danny vaguely registered the man behind him cutting off his shirt, kit at the ready besides him. Pressure on his wound forces a long high whine from his throat. He wants to shove it away, his hand swatting at it but he missed, and it thuds uselessly on the ground. He doesn't have the energy to try again.

The shock of a hot hand against his face brings everything into abrupt focus. Danny flinches but can’t move, the body unyielding behind him. He sees the room is covered in his frost and ice. Batman and Red Robin are farther back, their feet trapped in the ghostly ice, they had things in hand to try and hack away at the ice trapping them in place.

“Danyal” The pain in his twin's voice has him turning in that direction; his brother was there. For how well they could read each other in childhood Danny had no clue what his brother was thinking now. His twice dead brother, back to only die again at his feet. “Are you destabilizing? Why were you sent here? What does Mother want?”

“What?” Danny can’t help the laugh that bursts out of him, even if it hurts, it seems his ice kept his organs in place while he tumbled through his hastily made portal. He must've lost consciousness at some point though; his ice seems to have melted to leaving him fully exposed. “That bitch- She has nothing to do with this- wait. You think-” Danny laughs even harder until he can’t breathe and he’s hacking and spitting up more ectoplasm. He’s pulled more fully against the warm body behind him, his head lulls-oh it’s Nightwing, the blatant concern radiating from the man stings Danny’s eyes and a few tears scatter down his face.

“I’m not a clone Dami, I didn’t even know you weren’t with the League anymore." Danny's speech slurs more the harder he tries to piece sentences together, "I'm sorry I don't know how I ended up here.” Danny is growing quieter the longer he talks- can feel his life draining onto the floor and there’s panic in the air now, Batman had sprung up next to Damian's side. Seemed to say something to Damian before he retreated slightly. Batman was hovering ready to interfere but unsure in what actions needed to take place.

Damian is staring at him intently, looking to match his scars to the one's he remembers. He taps his fingers insistently on Danny's cheek and Danny doesn't fight looking back at him. The fingers linger against the scar hidden behind his hair next to his ear, traces the edges. Damian was the one to give it to him, a training error. He had looked at Danny similarly to how he was now. Fear, regret, panic. Words are being said, they blend together, warp, so Danny just hums in response. Everything is more distant now. Danny's own fear floating out of reach. He knows death intimately, he's not afraid to greet her a third time.

The words became frantic as he struggles to stay awake, and someone was talking again. “-ood to see you though- no tss okay no pain.. mma be cold soon-" Oh. That's Danny. The face he has ached to see for years fills his vision. The shade of green he could never replace. Danny was picked up and hustled out a door into the by Nightwing while a harsh discussion flew over his head. They were in some sort of vehicle now, the door shutting causes silence to blanket the group. His head is in Damian's lap, and it takes a second, but Danny realizes Damian is carting his fingers through his greasy hair. His other hand was holding Danny's, playing with his fingers like he did as children. Danny's vision fills with tears and spills down his face.

"Danyal? Can you hear me?" Damian calls his attention softly, his sweet, sweet brother tries to keep the concern out of his voice, off his face. Once he sees Danny focus on him a trembling smile makes its home on Damian's face. His domino mask is gone, Danny drinks in the unobscured view of his brother. "We'll be back to the Cave shortly, Alfred will attend to you, then you're going to tell me exactly how this happened so I can make sure it never does again." Danny can tell Damian is scared, the minute tremble in his petting only confirmed it. Danny let a smile tug at his lips too, "It's gonna be okay Dami" Danny slurred, he hears Damian insisting they were almost home.

Home with Damian. That was a fool's dream, just out of reach. Danny never indulged in the idea; he wouldn't put Dami in danger by reappearing. But- Danny was with him now, a twitch of his fingers against Damian's proves it. Danny went limp as the Batmobile skidded into the Cave, Damian was a silent statue watching Alfred take his brother away from him. Batman saddled up next to him- Damian should shower and change, whatever it was that changed his brother was making his skin itch- but he couldn't move. His baby brother was in there, dying, again.

"Damian, chum... what was all that?" Damian ignores his eyes itching as tears built, he clears his throat to report- reporting was vital with their nighttime activities, Father needed information to help Danny. He couldn't take his eyes of the little glowing red 'In Use' sign above the surgery door though.

Damian cuts a glance at the man next to him, more Bat than Father at the moment. "Once Danyal is stable, I will give you an explanation Father."

~~~~

I thought of a name, added it to the tags, I'll add a link to the next post if I write one, will tag future posts with 'Keeping It Close To The Chest' as well

much love

~Ren

#dc x dp #dpxdc #dp x dc crossover #danny and damian are twins #danny phantom #danny fenton #damian wayne #dick grayson #bruce wayne #tim drake #human experimentation #Scientific experimentation #vivisection #Danny whump #clones #nightwing #red robin #batman #alfred pennyworth #batfam #batfamily #batpham #on the run #injuries #ras al ghul #the league of assassins #talia al ghul #the joker #he's there briefly lol #like one second

[cordeliawhohung]

Sun Bleached Flies - Part 1

Simon "Ghost" Riley x fem!Reader - part ten of "soft spot"

Healing never comes as fast and easy as you want it to, but you try and adjust to your new life as best as you can. The thing is, there is no going back, there is only going forward, no matter how much you wished it was otherwise.

warnings: PTSD, angst, minor comfort, panic and anxiety attacks, spook and simon are going through it.

wc: 6.6k

A gentle breeze danced through the open window of his therapist’s office, bringing the scent of spring with it.

Moist grass, a hint of rain, freshly bloomed flowers; all hints of something new being born. Except this wasn’t new for Simon. Sitting in an overly calm and quiet room in a chair that was too soft as a man who looked too ancient for this earth flipped through notes of their previous sessions. 

This wasn’t Simon’s first time in therapy, and he was certain it wouldn’t be his last. After everything he had endured over the winter, he was required to attend sessions before he would be allowed to return back to active duty. He had only started a few weeks ago, as most of his energy and time had gone into taking care of you, but once you were well enough to go back to work, well, it was time to take care of himself. 

“How was your week, lieutenant?” the man spoke up after finally putting his notes down. His name was Gus, and was ex-military. Or, at least Simon assumed he was, judging by the deep and long wrinkled scars that littered his face and the unceremonious use of his rank. “Anything new?” 

“It was alright,” he answered bluntly. He was never quite good with the awkward small talk that came with therapy. Something about how he was supposed to bare his darkest secrets just to talk about the weather was unnerving. “Spook started physical therapy this week.” 

Usually, Simon never used that nickname Johnny coined for you, but ever since you were taken, he felt as if he couldn’t use your real name. That sharing anything about you was forbidden. Or maybe he was just being selfish, wanting to keep you, even your name, all to himself. 

“At least she’s in some sort of therapy,” Gus said dryly. “She still refusing counseling?” 

He nodded solemnly. “Says she doesn’t think she can talk about it yet.” 

Gus grunted a little as he sat forward in his chair. A pair of frail and shaky hands reached up to remove the oversized glasses on his face before he settled his foggy eyes back on Simon. “Does she talk about it with you?” 

“Tries,” he responded sourly. “She used to talk so much about everything; everything except for whatever was hurtin’ her. Always thought she’d tell me eventually, whenever she was ready. But after this shit? I’m fuckin’ lucky to get anything out of her. Even the good stuff.” 

Instead of prompting him with another question, Gus stayed quiet as he stared at Simon, and he knew what it meant. That man must have been in the business of fixing broken soldiers for quite some time because it never took him long to figure out what was bothering him. Always struck gold on the first shovelful of dirt. Might as well make things easy and give up the rest. 

“Everything that I’ve learned about her past I’ve had to piece together myself,” Simon explained. “Her moms passing she told me herself, but I know her previous partner was a right piece of shit. Judging by the way she hardly ever talks about her father, he probably was no better. She hasn’t told me anything about when she was taken, or what they did to her. There’s some stuff I can figure out. God, there was fuckin’ photographic proof on the damn floor.” He paused for a moment and shook his head as if trying to get his thoughts back in order. “She tries but then just shuts down and I… fuck, I dunno.” 

“And what have you told her?” Gus asked as he leaned back in his chair. 

Eyebrows drawing together and cheeks scrunching under his mask, Simon tilted his head to the side. “What?” 

“I mean, what have you told her? About your past, or your family? Are you making her play the same guessing games?” Gus pressed. 

A lump formed in Simon’s throat so thick he thought he would choke on it. He wanted to say that sharing his past was different. How was he supposed to talk about the torture he endured, the hook tearing through his ribs, the slaughter of his family? How their deaths were pinned on him, and he burnt away the evidence of them; what would you say to that? Or if you knew about his revenge, how he traversed a jungle just to kill a man? 

He grimaced. Hadn’t you already seen his revenge? 

“You’ve been pretty open with me so far, lieutenant, and that’s a lot more than I can say for most of the men I see in here,” Gus continued, “so tell me; what is it that you’re really afraid of?” 

Really, therapy wasn’t all too different from being interrogated. In both circumstances, there was someone trying to poke and prod around inside of his head. And in both circumstances, it was never fun when they poked the right spot. 

“I don’t want her to think I’m like them,” he finally admitted. 

“Her abductors?” Gus clarified. “Why would she think that?”

“I broke a man's arm and shot him as I had him pinned to the ground. Right in front of her,” Simon explained as if he saw Bukin dying all over again. Heard the bone snap and the crunching sound of his flesh grinding underneath his boot. Watched as his head jumped dully against the ground as the bullet tore through his skill. 

“You saved her life,” Gus countered. 

“I was violent,” he spat. 

“So were they.”

“I’m supposed to be better than them.”

“If you were better than them, she’d be dead, son.” 

Silence. The breeze continued to drift through the open window, attempting to kiss Simon’s flesh through his clothes, too kind for him to be deserving of it. He continued to stare through the old man as he waited for him to explain himself. 

“You brought her home alive. You know better than anyone that being soft comes with consequences. Some good, some bad. Be violent, be a monster; be Ghost in the moments when you’re doing your job. When you’re protecting the ones you love.” Throughout his last few weeks of therapy, Simon hadn’t heard the old man speak with such conviction until that moment. Like the man spoke from experience. “Be soft when you’re with her. Share the stuff that hurts. It sounds like you’re the closest person she has. Certainly the strongest. How is she supposed to be vulnerable with you when you’re the one who’s scared?” 

The thing Simon hated the most about therapy was hearing things he already knew but was trying to ignore. Everything would have been so much easier had he let you ramble that night the oxycodone had scrambled your brain. But it was his fault things had gotten that way in the first place. That picture of you that he kept despite his better judgment, leading Bukin right to your door; that was his fault. Selfish of him to hope that you’d be the one vulnerable first as if he didn’t have something to atone for.

Simon let out a heavy sigh as he looked down at his hands. The old man was right, and it was frustrating. “Christ,” he muttered. 

“Start with the small stuff. You don’t have to air everything out all at once. Actually, it would be better if you didn’t. Don’t want to overwhelm the poor girl,” Gus assured him. “Remember, she’s a civilian. She didn’t have the resources and training that you did going into that.” 

He didn’t spend much longer in that office before Gus sent him away to do his homework: figure out a memory to share with you. Sounded easy enough, but when he had spent countless years keeping things to himself so as to keep others safe, it was near painful. But he tried his best to think of something as he made his way back to the apartment. 

You weren’t there when he got home. Not that he had expected you to be, though it still felt wrong. As soon as your wound was no longer needing constant attention, you instantly hopped back into work. He tried to dissuade you from doing so, saying that he’d still have more than enough money to pay for everything, but you wouldn’t hear any of it. Claimed you were tired of being locked up in the apartment all day, even if he was there with you. Though it worried him, he couldn’t blame you, not after everything that had happened there. Every now and then he still found a small, green bead somewhere on the living room floor. 

A sigh left him as he stood in the entryway, staring at Boo who watched him curiously from the couch. The window had been left cracked open, and it looked like the little guy had been enjoying some fresh air. Simon tried to tell you that leaving the blinds open was just asking for someone to snitch that you had a cat in the apartment. You had retorted by saying boarded up windows made for a shitty home. 

“Fuckin’ hell,” he mumbled to himself. 

This was going to be a pain in his ass. 

✦•······················•✦•······················•✦

“This guy is getting on my fucking nerves.” 

That was the fucking understatement of the year. Méabh lazily leaned against your desk as she glared over at the new branch manager they had hired during your absence. His name was Jace, and he liked to spend his time at work micromanaging all of his employees, including Cheryl, who was able to wire money with her eyes closed after so many years in the business. The poor woman looked like she was one more annoying comment from smacking the overbearing manager. 

“He told me I didn’t ask enough security questions on the last transfer I did as if I didn’t ask all the ones that popped up on the screen,” Méabh continued in a droning grumble. “I wish Anna was still here. She did her job and wasn’t a complete cunt about it.” 

“Just be glad that you only work part time,” you teased while trying to focus on your paperwork. 

“Yeah, for now,” Méabh whined. “I’ll be going full time over summer holiday. Means I’ll get to see this prick twice as often.” 

Really, it wasn’t Jace’s hawk-like gaze, or even his annoying nasally voice that got on your nerves. It was his shoes. While most of the girls at the bank wore flats to save themselves from achy feet, Jace wore terribly loud dress shoes. Whenever he walked, it sounded like he wore high heels with the way they clacked on the floor, and with how much he stomped around it was impossible for him to sneak up on anyone. 

“Are you almost done?” Méabh then prompted. “I wanna get out of here.”

“You don’t have to wait for me, you know,” you chuckled. 

“Thought I’d do the noble thing and keep you company. You know, unless you want Jace to read over your paperwork before you submit it,” she retorted with a playful roll of her eyes. 

“How kind of you.” 

Luckily for Méabh, or perhaps the both of you, you had just typed up the finishing touches to your work. Not even a minute later the whirring of your computer died down as you shut it off for the night and stood from your desk. However, you made the mistake of pushing with both your hands, and you winced as a zapping pain shot through your left shoulder. Even after all those months, your wound hadn’t fully healed. 

“You alright?” Méabh asked as you gathered your items. 

“Yeah,” you said, slightly winded. Glancing quickly over at Jace, and poor Cheryl who was still stuck listening to his ramble, you looked back at the young girl before nodding towards the door. “Let’s get out of here.” 

Without saying goodbye, or saving your co-worker, you and Méabh slipped out of the building unnoticed and into the fresh spring air. Or, at least as fresh as it could get in the midst of London. It had been months since you last smelt real fresh air. When had it been, back at the end of August when you and Simon had gone on holiday? With the beautiful seaside and mist that tasted like salt? Or was it…

No. No, that couldn’t be right. 

“Need a ride?” Méabh prompted. 

You pulled your head out of the frigid water, dusted the sand off your knees, and smiled politely as you adjusted the blazer that perfectly complimented your pristine work clothes. You always had a way of bringing yourself back to reality if it meant avoiding an awkward conversation. Always so calm and put together, even with fragments of a bullet still stuck in your body. 

“No, I’ll, uhm, just walk home. Thanks,” you excused as your eyes glanced out at the busy streets ahead. 

Saying goodbye was awkward. Hell, everything was awkward those days. But like you did with all things in your life, you gritted your teeth and bared it before starting your walk home. 

It was strange trying to remember how you used to fit into the world before everything. Sure, you never quite fit in beforehand, squeezing into places too small for you to exist in, but it had become home. But not then. Your edges had become warped, curling in on themselves, retracting into your body. Your piece of the puzzle had shrunk, but everything else stayed the same size, leaving you stuck with a gap that separated you from everyone else. 

You were a watcher; a stranger to the very earth that nourished you. You could hear the seagulls rummaging through a pile of rubbish left beside the bin, and you could see the vibrant valley flowers that took up the window of the florist's shop on your left, but it was… blurry. Fuzzy, like the tingling sensation that plagued your arm every now and then when the blood flow was bad. You tried to focus, do anything to make the imagery around you feel sharper, but the faces of pedestrians were empty, like nobody around you was real, least of all yourself. 

And then you were home. 

It was difficult to tell how long you were standing outside of the door, staring at the empty wood as if it was a mirror. You had just sort of appeared there, like some sort of ghost. Without taking your eyes off of the door, you dug your hand into your bag and blindly felt around for your keys. A part of you couldn’t help but wonder if this was the view Leon had before kidnapping you. Before drugging you and taking you to that fucking basement. 

No. Bukin. Simon told you his last name was Bukin, and you weren’t going to give your dead captor the pleasure of using his first name as if you had been friends. 

Eventually the keys ended up in the lock and you entered the apartment. A heavy aroma of seasoned chicken filled the air around you, and you heard quiet cursing coming from the kitchen. You rounded the corner and were greeted by Simon cooking at the stove and Boo trying his hardest to trip the poor man. The critter stareed up at him with big, begging eyes as he followed your lovers every step. 

“Hey, sweetheart,” he greeted, quickly glancing away from his work to look at you. 

“You two look busy,” you chuckled, tossing your bag onto the counter. 

“I’m busy,” Simon corrected before tossing a playful glare down at the poor cat by his feet. “He’s a menace.” 

Humming, you stood next to Simon and glanced at what he had on the stove. It was pretty common for you to come home from work with dinner already started, if not finished. Simon had become something of a chef since taking care of you, and he had some pasta boiling and some chicken frying. He had started eating a lot more protein and carbs since going back to the gym, attempting to gain back the strength he had lost while captured. 

“He’s just a baby,” you said, reaching a hand towards the hot pan. With careful fingers, you tore off a small bit of the chicken before blowing on it a little to cool it down. Boo had already stretched up to reach up your thigh by the time you had bent down to give it to him. After a few deep sniffs, he eagerly took it in his mouth and ran off. 

“Spoiled rotten, he is,” Simon mumbled. 

“He was being so patient,” you cooed, watching as Boo scarfed down his treat in the corner of the kitchen, as if afraid someone would take it from him. 

“Patient, my arse,” he chuckled. 

A dull beep sounded from the stove, which Simon quickly pressed a button to shut it off. With a twist of the dial, he turned the heat off of one of the burners and you heard the sound of boiling water quiet down before he moved it towards the sink to strain it. As hot steam billowed upwards, you turned your attention towards one of the cabinets where you found yourself reaching up for it. A small stack of china sat on the lowest shelf. You couldn’t even remember the last time you had actually set the table yourself. 

“Don’t worry ‘bout that, sweetheart,” Simon said as he sat the still steaming pot on the counter next to the sink. 

Shooting him a weird look, you continued in your pursuit. “I can handle getting plates, Simon.” 

And you did. Grabbed two plates right off the shelf and held them in your hands as you looked at him as if in a challenge. But you understood why he was still so… skittish. He had spent the last few months doing everything for you. Bathing you, dressing you, making your food; he did it all. It almost felt more vulnerable than bleeding out on cold grass. A burden, that’s what you had become. Just another pet for someone to take care of. And Simon didn’t mind it, you knew that; he never did. Still, it was difficult to rot away in that apartment in good conscience knowing he was caring for someone who more than likely should have been a corpse by the ocean. 

Saying nothing, Simon turned his attention back to his work as you walked towards the dining table. You hadn’t even made it halfway there before something crumbled inside of you. A shooting pain ran up and down your left arm, searing your nerves and burning away your flesh. A tingling numbness settled over your hand and the plates you tried to hold so carefully slipped right through your fingers where they shattered on the ground at your feet with a deafening crash. 

Your gasp was cut off by a short whimper as your hand reached up to press against your old, yet still aggravated wound. You kept the pressure there as if trying to keep yourself from spilling on the floor, and you looked down at the mess you made. 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” you cursed. You pulled your hand away from under your arm and looked at your hand as if expecting blood. 

“You alright?” Simon asked, heavy footsteps trailing across the floor behind you. 

“I’m fine,” you spat, words sharp enough to tear through flesh. 

The footsteps behind you stopped, and it forced you to realize the bite in your tone. It also made you realize how your hand trembled and heart stung as if you were afraid, as if you had been running. In an attempt to calm your nerves, you let out a heavy sigh before looking down at the mess you made. A terrible mosaic of broken glass and a now slightly chipped wooden floor spanned the area around your feet. You had ruined two perfectly good plates, damaged the floor, and you were the one snapping? 

So much like your father. Being angry at the mess when it was your own fault. 

“I’m… fine,” you tried again, softer this time. Empty. “Sorry, I… didn’t mean to…”

When Simon continued to walk towards you, you half expected him to reach for you, and some strange part of you didn’t want him to. Didn’t want his touch. Couldn’t stand it because you knew you didn’t deserve it. Instead, he knelt on the ground next to you, large fingers carefully picking up the bigger pieces of the shattered plates and gathering them into the palm of his hand. 

“You don’t have to clean up my mess,” you said softly, lip trembling as you knelt down next to him to mirror his actions. 

“I know,” he replied simply. He still cleaned anyway. 

Anger was a weird thing for you. It wasn’t often that you felt it without some other emotion accompanying it. Confusion. Frustration. Grief. Shame usually followed shortly after. Truth was, you were angry all the time those days, and it was worse than almost any other emotion you could have experienced. When you had first started your road to recovery, you felt numb, and when you didn’t feel numb you felt terrified. A part of you wished you were still in that stage because you could at least explain why you felt that way. Some sort of self preservation mode your body had forced itself into in an attempt to smother the trauma you had endured over several long weeks. The anger that hid itself away in your chest was something you couldn’t explain. You didn’t know why it was there, but you wished it wasn’t. 

So you stayed silent as you assisted Simon in cleaning up the shattered plates. It had remained mostly in several large chunks, but there were smaller, more fine pieces that you’d have to use a broom for. You hated that your hands shook for each piece you reached out for. 

“I broke one of my mum’s vases when I was a kid,” Simon said unprompted. You found yourself pausing. As you held what pieces you had gathered in your hand, you glanced over at him, and he must have felt your gaze because his eyes flickered to you before focusing back on his work. “Was an accident. Kickin’ around a football in the living room when she told me not to. I tried to hide it from her until I could fix it, but she knew immediately it was missing.”

“Was she mad?” you asked. 

It felt… odd. Strange. Nice. In all the years you had been with Simon, neither of you had really talked about your pasts. All you had gotten or shared were fragments. And there he was, picking up your mess, showing some raw part of himself you had never seen before. 

“Upset, but not mad. She never got mad, even when she should have,” he replied, voice unwavering. 

