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ashintheairlikesnow · 2 months

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hey hey hey I have had a hell of a day (Actually Hell) because I did too many fun things (a problem apparently) and then also we put up the christmas tree leading to the inevitable christmas tree installation arguments (they pop up every year like clockwork!)

anyway i have been overstimulated and stressed (just want to emphasize that there is NO pressure here whatsoever! id like to avoid any semblance of that actually and I know you're already working on 12 days so take your time) and it would be very cathartic to see chris dealing with similar issues (the Wonderful guy. we are pretty similar.) thanks a lot for reading this, even if you don't write anything !

Sorry this took so long, Anon! I swear I've been trying to get this written for literally almost two months now

CW: Some references to Chris's past, overstimulation, anxiety

"Hey, where did Chris go?" Laken blinks and looks around, but the living room of the house they rent - filled with laughing, happy people - shows no sign of Chris's telltale lavender hair with its new-penny copper roots.

One of Brit's friends just shrugs at them and gestures, vaguely, in the direction of the kitchen. "Dunno. He wandered off a while ago, maybe that way?"

"Oh, okay. Huh." Laken steps back, the circle of laughing people closing up tight as soon as they do. Their dark eyes scan the room, but there's no sign of him.

He'd been doing great - all but holding court, one of the most popular people at the party. He's sort of famous, since the Olympics, and people had been peppering him with questions and compliments, crowding around wanting nothing more than to be friends with the ex-pet who stood up to the bad guys on live TV. They'd seen him dancing, too, the music loud enough to nearly make the walls shake. The easy, unselfconscious dancing they loved in him the most.

He'd seemed to be enjoying himself, at the time, but...

Where has he gone?

They weave around people, stopping to pick up an ornament that has fallen off the tree. The scent of pine is subtle and ever-present, and they carefully work the ornament's little loop back over a branch, ruefully watching a couple of pine needles come loose and drift down. The damn thing is already starting to turn a little brown around its edges, thanks to Laken's roommate having insisted on buying it literally the day before Thanksgiving.

Laken doesn't even celebrate Christmas, not since they stopped going to Mass on Christmas Eve years and years ago. Still, in a house they rent with three others, they're the only one who doesn't at least pay lip service to the holiday.

And even if they don't give a fuck about Christmas, they do like having an excuse to throw a party.

The tinsel wrapped in spirals around, over, and below the ornaments glitters in the light, and the look makes them think of Chris, and how his eyes have always looked just the same, to them, when they're out at night and the moon hits the green of his irises just right.

Their search leads them to Ben, contentedly sitting on the couch, a drink in one hand and his phone in the other, quietly reading something there while the party is in full swing around him. He glances up and then instinctively, immediately, uses a finger to push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. "Hey, Laken. What's up?"

"Is Akio not coming tonight?"

"Oh... no." Ben blushes - it's adorable, and Laken can't help the smile playing around their lips. "He's got some kind of meeting with the gymnastics team, or his coaches? Or... something like that. He said sorry, though."

"Nah, no problem. But, hey, so. Uh, have you seen Chris, like within the last ten minutes or so??"

Someone puts Christmas music on and Laken shudders as they hear that damn 80s pop song start up again. If they have to hear that fucking song one more time...

"Nope. Not in a while." Ben shrugs, taking a drink. Whatever he has in that cup is pinkish-red and probably far more alcoholic than it tastes. Laken's roommate had insisted on a signature cocktail. "You could check outside? Sometimes when there's a lot of people, to Chris it's... too much."

Laken nods, still scanning the crowd, but their stomach knots a little with the first hit of real anxiety. Ben is right, Chris can get overwhelmed by too much noise and movement, but also he's been drinking tonight - they saw the same red punch in a cup in his hands earlier - and he has a tendency to get... hazy, when he drinks. Flirty in ways that aren't natural to him. Willing to let people hug him that he doesn't like, unable to bring himself to stop them. Sometimes his stammer smooths out, which makes people who don't know him feel more comfortable and people who do know him nervous. He starts tipping his head to the side in a way that makes the sweep of his growing-out hair hide the scar on his forehead, biting his lower lip when he smiles. It makes Laken feel a little sick to see it happen and realize Chris doesn't even notice when he's doing it.