A thick lump had formed in your throat that was difficult to swallow. Something fuzzy tingled in the back of your mind, like something was trying to rip a chunk of flesh out of you; a memory. Teeth sinking into the inside of your cheek, you swallowed again before speaking. 

“My… father broke a lot of plates when I was younger,” you admitted, staring down at the chunks of china in your hands. “Usually to get a reaction out of my mom. They were her mother’s, my grandmother’s, plates. Eventually she had to end up buying plastic plates when he had smashed them all, but that didn’t stop him from throwing them. He was always…”

So predictable. 

Hadn’t you just said that not too long ago? After the shattering of a bowl? More broken china to stain the ground, the carpet, in that basement. You remembered his glare, Erik’s glare - Adakskin - when you told him he was predictable. And you were right. He had done everything you knew he would. A broken dish was always followed by pain. It didn’t matter. It never did. A broken dish was always followed by pain, even if you were the one breaking it. 

Eyes watering, you coughed a little as a sharp tickle formed in your throat. Simon, whose eyes had been on you, glanced over his shoulder to see a fair bit of thick steam and light smoke rising out of the pan he had been cooking chicken in. Cursing, he stood to his feet and quickly tossed the pieces of china he had gathered into the trash before moving the pan off the heat. 

And just like that, you were back. Still kneeling, still cleaning, still quiet. Your life had become nothing but a blur of time; living in the past and present at the same time. Even at work, at home, with Simon, the past held onto you so violently you weren’t sure you would ever be able to shake it off. You tried telling yourself you could - that you would - but once again you were cleaning up a broken plate. Always cleaning but never clean. 

“Hope you like crispy chicken,” Simon sighed. Spatula in hand, he attempted to scrape the burnt meat off of the pan. 

Once you ensured every single shard had been picked up, you turned your attention towards the kitchen for a split moment. You attempted a smile, but it felt too big on your face, so you got rid of it the moment it formed. 

“I’m gonna change out of my work clothes,” you said instead, crossing through the kitchen to head towards the bedroom. “I’ll, uh… I’ll let you get the plates this time.” 

He didn’t say anything in response as you vanished down the hallway, but he kept his eyes on you. His lips tightened into a thin line for a moment before relaxing once more and turning his attention back to dinner. He knew this stage of healing was going to be the hardest. The body had a way of mending wounds that the mind just couldn’t mimic with trauma. That conversation had been the most he was able to get out of you in months, and you still looked terrified. 

✦•······················•✦•······················•✦

It had been years since Simon had last smoked a cigarette. He used to smoke regularly when he first joined up, especially more so after his family was killed. It was a good way to keep himself awake on missions, or for avoiding nightmares. He quit when the withdrawal symptoms got bad and he had difficulty with cardio during PT. Now he smoked for the alleviation of stress, even if it only lasted for a moment. Or maybe he did it just to keep his hands moving. No matter the reason, it didn’t change the smoke curling in his lungs as he took drag after drag. 

Something had been on his mind since you dropped those plates at dinner the previous night. The empty look in your eyes haunted him almost as bad as the shaking of your hands. It was getting worse. Or, at least, it wasn’t getting better, and that terrified him. He didn’t know what to do to help you short of dragging you off to some therapist, which he knew wouldn’t do any good. Something was building. Something was going to burst, and he didn’t know when, but the pressure was there and there was nothing he could do about it. 

So there he stood, off in some secluded area on base, smoking his cigarette with a jaw so tense there were indentations of his teeth on the filter. It didn’t take him long to finish it, and when it had been stomped into the ground with the heel of his boot, he was half tempted to smoke another. Keeping the pack in his pocket, he released a heavy sigh before marching back towards the building that housed his office. 

Avoiding as many people in the halls as he could, he quickly unlocked the door and shut it as soon as he slipped inside. The air felt stale, like no one had entered to clean his space in his absence, which was probably for the best anyway. He flicked the light on, and it struggled to fill the room, being dimmer than he remembered it being, but it was enough for the moment. With a press of a button, his computer started to whirr to life, and he sat in his chair as he waited for it to boot up. It had great difficulty starting, and he could hear his SSD grind and whine after being shut off for so many months. 

Eventually the monitor lit up, and Simon wasted no time logging in before opening his browser. The last time he had used this computer he had spent all his time and energy searching through houses and apartments and hotel rooms in search of where you were being held. Now, he found himself looking at houses and apartments again, but for a different reason. 

He needed to get you out of there; out of the apartment the two of you had been staying in. Too many bad memories stained the walls for either of you to do any sort of healing. And so he searched and searched and found his frustration growing. A one bedroom apartment for 3,000 a month? Christ, the housing in that fucking city was astronomically expensive, and sure he could afford it, but for a single damn room? 

So he kept searching. It was difficult trying to find someplace that wasn’t halfway across the city from base that was also still close to your work. He’d hate for you to have to take the tube alone, or walk too far alone at night in the city, especially dressed as fancy as bankers usually were. Of course there was always housing on base, but he wouldn’t be able to bring you with because the two of you weren’t married. 

Your wife; they are relocating her.

Even after all that time he could see that woman clearly, whoever she had been, sitting on the floor of the room you were supposed to be in. At the time he tried to shake off the way that statement made him feel. Behind the anger, frustration, and fear, there was something else there. Wife. He had liked the term. He wished it was true. Then he remembered the photos in front of her. Your face; your gorgeous face, trapped in that Polaroid. The tears and blood that stained your cheeks and lips, the way an unforgiving hand gripped your jaw, forcing you to look at the lens. 

Wife. He wanted that, craved it. But that wasn’t the time, not after everything that had happened. 

Simon wasn’t brought out of his thoughts until someone knocked on his door, where he found himself glaring at the big hunk of wood. He hadn’t been there in months, and most people should have known that, so why was someone trying to bother him? Still, he gave them a gruff order to come in and he was quickly greeted by Johnny’s wide eyed expression. 

“You’re back?” Johnny asked breathlessly as he shut the door behind him. 

Well, at least out of everyone that it could have been, it was him. 

“Not yet,” he replied simply. His chair squeaked as he leaned back in it in an attempt to relax some. He tried to make a mental reminder to use some WD-40 on it later. “How’d you know I was here?” 

Johnny used his thumb to point over his shoulder at the door behind him. “Was on my way to storage to put some files away,” he explained simply, simultaneously shaking the manilla folder in his hand. “Walked by and saw the light peeking from under the door. Figured someone was cleaning, but knocked just in case.” He took a few cautious steps forward, as if approaching a skittish cat. “How’s everything?”

Simon wasn’t quite sure how to answer that question. Things certainly weren’t great, but they could be worse. For example, you could be dead, or still hospitalized. But saying things were great was far from the truth, and he wasn’t exactly keen on explaining every little issue that had been plaguing him as of late. 

“It’s an adjustment,” he admitted instead, “but we’re getting there.”

Johnny nodded, getting even closer to his lieutenant. “Spook doin’ alright, then?” 

Even after all that time, Simon still didn’t like talking about you with other people, even if it was Johnny. Hell, even talking about you to his therapist made him feel tense. But he couldn’t hold onto you like that forever, keeping you caged in the safeness of his arms where you were supposed to be safe. And he had to come to the realization that his sergeant deserved to know. Simon had been there the entire time; through the hospital, through your healing. The last time Johnny had seen you, you were bleeding out on your way to the nearest hospital. 

“She’s back to work. Started physical therapy this week, too,” Simon explained, though he wasn’t sure how much more he could say. 

That small bit of information seemed to mean the whole world to Johnny, and his face lit up. “Good, that’s good! Glad she’s doin’ better.” Then, his eyes darted to the monitor. He caught sight of the rental listings lined up on the screen, as well as their crazy high prices. “Searchin’ for a new home?”

Simon’s attention turned back to the computer for a moment where he let a heavy sigh escape him. “Yeah. Figured it was about time I got her out of there. The apartment. Wanted to get her out sooner, but couldn’t when she was still hurt.”

“It woulda been a lot for her to adjust to at once,” Johnny agreed. 

Things fell silent for a moment as both men lost themselves in their thoughts, but only for a short moment before Johnny adjusted the folder in his hand. 

“Well, I’ll let you continue searching,” he excused himself as he took a step back. “Gotta get this to storage eventually.” 

Simon was one second away from wishing the man well before watching him leave his office, but something stopped him. He knew that if he was alone again, his thoughts would go right back to where they were before. That woman in the room. Pictures of you on the floor. The blood. The Polaroids. That fucking hand that gripped your face - the hand that had no fucking right to touch you. Those goddamn pictures. 

“I’ll come with,” Simon said, already shutting his computer down. 

Eyebrows drawing together, Johnny tilted his head to the side as he paused his retreat. “You sure?” 

There was no room for argument. Everything in his office was quickly shut down and put away, and the two men walked through the halls of the building. There were a few familiar faces that threw Simon odd glances, as if surprised to see him there, or perhaps surprised he was still alive. His name was Ghost for a reason. 

Neither man said anything to one another until they reached the storage room. Shelves lined up like dominos and spanned all the way to the back wall where an industrial sized paper shredder sat. Large white cardboard boxes rested on the shelves with simple flip open tops, each labeled with either a case or date of some sort. Painfully white lights washed out the entire room, causing Johnny to squint for a moment before his eyes adjusted. 

“Hate sorting through this shit,” he muttered as he began to wander through the aisles. 

Simon stood in the doorway for a moment, breathing in the scent of old paper and rotting ink. Usually he never had to go into that room; whatever paperwork that he did have that would go there he’d make someone else’s problem. Even then, he found himself searching, eyes scanning the labels on the boxes. Locations, names, dates, everything. Johnny caught onto his search, and watched him for a moment with careful eyes, but still refused to say anything. 

“Aye, here we are,” Johnny sighed as he flipped the lid off of one of the boxes. He unceremoniously tossed the file into it before shutting it once again. “Right. Ready to get outta here?” 

But when he turned to Simon, he saw the man’s attention was caught by one of the boxes. Salthouse | 8, December. The lid was already opened, and Simon stared blankly into it as if he wasn’t sure where to start. 

“Ghost?” Johnny said softly. 

Simon’s hands dove into the box decisively where his fingers grabbed onto a small, orange envelope. There was a slight thickness to it, like something had to be shoved in there to fit properly, or too many things had been stacked and folded on top of one another. He wasted no time undoing the brass clasp at the top and pouring the contents into his hand. 

A plastic bag full of Polaroids tumbled out of the envelope, and Simon and Johnny were met with the image of your face. Beaten, irritated, and bloody, it was a different image than what they had seen last time, like whoever had collected it shuffled through the images in morbid curiosity. You laid on the ground on your back, no hand gripping your face, but still very obviously out of it. Passed out, probably, or at least on the verge of consciousness. 

He wasn’t prepared for the anger that bubbled up inside of him upon setting eyes on those images again. So many regrets, things that he should have done differently. He should have been stronger, faster, deadlier. Should have made Bukin and Adakskin pay for everything they had done to you with more than just a bullet to the head. Should have ripped up that picture of you the moment he got the chance. 

“Simon,” Johnny said again. It was rare that the man ever used his lieutenants real name, but it left him before he was able to stop it. 

Ignoring him, Simon tossed the orange envelope back into the box before ripping open the plastic bag, nearly scattering the photos all over the ground. He gathered them up into his hands before marching off towards the back of the room, boots hitting heavy against the floor. 

“What’re you doing?” Johnny asked, voice a bit more firm. 

“No one needs to see these,” Simon responded within an instant. “Everyone knows what happened to her. No one needs to see her like this.” 

He approached the shredder that sat against the back wall of the room. It was a large thing, made for shredding stacks of paper all at once with teeth that could eat an entire hand within an instant. A few Polaroids wouldn’t be an issue at all. The thing was, Johnny couldn’t even argue with Simon, because he felt the exact same way. So he stood there and watched as Simon powered on the shredder, gears whirring and whining. 

Without remorse, Simon tossed the photos into the shredder and watched as the metal tore them to shreds with ease. Plastic crinkled and cracked until they were all eaten up and spat out into the bag that stored all the other scraps it had thrown up. The thing was, Simon was never very good at fixing things. No matter how hard he tried to be, he always ended up breaking things. His mother’s vase or a man's arm. He could pull a trigger and end someone’s life and yet he felt something convulsing inside of him at the thought of opening himself to you. 

But this? This felt right. Destroying those pictures. There was enough evidence on your body and in your mind as it was. He tried so hard to be something else, anything else; but in the end, Simon was a brutal man whose hands were only capable of violence; might as well put them to good use.

tags: @ghostlythots @archonsabyss @crowbird @beware-my-thorns @koko-1025 @nessaasstuff @escapefromrealitysm @babygirl-riley @theloneshadow24 @ashableketchup @violet-19999 @paigetaylor628 @curlygirls-world @gaebestie @datlilwrench @ryisghost @suffering-and-happy-about-it @achelois-is-here

find my taglist here

#simon riley x reader #ghost x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #soft spot #f!reader

[moonlit-positivity]

Healing & Emotional Work Masterlist✨

Hi, my name is Stinky & here's a post introducing myself & my blog✨

Listed below are all individual posts that I have written about my own journey with healing from an abusive childhood✨

As always, take what you like & leave what you don't ✨

Happy healing ☺️

Resources & Coping Skills✨

New To Mental Health? Please Start Here!

How To Find The Right Therapist For You

"Trauma Informed" Therapy vs Other Types of Therapy

What is a Boundary?

How to Recognize When You Need To Set A Boundary

Coping with Flashbacks & Panic Attacks & Overwhelming Feelings

An Introduction to Emotional Regulation

What is Emotional Regulation & Why it's Important (Video)

What is Attachment Theory & Why it's Important (video)

What The Actual Fuck is "Radical Acceptance" and Why Is It So Goddamn Hard (video)

Managing Suicidal Thoughts (shorthand edition)

Tips for Navigating A Crisis Situation

✨Journaling✨: What To Do When You Just Can't Write It Out

How To Stay Organized & Make Your Appointments Through Long Term Dissociation Fogs

An Introduction to Healthy Sexual Boundaries

Feeling 🤬 Destructive? 😤 Healthier Activities for Destructive Tendencies

How to Set Better Goals For Yourself

Facts About Therapy You Might Not Know

Recognizing Abuse: What is Generational Trauma? (Video)

Recognizing Abuse: Trauma Bonding (no, this doesn't mean you bonding with your homies about the same types of trauma y'all share)

Recognizing Abuse: Emotional Takeovers 

Recognizing Abuse: Emotional Abuse

Recognizing Abuse: Love vs Control vs Obsession

Recognizing Abuse: Parentification

Recognizing Abuse: Triangulation

Effects of Abuse: PTSD Hypervigilance

Effects of Abuse: Redefining Respect After You've Been Abused

Effects of CSA & SA That Nobody Ever Talks About

Effects of Trauma That Never Get Acknowledged Out Loud 

Healing Thoughts: Understanding Grounding & Dissociation on a Deeper Level

Healing Thoughts: How to actually feel ur feelings 

Healing Thoughts: How to tolerate being alone with your thoughts

Healing Thoughts: When showering & hygiene is too hard

What the heck is emotional work?✨

Healthier ways to communicate

The root of all healing work (tldr it's ur childhood 🎉)

Attachment theory healing (codependency, enmeshment, & BPD FP attachment)

Attachment & abandonment wounds (BPD FP)

Three short communication tips that can greatly improve your interpersonal relationships

Rejection Sensitivity, Perfectionism, & Abandonment Issues

Am I Being Manipulative? A Checklist of Recognizing Manipulative Behaviors and Taking Accountability

Get To Know The Healing Language ✨

In order to heal you must grieve

What does it mean to "make space" for yourself?

What is "inner child healing"?

How to be kinder with yourself

Unlearn what they taught you

Reframe success & failure (if you have a fear of failure then this one is for you ❤️‍🩹)

Reframe your anger

Reframe the process of moving on

Focus on what you can control

Affirmations & things you need to hear (just trust me)✨

affirmations for reclaiming your voice around authority figures

affirmations for RSD

affirmations for feeling ur feelings

affirmations for self forgiveness

affirmations for healing from childhood trauma

affirmations for healing codependency & attachment (BPD FP)

things I wish I knew before I started healing (part 1)

things I wish I knew before I started healing (part 2)

things I learned while healing

things your inner child needs to hear

you are normal

slow down and take a deep breath

you can move now. you are safe.

I believe you

yes it was that bad

your anger is valid

you need to hear this (trust me)

How to start healing? Start with the truth✨

the very first hard reality you need to face 

the second hard reality that's gonna hit you like a train 

the third and worst hard reality there is

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Looking forward to updating the list as we grow 🪴

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

#recovery #ptsd #trauma #mental health #boundaries #healing #bpd #communication #relationships #personal growth #growth #advice #self love #self esteem #self work #emotional work #anger #addiction #alcoholism #attachment #codependency

[diacripticcomplex]

My absolute favorite DL characters in no particular order:

🌸 YUI KOMORI 🌸

Never understood the hate towards Yui. Again the anime is a promo for the game and it did not do her character justice at all. The prequel and sequels for some of the mangas did her character justice. She’s a very kind and compassionate person, she’s HUMAN and grew up in a church, she’s a soft girl who doesn’t like violence so y’all can only imagine what this girl has to go thru meeting a bunch of bloody thirsty horny vampire boys, who have severe parental issues and a bunch of other abusive behavioral problems, but she is very patient with each and every brother in all the routes and I love that about her, she’d be a really good therapist too lmao. She’s an Angel, must be protected at all times. I won’t tolerate any Yui hate on this blog.

❤️‍🔥 AYATO SAKAMAKI ❤️‍🔥

Poster boy for the entire franchise. A lot of people find him to be annoying, he is annoying and we love his Aries self for that. While Ayato is a menace to society he’s got a good side to him as well and for the most part knows right from wrong, more than some of the fandom gives him credit for. I also really like his character design, he kinda looks like a mean little bat. They give him a lot of cute and playful moments with Yui and I think that’s beautiful especially in a dark themed game series, they have serious moments but also a lot of light hearted moments and I think that’s important to lighten up the mood sometimes.

👨‍🌾 YUMA MUKAMI👨‍🌾

First off, I absolutely love his character design, the messy long hair and he’s a giant too plus they gave him realistic human hair and eyes to show that he used to be human, maybe I’m thinking too deep on it idk. I absolutely love the identity crisis he had due to his amnesia and the connection with Shu, it brought that twin flame connection back, I love those best friend tropes a lot, his voice actor also is Mako from Free! So I have no choice but to Stan Yuma. Yuma also has a lot more self awareness then the rest of his adoptive brothers and thinks ahead due to his past experiences, he knows that he’s a vampire now but still has a garden for food and has sugar cubes with him at all times, he uses his past experiences and acknowledges that it happened then moves forward he doesn’t dwell on it too much.

🔪AZUSA MUKAMI🔪

He’s a lil creepy, and socially awkward at times but he’s just so relatable sometimes. He’s very soft spoken and he a lil wild with his pain tolerance and some of the out of pocket shit that he says, but I think he’s such a sweetheart, protect him at all costs as well, even his brothers know to protect him at all costs.

🎻 SHU SAKAMAKI 🎻

Shu will forever be my favorite DL boy, he doesn’t like doing anything but can do everything and do it perfectly too. He has severe ptsd, depression, and detachment issues. No you can’t fix him even Yui realizes this and just accepts him for who he is because that’s the only way it’ll work. He’s also hilarious without even trying to be, he says some mean shit at times but it’s so unhinged like damn Shu you don’t have the energy to eat, shower, wipe your ass but you got the energy to completely disrespect all your siblings with a few words. Also his beef with Reiji is somewhat familiar grounds especially if you have a sibling that is constantly irritating your soul. I always felt like I could relate to Shu the most due to him having a hard time getting close to people after losing his best friend, he can’t just get over it either, I don’t like when people would say “oh it happened a long time ago” yes it did but everyone heals at their own pace and it’s important to acknowledge that as well.

#diabolik lovers #diabolik boys #yui komori #shu sakamaki #dialovers #ayato sakamaki #diabolik brothers #yuma mukami #diahell #azusa mukami #favorite characters

[levmada]

How do you think Levi would handle his PTSD/symptoms during post!war Marley days? Like he definitely takes up doing his tea shop and I bet gardening or painting maybe but moreso about small stuff like seeing something mundane and it just triggers him. Having tinnitus or really bad knee/hand pain, how does he cope in small ways? I could see him even take up hammocking and reading just listening to birds and chilling in nature.

Also, do you think that he ever misses using ODM gear? The easy gilding through trees and buildings, being able to almost like fly? There's this certain point where when you master a skill with such fluidity that it becomes a second nature. Do you think that he misses that zen feeling?

sheeppp i’m so so so sorry this took me literal months to reply to😭i hope it was worth it! i had so much to say,,,

so: post-war levi headcanons

//su1cidality (idk if it’s allowed to use The Whole Word or not), detailed ptsd descriptions, internalized ableism |

wc: ~2k

just like how keeping his promise only finally gave room for Levi to feel the grief surrounding Erwin’s death, the end of the Titans would be the same, but much worse. yes, the dream all the Scouts fought for—a world without walls and without Titans—was realized… but absolutely no one who Levi knew before discovering the basement was alive to see it with him. he's the only one left to remember all of it, especially the trauma, and that's the loneliest feeling in the world.

• despite ultimate victory, at an individual level, he'd feel... really lost, and broken of course. he can no longer walk, let alone fight for anything, but he doesn't have anything left to fight for anyway!! (Levi definitely considers his duty completed, not having a part in what the former 104th is doing.)

so the first year would be very very very hard on him. assumably he was inpatient in a hospital for sometime for his injuries and mandatory physical therapy, and after that he realistically can’t live on his own (hence Gabi and Falco).

but,, Levi would have a hard time accepting being taken care of just on principle. the loneliness would be crippling. with every bit of self worth he ever had being built on how useful he is, ironically i think the end of the war would put him at rock bottom for a time.

• this is not at all to mention his mental scarring in general. his convictions about his duty had been only as strong as his ability to suppress his weaknesses. the foundations of his life had been built on is always moving forward with no regrets, and that's just a breeding ground for suppressed grief and guilt. just because Levi lived by it didn't make it healthy for him in the long run, and now all the sudden he HAS no duty, and nothing to move forward past.