The last thing they need is to have to come up with an explanation for Chris losing track of himself again, or why he's eating olives off the charcuterie board Brit brought knowing damn well he'll just go to the bathroom and get sick all over the place again, or... fuck, what if somebody hits on him and he's too drunk to stop it?

That hasn't happened since college, but...

They pull their phone out, uneasily checking for a text, but there's nothing. If he went outside, he'd text, right? He does, he always does. Texts can be easier and Chris is always a little nervous about being outside alone.

He insisted on coming tonight, said he was feeling good lately, but-... what if-...

They flinch when fingers touch their arm, only to see Ben must have stood up when they weren't looking. He slips his own phone into his jacket pocket and looks Laken over more closely. "Hey. It's okay, he's probably fine. You know he gets weird when parties are really going. It's like a light switch, enough to too much, I totally get it. It's why I'm on the couch fucking around on Kindle instead of, you know... talking to people." Ben says it like talking to people is literal hell, and... okay, Laken can see how that might be the case. "He probably just needed to get away from it and wandered off."

"Uh, yeah. I know." Laken rubs at the back of their neck, fingers moving through the soft, shorn undercut beneath their longer black waves. "I'm sure that's it. Just... you know, sometimes he... when he gets nervous..."

"I got you." They adore Ben, sometimes, for how often they don't have to finish the sentences they don't want to say. He knows what words haven't yet spilled, unwilling. Sometimes he acts like he belongs to us, not like he loves us. Sometimes I can't trust him to find his way back on his own. Sometimes I feel like Jake, and I hate feeling like Jake.

Words die in their throat.

Ben squeezes their arm, gently. "Let's split up and search around. I'll go outside, you go around the house, okay? We verify how he is, then whichever one finds him tells the other. Sound good?" Ben smiles, and Laken relaxes a little, finding a smile for him in return.

"Yeah, sounds good. Thanks, Ben."

"No problem." Ben has always understood Chris, thanks to his little brother being similar in some ways. He understands Laken's worry, too, because better than anyone else here - he knows how Chris sometimes gets lost in his past, especially if he's drinking, worse the maybe twice Laken's ever seen him try an edible or a pill.

What if he got drunk and someone offered him something and he took it? Drunk Chris sometimes isn't a Chris who can easily turn down anything he's offered.

This party was a stupid idea.

Laken takes a deep breath and squares their shoulders.

Chris is not a child.

He is a goddamn grown man and Laken is not his keeper. They're not his parent and they're not a babysitter. They're definitely not his fucking... owner or whatever the bastards that hurt him would have called it. They're his partner. He can handle himself, better than they could if they'd lived his life, and they need to trust him to either know his limits and to get away if he can't say no, or to come to them if he wants to ask for help. Otherwise, they're not any better than the bullshit he's been buried in for longer than he's known them.

Ben goes to check outside, slipping silently out the sliding door onto the back porch where a small crowd has congregated in a cloud of skunky smoke, while Laken heads upstairs, peeking their head in to room after room with no sign of him anywhere. They see some movement under a pile of coats, but that's... definitely not Chris, based on the very female voices who yell at them to give them some fucking privacy, please.

"Sorry, Brit," Laken calls, closing the door tightly. "And, um, Leigh. Just looking for Chris-"

"Well, he isn't in here or we'd have kicked him out already," Brit says, cranky but without any real anger in her voice. Laken doesn't recognize the redhead whose eyes pop up from beneath the pile of coats next to her. "Check a different room."

"Yeah, I will. Uh... keep having fun, I guess-"

"That's the plan! Now leave, please!"

The door latches as they close it, and they exhale. There's one room left, at the end of the hall, and they can hear a familiar murmuring from behind the door when they press their ear up against it.

Laken knocks, rapping gently with their knuckles, and turns the knob when they hear no answer - but no demand to stay out either. The murmuring goes silent. They sigh, and the door swings open, light cutting across the carpet until it reveals their wayward boyfriend.