so now, what, three or four decades worth of issues?—have an opportunity to take root.

there are nightmares of course, the usual insomnia, and heaps of post-traumatic stress; coming to terms with how worthless he thought and thinks of himself, especially now; the frustration and hatred directed towards his new disabilities; but above all, his suppressed emotions.

he over-regulated his emotions for sooo long that it's become instinctive to mask around anyone so no one would have the slightest idea that he's struggling at all. in order to maintain his strength, doing his duty, his fighting ability, everything—that's what he did, and not only is he so damn good at it that he's deluded even himself into believing he’s infallible, but it's instinctive and automatic for him. and healing from a coping mechanism like that completely, surrounded by a sea of severe psychopathology, is nearly impossible.

he must have compartmentalized or blocked out many many events and traumatic memories, and of course, the more often you do that, the heavier the feelings, the more traumatic the memories, the bigger the breakdown later. at some point he has a breakdown and shatters to pieces worse than he has in his whole fucking life.

• he struggles to adjust to change (because as we know Levi never even wore the new uniforms in s4, implying that. along with an interview i vaguely remember confirming that), and desperately needs a routine.

• but despite his loneliness, or maybe because of it, he struggles with relationships. in his mind it's not like he became any more pleasant to be around than he was before, so he doesn’t feel like anyone could deal with or wants his company anyway, besides on obligation. so he would self-sabotage his relationships with Gabi, Falco, Onyakopon or whoever even at the cost of his physical health. Levi neverrrr gave a damn about his own well-being and that gets worse when he’s of no more “use” to anyone, with his existence now a “burden” to his friends. he's useful, or he's nothing.

AGAIN IN LIKE THE FIRST YEAR…

• do i think this at one point snowballed into suicidal ideation of sorts? of sorts. the guilt of not being completely happy, now that it's all over, is prevalent, on top of his worthlessness, on top of tinnitus+his affected vision+using his hands+his worse mobility+chronic pain,,, ironically for a time after the war, his hardest battle is surviving.

• he loathes psychotherapy at its very premise. delving into his feelings with someone who's basically a stranger paid to listen and analyze him?? one of his worst nightmares.

so that's out of the question. but physical therapy is doable for him. such as seeing it as an exercise routine, him disliking his wheelchair, and being given tangible goals to work towards—is good for him. and besides, with the technology and culture of Marley resembling 20th century western Europe/USA, i imagine there's very few resources and little empathy, and more discrimination for people with disabilities. it can't be helped, so he might as well work on physical therapy, and along the way grow a decent self-esteem around that, and his facial scars.

• he finds ways to cope somehow. Levi isn’t an artistic person and i don’t think that changes with retirement. but he enjoys reading fiction and the newspaper, as a distraction and to keep up with what’s going on in the world.

he would absolutely enjoy gardening. cultivating life instead of ending them, being self-sustaining food wise, just the reward of taking care of something living and watching it flourish. gardening is one of his favorite pastimes.

and, eventually, journaling. like i said, Levi would have trouble just accepting that his suffering is valid, let alone coping with it. there is no full recovery, there is no being completely okay for someone who's gone through all he has i think, which is incomprehensible to someone like Levi, who prioritized his strength over every other one of his attributes.

but eventually he gets it into his head (Onyankopon's advice?) that although his closest loved ones and friends are gone, he can’t let who they were be forgotten. yes people like Erwin and Hange would be icons in history, but it’s not enough. Levi is the only person who knows who they really were, and of course those people are very very very dear to him.

so he starts jotting down memories or anecdotes he almost forgot. it would sort of read as a police report or a debrief at first honestly, just a recounting of events with no emotion because it’s hard. memories of them, all of them, are priceless to him, so fond or not, it’s a challenge.

but it becomes therapeutic, and even a crutch. sometimes he writes so fast that he’s not even thinking of the words to put and just writing his stream of consciousness, or loses track of time. at times like that he can find some catharsis.

he enjoys sitting at a park bench (and knowing the importance of routine to Levi, the same one every time) and feeding the birds, and like you said, chilling in nature.

he decides he owes it to his past comrades to see the fruits of their labor they didn’t get to.

• Levi has fond memories of the past, before the basement and their whole world got bigger and more dire. there's something he appreciates about that time, and how simple their goals and enemies were, even though their lives were never carefree or happy. i think Levi would prefer that time of his life the most, being under the sun and sky and with a cause to live and fight for. his reason to live fixated on his duty, and so being a soldier became his reason for being.

and then there’s his pure love of flying on the ODM gear. he was doing it since before he ever even joined the survey corps. probably his first ever real belonging besides a knife, and his first and most longstanding sense of freedom he ever had. Levi never was carefree, but flying was as close as he got. yes. flying is one of the things he misses the most about the past.

• but like i said, and even though it's sad, i think that for someone like Levi and all he's been through, there is no complete peace. that's not realistic.

• his ptsd is severe. at times when the littlest thing could set him off—being irritated or angry—and he has no concrete reason for why. he doesn’t even know who or what he’s angry at. it’s tempting to resent the people around him for not understanding it, and how they’ll never understand what he went through that made him “broken”. being angry that he has to relive some memories through nightmares or flashbacks at seemingly mundane things.

he hates planes (sorry Onyankopon). he hates shower steam or cooking on a stove. sometimes his missing fingers reminds him of Erwin and all the worry that arose when he lost his arm. fireworks or the sounds of explosions in general make him feel dizzy and out of it for a while. he probably sees dead friends and enemies alike in crowds of people. he doesn’t stare into the fireplace because he’ll smell burning flesh. needles whenever he visits the doctor makes him feel panicky.

he has triggers. and when he’s triggered he self-isolates a lot and becomes emotionless. you know, sometimes his sole motivation for getting out of bed is taking care of his garden/his plants, and eating is only worth the strength needed to do that, or to eat so the food he grew himself doesn’t go to waste. besides, he reminds himself that staying in bed is pointless, because getting sleep is never easy.

• and arguably the worst part is, that Levi is so accustomed to suffering it’s unthinkable the type of person he’d be or life he could lead without it. it’s comfortable because it’s familiar, which leads to him almost fetishizing his own sadness out of a sense that he deserves it as punishment, and this carnal need to prove that he’s useless, and should be left alone.

• but of course, he’s too loved for that to happen. he comes to believe his friends of that. and that makes him protective of Gabi and Falco especially—he’s still that same person who will do anything to make his friends’ lives easier or take a load off whenever they need it.

time passing helps, and so does journaling and seeing the kids (Gabi, Falco, honestly the whole 104th is still his kids), but there is no full recovery for someone like Levi. then again, peace is uncomfortable for him anyway, someone whose whole life was a cycle of being on his guard, training and fighting, recovering, and then fighting some more.

but he does find some peace.

• eventually, when it’s finally over for him, the most prevalent feeling i think would be relief. being surrounded by friends or at least with the knowledge that he’s loved. he has lived a life of constant trial and tribulation, most of all grief, but it’s yet another testament to Levi’s strength that despite everything, he is still able to find a way to be happy. it’s the same. you can choose to feel better. every day, you find something to live for. it can be fleeting and easily forgotten… but maybe that’s everything.

as for him, he always holds onto the small things, for the same reason he needs those small things to hold on.

:)

#sorry for getting sappy at the end #levi hc #levi ackerman headcanons #aot headcanons #levi fanfic #levi ackerman hcs #levi fanfiction #levi ackerman fanfiction #aot spoilers #snk spoilers

[softevnstan]

³.⍭ 𝐈𝐭 𝐅𝐞𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞

pairing. bucky barnes x gender netural!reader

summary. you couldn't believe the name that graced the file on your desk for your new patient. james 'bucky' barnes. you'd heard of him - even studied some of his history during college for psychology classes. never would you have imagined he'd be sent to your office, looking for help.

a.n. yeahhh i couldn't do this as just a one time thing. this is going to be a multi-part i write to update every now and again. so for today you have crumbs of what your first session is like. as someone who's been diagnosed with c-ptsd and has a butt-load of trauma, i'm writing bucky's experience in therapy based on my own. that being said i do not condone patient/therapist irl or any of that power balance outside of fiction. gross. that's the only disclaimer for this series tho going forward, i'm not gonna tag that everytime.

edit. part two is here yall

“So, Mr. Barnes, from what I’m understanding, you'd like to make me your primary therapist and discontinue working with Doctor Raynor?” Perhaps if you knew you’d be in this situation, you would’ve mentally prepared yourself a little better for the day when you got up out of bed that morning.

Being a therapist certainly wasn’t without its obstacles, no – It’s a lot to listen to someone else’s problems and just how many callus and evil things happen in the world. It also has its moments where it reminds you just how vile people can be, too. From children all the way to elderly, you’ve seen countless patients. They come back because you’re passionate about your job; Not looking at these people as paychecks but as living, breathing people. And sometimes people just need someone to talk to; there’s no shame in that.

You just never anticipated you’d have a war hero on your office couch, though. That was not on the radar when you were working towards your Master’s Degree. 

James “Bucky” Buchanan Barnes sat across from your beige and brown striped armchair on the couch. He looked lonely in the middle; For a man so broad, it would be impressive how small he could make himself if not for the fact it was simultaneously heart wrenching. Cobalt eyes struggled to meet your gaze from the moment he walked into the office to begin the session. His body looked awfully stiff, and his eyes dark like he hadn’t had a good night’s rest in weeks. Perhaps months.

“Yes.” He answers stiffly, “Please.” At least he’s sure to mind his manners despite the clear discomfort radiating from the soldier across from you. But his quiet and taut demeanor is discouraging: “It’s important that you are comfortable here, Mr. Barnes. Therapy is something that works best when it doesn’t feel forced…” “I am comfortable,” Bucky jumps to correct, earning a slight raise of a brow from you before schooling your expression once more. “Comfortable enough. I’m just new to… this.” The man makes a vague gesture with his hands between the both of you; Aching eyes speaking more than words ever will when Bucky briefly raises them to look at you.

The first step is wanting to heal. Bucky’s already showing initiative by being present - by putting his foot forward to try to find a therapist better suited to him rather than just throwing his hands up after the first dead end. That’s good. You can work with that. 

Your lips curl into a soft, welcoming smile. “Change can be scary, especially when we don’t understand what all is changing or what could come from it. With us working together, though, I can only do as much as you let me. It’s going to be intimidating, and you may not like it, but I want to help you feel better, Mr. Barnes. You deserve to feel better.” Positive reinforcements are always a good thing so long as they’re not condescending or passive aggressive. It’s all in the delivery, you’ve learned. It’s important patients feel comfortable when they’re with you – how else are they expected to be honest, then?

Bucky looks quizzically for a few moments before once more averting his anxious gaze. It made your heart hurt to see a man so beaten down and on edge; it felt so obvious to you, but then again, you were educated on how to find the tells. You could read him like a book right then. Feel everything radiating off of him, almost.

“What kind of things will you do..?” Bucky inquires after a beat.

“Well, I’d like you to start keeping a journal that we could use for our sessions. It’ll help you keep a record of what you’re feeling and we could use it like a workbook – there’d be homework involved, but there’d be nothing I know you can’t handle.”

“Homework?”

You smile, a nod of your head: “Work sheets, sometimes I’ll ask you to read something for me or answer a few questions, sometimes I’ll give you a worksheet you can use when necessary – then the next time I see you, we’ll go over what you’ve brought back and assess together so I can help you understand.”

He’s tentative to the idea, you can see it. It’s clear Bucky is very selective and reserved. You can only imagine how much strife this poor man has been through. But you see the light in him. You do. He wouldn’t be here if he didn’t want to get better.

“...I don’t want to be unhappy anymore,” Bucky says, almost not catching the words if not for the fact the room is silent except for the two of you. “I can help you, Bucky,” you assure him, voice sincere. “We just need to work together and let me give you the tools to be happy. Do you think you can do that for me, Mr. Barnes?”

It’s clear your words seem to rock Bucky in some way, because he looks at you with something that almost resembles shock. As if he’s never heard anyone say something like that to him, has never wanted to help him become himself again. And if his experiences with Raynor is anything to base off of, Bucky needs a proper support system and someone who’s there with his best interest in mind. You can be that for him - even if it is your job irregardless. 

He’s silent, eyes darting away and breaking the brief moment of eye contact between the both of you. Then, a nod.

“I can try.” it might as well be a promise.

“That’s all I’ll ever ask of you.”

#🌻 #writing: it feels like home #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #sebastian stan #winter soldier #x reader #gender neutral reader #bucky barnes x gn!reader #marvel #fanfiction #ao3 #recovering bucky barnes #the falcon and the winter soldier #TFATWS #I don't like the way they treated bucky's therapy in tfatws #ask #answered #silas' scribblings #request #writing #fanfic #reader x bucky barnes

[thesweetnessofspring]

God between that post about Peeta’s family and another post about Katniss feeling safe in his arms for the first time since her father died I’m obsessed with them helping each other with their pre-war traumas too. Katniss being the only person who has continuously chosen him, Peeta being the only one who takes care of her and hasn’t left her. Them looking forward to coming home and realizing that even with all the flashbacks/nightmares their home feels safer/more loving than their pre-war homes

It guts me every time to think about this and is so much part of why they "would have happened anyway." Even without the two of them being in the Games, their very natures help the other person. Katniss's protectiveness of Peeta shows she loves him in a way no one else has before. And this is further supported by observing how Peeta shows he loves her because it's how he feels loved as well. CF!Peeta is this at its peak. And Peeta's generosity without expectation of receiving anything back gives Katniss a sense of safety, protection, and love she hasn't experienced since her father died, as he was the last one to treat her this way with her mother not being prepared or equipped to fulfill this need. They would have given this to each other no matter what happened over the course of their lives.

But what happened to them did happen, and it's absolutely that kind of heart-twisting beauty that they are exactly what one another needs to get through difficult things. Humans were absolutely not made to be alone, and when our attachments to others are threatened, our stress responses activate. For Katniss and Peeta, this would be even worse with the PTSD. To have a partner they can trust 100% and shows up to love them again and again is the reason why they survive the Games, the war, and can heal after.

#everlark #anon ask

[klayleyism]

As per popular demand (literally 12 votes) I'm getting into what can be considered the controversial aspect of klayley

Or What the show failed to address

This is really also a character study for my girl Hayley all at once in regards to how her overlooked trauma affected her relationships ( because I love @bloodsoakedfangs )

Hayley never knew her family all she's aware of is that they gave her up, and her adoptive parents simply kicked her out at the young age of 13 I believe after finding out what she is,

She's an abandoned little girl forced to roam the streets on her own, that is both absolutely terrifying and very risky, there's no limits to what she might have gone through and seen as both a kid but also a girl if we're being realistic, which is a direct cause of her hyper independence, she was forced to rely on herself completely since childhood

Now in regards to Klaus, when she meets him, despite the disdain she understandably has for him there's also attraction, one she's fully aware of and okay with, she knows he's a horrible person but she's also self aware enough to know she's no better

So despite everything he's done to her friends including Tyler it wasn't enough to stop her from succumbing to that attraction, and as she herself states in ep 1, it's pretty common for her to go for that type of men

Straight forward to 1x02, the episode that pretty much seals the deal, so for a starter this will go into sensitive issues but unlike the writers I'm not going to sugarcoat it, but you can leave idk

Klaus is in fact very unstable, any slight provocation sends him off the rails, he has severe ptsd as a result of the abuse he endured and clearly suffers from abandonment issues, and that's not to justify or excuse anything he's ever done but rather it serves partially as an explanation for why he is the way he is , you CANNOT honest to God expect him to be able to be in or maintain a healthy relationship,

Similarly to hayley , who also suffers from abandonment issues and doesn't have a healthy perception of love or relationships which is why she always sabotages any healthy relationship she's in and ends up constantly running back to Klaus and giving her all in her quest for the family she fantasizes of finally having

Her reaction to what he does in that episode is when you see the trauma bonding part

He physically assaults her, almost killing her both and the baby in response to what he perceived as a threat of "leaving him" or pretty much being able to easily "take away" that fantasy he too has of a family he secretly wished for, to have something he can truly call his own, and maybe even heal what Mikael broke in him which is ironically why he got angry, she hit him where it hurts, the "kill her and the baby" was bullshit and how furious he was when she almost left him proves it, he was both worried he's being played by the witches AND scared of failing this child the way his father did, (he liked hayley too much to do shit to her as tvd proved already if he was ever careless about her she would've been gone by tvd 4x16 instead of him genuinely risking his life and his family's to just have dinner with her and then willingly let her go without her providing the life or death info she's nonchalantly holding back)

Even next morning when he tries to make up for what he did in his own way, he asks why she didn't just "leave him" and that he deserved it, by that point he calmed down, is clearly regretful and knew what he did had nothing to do with hayley, he was angry with himself

Hayley's reaction (who's very straightforward and dangerously bold, something Klaus admired in her since the beginning) to a violent man being To smile at him the very next morning, casually talk to him , being happy when he offers to do something as decent as fixing the air conditioning

is if anything a sad testament to how she's holding on to any crumb of affection he has to offer, to that dream of a family she never had growing up.

And throughout the first two seasons he still never learns, he still willingly puts her and THEIR child in mortal danger again in 1x06 because unsurprisingly he's jealous of Elijah's interest in her

She calls him horrible for it as she should and says Elijah is infinitely better than him but when he forces her to go back home and shuts off Elijah and Rebekah, her reaction (5x08) is to tell him that after ALL THAT, she wants to believe in him, and to not fail her, and is once again happy he agrees to get rid of the dead bodies he left to rot in the the middle of the compound ????

Her acknowledgement of him putting her and his child at risk twice because he's "a notorious Psycho" as she called him and that Elijah is a good man but at the same time staying with him after almost just leaving and still settling for whatever decency he may provide at some point

It's classic trauma bonding, where after anything horrible he does that throws her off he does something "nice" that makes her believe he may change, it might be worth it. Hence, the "I want to believe in you" it's not that she has a good reason to believe in him, it's that she desperately wants him to be what she sees in Elijah

And ultimately it's not even that she wants him to be better, she had Elijah, she had Jackson but it didn't stop her from bending over backwards for Klaus of all people but leaving Elijah whenever she has to put in any bit of work

Elijah and Jackson's sole appeal was that they loved her greatly, she felt loved, they were easy to love, they were good but when it came to putting in the work to make these perfectly healthy relationships work she dips, but all her energy is invested in a situationship (the term fits here sorry 😭) where Klaus keeps bringing them back to ground 0,

She also despite having Elijah and Rebekah says she's "sure she'll be doing this alone" in regards to Klaus probably not being a traditional father

When Mikael calls him all sorts of vile things , which from Hayley's perspective are all valid, she should agree with him , instead she hates Michael, defends Klaus saying none of it is true and stops calling Mikael Klaus's father

This ties well with season 2 where hayley literally blames Klaus for all the people coming after hope, she could've left but she goes with the option of marrying Jackson and staying even as it drove Elijah away ( tbf she also married Jackson for him which is funny because she literally went on to marry the low maintainance guy because she simply didn't want to work for her relationship with Elijah despite killing herself for Klaus of all people)

She stays because Klaus asked her to after swearing up and down she's leaving when her daughter was almost murdered /blown to pieces in one day due to what she perceived to be Klaus's indirect fault but she didn't give a fuck about Elijah begging her not to leave AFTER Klaus took the heat for killing Aiden and finally pushing her over the limits

She has said prior to that , to Klaus's face, that she's leaving for good if he doesn't change his ways

So it's absolutely telling when it's proven Klaus was her main, sole even, tie to the mikaelsons including ELIJAH 💀, that when she felt like she's too sick of his shit she ditches everyone FOR GOOD

She finds comfort in him and only him at her lowest, pushing Elijah away and only getting better when it's Klaus telling her she's family and boosting her confidence,

Same exact things Elijah said, except it's coming from the person that truly matters to her, she doesn't yell,she actually sits down and listens to him and eventually he's the only person to understand her and successfully gets her out of crippling depression and self loathing, as Elijah himself noted ironically

Hayley defends him abandoning her and hope,to go commit mass murder somewhere else, tells him she won't give up on him,writes him countless letters to tell him she misses him and she wouldn't have wanted anything to be different , including all her trauma mind you, because it led them to having hope together, something she wouldn't have changed

Now keeping everything he did especially in season 1 and 2 in mind,and her having other romances, she tells Klaus she wouldn't change the fact he's hope's father

That's how dedicated she was to him

Hayley did NOT love Elijah, she was attracted to him sure, he was first to show her kindness at a time she needed it most, especially from klaus

And he made her feel loved, something she craved

When it was easy she welcomed it but he wasn't worth staying for, fighting for or even getting to know given they both did not know or like each other beyond the romanticized version

What she had for Klaus,{ while for all the wrong reasons since she wasn't one with a healthy understanding of love due to trauma and abandonment, } was unconditional love, she knew exactly what he was, how vile and sadistic he can be, is a first hand witness to all of what he can be too but it made her attachment to him and the sacrifices she was willing to make for him all the more stronger,

It's the "show don't tell" version of the all consuming devotion d*lena and the other ships failed to have

Mainly because they're both similar in the way that they were both fucked up individuals, both self aware and know they aren't good people and both desperate for love, love that truly sees them for what they are but doesn't shy away from it, it's why she's the ONLY love interest he calls family, and family as he describes is above all others, worth everything, the only constant for him,more reasons why it's very dumb to say he loved any other woman more than her .

Klaus and hope (being two faces of the same coin for her) are the single most important people to hayley,above literally everyone else , the two people she spared a glance before offing herself

The ones she fought tooth and nail for,risked everything for on multiple occasions

Hayley was a complicated character, she's damaged and all she knew from others was abuse and abandonment

It's why Klaus is familiar, safe, her comfort zone

She uses the two healthy relationships she has to feel better about herself, discards them when it's convenient but does ALL that, endures all that from a man who's treatment of her is typical, why she defends him and risks everything for him and is more than happy with the tiniest bit of love he has for her can be summarized in trauma bonding and "daddy issues" , he's an older guy with all the power here , he's emotionally unavailable, unpredictable and quite violent but occasionally calls her with an endearing nickname "little wolf" and can be soft with her, why while she revels in pissing him off and challenging his authority he's the only man she keeps running back to and can actually get her to listen to him when no one else can

While, like she herself says even when she hates the living shit out of him for all the ways he hurts her (out of love from his perspective) she can't help but love him

They're basically a match made in hell, they have no limits to what they'd do for each other, and out of every other one of their ships they're the only ones with an actual relationship where they fully see, understand, accept and love each other no matter how heinous they can be

And if anything it makes sense because at that point they were both too far gone to know what healthy love looks like

They develop at season 3 but that's a different convo

The main point is that I can still talk about their relationship because it was actually written surprisingly well despite the neglect and are very,very complex and multi layered outside of classical and empty romance

Klayley, through hope, what the show was built around and who they are as characters was pretty much a part of the show's heart and core all while integrating romantic elements without it becoming their sole defining characteristic

Something you can't say about the other romantic relationships in the show

#i will write think pieces about a 10 years old cw show before i seek therapy #anti haylijah #klayley #the originals #klaus mikaelson #hayley marshall #tvd

[deadmenandthedivine]

DEAD MEN § the DIVINE

chapter thirteen: the ghost of years coming and years past

Maetilda Targaryen, First of her Name, was supposed to be many things. What she became was entirely different.

table of contents

trigger warning!!! this fic contains many graphic topics and depictions. such as but not limited to: dead parents, abusive parents, toxic family systems, incest, medieval misogyny, forced marriage, threats of assault (sexual § physical), actual assault, imprisonment, kidnapping, murder, blood/gore, uxoricide, familicide, disassociation, thoughts of self harm and annihilation, PTSD and other neurodivergence. i will do my best to update as i go along, but please let me know if i have missed anything!

word count: 5357

Her entire body shook as if she were trapped in an overboard barrel in the middle of a sea storm. She had already survived a dinner with the Queen once before. What was another meal? What harm could it do? What harm could she do? This meal was far different than any before. She would be alone. Alone with her Grace. Under sole scrutiny of the powerful woman after the princess had been mouthy with her in the Godswood. Maetilda felt if she were to stick one toe out of line, that evening’s dinner would most certainly be her last. She had fretted over her choice of gown the entire afternoon, and had Adelyn redo the two braids in her hair more than once — before ultimately telling her to take them all out. It was like a monster had crawled inside and taken over. An ugly green monster. She could already anticipate each of Queen Alicent’s judgmental comments. How her neckline was too low or her hair was not quite right. It was exhausting. But then there was the other part of her that wanted to give the Queen gray hairs. She wanted the Queen to be just as upset with the affair as her father, just as he wanted. She wanted to make her father happy. Perhaps then, he would spare her. If she was lucky, he would even be proud. Although if she were to ever hear the words ‘well done’ come out of his mouth, she would most certainly need to seek maester’s assistance. While providing her with healing services, the maester could also take an official record of the historic incident. Two birds with one stone.

She was stalling, staring into the looking glass at her reflection. Her knight hadn’t knocked yet. No one had come to collect her either. And she refused to put her jewelry on until the last minute. Instead she looked at her gown, her lowest cut one. Warm red taffeta with a tighter waist, trumpet sleeves, and an A-line skirt. Picked specifically to upset the Queen. Never in her life had she deliberately set out to anger someone. Especially a royal someone. She wondered if she would truly be doing the right thing or if she would be thrown in the Black Cells for conspiring with her father. Yet she saw no other way forward. If the Hightowers did not kill her, then her father would. Her choices were not abundant. Her eyes darted to the balcony doors, suddenly thinking of a third choice. But she quickly shook the thoughts from her head as fear immediately began to set in again. She had to remember that she was not herself. Not completely of sound mind within enemy territory. Regardless, she needed to be at her best, her sharpest, if she were to disgrace herself without disgracing herself. Although she still was not entirely sure just how she was going to do that. Her father had given her no guidance. She stared down at the bronze selenite and pearl jewelry she had laid out on the vanity. The same set she had worn to family dinner the evening before. The light whites of the stones sparkled against the red of her gown. As the day had passed by, the pink of her darker cheek had slowly started to subside. Very slowly. She scoured her brain for what she could remember of the Queen, what the woman hated. Impropriety, disorder, and chaos. How far out of line would the princess be allowed to go? How many missteps before she would be an unspoken-for-woman once more?

A quick knock at the door announced Ser Gunthor’s arrival before he stepped inside. The princess cast her eyes over her shoulder to find his jaw clenched, but he tried to hide it, “Prince Aemond is here to take you to dinner, mi’lady.”

“Thank you. Send him in.”

Keeping her back to the door, she turned back to her vanity and avoided glancing up at the looking glass. Yet she felt his presence nonetheless. Her hands shook as she threaded her earrings through the holes in her earlobes, looped her belt around her waist, slipped the rings on her fingers, and fingered with the clasp of her necklace. She tried and tried, but she could not get it to unlatch.

“Are you ready, ñuha dōna?” The prince’s voice inquired softly.

“No,” She admitted, back still turned, “I cannot seem to put my necklace on.”

“Your handmaids did not put it on for you?” He did not hide the surprise in his voice.

“I wanted to do it myself.”

There was a pause before the sound of a few soft footsteps forward echoed through the room, remaining a respectable distance away, “May I help you?”

The princess remained rigid, only handing the necklace back to him by an extended arm backwards. His footsteps crept closer, until they were right behind her. He held the proffered hand in his own for a brief moment before he took the jewelry teasingly slow. She dropped her hand back to her side. Her entire body was still as she waited to see what he would do next. In only a few moments, the cold bronze of the necklace shocked the skin at the front of her neck. Aemond clasped the necklace over the top of her long silver honey hair before he tenderly pulled it all free. Taking the time to play with a few strands and run his fingers through the tresses. After trying several braided styles, Maetilda had instructed her handmaids to leave her hair down, completely undone. Allowing it to trail down to its full length. The Queen certainly would not appreciate the lack of decorum. Paired with the jewelry, the princess nearly resembled the women of the night who often warmed her father and other lord’s beds. 

“You are so beautiful.” Aemond whispered.

“Will you be joining dinner?” The princess ignored his remark.

“Yes. My mother invited me after our meeting with the Small Council.”

“Just the three of us then?”

“Yes, Aegon and Helaena will be at future dinners, but not this one.”

“Future dinners,” The princess quipped as the words brought a chill down her spine, “If your mother doesn’t hate me; that is, if she doesn’t already.”

“Is that what you think?” He chuckled.

“You think I am mad?”

“Not mad.” He smiled, “Certainly not.”

“Hm,” She mimicked him.

“My mother only wants to assure your comfort and happiness once we are man and wife.”

“My comfort… in which castle?”

He opened his mouth before closing it, noticeably hesitant with his answer, “We shall spend our time between both Runestone and the Red Keep.”

“Did she decide that?”

“It does not matter.”

“I think it does.”

“My apologies. I am not at liberty to tell you.”

“I see. Quite the husband you shall be.” She scoffed, attempting to see how far she could push him.

“Are you questioning me?” He dared her to take her prior statement back.

Refusing to step down, she turned around to meet his gaze. He smirked at the expression on her face. It was enough to rattle her composure, but she fought internally to keep him from seeing it. She would not be thrown off her footing that easy. He reached forward and brushed more pieces of her hair with his fingers. Something he would do to Helaena when they were children. He would play with her curly hair as the two girls spoke. Always more fascinated by her hair than his own.

“You are,” He answered his own question smugly. “The dragon rears her horns.”

“You seem amused.”

“I am.”

“A young boy laughing can crawl under your skin, yet I cannot?”

That piqued his fascination. He leaned forward, “And why do you wish to get under my skin, ñuha dōna?”

He caught her. She had walked right into it, given away the plot, and the princess had not even made it to dinner. Her body tensed as she thought of an excuse, “I am only trying to understand you.”

“We have our whole lives to understand each other.”

“And if our lives should be short?”

“Now you seem hopeful.” He joked.

“I like to plan for the worst.”

His spine straightened as he got a bit more serious, “What did your father say to you earlier?”

“It does not matter.” She cocked her eyebrow at him, daring him to repeat the same words they had just said, silently asking him if he liked how it felt to be on the receiving end.

“Let us go. My mother is waiting.”

Arm-in-arm, Aemond lead Maetilda wordlessly up several flights of stairs and down numerous corridors. Ser Gunthor followed behind them. He was tense and she could feel it from behind her. His armor made its characteristic jingle with each step. The Red Keep was expansive, but her gown was far much easier to move in than her others. However, she could feel her gown slide lower on her chest with each new set of stairs. Aemond’s eyes burned her skin as he watched her readjust. After exactly four stops to fix her gown along the way, the two finally came upon a set of doors in one of the tallest towers. Two Kingsguard stood at the ready. One of them was a Cargyll twin. The future married pair had come to the Queen’s personal solar. Aemond turned to her and assisted his future bride in her pruning before giving the signal to open the doors. Her heart skipped a beat at the burst of deep emerald green. Everywhere. The bedding, the curtains, the rugs, the tapestries, the chairs. The most green she had ever seen in her life. In the center of the room, a large dining table had been brought in and dressed. A green brocade tablecloth with citrine colored candles, and golden platters of finger foods. Three ivory place settings with golden plates and cutlery. Two sat on one side while the third sat across from them. The Queen occupied the lone setting, standing to greet the couple who made their entrance. Her gown was a very dark green. It had gorgeous ivory and gold trim that nearly matched the table. The neckline crawled up her neck and stopped at her chin. Her golden seven pointed star necklace gleamed in the candlelight. She was the image of modesty and humble regalia. The princess kept her head held high as she let go of her betrothed’s arm to take her seat. Her footing only faltered when the chair moved back without her touching it. Maetilda glanced behind her to see Aemond patiently waiting to push her in. She carefully took her seat and lifted her feet just high enough for the chair to glide forward with no issue. Aemond then quietly took the seat next to her. As soon as they were situated, actual food was brought out to the table. Spiced ham, fresh greens and vegetables, pastries, pies, and more. A cupbearer filled her goblet to the brim with honeywine. The princess rushed to take the first bite, determined to get even a crumb in her mouth before the Queen. But the cupbearer blocked her access and Alicent was already chewing before Maetilda had anything on her plate.

“Thank you for joining me tonight, both of you.” The Queen broke the silence.

“Thank you for having us, mother.”

“Yes, thank you.” The princess echoed less enthusiastically.

A silence settled around the three. Only the sounds of cutlery on plates and chewing could be heard. It made her spine tingle, like a deer sensing a nearby hunter. She was being hunted. By owls in the rafters.

“Have you enjoyed your accommodations, princess?” The Queen poked.

“They have been suitable. Although I find everything so much different than I remember in my youth. The green from outside seems to be everywhere but. Oh, and the spirits! Gods be good, I hope I am not cursed. Spirits are everywhere. There seems to be one that lives in my chambers.”

“Spirits?” The mother and son gasped in unison.

“Yes! A tall ghost with a black cloak, no face, and a raised arm. It stands in my room at night.”

“This is the first I have ever heard of…” The Queen trailed off.

“Princess, are you certain it is a spirit you are seeing?”

“I would not lie about such things.”

“I will have the High Septon come to bless your chambers.”  Alicent nodded resolutely.

“The High Septon?” Maetilda asked.

“Who else should I send?” The Queen challenged.

The princess shrugged before drinking more wine to avoid responding. Her Grace’s question had been a trap. Yet the princess would be smarter than to walk into it. More silence settled around the three. The sounds of eating were slower and quieter. The three were suddenly more careful of the noise they made. But of course, such silence would sear the skin after a while. Too much of it burnt. The Queen opened her mouth again.

“I have been thinking about the many feasts that will be happening in your honor.” Alicent started, “And I decided that it would be best for you to see a dance teacher.”

“Is this because of my performance last night?” The princess laughed before taking a deep gulp of her goblet.

“Of course not. You are a wonderful dancer.”

“That I am! Come to think of it, I do not believe I have ever seen you dance, your Grace.”

“I save such frivolous activities for special occasions.”

“Oh, yes! Excuse me for being so daft. Would not want to anger those seven gods of yours.” Maetilda nodded casually.

The Queen chuckled dryly, “Something tells me they are preoccupied with others.”

Others. The less pious. Those less married to their Gods. Maetilda. Her father. Her family. Of course. The Queen thought her seven Gods would smite them all before they so much as looked in her royal direction. Silence consumed the three once more. No sounds of chewing or cutlery on plates. They all sat forward in thought. The princess herself stewed like a concoction over a fire. She had not done enough. Had not stepped far enough out of line. The Queen thought she was going to one of the seven hells and still did not fight to keep Aemond from marrying her. Could the princess not condemn Aemond too? Guilt by association? Was the Queen not worried that she would no longer see her son in the afterlife once the vows were said? The princess found herself questioning if it even mattered. If she could completely humiliate herself and still be subjected to the marriage, to her father’s promise of ruin before it happened. Frustration bubbled within her. She wondered what her father would say. If he would give her warning before he sent his men after her or if they would use the element of surprise to their advantage. 

“Three moon’s time is not very long.” Aemond stated awkwardly, suddenly drumming his fingers on the table.

“Not at all. Everyone will be working diligently.” Alicent agreed.

‘Josey Flowers,’ The princess thought. The name of the woman who had measured her and talked of necklines and trains just the other day. “I was measured for my gown yesterday.”

“How wonderful! Songs will be written about your beauty.” Aemond smiled.

“Like they were written for me,” Alicent huffed sarcastically before she sipped her own goblet. Her tone was bitter. There were no known songs to ever be written about the Hightower Queen, none that framed her in good standing.

“The bards save their songs for special ones.” Maetilda joked.

Aemond visibly tensed, “There have been songs written for you, mother.”

“You must have heard some that I have not.” The princess shrugged.

“Songs are not important. It is not the bards that I care about pleasing.” Alicent snipped.

“Of course! What is a song in your honor when you are eternally burning in seven hells?” Maetilda laughed, “Which one do you think my mother went to?”

Both the Queen and her second son choked on their drinks. Lady Rhea Royce’s was a name most often whispered. There were many rumors about what had happened to the late Lady of Runestone, but no one ever spoke of her to Princess Maetilda’s face. Except for Daemon himself, and it was a subject he hated. Yet the mention of the late woman did not seem to have the effect on the Hightowers that it did her father. Sorrow, awkwardness, and discomfort rather than rage. The Queen cleared her throat before she answered, “She went to the Father’s Golden Hall.”

“Do you think the rumors are true? Do you think she was murdered?” The princess pressed farther, hyper focused on having an awful dinner in order to make her father proud.

“I do not know what you speak of.” Alicent lied.

“Hmm,” Maetilda nodded.

“You are not being fair to my mother.” Aemond stated.

“Your mother was not fair to me or my family upon our very arrival! Or have you forgotten?”

The Queen let out a loud sigh, “You are right, Maetilda. That gesture was not fair. But as my husband preached last night, I only wish to make amends.”

Seven hells, the princess thought. The last scenario she had expected was one in which the Hightower Queen extended an olive branch. The princess crossed her arms, unsure of how to move forward. Unsure of how to make her father happy. She could feel the lilac eye study her closely again, as if she were an ant under a magnifying glass. As if he could dissect her — mind, body, and soul — just by watching her alone. She wondered what he thought, if he regretted ever being pleased with their arrangement. The princess scoured her brain for words as she attempted to form a response. There was nothing. Not a word.

“Maetilda, you will be my daughter soon. You will give me grandchildren—”

“I will supply your son with a castle,” The princess listed along without missing a beat. Suddenly springing into a fit of passion, “It seems I have a lot of things that other lords and princelings want.”

“Need I remind you this was the King’s decree? Not mine.” The Queen’s face began to turn red.

“Before the previous two days, when was the last time the King made a decree himself?”

“He has not been well.”

“And why have only the maesters been consulted? Their methods have only seemed to make him worse.”

“They have prolonged his life.”

“According to who? The same maesters poisoning him?”

“You are lucky that I have not yet called the guards in here to take your tongue.”

“Take my tongue! It does not change the truth.”

There was a pause as they all exchanged glances between each other. Smoke practically poured from the princess’s ears. She felt cornered and outnumbered, but it only made her feel bigger. Perhaps that was how her father felt during his outbursts. She was ready to leap from her chair and continue the shenanigans of the night before. She did not care how effortlessly her betrothed knocked her brother to the floor. She would not let them win so easily. 

“You are sounding like your father, Til.” Aemond spoke gently, but his words cut deep.

“Gaomas bona vēdros ao, valzȳrys?” (Does that displease you, husband?) The princess mocked him before turning to the Queen, “Will we be traveling to my castle as soon as the festivities are over?”

Alicent all but rolled her eyes, “Yes.”

The mother and son looked taken aback when Maetilda responded with laughter. Genuine laughter that sharply turned dry and sarcastic. Just as her father’s had earlier that day. She felt absolutely mad, but she found the lack of subtlety quite humorous. It seemed to be a sick joke. First the decorations in the castle, down to every damned tapestry. Then the stars and the prayers and piousness. Next was her castle. She should have guessed when she saw the books in the library. Someone had been reading about her family on purpose. Someone had been carving runes into stones on purpose. That someone had not been Aegon or her father. It was Aemond, and he was after her home. The rug was being pulled out from underneath her. She had not realized it until that very moment.

“The castle is mine, it belongs to my family. The Vale will never be Oldtowne. Try as you may.”

“I do not want your castle.” Aemond stated.

“Were you not the one studying its history and power in the library?” Maetilda fired back, “Nearly gutted the whole section of the damned library. Or was it your drunk brother?”

“I was curious.” He admitted, jaw locked and fists clenched.

“You’ve been plotting.” She called his half-bluff.

“It was the King’s decree!” The Queen repeated.

Maetilda crossed her arms in her chair. Another serving was brought out for them to eat. Not one of them touched it. Fresh fruits and deserts, all covered in powdered sugar. Not one hand reached forward. Not one person moved. It was a stand-off as they all sat around the table.

“I am looking forward to Rhaenyra’s presence around the Keep more. I would like to keep it that way.” The Queen sighed, “I do not fault you for the way that you feel. Or your outbursts. Runestone is where your mother died. I lost my mother when I was young too.”

The princess stood up in her chair, breathing hard like a dragon ready to explode. “Do not pretend to know how I feel. You do not know the last thing about me.”

Maetilda’s eyes narrowed at the woman. The princess’s breathing only grew more uneven. The sound of Aemond’s chair scooting back tickled her ear, but she did not flinch. The princess and her future sweger stared each other down intensely. Both refusing to be the first to look away.

“May I excuse myself, your Grace?” Maetilda calmly seethed.

Alicent nodded. Her head barely moved as it did so. The princess did not wait another moment before she catapulted out of the double doors. Her body trembled, anger, fear, anticipation of consequences. She didn’t know how to think or how to feel. She was like one of the ghosts that roamed the Keep, practically floating as she moved at an erratic pace. Ser Gunthor’s bronze armor jingled after her, the sound serving as a constant reminder as to where she was going. She wanted to get away. From everyone and everything. And she knew that her chambers were not safe, not from Aemond or her father. She knew they would look for her there. Where could she go if she did not want to be found? The place where no one went at night — the Godswood. So that is where she ran, straight to the safety of the weirwood tree. The lack of walls was a bit unsettling. She was not sure who or what could lay beyond her sight. But she felt safe knowing her knight stood guard. The roots of the tree cradled her as she curled up and leaned back. Bugs sang their nightly songs and soft bustles hummed in from Flea Bottom. The citizens of King’s Landing were enjoying their eve wing, unlike her. The soft breeze was slightly chilly, but it wasn’t so bad once the princess hugged herself. She got comfortable in her spot, and laid her head back. The bark of the tree was hard but smooth. Somehow it felt more restful than any feathered pillow she had ever laid her head on.

Ser Gunthor stood a few paces away. His head on a swivel as he scanned the Godswood for danger, “Are you alright? ‘Sure you wouldn’t rather lay in your bed?”

“I’m sure.” She stated.

“Y’look cold, mi’lady.”

“I said I am fine.”

“You said you were sure, not fine. But alright.” He shrugged, crossing his arms as Maetilda closed her eyes.

The rocky cliffs, rolling hills, and rain-cast shores soon returned. Instead of flying over them, she rode through them on horseback. Unlike any horse she had ever been gifted or owned, it was white with no spots, not a single blemish tarnishing its ivory, and donned dark brown leathers, adorned with runes. Its mane was cropped for function, assuring that none would whip into the rider’s eye while at a full gallop. The reins and stirrups were worn from extensive use. The seat of the saddle molded around its rider’s butt like an old pair of shoes on one’s feet. The two rode together down a clearly definite trail. In the valley between the small mountains and cliffs. The horse had been there before, its hooves traversed the land effortlessly. It knew their destination regardless of whether or not the princess knew. Like two lifelong companions on a morning commute. In a delicious rhythm, horse’s hooves met the Earth over and over again. Clunk, clunk, clunk. Echoed off the rocks around them. Clunk, clunk, clunk. It almost had a tenor pitch. Smaller yet sturdier than any horse she had ridden before; it had not been bred for a smooth ride or to pull a carriage. As if it knew what she had been thinking, a whinnie joined in the chorus of hooves. A familiar whinnie that had echoed in her ears before. Everything seemed to foreign yet familiar. Including the land. She had only seen the land once before. From above as she plummeted to the ground below. It was breathtaking from any vantage point, deserving of its very own tapestry. She wished she could weave what she saw from memory and replace the damn tower one in her chambers. She wished she could capture the mist and the clouds and the air. She wished she could commit it all to physical copy so she could show anyone who would look. It was a beauty that deserved to be admired, that graced and blessed all who looked upon it.