No one has claimed this bedroom yet, so it's bare and empty except for a couple unpacked cardboard boxes, Brit's exercise bike by the window, a couple of her yoga mats, a laundry basket with a few folded towels, and a bare mattress the last housemate had left behind on the floor when they moved out.

Laken's lips press together, eyes scanning the room. Chris's phone is on the mattress, along with an empty beer bottle, but Chris isn't. "Chris? Cariño?"

A muffled rustling makes them jump, heart in their throat, and then they realize the sound came from the closet, where the folding doors are closed. Laken pulls them open to reveal Chris curled up, knees nearly to his chin, an open bottle clutched in one hand, his chewy necklace in the other. He'd chosen the bat one tonight, and his hand is closed around it in such a tight fist Laken can tell his knuckles are white even in the dark.

Chris doesn't look at them. He's swaying, rocking forward and back, his eyes focused on something far, far away from them. There's red lines on his left wrist, where he's dug his nails in, scratching not quite deep enough to draw blood, but close. Laken takes a deep breath, shifting into a crouch.

"Talk to me, Chris."

"No." The answer is flat, and they watch his thumb rub over the little nub of the silicone bat's nose, the points of its tiny ears. "No, no, no. No."

At least he's saying it out loud.

That alone makes the knot of anxiety in their chest start to loosen. If he can say no, he isn't gone, maybe just... standing a little farther back, inside his own head, than the surface.

"Okay. Okay, that's fine. No talking, that's fine. Are you okay, baby?" Laken keeps their voice just above a whisper and lays their hand on the wood trim that frames this shitty excuse for a closet, the floor creaking under them. "You... kind of vanished on me, there."

Chris's eyes flick to them and then away again. "Loud," He manages, and he sounds like he's forcing the word out between gritted teeth. Maybe he is. "Too, too, too... too loud. Too much, too... many."

"I guess Ben called it." Laken sighs, pulling out their phone and sending Ben a quick text that they found Chris and everything's fine. they get a thumbs-up in reply almost immediately. Ben must have been as anxious as they are, if he was just watching for their text to come in. "Do you want me to call Jake to come get you, or..."

"No!" He snaps it, and Laken tries not to wince. He's just struggling with the noise of the party, they tell themself, he's not actually angry. Chris almost never gets angry, and even then it's only at himself. Which... is worse, somehow. "No. Just... Quiet, it's... it's it's quiet."

"Right. Do you want me to stay with you? Be quiet with you?"

He shakes his head, but he doesn't say anything else. His mouth moves, but no further sounds come out.

"Chris, did..." They want to ask, did someone say something to you? Sometimes people said things, referenced pets or something in a way that set him off. But even if someone had... he probably wouldn't tell them, at least not now, not when every word seemed to have to filter through layer after layer of self-protection in his mind. "Never mind. Is there anything I can do for you? Water, or..."

He shakes his head. "No. Just. Um. Quiet... quiet, now. Please?"

"Yeah." Laken leans over and presses a kiss to his hair. He tips his head against their lips and they exhale in relief. "I love you, Chris. Come back if you can, but if you can't, that's okay, too. Just don't hurt yourself, okay? Things should start winding down in a couple hours." They take the little plastic bat and push it against the hand that's still scratching at his shoulder, until he takes hold of it again, pressing it against his mouth and running it back and forth, back and forth.

Chris is quiet, but as they open the door to head back into the hallway, they hear a quiet, "Love, love you," from Chris, barely audible.

They smile as they close the door. Down the hall, the sounds of the party hit them like a brick, beckoning them back to the noise and the cheer and the awful fucking Christmas music still blaring at top volume. Someone yells something out and the whole damn crowd cheers, making Laken wince at it feels nearly deafening.

Maybe Chris has the right idea.