The princess glanced up toward the heavens, curious if she would catch sight of herself crashing through the clouds. Yet there was nothing. Not even a seagull. Perhaps it had been the rains. They had clearly passed through recently. The dirt was darker, and it clumped together like clay as the horse’s hooves kicked chunks backwards with each stride. Would they ride up upon her body after it had already fallen? Would she see what had become of her before she had jolted up in bed? Would the horse stop and allow her to stare? To see herself in all her grace and glory? Or would the horse keep running? Perhaps it would never stop. The white horse and the princess’s silver honey hair would blur together in one smudge as they ricocheted from one coast to the next. Perhaps they would stop, sooner or later. Much like a sailor once long at sea, the princess would sway as she stood at their final destination — where it would be. Although she hadn’t remembered meeting the mighty white mount, she trusted it. She felt nothing but safe atop its back. Between its shoulders and hips. Their pace never faltered, never slowed. The hills merely continued to roll on. The two ran until the horse came to a sudden halt. The princess felt as if she were in a daze as she struggled to keep balanced. All her work went to shambles in the blink of an eye. The white steed reared up in its hind legs, making itself big and intimidating, only to tip back too far. Time seemed to slow down as she fell, the horse’s wide and heavy back looming after her. It was almost funny how one moment she had been completely at peace only for the next moment to be nothing but fear, horror, and regret. Perhaps it was a good thing. Perhaps the horse was doing her a mercy by crushing her. No more marriage, no more threats, no more scheming. It would be bliss. She felt her body hit the ground as she sat up straight in her bed. Her chambers were dark and foggy, but it did nothing to obscure the cloaked figure in the corner. It floated tall with its arm stretched upward, holding a jagged rock. Her heart began to pound. She immediately knew what came next. She did not have to wait for the figure to come rushing forward before she desperately tried to scramble out of her bed. Everything happened so fast. The sheets grew tighter as they wrapped around her ankles and locked her there. Keeping her trapped in the confines of her bed. The figure ran forward in the blink of an eye. Quicker than humanly possible. Rock raised and at the ready. Her body tensed. She screamed as she clamped her eyes shut and braced for impact. She could feel the air move as the figure descended upon her.

A gentle hand met her forehead and her entire body flinched, trashing away from any harm. Her eyes shot open. Only to see Ser Gunthor crouched over her. His hazel and sage eyes were flooded with worry and concern as he brushed her hair from her face and spoke words she could not hear. Her ears rang like a bell. Her sworn knight wrapped her tighter into a blanket she had not had before. It was thick and warm, and she grabbed at it feverishly before pulling it farther into her. The knight ran his hands up and down the princess’s arms quickly, creating a small amount of heat to help warm her. He began counting his breaths aloud as he inhaled and exhaled. His eyes never once left her. Soon the sounds of the numbers came into focus, the ringing in her ears very slowly dulling. Ser Gunthor’s voice was even and steady. Like a mother’s heartbeat while her babe rests on her chest. He continued to count until her breathing evened.

“You were sleeping well there… until you weren’t.” He remarked.

“I had a bad dream.”

“Must’ve been a scary one.”

The princess nodded, “Similar to the one I had before I found the stones.”

She quickly glanced around the Godswood, making sure there was no cloaked figure. By the time she looked back at her knight, he was searching the area himself. He searched the brush, the surrounding trees, anywhere he could search through. But they both found nothing.

Ser Gunthor looked at the princess seriously as he rested his hand on the hilt of his sword, “Let’s go back to your chambers. I will do a look-through before you go back to sleep.” 

As soon as Maetilda nodded in agreement, he gathered up the blanket that had been laid on top of her and helped the princess to her feet. He then draped the blanket over her shoulders and offered out his arm for her to take. Tiredly, the princess took his arm and laid her head against his armored bicep. They walked together slowly and steadily all the way back to her room. Maetilda’s eyes and limbs felt heavy with sleep as she struggled to keep pace, but Ser Gunthor slowed every time he noticed her falter. She was exhausted, even with the fear of death coursing through her veins. Her eyes lulled shut as she allowed her knight to lead their way back. A journey they seemed to have made in record time. She must have fallen asleep while walking. The knight did just as he had promised, checking every last nook and cranny in her bedroom, before he assisted her into bed. It felt as though eyes watched her as she moved, but there was no cloaked figure to be seen. Her tired eyes scanned the room to be sure. The only one watching her had been her knight. He tucked her into the blankets and draped the new one over top. She smiled and thanked him through her yawns. Gently, he wished her goodnight before he closed her door behind him. Eyes still heavy as giants, the princess was fast asleep soon after.

A/N: so maetilda still has some growing before she reaches her final form. arguing with the queen is… a choice… but she’s also not exactly thinking clearly… that being said, i love me some Gunthor :) i promise this isn’t a cheesy love triangle, i just love him.

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[cheesybadgers]

Narcos Fic: Old Habits Die Hard (Chap. 19)

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23, Chapter 24

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Pairing: Javier Peña x Horacio Carrillo

Words: 7,943

Summary: Javier and Horacio deal with the aftermath of a fraught morning and try to make the most of life in Madrid. Meanwhile, Señora Romero and Chucho have some words of wisdom (as usual) for them.

Warnings: 18+ ONLY. Emotional smut (including ass play, spanking and aftercare), brief discussions of PTSD symptoms and healing, grief and parental loss, discussions of sexuality/coming out, allusions to period-typical and historical prejudices, smoking, swearing.

Notes: So, here's the second part of their Madrid adventures at last! But where to next? 👀 I'm currently working on chapter 20, which is taking a while because life, and also I swear the closer to the end I get, the harder it is to write lol.

Thank you once again to anyone still reading, or anyone who has recently jumped on board this emotional rollercoaster. I'm blown away by the comments I've received over the last couple of years and I still love hearing from people, so please feel free to drop me a line if you'd like to ❤️

I’ve also added to my OHDH trivia post to cover this chapter if anyone is interested. 

Whilst obviously I do not own Narcos or its characters, please do not copy, re-post, or plagiarize this fic in any capacity on this or other platforms. If you wish to create any fan works inspired by it, please provide a credit or send me a message if in doubt.

Chapter 19: In The Same Boat

After breakfast and back at their apartment, Horacio took a shower, relieved to finally be rid of his running clothes now that the sweat had long since dried.

Javier soon joined him, capturing his waist from behind as eager lips met salty wet skin.

Horacio didn’t question why Javier was on his second cleansing of the day, instead nudging against the ridge of his shoulder, letting the steam envelop them and the hot jets wash away the stress of an eventful morning.

They wanted answers about what happened in their absences, but for now, their bodies did the talking. They gave into unspoken needs and an insistent craving to be as close as possible now further hurdles had been overcome, even if they weren’t sure which ones yet.

If Javier was hungrier and more demanding with what he took, Horacio indubitably noticed but didn’t object. How could he mind Javier’s nails scraping and scoring, marking Horacio like conquered territory?

Or the way he crouched between Horacio’s spread legs, parting generous handfuls of firm flesh, mouthing and biting with fervour along each buttock towards their inner seams, the bristle of facial hair scratching in all the right places.

Javier was guided by the moans above him as his nose pressed forwards, licking a trail north and south, alternating between flattening his tongue and outlining meandering patterns, skirting down to Horacio’s perineum and back up. Because anything less wouldn’t have been enough.

All Horacio could do was steady himself against the wall with one hand, the other rolling over supple skin and the taut ridges of his pectoral and abdominal muscles, ebbing and flowing like the Sierra de Guadarrama, a bittersweet reminder of his Andean homeland on their doorstep.

He engulfed and tweaked his nipples, journeying below the soft slope of his stomach and groin, fondling his balls, his fingers briefly making contact with Javier’s mouth and grounding them instantly.

A desperate growl rumbled through Horacio’s chest as he clenched his fist around the shaft of his cock and tugged in time with Javier lapping at the tight ring of muscle until he broached it. Shallow thrusts to begin with, increasing the depth and pace the fiercer Horacio shook and shuddered.

Javier never grew tired of being the one to reduce Horacio to a lascivious wreck, knowing it was an honour exclusively bestowed upon him, made even sweeter now they were no longer looking over their shoulders, waiting for a cruel twist of fate to intervene.

With that thought fresh in Javier’s mind, he didn’t hold back, devouring with ravenous greed, the ache in his knees insignificant compared to the sounds he was drawing from Horacio, who was all wounded grunts and choked back sobs, and it was music to Javier’s ears.

It didn’t take much for Horacio to fall apart on the fire of Javier’s tongue and the ice of his own iron grip, his eyes screwed shut and his spare hand thumping against the porcelain tiles as he came with a silent cry, teeth clamped down on his bottom lip for the benefit of their neighbours.

Once Horacio had recuperated, Javier peeled himself off the floor and manoeuvred them under the faucet, their mouths fusing together as they rinsed off. There was no let-up, the rough collision of limbs building momentum until Javier’s breathless invocations echoed as loudly around the room as the sweet percussion of a palm against his ass, a slow burn blush blooming with each prayer answered.

“Are you sure?” had been Horacio’s first question, always compelled to check in whenever Javier displayed vulnerability like this.

But Javier was certain. He needed it in the way his lungs sucked on air. Needed Horacio to hold the reins now, to clear his mind so he could focus on the present. On every sensation, word of encouragement and exhalation. To leave physical evidence on Javier’s body, an undeniable reminder that Horacio was here, safe, and trusted to take care of him precisely how he desired.

So, who was Horacio to refuse? Not when Javier’s supplicating gaze scorched his own, kindling an inscrutable and mortifying urge to sink to his knees and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

But instead, he positioned Javier facing the tiles, smoothing his hand back and forth, massaging each pert cheek to stimulate the blood flow, letting the anticipation build because he knew that was part of the thrill for Javier, not knowing when he would strike.

Seconds of stillness followed; the steady stream of water the only sound to be heard until Horacio permeated the silence with the flat of his palm.

He started off with little more than a mild tap, gauging where Javier was at, easing into it and letting him dictate how far this went.

A series of progressively bracing swats came next, alternating from side to side, caressing the areas he targeted as a balm to the prickling heat. “You’re doing so good for me, Javier,” he praised, his free hand stroking up and down Javier’s back in reassurance. “Tell me what you need.”

Javier’s forehead rested on his hand against the wall, his teeth wedged into his fist whenever Horacio let loose. “I need more,” he stated after taking a deep breath, knowing Horacio would waver in granting his request without such succinct clarity.

Several more vigorous slaps ensued, causing something between a huff and a groan to release from Javier’s throat as his body jerked and his cock twitched. “Harder,” came his response no sooner had the vibrations reached the seat of his ass.

Horacio took his time despite Javier’s demand, subduing with delicate circles as though polishing fine glass, allowing the cascading water to counteract the sting.

There was an agonising pause, rendering it impossible for Javier to second guess when it would end until it was too late.

A crystal clear thwack crackled through the air, followed by another and another, sending Javier into a wave of spasms that left bite marks on the back of his hand and tears welling in his eyes.

He was sure there must be pain buried beneath the pleasure that he would feel later, but for now, he was floating, delirious, gone. Fuck any drug the cartels had to offer because no way in hell could it ever be as good as this.

But he was determined not to take himself in hand or grind against the tiles; that was too easy. This required complete concentration and discipline, reducing Javier’s existence to nothing but Horacio’s touch and his response.

“Horacio, please.” He panted out his final beg for mercy, knowing it wouldn’t take much more to bring him home.

Horacio couldn’t be sure if it was the light glinting in the trickling water droplets, illuminating the imprint of his hand that had him fraying at the edges, or how his palm tingled, triggering a chain reaction all the way down to his groin again. But before he could stop himself, he covered Javier’s back with his body, his left hand meeting Javier’s on the wall.

The scent of Javier’s shampoo was potent, intoxicating, and lethal as Horacio buried his face in a mass of thick, damp hair, almost knocking the wind out of them simultaneously. They kept still, both trying to deepen their tremoring breaths, Horacio counting to 10 in his head and Javier closing his eyes in preparation.

Horacio retreated, leaving his left hand connected with Javier’s whilst his right resumed its position, gently cupping and kneading, teasing his knuckles between Javier’s cheeks.

There was a lull in movement, the tide receding as a prelude to the incoming tsunami, their pulses deafening in their ears as time froze and suspended them in a torturous self-imposed vacuum.

But then a seismic release set them free, plunging Javier’s weight against the tiles, no amount of chewing on his fist able to suppress the whimpered cry or control his quivering form as he came with Horacio’s name somewhere on the tip of his tongue but lost amidst the onslaught of concentrated bliss.

He couldn’t move even if he wanted to, merely trying to breathe whilst Horacio removed the shower hose from its cradle, letting the restorative warmth of the water soothe the tenderness, the temperature gradually reducing to lukewarm then cooler once Javier was accustomed to it, extinguishing the flames.

Horacio dried them off, dabbing the towel meticulously over Javier until he replaced it with chaste kisses then sweet almond oil, mapping a path across his ass, covering every inch, and taking extra time with the rawest patches of skin. He needed this part of the ritual as much as Javier did. Needed to be the caregiver at both ends of the spectrum and to still be touching Javier because that was what he needed in return.

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They delayed dressing in favour of entangling themselves beneath the bedsheets after rehydrating and sharing a bowl of fresh strawberries bought from their favourite food market the previous day. It wasn’t as though they had anywhere to be, after all.

A solitary cigarette passed between them, the only nicotine-fuelled vice of the day worth having anymore. It was customary for either man to trace patterns through chest hair as he took a drag, their fingers and lips meeting somewhere in the middle, transferring cigarette and smoke in one smooth motion.

Their cigarette was now stubbed out in the ashtray by the bed, swapped for playing with each other’s hands whilst Javier lay tucked into Horacio’s side.

His fingers skimmed over the coarse edges of Horacio’s, sliding to the softness at the centre of his palm, then down to his wrist. Javier lingered until he got what he came for, the slow, steady beat keeping his own rhythm in check after a fraught start to the morning.

From there, Horacio dusted kisses across Javier's knuckles until Javier unfurled his fingers, offering them up for the same treatment, and Horacio gladly obliged.

It could have been minutes or hours they lay like this, lost in touch, neither wanting to break the spell.

But as Horacio’s hand snaked up Javier’s torso, pausing to play with the warmed silver chain, he folded first. “I’m sorry I was late.”

“You don’t need to apologise for being cornered. These things happen.”

“It wasn’t just that, though.” Horacio stroked his thumb over the surface of the cross. For comfort or courage, or both, he wasn’t sure. He explained everything about Álvaro, even down to the disconcerting parallels he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge. “He could’ve been me, Javier. He was me. And if it hadn’t been for you – for us – I think he still would be. Either that, or I’d be dead.”

“But he’s not you. You’re not that man anymore. Look how far you’ve come, Horacio. You got out. And you found your inner cowboy.”

Horacio gave Javier a withering look, ignoring the devilish spark in his eyes. “I’m not a fucking cowboy.”

“But that’s what you want, though, right? To be a rancher?”

Horacio had thought long and hard about this, especially when confronted with the ghosts of his old life. Any worries about being lured back in were swiftly abated. If anything, it confirmed what he, deep down, already suspected. “Yeah, I think I do. But only if you still want to move back to Texas.”

“I thought I’d never move back. But after I left Colombia, you seemed so at home. And for once, so did I.” Javier didn’t say the rest out loud because he didn’t need to. His book dedication had done it for him.

“I was,” was all Horacio managed to get out before he kissed Javier, unhurried and thorough.

“It’s not like I’ve got any career plans lined up elsewhere anyway,” Javier added once they pulled apart.

“There’s still time to figure it out.”

A knowing smile passed over Javier’s lips. “That’s what Señora Romero said this morning. After I fucking lost it because you were a few minutes late.” His smile morphed into a self-deprecating scoff, traces of embarrassment still left over despite the kindness he had been shown.

“What?”

Now it was Javier’s turn to open up; for the second time that day. He reclined against Horacio’s chest, the fingers stroking through his hair relaxing his mind and muscles as he talked.

“Fuck, Javier, I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, hey, no. It’s not your fault. And it’s not your responsibility to fucking babysit me. I was fine after a drink and a pep talk.”

Horacio strained his neck to meet Javier’s eye with an incredulous look.

“Okay, well, after that, then.”

“I didn’t go too far, did I?”

“No. It was perfect,” Javier replied without hesitation, meeting Horacio’s gaze head-on and with ease. A simmering afterglow had overtaken the initial sensitivity, but he was confident he would feel it for the rest of the day, maybe even tomorrow if he was lucky. “Was, er, was it good for you too?”

The luscious whip of his palm was still vivid in Horacio’s mind, along with Javier’s pleas for more and the spiral of his tongue as he fucked and feasted. Not to mention how the tension they had been carrying throughout the morning visibly dissipated in the aftermath.

“I think perfect just about covers it,” he replied, hunting down Javier’s mouth again before they collapsed into each other’s arms.

“Señora Romero’s been through a lot too,” Javier said after a soporific silence almost tempted them towards slumber.

“I know. She never talked about it much. But after the bombing, she mentioned Spain was always carrying old wounds.”

“I guess we all are. So, there are bound to be bad days sometimes.”

Horacio hummed in agreement against Javier’s forehead. “I should’ve been there with you, though.”

“You’re here now.”

Another string of kisses followed, the next more charged than the last. Because now wasn’t just tomorrow, the next day, week, month, or even year. Now was the rest of their lives.

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They could easily have whiled away the rest of the day in bed. But the sun’s heat had broken through the haze of early morning fog by lunchtime, and it was the ideal afternoon for a walk around El Retiro Park.

The park was rarely quiet, but it was vast enough to disperse the crowds into all corners. They started with the gardens and fountains, one, in particular, stopping them in their tracks.

“Well, that’s…striking,” Javier said, cocking his head and taking off his aviators to get a better look at the imposing statue in front of them.

“La Fuente del Ángel Caído. The Fountain of the Fallen Angel. It’s the moment Lucifer was cast out of heaven.”

Javier turned to Horacio with a raised brow. “So, are you an expert in all artistic impressions of the devil, or just this one?”

Horacio feigned an irked glare. “I used to run this way sometimes with it being so close to the Consulate.”

“Oh, well, that’s a relief.”

It was the truth, but at that time of Horacio’s life, there was a strange and dark affinity to be found with the story of a fallen angel in exile. Occasionally, he would stop to study the fountain in all its horrifying glory, a visceral reminder of why he was here.

They quickly moved on to the Palacio de Cristal, the weather optimal for the impressive architecture above them. Sunbeams descended a halo down from the glass roof, a hush spreading through the crowd as they craned their necks in awe. It gave the building the peaceful atmosphere of a church, but it was a world away from the harsh wooden pew Horacio had prayed in every week.

Without meaning to, his hand brushed against Javier’s as they stood side-by-side, barely a hair’s breadth between them, and too subtle to be noticed by anyone around them.

Javier didn’t flinch, didn’t even look in Horacio’s direction, yet for the briefest of moments, their fingers connected in a way that could have been passed off as accidental if necessary. But of course, they knew there was nothing accidental about them whatsoever.

They came to the lake next, sitting on steps that led up to a grand monument by the water. On the base of it lay a statue of King Alfonso XII with three smaller ones beneath representing peace, freedom and progress, a stark contrast to the Fallen Angel.

“I never found the time to come down here before, but it’s a beautiful spot,” Horacio said, wishing he was wearing his Stetson now he was having to squint in the sun.

“Yeah, it is.”

Somewhere between arriving at the lake and finding a free spot, Javier exchanged conversation for staring out across the water.

Whilst watching the hire boats glide backwards and forwards, out of nowhere, he was reminded of the river back home. The traffickers made it look as easy as a leisure pastime. Like they never got the memo about the turbulent currents that required navigating life as the Rio Grande did, flowing in limbo and helplessly watching the gulf between each side widen like a splitting wound.

Javier vaguely remembered hearing stories from his Abuelas and Abuelos about their journeys across the border. But it wasn’t a subject he and Chucho talked about much. Officially, that was due to Chucho being so young at the time, but unofficially, Javier wasn’t stupid. He knew of the bleak dangers and challenges involved with moving to el otro lado, as he often heard the other side called, more so now than back then, and he always suspected there were stories his Pops would rather keep to himself.

“Hey, you still in there?”

Horacio’s voice brought Javier back down to earth. “Yeah. Sorry.”

It was typical of him to be sitting here ignoring Horacio and the scenery in favour of daydreaming about the very place they came here to take a break from. Their late morning interlude had apparently taken it out of him, and he was already reverting to losing himself in thought rather than focusing on the present.

But as Javier went through the day’s events, his attention still on the lake, an idea came to him. He could sense he was being watched as a playful smirk took hold. “Fancy a ride?”

It didn’t take long for Horacio’s mind to wander, despite the fact he could plainly see what Javier was referring to. Always the tease, which he’d no doubt pay for later. “Only if you take it in turns with the rowing.”

“Deal.”

Soon after, they set off from the jetty in a pale blue and white rowing boat. Horacio took the oar first, the reason already paying dividends as he watched Javier trying but failing not to fixate on Horacio’s arms.

“Nice view out here,” Horacio deadpanned.

Javier cleared his throat and shifted in his seat, triggering a welcomed reminder from a matter of hours ago and handing victory straight to Horacio. “You could say that.”

That was all Horacio had wanted in the way of revenge because two could play at that game.

They rowed in comfortable silence, taking in their picturesque surroundings and the fact it was easy to be around others yet still be alone here. From a quick glance at other boating parties, there was a diverse mix of groups and couples, and no one appeared remotely interested in them for a change. It was an antidote to the heavy conversations and emotions from earlier, even if that had been a necessary step for them to take.

“Do you think this still counts as a bad day?” Javier asked now that Horacio had taken a break from rowing, letting them slowly drift in the deserted end of the lake.

“A bad start, maybe. But I think we might’ve just about salvaged it.”

“Me too.”

Their eyes met across the boat, the afternoon light casting them in a golden hue. Their feet were the only part of them touching, both a frustration and a catalyst. But they knew that would be rectified once in the privacy of their apartment.

“We better be getting back,” Horacio said with reluctance. “Especially as it’s your turn to row.”

That earned him a “Fuck you” and a splash of water in his general direction.

But Javier accepted the oar, and set a course back to the jetty, Señora Romero’s words still echoing in his ears.

Because she was right; they couldn’t always be in the same boat. It was unrealistic to expect otherwise. But they could work hard to be as much as possible. They could take turns to bear the load, be the other’s anchor and cherish the times they succeeded. And today was proof of that.

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In the week before Easter, there were celebrations across the city for La Semana Santa. Whilst Javier and Horacio preferred peace and quiet to the processions through the streets, they couldn’t say no to Señora Romero’s invitation to a festive meal.

As it turned out, they were also roped into helping with food preparations in exchange for an extra pitcher of lemonade and leftovers to fill their freezer up to the brim.

Señora Romero’s family were to visit the next day, so they made multiple batches, and it was all hands on deck. They prepared an array of dishes, including espinacas con garbanzos, empanadas, croquetas de bacalao, bartolillos madrileños, buñuelos de viento, flores fritas, and torrijas, passing along their contributions like a conveyer belt, Señora Romero issuing instructions without even looking up from her work.

“My Mamá would’ve evicted us from the kitchen by now,” Javier said after his first attempts at frying flores fritas resulted in a sea of uneven misshapes floating in the pan of hot oil.

“No such luck today, Javier. Try holding the mould for longer in the oil after each one. The batter won’t stick to it if it’s not hot enough.”

Javier did as he was directed. And lo and behold, Horacio soon was sprinkling sugar and cinnamon over light, crisp, fully-defined flowers.

“And give yourselves some credit,” Señora Romero continued, finishing cutting up her empanada dough and spooning filling into the segments. “Your tamales are delicious. My lot will be lucky if there are any left by tomorrow. You’ll have to tell me your secret.”

Repeating their success from Laredo had been a challenge in their apartment kitchen as it wasn't as well-equipped or organised as Chucho’s. There must have been something about the simple domesticity of the situation that appealed to them – or perhaps memories from the guesthouse – as they found a pleasing way to pass the time whilst their tamale fillings cooked, involving Javier sitting on top of the kitchen unit, legs wrapped around Horacio and their hips grinding together. They didn’t undress, the friction of their jeans enough to have the desired effect.

“Oh, just plenty of practice over the years.” Javier's tone was guileless, although the roguish expression he fixed Horacio with told another story.

The heat rising in Horacio’s cheeks rivalled the pot of oil simmering on the stove, and it was time to rescue the conversation fast. “Erm, yeah, the pork ones are my Abuela Margarita’s recipe. Alejandra and I made them every Christmas. My Papá would watch us like a hawk. He said it was so we didn't burn the house down, but I think he wanted to be first in line for the tamales.”

It seemed stupid in hindsight, but Horacio looked forward to his Papá checking up on them like that because it at least meant he was home and spending time with them rather than with his work. It meant he was proud of Horacio, even if it was in the most trivial of ways.

“My Mamá made them when I was a kid. Pop insisted on the beef being from our best cattle, though, because he always wanted the best for us." The mischief in Javier's eye had been replaced with something more earnest. That had been the one role his Mamá allowed his Pops to undertake when it came to the tamales, and it was a role taken seriously.

“So many of my family’s traditions started in the kitchen. Recipes I use in the café were handed down to me through the generations, ones I’ve made with care and love; over and over again. What better way to remember those no longer around?" Señora Romero broke off to place her tray of egg-washed empanadas into the oven. "And that would certainly explain it too.”

“Explain what?” Horacio asked.

“Your secret,” she replied with a simple smile, as though it was the most obvious statement anyone could ever have made.

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The morning passed in the blink of an eye as they filled the apartment with a tempting blend of aromas, and it was late afternoon when they sat down to enjoy the fruits of their labour.

Plates, bowls, and dishes filled the table, and they tucked into a feast that rivalled one of Chucho’s. Not that Javier dared to ever tell his Pops that.

Once they had eaten as much as their stomachs allowed and chatted over coffee long past sunset, Javier bid Señora Romero goodnight, taking two large Tupperware boxes of leftovers back to their apartment, a haul that would stave off hunger for at least a month or two.

Horacio stayed behind to help Señora Romero clear up the kitchen. He was the designated washer whilst she dried, on account of knowing where to put each item back in its rightful place.

Once all the cutlery, cups, and plates were washed, Horacio refilled the sink, a comfortable lull in conversation settling over them.

“It was him, wasn’t it?” Señora Romero asked after she delivered a second load of dishes to be washed. “When I asked if there was someone back home.”

Horacio switched the tap off now the sink was full, concentrating intently on swirling soap suds and a cloth around the serving bowl he had plunged under water. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you.”

“Oh, don’t be silly, dear. You didn’t owe me an explanation then, and you don’t owe me one now. I understand when the newspapers have been no better than the days of Franco. And mark my words; those were dark, dark days.”

A righteous anger erupted from the surface in Señora Romero’s tone. It was one that Horacio had rarely heard but recognised and understood instantly.

“Spain’s old wounds,” he stated rather than asked.

“On good days, I like to think of it more as scar tissue.”

“Makes sense.”

“We used to hide people whenever there were raids. Sometimes you’d know why they were hiding. Other times, you didn’t ask; you just did it. Anything to keep them from harm. So, please know that you and Javier will always be safe here.”

“Thank you. That means a lot.”

“How was it living in Texas?”

“There was gossip, a few looks and comments, as you can imagine. But Chucho, Javier’s father, was like – he treated me like family.”

“Sounds like we’d get along. And what about your family?”

“I, er, haven’t told them. Alejandra knows I’m here but not why or who I’m with. I never told her or my Mamá about Laredo either. So, I know I owe them the truth.”

“It’s your truth, and you decide if or when you share it with anyone else, Horacio. I can’t pretend to know your family, but if my child or brother had been through everything you have, I’d count my blessings he was alive and well. And happy.”

A palm landed on Horacio’s soapy hand resting at the edge of the sink, the last few dishes now cleared. He had no words to offer beyond thank you, even if that felt wholly inadequate.

He wished her goodnight, returning home to join Javier in bed, both wiped out after a busy day of good company and far too much food.

Horacio slotted himself in front of Javier, back to chest. Slow, deep exhales and groggy mumbles passed between them as Javier instinctively scooped Horacio closer to him, an acknowledgement of each other’s presence without the expectation of conversation.

Javier soon fell back to sleep, leaving Horacio caught somewhere in the middle as snapshots that could have been dreams or memories – or both – played like an old slideshow in his head.

In one, he and Alejandra were kids again, flicking water from the kitchen sink and squealing with delight. He couldn’t see them, but he knew their parents were in the next room as faint traces of their voices travelled through the house.

In another, Horacio was his current age, standing at the sink in what he remembered of Alejandra’s kitchen in Manizales. Every surface was piled high with dishes waiting to be washed and dried. A flash of movement in the corner of his eye revealed his Papá walking briskly across the room, his police uniform a vivid green even though the outline of his form was incorporeal.

Horacio followed and called after him as they made their way through the house, but there was no response. He looped back to where he started, his father now gone as he stood by the sink with hands submerged in hot, soapy water. He noticed the dishes stacked on the drainer were somehow clean, so pulled the plug, water whirlpooling down the drain until all that was left was suds…and a glint of gold. He reached through the bubbles until he was grasping his father’s necklace.

That was enough to pull him fully awake, the spasm in his limbs causing a chain reaction as Javier roused too.

“You okay?”

“Hmm, yeah, I think I was dreaming. I’m fine, though.” Horacio shuffled them around the other way, placing a reassuring kiss at the nape of Javier’s neck. “Go back to sleep.”

It was likely an exchange neither would remember in the morning. But as they settled down again, and Javier placed their hands over the crucifix at his sternum, Horacio swore he could feel an invisible weight around his own neck.

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The transition between spring and summer in Madrid was abrupt if you weren’t used to it. But one advantage to August was most Madrileños escaped to the coast or mountains for respite from the heat. It left the city emptier than usual, which was more than fine by Javier and Horacio.

It was a strange contradiction for them to seek refuge in a city as lively as Madrid when they preferred the tranquillity of ranch life these days, but city living brought anonymity. Las Posadas was like being under the microscope, whereas no one bothered them here.

Prime shaded spots in the park or the outdoor seating at cafés and restaurants were plentiful. And there were no problems hiring a boat at El Retiro Park before the hottest part of the day kicked in. Then they would hide out in their apartment during siesta hours.

It was doubtful if many people actually slept during siesta these days. But it did mean some shops closed for a few hours, and a general hush would fall over the city.

Sometimes, they would watch T.V. and old films or listen to the radio. Occasionally, Horacio would read aloud to Javier like last Christmas, the significance of Lorca’s words being spoken in their shared apartment, in this country not lost on them. On reflective days, it was rare but not unheard of for hands to connect, their cross clasped between their palms and their minds quiet.

There were also regular phone calls to Laredo, Miami and Medellín. It was funny; in the months they had been in Madrid, Javier had spoken more with his Pop than his entire time in Colombia. His Mamá was often a topic of conversation, Javier making sure to tell his Pops he’d been reading her book here as instructed.

“She always had her head in a book. And she always dreamed of travelling. She was like you when she was younger; she had her heart set on leaving Laredo. Even though your grandparents did everything they could to keep them here. But maybe that was why she wanted to spread her wings; I don’t know.”

“What changed her mind?”

“She met me.”

“Oh, well, good to know ruining lives is a Peña family trait.”

“Think of it as a gift, Mijo. I can’t take all the credit, though. She built herself a good community here. And then, she got involved with the farmers’ unions before she was ill. I think she was just getting started.”

They moved on to how Abuelito Mauricio never intended to settle permanently in Texas. He had left Abuelita Imelda and their brood – Chucho being the eldest – back in a rural town in Guanajuato, and he would send his wages home to them each month. Once the then-small plot of land he scrimped and saved to purchase grew, and made a profit, the rest of the family followed.

“What did Abuela Rosa and Abuelo Guillermo do again?”

“Your Abuelo ran a grocery store downtown, and your Abuela was a seamstress. She did more than that, though, especially in the ‘30s, when they nearly lost the store. Some of their extended family were repatriated back to Michoacán. And many of their customers left for Mexico too. So, they had no staff, and takings were down. Your Abuela managed every cent and dollar of their finances. She’d mend clothes for a small fee or in exchange for food to make sure they never went without.”

“Sounds hard.”

“It was. The ranch struggled too. There weren’t many workers left, and most people couldn’t afford a lot of meat. But we were luckier than most. Some never came back, and even those who did were strangers on one side of the border and a threat on the other. Things got ugly for a while.”

“What happened to the ones who came back?”

“They had to start from scratch again. Local charities were set up to help with travel costs, finding somewhere to live, reuniting separated families, that sort of thing. Your grandparents did what they could to help. It was your Abuelita’s idea to build the guesthouses. Your Abuelito took on labourers struggling to find work for the construction. Then they hosted a few families until they got back on their feet. I think that's why your mother wanted to keep them over the years – because someone always needs them.”

It wasn’t the first time Javier had been told about his family history, but it might have been the first time he asked. And it was strange how differently the same pieces of information could be interpreted depending on the stage of life in which they were shared. In his youth, it was hard to see the drawbacks of leaving Laredo. Because anywhere else had to be better.

But now, all he could think was how much of a throw of the dice it was. Too many families weren’t as lucky as his parents; they never got the option of crossing back over the bridge or pursuing the illusive American Dream. And if fate had decided otherwise, Javier could have grown up on the bank of the Río Bravo rather than the Rio Grande.

Chucho would also discuss ranch business with Horacio, updating him on staff changes, how the newborn calves were thriving, and the latest local gossip.

“Ciro’s thinking of selling up,” he informed Horacio one afternoon.

“Hasn’t he threatened that before?”

“Oh, plenty of times when his back plays up. Or when the weather’s on the turn. But Malena’s health isn’t so good now. And like me, Ciro’s not getting any younger. He was talking about moving closer to their daughter in San Antonio.”

Ciro and Malena Ortega owned the corn farm next door and had been there long since before Javier was born. They had always shared a close professional and personal relationship with the Peñas by selling them feed grain for the livestock and helping in any way possible during and after Mariana’s illness.

“Have they found a buyer? Or are we going to need a new supplier?”

“Not sure yet, to be honest, Mijo. I’ll keep you posted.”

They rounded off their catch-up with the latest on Luna’s, Sol’s and Leo’s adventures. But when Horacio discovered that Luna still waited outside the guesthouse door from time to time, he almost booked himself on the next flight to Laredo.

He had also managed to catch up with Trujillo a couple of times. But it was hard pinning down a busy Major tasked with clearing up whatever dregs were left of the Medellín cartel. After Steve opened his big mouth about Trujillo’s girlfriend, Horacio had half a suspicion he was being avoided deliberately.

In Miami, Connie was back in the E.R. part-time now Olivia was old enough for day-care. A promotion and countless commendations had been thrown Steve’s way since the New Year. If anyone suspected he was the source of the Cali intel – and both Javier and Steve knew someone would – they didn’t let on, apparently too busy getting off on the reflected glory of the Escobar circus.

“There’s a rumour we’re gonna be offered a fuckin’ book deal,” Steve said with a bemused snigger during one of their phone calls.

“A rumour from who?”

“My boss. My boss’ boss. Probably my boss’ boss’ boss. How about it, Javi? Fancy being an author now you’re unemployed? We could make a fortune.”

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” was Javier’s only response to that suggestion.

------------------------------------------------------

Regardless of what they did during siesta hours, one thing often led to another. They were hot and sweaty anyway, might as well fully commit or continue in the shower if the heat got too much.

Even though they didn’t have jobs to get back to, it was an indulgence to set aside time in the middle of the day for sex. It couldn’t have been further from their previous lives. But here, they could drag it out as long as they liked, teasing and edging each other, keeping their bodies still for as long as possible. It was as relaxing as it was arousing, intimate as much as it was erotic, and an apt way to spend downtime gifted to them by the city that once kept them apart.

This time, they had been reading on the bed before becoming distracted by lying mouth to cock in exquisite symmetry across the mattress. It was all bobbing heads and bucking hips swallowed down with muffled purrs of pleasure until they were satiated.

Fresh out of the shower, Horacio lay back on his pillow with a towel around his waist. From this angle, the mirrored wardrobe door reflected the image of Javier in the same attire as he shaved over the bathroom sink. There was still something sacred about witnessing the day-to-day rituals like this, and it was impossible to take them for granted.

“Did you always know?” Horacio asked once Javier re-joined him.

A vague question on the face of it, but Javier had already seen his copy of Giovanni’s Room on Horacio’s nightstand with a bookmark slotted in the centre of it.

“Not always. But there was this new ranch hand when I was about 10 or 11. He must’ve been 23, 24. I never spoke to him, just watched him work. I thought I wanted to be like him – I think everyone thought I’d follow in Pops’ footsteps back then. But, er, one summer, I walked in on him changing his shirt in the stables and,” Javier broke off with a boyish grin, “that was that.”

“So, that’s why you have a thing for cowboys.”

“Just the one cowboy these days, actually.” Javier shifted to face Horacio, fingers dipping beneath his towel seam until he squirmed. “Nothing ever happened with him; I was just a kid. I tried to ignore it, went to church, chased girls. And obviously, I couldn’t tell anyone. But it was always there in the background. Like some sort of...fucking unscratched itch. Then at high school, I met Antonio.”

Javier hadn’t said his name out loud in decades, but it stung more than expected. Antonio was Javier’s first…not quite everything, but it felt like it at the time. For almost two years, they were inseparable. They shared similar heritage and backgrounds, although Antonio’s family were crop farmers rather than ranchers. Not that it mattered when they had twice as much land to explore in the holidays or when Javier needed to escape the deafening quiet of the farmhouse now that it was just him and Pops. Or when they hid in the cab of one of Antonio’s father’s harvesters, passing a bottle of Chucho’s whiskey between them until they were drunk enough to take the plunge.

The following months were a whirlwind of exhilaration, fear, discovery and shame. Like the door had been unlocked on something that had never been a possibility until it was. However, they knew it couldn’t last. It had been a close enough call on the afternoon that Chucho came home earlier than expected. But the beginning of the end came when, without warning, Antonio’s family sold their farm and moved back to Mexico. Javier never did find out why, but once the place was up for sale, Antonio was no longer allowed to visit the ranch. And the only time they saw each other, and the only place they could say goodbye, was at school.

It was clear to Horacio that Javier wasn’t going to elaborate further. And if he wasn’t telling, Horacio certainly wasn’t asking. “I was in my first year at the Academy.”

“You about to make me jealous with stories of all the men in uniform you had your way with?”

“If you must know, there was just one…Andrés.”

Horacio hadn’t thought about him in a long time, a ghost from the past he preferred to keep there. He and Andrés were assigned to the same training barracks when they were cadets. There were supposed to be another two trainees sharing their bunkroom, but one withdrew his place at the Academy at the last minute; the other was a no-show at the first induction meeting and was automatically excluded.

Without the camaraderie of other cadets in their sleeping quarters, they had no choice but to rely on the other for company, which was no easy feat at the beginning when neither was particularly talkative. Bit by bit, they bonded over their work, discovering they both had fathers further up the ranks. It was often a bone of contention for other cadets, but that was never a problem between them.

There were subtle signs, lingering looks, and shared smokes even before they started gravitating towards each other in the shower blocks. Whilst there was an unspoken eyes-down rule that wasn’t worth a man’s life to break, when they were the last ones left under the spray, gradually, glance by glance, it was broken until their eyes locked, breathing hard, fists clenched by their sides. Nothing happened there and then, but it was a different story later that night behind the safety of a closed door and beneath starched sheets.

They never talked about it, couldn’t even if they’d wanted to, which they didn’t because there was nothing to acknowledge in the first place. Yet it happened again and a few more times after that, always under the cover of darkness, apart from one reckless time in the shower block when they didn’t have the discipline to wait, the thrill of it heightened and tempered by the possibility of being caught in the act.

But then, one morning, Horacio woke to find Andrés’ bed made and his belongings gone. He had requested and been granted a transfer to his father’s regiment without telling anyone. A perk of being a General’s son, Horacio supposed. He never heard from Andrés again.

“Even after him, I brushed it off as…circumstantial. An occupational hazard.” Disbelief caught in Horacio’s throat at the blatant denial in that sentiment, but it wasn’t like he knew better. Not when dread and nausea washed away any unnameable fleeting feelings that may have surfaced in his pre-Academy days. “Women were the only option, so I buried myself in work and tried to forget.”

“Before ‘81, right?”

“Yeah. So, maybe a blessing in disguise.”

“No maybe about it.” Javier’s sight line suddenly landed on the ceiling, even though he was the one who went there first.

This wasn’t a subject they liked to talk about, but there was no escaping the way the last decade and more had played out, even when they were neck-deep in the world of cartels and cocaine. Maybe now the dust had settled, and their minds weren’t so full of work, they were finally able to come to terms with all of it. Maybe now they could see so much of their pasts had been born out of fear.

“I still got tested when I was with Juliana, though. And with you.”

“I was the same after Lorraine. And definitely when I was in Colombia.” Javier couldn’t help but laugh, even though it wasn’t funny to think of those days anymore. Not because he was ashamed of sex, but he couldn’t deny it had been a sticking plaster at times. In his defence, despite the stance of the Catholic Church, he used condoms. Until Horacio, that was. “I never would’ve let you…if I hadn’t been sure.”

“Me neither.”

Horacio rolled on his side until they were face-to-face, his hand cupping Javier’s cheek, gently coaxing his gaze back to him.

Their lips met, both fully aware they had survived two war zones when the odds were stacked against them. When too many men like them hadn’t been so lucky. They had seen the headlines, the ostracization, the mishandling, and those in power looking the other way. But they were still here, alive and well. Surer of themselves and each other than ever before.

------------------------------------------------------

Javier sat down at the kitchen table, bleary-eyed and reaching straight for the pot of coffee left waiting for him, the rich scent alone beginning to stir him awake. As much as he preferred staying in bed wrapped around Horacio, that wasn’t the most comfortable option at this time of year. At least there was still shade to be found outside at this hour, and Horacio was to bring back a breakfast of hot, fresh churros from Café Romero on the route home from his run. So, Javier could hardly complain.

He was several sips into his coffee when a key turned in the lock.

Horacio came through to the kitchen carrying the churros and what appeared to be a newspaper with a small envelope perched on top of it.

“Perfect timing, I’m starving,” Javier declared as he grabbed the bag and divided the churros across two plates.

Horacio murmured a vague “Me too” in reply. But his attention was focused on the envelope, which was addressed to him in familiar handwriting.

He tore the edge of it carefully and pulled out a card, a proud smile spreading across his lips after just a couple of seconds.

“What’s that?” Javier asked as he dusted excess sugar off his fingers.

Horacio handed the card over without elaborating.

Javier read it and soon had a smile to match Horacio’s. “I take it we’re going, then?”

“Of course we are.” He joined Javier at the table, his stomach swooping like he had missed a step on the stairs. “But I think I need to make a phone call first.”

#Narcos fic #Narcos #Javier Peña #Horacio Carrillo #Carrillo #Javier Peña x Horacio Carrillo #Pedro Pascal #Maurice Compte #Narcos fanfic #Narcos fanfiction #Narcos fan fic #My Fan Fic #My Narcos Fic

[justkending]

Finding Memories. Chapter 20.

Series Summary: Waking up with little to no memory of her past, and being saved by a group of individuals who call themselves heroes, sends a long time captive for a whirlwind trying to find some form of grounding in this world she quickly learns runs on chaos. But she’s not the only one trying to figure out her forgotten backstory. Bucky Barnes, along with the other Avengers, can’t help but sense that there is a lot more to the whole situation than a diagnosis of amnesia. Her background slowly starts to come forward in pieces of her past and hidden information discovered. Who is she? And why was she in the room they were meant to destroy?

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Enhanced Reader 

Word Count: 2500+

TW: Torture, cussing, gore, PTSD, triggers.  

A/N: First off, I’m so sorry this has taken me SO long to get out. I have had no motivation and have been taking the break to sleep and rest since my nervous system is shot from dealing with hormonal 5th graders everyday. With that being said, thank you for you patience and kind supportive words letting me know it’s ok to write when I can, but it doesn’t have to be forced. Anyway I left you with a cliffhanger last time, so enjoy some explanation this time around;)

Chapter 20:  

“Ok, ok! Stop!” Nat shouted as Y/N’s hand death gripped her own.

After a minute of being in one specific memory's flashback, Wanda started to pull back after seeing how tense Y/N had become. 

“No!” she shouted, releasing her locked jaw. “I’m fine! Keep going.” Her tone was firm even if her face showed discomfort and anguish. 

Nat and Wanda shared a short look of unease but followed what they agreed upon when they first started. 

“No matter how bad it gets, keep going unless I say so,” Y/N had instructed. 

“Do we need a safe word?” Nat joked at the time. 

Seconds before Nat was about to throw all that out of the window and cut her off, Y/N’s eyes opened wide and her breathing stopped. 

“I remember why I know him,” she said softly. The sweat from the intense manipulation showed on her forehead and she was shaking some while still holding onto Nat’s hand. 

“Jesus.” Wanda took a breath herself seeing what Y/N had seen.

Nat looked between the two and saw all kinds of emotions flowing between them. 

“How did you know him?” She asked them in order to focus their minds one thing. 

Y/N took a second but she blinked out of her daze and looked at Nat. 

“He, uh,” she stammered, bringing a hand up to wipe her hair away and the sweat that it was sticking to. “He was another experiment at the facility. I think we were cellmates at some point.” 

“Cellmates?” 

“It had to have been when I first got there. The first couple of years I wasn’t of much importance to them. There was someone stronger and apparently more powerful than me they were focused on,” Y/N explained. She brought her knees up to her chest and stared off into the distance as she retold what she had found. “I was young in the memory. He was too. We were low-level mutants so they crammed us in a tiny cell together and would come to take us to the operating rooms and have their way with us.” 

Everyone in the room cringed at the thought of someone having their way with another. The saying never, nor would ever, become easier to hear no matter how many times it happened in cases like this.

“We were friends. We only had each other for the most part,” she continued. “When one was taken and then brought back later, bruised, beaten, and bloody, we would take turns consoling and try to help whatever pain they inflicted on us. But Gabriel… He didn’t heal as fast.” She looked at them both. “There were a lot of times I thought it was the end for him because of how bad of condition he would come back in.”

“Does he have any kind of healing powers?” Nat asked. 

“I don’t think so. If he does it’s barely above a normal person's healing rate,” she answered. 

“What happened when you were no longer in the cell with him?” Wanda asked, thinking back to the memory herself. 

She thought back, closing her eyes and trying to remember the excruciating details. 

“They moved us eventually. We could still talk to each other but it was through a vent in the wall. We were separated by a few cells,” she answered. “It was after they learned I was capable of more than just healing. I was contained in a room by myself after that. And… I was pulled by the doctors and scientists a lot more often.”

There was silence for the horror they were sure she was reliving in her mind right now. Then her eyes widened. 

“Wanda, I need you to look for something else,” she turned to her. 

“What?” she asked. “I don’t know if we should do this much back to back.”

“Please, there’s something that happened in between all this that I can’t grasp.” Her eyes were wide, slightly watering, and her plea read on her face. 

“Ok,” Wanda nodded. “What am I looking for?”

“At some point, they figured out my other power and there’s like a weird hole in the timeline I can’t understand.” 

Wanda wavered on doing another round of brain prodding, but if that’s what she wanted, she had to trust she knew her limit. 

Starting the process again, Y/N closed her eyes and kept Nat’s hand in hers. Wanda’s hand moved in a practiced way as the red mist surrounded Y/N’s thoughts.

“You, my dear, are my new prodigy. The last one wasn’t as indestructible as we thought. We’ll see how long you last,” a voice echoed in her head. 

Then it was as if played on a projector in her mind as they came back piece by piece. 

“Doctor, she’s prepped and ready for you, sir.”

“Step aside,” the voice of someone who was not in frame said softly, but with a tone of power. 

Y/N could tell that she was squirming on the table they had restrained her on, but she could also feel the kick of the drugs they administered to calm her. 

Her posture on the bed in real time seemed to slouch as she felt minor effects of the feelings she was having in the flashback. 

Nat was watching closely and already had moved a pillow behind her head in case she fell back anymore. 

“Hello, Pet.”

 His face entered the frame and there he was. The man that she had seen and felt in her dreams, but could never truly see his face… Until now. 

“Sir, we-”

The man’s finger went up without moving his eye contact away from Y/N.

“Don’t interrupt me. You may speak when spoken to,” he tilted his head as he surveyed his next victim. “Now you.” He said in a way that meant he wanted her attention. “You are going to be my next…” He paused, debating on what to label her and was careful of his wording. “Piece of art.”

She could feel the unease and panic of his words and how promising of a look he was giving. 

“Now!” he shouted, making her jump some. “Let the fun start. Dr. Hartley, hand me that scalpel and have the retractor on hand.”

Wanda was quick to pull her back out before the torture began and she felt all that too. 

“I’m sorry,” she said when Y/N came out of it and stuttered out her breathing. “I couldn’t keep you in there.” 

“What happened?!” Nat asked, rubbing a hand up and down Y/N’s back as she found her breath. 

“I’ll tell you in a little,” she assured, turning back to Y/N. “You ok?”

She nodded, but it wasn’t too convincing. 

“We should take a break,” Nat noted as she watched the other two’s backlash for the last 20 minutes.

“I agree,” Wanda said, looking to Y/N to join in. 

Y/N shook her head but still couldn’t seem to find her words. That just proved to her though that Wanda and Nat’s idea was probably for the best. Even if she didn’t want to stop, she knew her mind could only take portions of the memories. 

_____________________

“He’d dead though. We made sure of that,” Bucky ran a hand through his hair as he tried to comprehend the news. 

“We made sure of it as best as we can, but you know it’s also possible that we fell for the trick,” Tony sighed. “It’s not the first time we thought someone was out of our lives for good and they show up later perfectly fine.”

“But we had proof! We found his teeth in the ashes. They matched them and confirmed it was him,” Bucky tried to find a plausible reason why this all could be wrong.

“He’s an evil scientist,” Tony deadpanned. “Sure dental records could confirm it, but what is that to say he didn’t do some weird experiment to fake it.” 

“No, because-” 

“Jonas Harrow is out. Whether we want to believe it or not, he’s continuing his streak of human experimentation. And who knows what all he’s learned in the year we thought he was dead?” Tony interrupted. “If you want to help Y/N, you need to accept that he could be our next threat.” 

Bucky looked at him realizing Tony was actually right. He could deny it all day but that didn’t make it not true. 

Tony noticed the shift of nerves and worry go to anger and earnestness when he realized he had a new mission. 

“Now, what are we going to do about it?” Tony asked. 

Bucky let out a slow breath and after scratching his chin, put both hands on his hips looking toward Stark. 

“I think we should tell Y/N.” 

_____________________________

“I think we should tell Bucky.”

“Are you sure?” Wanda asked Y/N. “Not saying I’m against it, but I’m not sure he would be happy about the process.” 

“It already happened so no going back anyway,” Y/N responded. 

Nat got a call and the other two turned to her as she looked at the caller and raised an eyebrow. 

“What’s up?” she answered. There was silence as Tony spoke on the other end. “Uh-huh, ok… Got it. We’ll be down there in 5.” She turned to the girls who were waiting for context. “Stark wants us down in the lab. I think they found something.” 

“What?” Wanda asked. 

“Something I’m going to have to see for myself,” Nat replied with a look of worry. “Let’s go.” 

__________________

Just as they walked into the lab, Bucky’s head snapped up and scanned for Y/N. The need to make sure she was unharmed and safe had heightened since their recent discovery. 

“What’s going on?” Nat asked walking to the table with a purpose. 

Bucky saw Y/N come in after her and she carefully walked over to the side of the table he was at. 

“Did you get any rest?” he asked her seeing that she looked the opposite of rested. 

She was nervous to tell them what they were actually doing instead of resting. So she shook her head no, not lying, but also not going further into the truth. 

He was about to ask if she was ok, but Tony spoke up and started telling them their new evidence. 

“Y/N, we think we found the man in charge of your incarceration,” he got straight to the point. 

“What?” Her voice was a mere breath like she was socked in the gut from the words said.

Bucky placed a kind and gentle hand on her shoulder. 

“Because we know who it is though, we’ll be able to hunt him down faster and put an end to his operation,” he reassured. 

She nodded acknowledging his positive view on it but was still in a state of distress. 

“You may want to give her some details of this man and how we know him,” Nat encouraged Tony. 

“Right,” Tony nodded, coming around the end of the table he was at to stand next to her. He threw a small little device into the middle of the table and an entire screen shot up on all four sides of the table so everyone had a view of it. “For trigger reasons, I’m not going to put a picture up yet, but his name is Jonas Harrow.”

“Harrow?” Wanda asked. “Why does that sound familiar?” she said softly to herself, biting her thumbnail. 

“He’s not a stranger to the facility, unfortunately. He worked here for less than a year as a regular doctor. But one thing led to another and we figured out his intentions did not follow SHIELD protocol,” Tony explained. 

“What kind of intentions?” Y/N asked. Tony gave her a sad look and pursed his lips. The look alone told her where her mind wandered to was likely very accurate. “Oh.”

“We fired him and had him arrested after learning what all he had done and would continue to do if he wasn’t put into the detention we had him in.”

“Had as in past tense?” she asked. 

Bucky crossed his arms next to her and looked at the details again as she asked questions. 

“We held him here for a while but later he was transferred. During the transfer, he escaped,” Tony continued. “We tried to track him down but he stayed under our radar for a while. Never came up for air to show us any sign of life.”

“Until now,” Y/N nodded, her stance becoming more angry than nervous now. “But how did you know he was connected to my case?”

“A few clicks on the internet, some camera footage here and there, and canceling out some aliases he tried to go under made it easier.”

Tony swiped the information to a few far-off camera footage. For most, it wouldn’t be much of a lead, but for the Avengers apparently, it gave the answers to everything they needed. 

In each clip, the man seemed to have an entourage of men guarding him and chauffeuring him around. Clearly, he was paranoid about being caught or being put in harm's way. 

Hypocrite. 

“We also found some dark web and black market exchanges under some of his aliases. He was selling serums and drugs to other people in the same field. As well as purchasing new ones...” Bucky spoke up, looking at her from her side. 

Y/N’s veins seemed to burn at that moment. She knew what type of serums and drugs he was talking about because she was the one who underwent them firsthand before he sold them. She was sure she was the one who was the first hand experimentee when it came to trying the new ones he bought as well.  She, along with everyone else in that facility, were the test runs for these concoctions.

“I need to see a picture,” she said sternly looking at the screen. 

Wanda and Nat looked at her troubled but knew it was the next step whether they liked it or not. 

Tony looked to Bucky as if double checking he was in the clear for what was about to be projected and Bucky nodded him on, but his eyes never left Y/N’s once the picture popped up.

In front of them was a mugshot of the man who Y/N had seen 30 minutes ago in a flashback. She could hear his condescending name for her too clearly in her head. 

“Hello, Pet.”

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#bucky barnes series #finding memories #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x enhanced reader #reader insert #marvel reader insert #justkending #marvel #marvel series #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader series

[richincolor]

New Releases

I got an early look at Rez Ball and am really looking forward to seeing it out in the world. I'm excited for that and several others this week.

Rez Ball by Byron Graves Heartdrum

This compelling debut novel by new talent Byron Graves tells the relatable, high-stakes story of a young athlete determined to play like the hero his Ojibwe community needs him to be. These days, Tre Brun is happiest when he is playing basketball on the Red Lake Reservation high school team—even though he can’t help but be constantly gut-punched with memories of his big brother, Jaxon, who died in an accident. When Jaxon’s former teammates on the varsity team offer to take Tre under their wing, he sees this as his shot to represent his Ojibwe rez all the way to their first state championship. This is the first step toward his dream of playing in the NBA, no matter how much the odds are stacked against him. But stepping into his brother’s shoes as a star player means that Tre can’t mess up. Not on the court, not at school, and not with his new friend, gamer Khiana, who he is definitely not falling in love with. After decades of rez teams almost making it, Tre needs to take his team to state. Because if he can live up to Jaxon’s dreams, their story isn’t over yet.  This book is published by Heartdrum, an imprint that publishes high-quality, contemporary stories about Indigenous young people in the United States and Canada.

Those Pink Mountain Nights by Jen Ferguson Heartdrum

In her remarkable second novel following her acclaimed debut, The Summer of Bitter and Sweet, which won the Governor General’s Award and received six starred reviews, Jen Ferguson writes about the hurt of a life stuck in past tense, the hum of connections that cannot be severed, and one week in a small snowy town that changes everything.

Over-achievement isn’t a bad word—for Berlin, it’s the goal. She’s securing excellent grades, planning her future, and working a part-time job at Pink Mountain Pizza, a legendary local business. Who says she needs a best friend by her side?

Dropping out of high school wasn’t smart—but it was necessary for Cameron. Since his cousin Kiki’s disappearance, it’s hard enough to find the funny side of life, especially when the whole town has forgotten Kiki. To them, she’s just another missing Native girl.

People at school label Jessie a tease, a rich girl—and honestly, she’s both. But Jessie knows she contains multitudes. Maybe her new job crafting pizzas will give her the high-energy outlet she desperately wants.

When the weekend at Pink Mountain Pizza takes unexpected turns, all three teens will have to acknowledge the various ways they’ve been hurt—and how much they need each other to hold it all together.

Ab(solutely) Normal: Short Stories That Smash Mental Health Stereotypes edited by Nora Shalaway Carpenter & Rocky Callen Candlewick Press

Channeling their own experiences, sixteen exceptional authors subvert mental health stereotypes in a powerful and uplifting collection of fiction.

A teen activist wrestles with protest-related anxiety and PTSD. A socially anxious vampire learns he has to save his town by (gulp) working with people. As part of her teshuvah, a girl writes letters to the ex-boyfriend she still loves, revealing that her struggle with angry outbursts is related to PMDD. A boy sheds uncontrollable tears but finds that in doing so he’s helping to enable another’s healing. In this inspiring, unflinching, and hope-filled mixed-genre collection, sixteen diverse and notable authors draw on their own lived experiences with mental health conditions to create stunning works of fiction that will uplift and empower you, break your heart and stitch it back together stronger than before. Through powerful prose, verse, and graphics, the characters in this anthology defy stereotypes as they remind readers that living with a mental health condition doesn’t mean that you’re defined by it. Each story is followed by a note from its author to the reader, and comprehensive back matter includes bios for the contributors as well as a collection of relevant resources.

With contributions by: Mercedes Acosta * Karen Jialu Bao * James Bird * Rocky Callen * Nora Shalaway Carpenter * Alechia Dow * Patrick Downes * Anna Drury * Nikki Grimes * Val Howlett * Jonathan Lenore Kastin * Sonia Patel * Marcella Pixley * Isabel Quintero * Ebony Stewart * Francisco X. Stork

Monstrous by Jessica Lewis Delacorte Press

Forced to spend her summer in her aunt’s strange small town, a teen girl discovers dark secrets hidden in the woods. From the author of Bad Witch Burning comes another pulse-pounding novel perfect for fans of Supernatural and Lovecraft Country.

Don’t go outside past dark. Come straight home after church. And above all—never, ever, go into Red Wood.

These are the rules Latavia’s aunt tells her as soon as she arrives in Sanctum, Alabama for the summer. Weird, but Latavia isn’t here to solve any scary small town mysteries; she’s here for six weeks and six weeks only, and then she’s off to college and won’t look back. Still, Sanctum has its perks—mainly, the cute girl who works at the local ice cream shop.

But Latavia can’t ignore how strange her aunt’s tiny town is. The residents are suspicious of her and at times hostile, and it’s clear she’s some kind of outsider. That’s proven when Latavia is dragged out of her house in the dead of night, into the forbidden Red Wood, and presented as a human sacrifice to an ancient monster.

Latavia won’t be eaten without a fight. She’ll do whatever she has to do to survive—even if that includes making a deal with the monster, endangering her crush and family, and even risk turning into a monster herself.

The Name Drop by Susan Lee Inkyard Press

New from the author of Seoulmates comes a story of mistaken identities, the summer of a lifetime, and a love to risk everything for.

When Elijah Ri arrives in New York City for an internship at his father’s massive tech company, Haneul Corporation, he expects the royal treatment that comes with being the future CEO—even if that’s the last thing he wants. But instead, he finds himself shuffled into a group of overworked, unpaid interns, all sharing a shoebox apartment for the summer.

When Jessica Lee arrives in New York City, she’s eager to make the most of her internship at Haneul Corporation, even if she’s at the bottom of the corporate ladder. But she’s shocked to be introduced as the new executive-in-training intern with a gorgeous brownstone all to herself.

It doesn’t take long for Elijah and Jessica to discover the source of the they share the same Korean name. But they decide to stay switched—so Elijah can have a relaxing summer away from his controlling dad while Jessica can make the connections she desperately needs for college recommendations.

As Elijah and Jessica work together to keep up the charade, a spark develops between them. Can they avoid discovery—and total disaster—with their feelings and futures on the line?

Goddess Crown by Shade Lapite Walker Books US

In this thrilling Afro-fantasy, the first set in the lush, opulent kingdom of Galla, a girl raised in secret must leave her sheltered rural home for the subtle dangers of the royal court, where she becomes caught up in deadly power struggles and romantic intrigue.

Kalothia has grown up in the shadows of her kingdom, hidden away in the forested East after her parents were outed as enemies of the king. Raised in a woodland idyll by a few kindly adult caretakers, Kalothia can hunt and fish and fend for herself but knows little of the outside world. When assassins attack her home on her sixteenth birthday, she must flee to the king’s court in the West–a beautiful but lethal nest of poison, plots, and danger, overseen by an entrenched patriarchy. Guided by the Goddess herself, can Kalothia navigate this most worldly of places to find her own role? What if she must choose between her country and her heart? Excitement, romance, and a charismatic heroine shine in this first book set in the unforgettable kingdom of Galla.

#new releases #young adult literature #young adult books

[andreabandrea]

i really love post-game headcanons where frisk refers to flowey, either jokingly or seriously, as their best friend. their dynamic is so interesting to me, like. flowey feels like anyone who sees him and knows his secret will only want to have asriel back, but frisk never knew asriel. on the other hand, they know flowey - and flowey is the only other one who knows what it's like to save and reset.

and that gives frisk a connection that they don't have with the rest of their friends and family. even though in the true pacifist ending, things are all fine and dandy now, there could very easily still be trauma of like - every monster trying to and succeeding in killing them (except papyrus, who just beats them near unconscious and throws them in a shed). and if they did any neutral routes, they might have killed also, and nobody knows about it or remembers it except them. even despite killing and being killed, just the trauma of resetting and being forgotten and starting over several times could weigh on a person - granted, frisk is a very determined person, but still.

i think the concept that frisk doesnt want to change flowey, but instead meet him where he is, would be intriguing to flowey - and in some circumstances, i could see that being enough to convince him to come to the surface - and this has always been more interesting to me than "saving asriel"-type endings. some things can't be taken back. trauma can't be erased - but you can still move forward with your loved ones by your side.

i think frisk and flowey would help each other heal. frisk initially tried to run away from the surface for a reason, and maybe not a good reason - asriel implies maybe they were trying to end their life by climbing a mountain nobody returns from. flowey has a whole load of trauma that i surely don't need to elaborate on - but i will anyway.

a lot of flowey mischaracterizations stem from the reader taking his words at face value. in new home in the no mercy run, flowey expresses that he's emotionless and nothing but a heartless killer. a lot of fics tend to write flowey as nothing but a perfect calculating killing machine because the readers believe him. but his actions tell a different story; flowey loses his patience with the whole "i'm here to teach you about love" act if you dodge his bullets three times - it's childish, in a way, because he is a child and he's mad that he's not winning at this game. flowey clearly expresses sadness, anger, and in the no mercy route just a bit after new home - fear. (the way i've written it in the past is that he's constantly disassociating from himself and the world by portraying his death and trauma as part of a game, and the way he deals with emotions is filtered through this ptsd-like view, but i dont want to act like i'm the best flowey writer in the world or anything, i've also made a lot of mistakes).

regardless, flowey is, at the end of the day, also a child like frisk. he wants to seem scary to them, and in the no mercy run, he's trying to sound cool and appeal to "chara" - that's why he acts the way he does. it's like a child trying to scare another child or act tough for a beloved sibling.

flowey has also done terrible things to frisk; they're not exempt from the list of monsters that tried to and succeeded in killing them. and although i think all the other monsters can and would be helpful and healing toward frisk and flowey, there's something valuable about a bond like - "we went through this together." if frisk can forgive someone like asgore who succeeded in killing 6 humans, killed them a handful of times, and also made them kill him, i think frisk can forgive flowey.

this comes down more to headcanon, but i think the way that frisk and flowey would interact in this post-game scenario is that, like. flowey would never admit weakness directly. he would feign disinterest in the surface and its denizens, but only because he's afraid. afraid that people wouldn't want him around. afraid because he doesn't know what happens next and if he deserves to see it. afraid of what he could do. but if he, soulless that he is, ever did try to do anything harmful, frisk is the one person who could easily stop him. (not that they would have to - flowey only killed out of boredom, not out of a real enjoyment of it; with so much to do on the surface, and no reset as a failsafe, i can't imagine flowey starting to kill again).

i think frisk would be able to read between the lines about when flowey is hurt and upset and try to comfort him without making him feel weak. we see frisk's kindness and mercy scare and upset flowey once (post-photoshop flowey fight), but those aren't normal circumstances - flowey hadn't grown as much then as he has by the end of the true pacifist route. i think, with time, flowey could come to accept he deserves to exist as he is and accept kindness, and show it in his own way

without the ability to reset (barring the true reset), anything that happens from now on is permanent. flowey in the game relies heavily on his knowledge of past resets; without that, he's forced to admit (albeit if only to himself) that he's not as smart and powerful as he likes to claim. it's a scary new world, and the future isn't written, but i think flowey would be willing to face it again with frisk - someone he always wished he had as a friend.

#bandrea blabbers #ugh!!! i didnt mean to type a whole essay #none of this is groundbreaking or new analysis #i just have so many thoughts about flowey undertale and they ambush me when im doing chores or showering #utdr

[sunmoonjune]

YOOOOO I THINK I HAVE REVELATIONS OKAY I THINK IM ONTO SOMETHING. ltm literally made me sit my ass down and write hANDWRITTEN NOTES not even the english syllabus during high school made me study a text like this

okay okay first off i think i have a clearer idea of the whole timeline of events. SO FIRST UP - completing ignoring father's backstory and the secrets that led up to all of this - bug's birth mother dies when bug is born -> murdered by her father as it's implied that bug's biological mother is the first of his victims in his attempts to maintain title of chief. plus the attendants helping her die so if that doesn't spell out fishy idk what does

then daia comes to learn of the secret, i'm thinking this is way before she gets killed, because she had wanted bug to enjoy her childhood esp with the 'looming uncertainty' of her father's intentions. which means she had known all along and had attempted to rectify the issue as best as she could by loving bug and giving her the best childhood. i'm not sure what leads daia to confront bug's father that particular night, but that's what leads to bug being forced to kill daia

now THIS IS WHERE I CHANGE MY THEORY. originally i thought that this incident bug's father twists to place the blame on bug, which leads to her punishment. BUT NO a year passes between daia's death and The Incident. something ELSE happens which leads to (as punishment im assuming) bug gaining her eye scar and yun his back scar, because we know that they get those injuries the same day. it's not daia's death that directly resulted in their injuries,,,,,, maybe yes the start of the avalanche, but it took a year

i'm also going to place a bet that bug, at the very least, was punished publicly when the incident occurs because she has memories of being dragged by her hair to the centre of the camp. PLUS in chapter 2 yunho has memories of 'being held back as a body cried in front of him. her cries still rang in his head. her blood still stained his skin'. ngl originally i was like omg is this someone else that's important to yun that we haven't been introduced yet like DID YUN'S MUM ALSO GET MURDERED OR SOMETHING. but now i'm thinking that the 'her' in the memory really is just bug and he's recalling that night he watched bug get punished. which also kind of makes sense when it's linked to him recalling when he truly felt pure terror 'when he'd been unable to protect you as you had him. when he felt fear humming in his chest and pushing him forward to step between you and a knife intended for your skin' bECAUSE at first he is forced to watch but adrenaline and raw need to protect bug enables him to take one of the blows ->>>>>> WHICH LEADS TO THE SCAR ON HIS BACK.

also im going to guess that fire or heat of some kind was involved in the incident, because there are actually so many times in ltm where bug's ptsd trauma relates to a 'searing hot knife pressed against the skin', 'ignore the heat of flame', 'lick of fire against your skin' and also yun not putting more blankets on bug even though it's cold because he knows what kind of memories it will bring up. which also runs along with the lil theme you've got going with fire being in integral scenes of her healing process and as a motif for same

and then this whole incident also plays a part (if not the main reason) for bug training and entering the trials. because FREAKING CHAPTER 1 had hinted at it all along and my brain just filtered it right out of my system. 'after that particular night, you had trained long and hard for this chance'.

now there's still the whole mystery surrounding bug's father's secret, The Incident itself, and what actually happened that led to yun's banishment. I SWEAR THEY'RE ALL CONNECTED BUT I CANNOT WORK OUT HOW. BUT i really do think that it's got a lot to do with bug's gender, maybe even her identity as the first-born child, her father's title as head chief. my brain is shutting down now it's out of fuel from this rapid thinking. YOU CAN EVEN TELL FROM THE LACK OF EMOJIS I PUT INTO THIS ASK HAHAHAHAH THERES NOT A SINGLE ONE. this is how you can tell i mean b u s i n e s s

okay loren signing out for now bc shes tIRED

ok ok I finally have a chance to answer this theory update xD loren and her theories are always SO amazing so I hope you enjoy her big brain :}}

also!! she literally sent me photos of the pages of notes she took and I literally ??? almost cried fr :"DD that was SO cute and made me SO happy you don't even know <3

ok so first,, bug's bio mom and her death is def important so I'm glad you picked up on it ;)

and!! you are definitely on the right track that daia learned of the secret quite a bit before her death,, she did indeed want to protect bug as much as she could by keeping the secret and trying to give bug the best childhood possible :")

next! yes at least a year passes between daia's death and the incident in which bug and yun get their scars,, so there definitely is something else that causes the avalanche to finally collapse ;)

the incident that is referenced in chapter two,,, yes yunho is referring to bug in that moment -- you're definitely on the right track connecting those points ;)

and fire is important! there are so many instances in bug's past that have to do with fire and the way it was used against her :(( so it is a recurring image that is good to keep track of >:D

yes yes!! all these instances are connected!! and they will all be revealed soon!! and the gender part of the theory will also be very important too ;)) your theories come closer and closer every day my dear!!

hehe I love love LOVE reading your theories my love <33 thank you for sending this <3 I hope you're doing well and drinking lots of water!! I can't wait for you to read the next chapters xD

#moonie speaks #moonie's mutuals <3 #moonie's favs <3 #loren my love <3 #like the moon #like the moon spoilers

[taughtdefense]

after his near death experience in between 4x08 & 4x09, ethan struggles with finding a sense of normalcy, & finding healthier ways to deal with his trauma. despite being a member of miyagi-do, internally-wise, he's essentially constantly thrown off balance throughout s5. he feels like he doesn't "fit anywhere" anymore, & tries to act like everything is okay on the surface level.

i hope you guys are prepared to read everything & have some snacks ready, because this is very long.

part one: ethan & the "Silver Voice"

something that is rather prevalent for his character arc in season 5 is the fact that he starts hearing silver’s voice in his head. this applies to @opponentcompel's silver specifically, or, to a lesser extent, my own version of silver ( npc ). this development is something that started a few days after he was released from the hospital ( timeline wise, he is released at the near end of 5x03, after being in the hospital from "4.08 point 5" until then ). that's approximately a week or two he spent in the hospital recovering, then he jump-started his healing with his powers.

please note that i'm guesstimating that recovery time of a week or two, because there's no way it takes one day for miguel to get to mexico by bus ( which takes maybe like ~7-10 hours irl ), for johnny to realize where miguel took off to, or for robby & johnny to drive down to mexico, find miguel on their own, then drive back to/return to the valley that same day, returning early in the morning. all of that can’t just happen in one/two days, in my opinion.

canon ck timeline /negative.

anyway….

the fact that ethan hears silver's voice in his head is a real occurrence that is found in people who have PTSD.

"Auditory Verbal Hallucinations (AVHs) are commonly associated with psychosis but are also reported in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Hearing voices after the experience of stress has been conceptualized as a dissociative experience."

ethan hearing silver's voice is a trauma response brought on by his PTSD from the event. he can't just ignore the fact that he almost died, alone & terrified for minutes before robby found him. he can’t just ignore the fact that he actually, clinically died two separate times, either. if you’re curious, it was once in the ambulance to the hospital ( he was resuscitated by the paramedic ), then the second time while on the operating room table. these two times are canon, & he is severely psychologically impacted by it, even post season 5.

as i mentioned in this headcanon, ethan confronting silver can be viewed by other people in-universe as a suicide attempt. he was more than willing to let himself die because he thinks he "deserved the punishment".

the development of his AVH is piled on top of his paranoid anxiety/personality disorder… which forms after the same event, too, but it should be noted the voice of silver doesn't correlate with his PPD. ( an explanation of what PPD is linked here, if you’re curious. please note that the bullet point of "Have persistent suspicions, without justified reason, that their spouses or romantic partners are being unfaithful." DOES NOT apply to ethan. )

he hears the voice of silver in every episode of s5. this is non-negotiable for interactions going forward, & i may mention it once or twice in from this point on. at first, ethan assumes that it's the work of his Creators ( which is semi-true, because they KNOW that he's traumatized ), & tries to push the voice out of his head.

he tries everything he can think of, short of killing "the source" ( silver ), but nothing works. ethan doubts that killing silver would even rid him of the voice. OBVIOUSLY, i wouldn’t have him kill terry, of course for plot reasons. but does he think about it occasionally when the Silver Voice gets bad? yes. but he very heavily internalizes these thoughts throughout s5. he decidedly doesn’t want his friends/family or robby to think he’s mentally slipping. ( even if wade, vanessa & damiana can sort of just Tell. )

part 1.5: the effects of ethan’s near-death experiences on himself & my version(s) of the canon characters/my ocs

ethan tries to pretend like everything is fine around his friends/family, because he doesn’t want them to worry. his efforts of trying to make sure that his friends don’t notice him suffering has the opposite effect, though:

wade & vanessa become increasingly more worried about ethan’s mental state with every s5 episode that passes, practically every scene they're in ( all three of them are in the episodes, trust me ).

his friend group ( my ocs & my versions of the canon ck characters ) start really looking out for ethan because they're worried about his mental, physical & emotional states in a near-constant way. both the adults & teens worry over him. they never want to see him get hospitalized, if they can help it.

they even ask ethan to put a sort of tracking app on his phone, so they can have his location to make sure he isn't hurt somewhere, or someplace where he isn't supposed to be. the group also implements what demetri calls a "buddy system", because that's what it is. it basically means that ethan should never be left to his own devices if out in public, & needs to be "babysat". ethan, because he’s ethan, complains & refers to the buddy system as a prison sentence. he knows they're making sure that he's never put in that life-threatening ever situation again, though. he commends them for that & their efforts in keeping him safe, he doesn’t condemn them.

part two: ethan & coping with his trauma / a tiny blurb: aka "How Did He End Up Here?", & "How Is He Throughout Season 5?"

the "silver voice" ( as i call it ) starts rearing its ugly head if ethan makes a mistake, no matter how small or big it might be. it also comes around if he accidentally hurts one of his friends. this especially applies to the secondary example. whenever ethan starts hearing the silver voice, he will essentially go catatonic & nonverbal in an attempt to cope, or reflexively mentally "fight back" against the voice, assuming its persistent enough in his head while reacting to a specific instance that either just happened, or happened in the past ( "failing" to prevent miguel’s accident at the school, "failing" to realize that robby was going to join ck/not doing "more" to prevent it from happening [even if that is a huge turning point for robby’s character/s4 as a whole, & erasing that won’t work storyline wise] ).

it doesn't matter what day of the week it is, or what time of day. the voice is present enough in ethan’s psyche to impact moments in his life. the silver voice mostly just taunts him & calls more attention to his "failures", like accidentally hurting chase during a friendly sparring match prior to 5x07.

ethan begins to lash out at his friends in s5, especially near the end of the season when the cracks in his mental health start to really show. this cracking unearths a lot of his genuine anger at silver, kreese, & the whole valley-wide karate war as a whole. he’s fed up during season 5. he hadn’t been angry in season 3 like sam was about miguel’s accident, because he’d been TRYING to not let himself get to that point. this is because walker!him in his deadpool universe getting angry = mass destruction of property & mass human casualties, including injuries & loss of life. he was trying to be Better.

( robby getting thrown into juvie by daniel ? VERY different story. he literally moves out of the larusso household without telling anyone, not even sam when it happens, or robby during one of his juvie visits. ethan’s feelings towards daniel switch pretty drastically during s3. there’s a lot of anger & tension towards him, even if he was only trying to help robby get a lighter sentence… but ethan is a teenager, & his friend/crush got put into juvie for an accident, of course he’d feel betrayed by mr. larusso. )

but in s5, his rage is palpable. he's furious over the fact that silver was the "cause" of everything ( for kreese & silver turning the students of cobra kai into miniature versions of themselves, for making them play solider because they're Old Men who can't let go of a 30 year old grudge. robby joining cobra kai, & ethan firsthand witnessing him choose cobra kai, was the main contributing factor to ethan just kind of losing his mind.

another - albeit smaller - factor of ethan finally having Enough of the evil karate senseis terrorizing the Valley & seemingly getting away with it… was stingray's hospitalization the morning after prom. ethan found out that happened unintentionally, when he physically brushed stingray's hand during a visit while stingray was comatose, just after getting beaten. ethan saw his final memory before passing out. he saw that entire stingray & silver scene play out, like he was right next to him, unable to breathe or move.

this enraged mindset only escalates further when daniel is beaten up by silver in season 5, unintentionally, perhaps, semi-paralleling his own run-in with silver. but whereas daniel went to mend a bridge with stingray & found silver, ethan willingly went after silver for both stingray's brutal beating, & the bridges robby's betrayal burned with his miyagi-do ( or eagle fang ) friends. ethan himself included.

but that ^ hc is gonna be expanded on at later date. back to this one...

with this unearthing of ethan’s rage, comes a "sudden" surge of his genuine knowledge/strength in martial arts - whereas prior he'd been pretending to be weak/not as trained in marital arts, despite his legacy status of being wade & vanessa’s son. he stops holding back so much, especially during any fights. whereas someone like emma might attempt to de-escalate the situation verbally, ethan is pretty much ready to throw himself headfirst into battle.

which kind of brings me to my next point.

part three: ethan & co-dependency towards robby throughout season 5, formed as a byproduct of shared/collective trauma ( defined as "experiencing a traumatic event together" )

with ethan nearly dying in the back room of the old cobra kai dojo & robby walking in on that, i genuinely think that ethrobby have shared trauma. not to mention all of the drama/big group fights that happens throughout the show, with the school fight is another big reason why i think they have shared trauma. the show pulls no punches, & for any of them to just walk away without severe impacts on their mental health is very unrealistic. sam’s ptsd storyline throughout s3-s4 was great.

"Strong links between psychotic symptoms, including AVHs (Auditory Verbal Hallucinations), and dissociative experiences have been demonstrated in a number of studies, in both clinical and non-clinical populations (see Moskowitz, Barker-Collo, & Ellson, 2004 for review). Allen, Coyne, and Console (1997) argued that dissociative detachment deprives individuals of “internal and external anchors”."

personally, i interpret "internal & external anchors" as a means to ground oneself to reality, or to "pull" oneself out of a nightmare/PTSD flashback. that is just my own interpretation, though.

during season 5, ethan's quote — unquote "external anchor" is @taughtpain . robby is who grounds him to reality, as well as any thread set post season 5, too. i don't think he'd ever disclose that fact to him, even if he does let him know about the silver voice in his head… or if robby somehow finds out about it on his own. the ‘external anchor’ part is Very Obvious to everyone else in their friend group ( potentially robby himself recognizes this, @mads? ).

as of the posting of this headcanon, i don’t think he’d tell robby or his other partners ( my miguel, my tory or mads’s sam ) about the silver voice, mostly due to internalized fears of rejection/the stigmatization of mental health disorders. he wants to avoid ‘losing’ his fiancés + fiancées at any cost possible.

"The absence of anchors is proposed to increase an individual's sense of feeling disconnected from the world, interpersonal relationships, and within their intrapersonal self, resulting in a sense of confusion and disorientation, and critically, in an impairment in reality-testing."

ethan’s co-dependency towards robby is wildly rooted in the their shared trauma. he loves robby to pieces - he’s not obsessed with him. it is not a stockholm syndrome situation. i want to make that distinction very clear. in practically every shot of season 5 that robby is in, ethan is right next to robby, or in the background someplace, watching over him, or physically holding his hand. he feels compelled to be near him because he is his ‘anchor’ - or someone who tethers him to reality - & his boyfriend. robby makes the silver voice less severe. he’s allowed to be clingy with robby because he saved his life.

"In this way, Moskowitz and Corstens (2007) proposed that for individuals hearing voices when exposed to high levels of stress, AVHs should be conceptualised as dissociative experiences. Similarly, Longden, Madill, and Waterman (2012) proposed that voices could be conceptualised as dissociated or ‘disowned components of the self’, arising from the failure to integrate adverse and traumatic sensory and psychological experiences into the context of the self. Hallucinatory experiences might therefore reflect directly or indirectly dissociated traumatic content (e.g., the voice of an abuser) impinging on conscious awareness (e.g. Anketell et al., 2010), rather than a psychotic symptom."

ethan hears the silver voice a lot. if he was counting the amounts, he’d have surely gone past 10 times per episode, typically not per scene, because that would be too many times to calculate. especially depending on the context of the episode’s plot-line. with 10 episodes per season, that’s ( at the very LEAST ) a minimum of 100 pieces of dialogue the Silver Voice says to ethan. he feels physically sick ( or a little violent ) when silver even looks in his general direction during the sekai taikai qualifying matches in 5x08. he wants to fucking run out of the dojo. he doesn’t, although it’s obvious by his facial expressions he’s uncomfortable.

is that a lot of silver dialogue running around in ethan’s head? yes. i’m fully aware of it. but ethan’s severely traumatized, he’s an eldritch being. he doesn’t know how to properly cope with anything that happened to him in the past, & the Silver Voice isn’t ( mostly ) meant to appear during his happy moments. he’s not really genuinely happy or calm during s5. he starts to get his bloodlust up, the desire for revenge. he can’t just sweep his trauma under the rug.

if ethan is away from robby for a prolonged period of time ( ex: a few weeks for whatever reason ), the silver voice can & does routinely say nasty things to him about everything that happened in between 4x08 & 4x09.

some examples of the voice include, but are not limited to:

the miguel+johnny+robby trip to & back from mexico, because ethan was recovering in the hospital

the miguel+robby+johnny apartment fight because my johnny kept him away intentionally ( something that REALLY pissed him off )

when robby confronts silver with tory, the rest of the ck students & sensei kim present in 5x09.

while ethan doesn’t at all feel ‘insecure’ with his romantic relationship, or doubts his faithfulness ( or anything like that ), the silver voice reminds him that if robby was more like ‘him’… specifically: both real-life silver or kreese, he may have put ethan out of his misery. it’s what his creators firmly believe, so they kind of put that thought in ethan’s head.

in an attempt to completely halt the silver voice from making more of a worse impact on his already somewhat fragile impacted psychological state, ethan feels the need to constantly be surrounded by his friends, family or robby. just being around them will typically lessen the voice, or quiet it completely. i’ll admit, he was clingy before his near death experience, but after? that clinginess becomes a bit amped up in its severity. my muses might make a joke out of it with robby, or sam, or everyone else, but they’re all aware that he’s clearly traumatized - understandably so. his friends are ready to help him out with whatever he needs, whenever he needs it.

by the way, his clinginess doesn’t just extend to robby, even if he’s the main person ethan will naturally gravitate towards. for example, if you see ethan w/ his hand on hawk’s shoulder during 5x09, please don’t call him out on it. he’s anxious enough already, & he will react negatively.

part four: closing thoughts ( aka: how the Silver Voice impacts him throughout post season 5 )

post season 5 & with silver’s arrest + ck takedown, the voice no longer comes around nearly as often. there are moments when he can hear it, & that can be deliberating on ethan. sometimes, he’ll just freeze up, his breathing will get heavy, he’ll have a small panic attack, then calm down enough to continue on with his activities. the nightmares are the worst part: they usually involve seeing robby get hurt, where he’s just out of reach from ethan. but the silver voice is no longer consistently whispering in his ear, like it had been in every episode of season 5. he’s healing… or trying to start healing, anyway.

for season 6, i think that the silver voice will once again become MORE of an issue for ethan. if/when terry gets out of jail because he’s Rich, & starts enacting his revenge on the miyagi-fangs, the silver voice will make its return.

ok, i think that’s everything for now! if you’ve read this far, i thank you from the bottom of my heart! :). i hope this made sense & it wasn’t just me making a fool out of myself! if i think of anything else, there will be a part two to this headcanon… or maybe a part three when season 6 drops. let me know if you have any questions or comments! thanks again for reading!

-bows & exits-

#headcanon. ( miyagi!ethan. ) #saved. #// self harm #// suicidal thoughts #dyn.: opponentcompel. #dyn.: taughtpain. #// long post #silver quite literally living in ethan’s head rent free… & with a severity level that impacts him daily… #my son :(

[jalebi-weds-bluetooth]

Hiiiiii Dearest Jalebi, I love your Amazing Blog I have come across your blog few times on Google but thought the name was pretty weird havin no idea it was this gooood!!!! Anyways After a random ipk question search I finally landed here and it has been my fav place Since then and well later I found other blogs but yeah your my all tym Fav! So Yeah I have this thing and I wanna get it out of my chest , Ipk has been my fav as a kid but as a grown up whenever I re-watch ipk I kinda feel so crappy Because I now get How little knowledge lot of women and Khushi has about getting abused. Because in many indian households it's told that you have to endure whatever your husband and in laws does and never to point it OUT and then Only title of Achi Sanskari Bahu? Throughout the show they never pointed the toxicity of Arnav, What a Ahole he have been all while and I get it A&K have had great chemistry and sexual tension and all the abuse is been romatisised and then him redeeming himself I get it. But it feels so wrong at 1000's of levels as a grownup I can finally understand how little knowledge khushi had about her body and sex, How Arnav played two girls lives just because he's confused? And finally me realising that It's ok to walk out of such Toxic masculine, Irresistibly gorgeous man with head high rather than take crap and look for a ray of hope So one day he could love back , I'm not putting myself in khushi's shoes but lot of women in our society highly relates to lot of things that happened to khushi So I just wish my fav character was shown to grow in the show apart from just dreaming of getting married to a prince who comes on a gode, Sorry if my question offends you but it's just that as IPK was the first television show to experiment on anti hero, live in and much more they had much more potentiality and could have tried makin her finnally takin stand for herself rather than letting people walk all over her. She Was/Felt mature ,grownup and highly intelligent at starting but latter part of the show felt more as desperate wife,cringe, dumb and top notching it all with Mrs India plot. So yeah that's my ask and I want to know your opinion as I feel you would do more justification to my question than anyone.

Good night, tomorrow is the last working day of the week so have a good weekend later.

Hello Anon,

I think it's important to understand that the best way to enjoy media is to realize it isn't the guideline to everything.

Arnav and Khushi's romance is set in a very very fictional world. And I absolutely agree that media is fundamental for getting an image about romance and sex and more and our Indian media, often, fails at giving us a good picture and we're left with crappy representations.

Especially with IPK it always breaks my heart how the makers and other producers didn't move forward on the nuances that made this show work, but rather the problematics parts and have gone ahead to make successful shows which put people into the weird loop of (a) women should be virginal, sanskaari bahus (b) abusive men will turn into sappy lovers.

It's a crap idea. IPK holds a special place for me because it is actually very well nuanced. Khushi isn't Arnav's medicine. She doesn't heal his PTSD magically. They actually have a pretty crappy marriage until he starts putting the work in - which happens after the kidnapping track. Khushi's first attraction to Arnav is purely sexual and she's really uncomfortable with it because she doesn't know love separate from lust and love is not what she feels for him at first sight. And their actual consummation is very emotional and consensual.

So the more I've grown up, the more I've held an objective eye to IPK. It's tough to love something that's problematic but I understand the separation between what I want in my life versus what I love watching.

Like when I watch Miley Jab Hum Tum - I actually want a life partner like Samrat because he is the gold standard. When I see Tu Hai Mera Sunday I love Arjun from a point of view of him being a genuinely good guy.

When I come to IPK I write fix-it fanfics, edit the show in my head for what worked, and understand that nobody is perfect. Arnav wasn't, Khushi wasn't, the writers weren't and I open the space for critical discussions of the show while acknowledging it's pretty much the darn best in its category of shows.

I've yet to see an anti-hero better executed than Arnav Singh Raizada on paper. And this is different person to person. Some people love the show wholly for it but that is impossible for me - certain lines are drawn for me so I enjoy the show from my version of events.

That is - Lavanya wasn't forced to be desi, Khushi didn't harp on marriage nor spy on Lavanya on the wedding getup, Arnav didn't pull the faking illness thing on Khushi, there is an imaginary redemption track in my head, and sheetal and mrs india don't just exist - lol.

And to each their own :)

I hope this helped :)

Love,

JWB

#ask #anon #my feels about ipkknd