@finder-of-rings @endless-whump @arlin-always-writing @newandfiguringitout @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @whumpyourdamnpears @cubeswhump @burtlederp @whump-tr0pes @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @outofangband @hackles-up @grizzlie70 @mylifeisonthebookshelf @keeper-of-all-the-random-things

#whump #chris the strawberry blond romantic #recovery whump #recovering whumpee #overstimulation tw #autistic whumpee #referenced alcohol use #laken mamani #referenced dubcon #angst #fluff #comf #I guess this is the one that wins out first of the drafts?#we'll see if kauri or vince wins out next

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whumpflash · 1 year

Text

Penumbra: Unless

for Angstpril, Day 22: Shadow of Former Self

cw: war/death mentions, beating, referenced broken bones

prev ///// masterlist ///// next

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There was much to be done within the central city, even after Cerus was taken care of. Rebuild, relieve, reform. It was months before Tansy started looking toward home, and the journey there would be longer still, but eventually, as the summer came to a close, they turned to the road. It was time to do their own rebuilding.

The first sight of the coast filled them with a mixture of joy and sadness. How young they'd been, the last time they'd seen the ocean. A glance over their shoulder as they ran, blurred by tears.

Gone were the days when they'd spend all afternoon on their father's fishing boat, when they'd come home to their mother cooking, when they'd chase their siblings through the tide, splashing and looking for seashells.

Their grief for everything that could never be again wasn't as sharp as it had once been, now replaced with something hollow. An emptiness in their chest that could never be filled.

Tansy still had family in the little coastal village; people to come home to, which was more than some of their fellow soldiers could say. Their great-uncle's house was smaller than they'd remembered, but wasn't that how it always was with childhood memories?

Now that the war was over, it was time to try and settle down and remember how life carried on. Realize how many slow, small moments there really were in a day, so much more noticeable when you weren't just trying to stay alive, so much more beautiful.

Great-Uncle Aldon had managed to keep a fishing boat safely out of the reach of the war, and despite being well into his seventies, tended to the nets day in and out. Tansy mostly kept to the house; mending torn nets, cooking, and keeping things tidy. They weren't ready to climb aboard the vessel without their father just yet.

One evening, a fortnight or two from the day they'd returned, they picked up a parcel of clams from the market; a meal they were looking forward to, as the central city had been too far inland to receive any fresh seafood. It was dusk when they started the long walk back to the house, and a freezing, late-fall rain had begun. Tansy's cloak was heavy, but not waterproof, and they did their best to keep under the awnings of the merchants.

As they passed the shipyard, they paused to watch half-constructed vessels bob in the stormy water. Beautiful as it was dangerous. Were they not eager to get home and cook dinner, they would've found a better spot to watch the rolling of the dark waves.

They started off, but a figure near the ships caught their eye; stick-thin, in soaked clothing that didn't look at all appropriate for the weather, struggling under the weight of several wooden planks.

Odd. Most of the shipwrights knew the climate well, and wouldn't be caught in a storm without adequate layers. They watched as the figure stumbled, scattering their heavy load across the pier. Tansy started forward to help them, but another dock worker got there first.

A shock ran through them as the worker began to beat the person on the ground, shouting words that were drowned out by the storm. For a moment, Tansy was frozen in place. They'd never seen cruelty such as this, not in their village. Had the war really changed the people so drastically?

"Stop!" they shouted, their clam dinner forgotten as they charged out into the rain. The worker froze, looking more surprised than angry as Tansy moved to stand in front of the fallen figure.

"Leave them alone."

The worker shook their head, turning to leave. "Too cold out for this shite. Get a move on! Weather's no excuse." The last command seemed directed at the person on the ground, but the worker didn't wait for acknowledgement, disappearing into the dockside shack.

Tansy turned to kneel beside the person, who was still curled tightly on the ground, hands balled into fists, covering their face protectively. With a start, they realized what they'd assumed to be gloves were actually the person's bare hands, black as coal and crooked, like the bones had been broken and healed improperly—

"Cerus?" they said, barely able to hear their own voice above the rainfall. The man on the ground seemed to catch the name anyway, flinching away like it was a weapon Tansy wielded.

Oh gods, it was him. The Shadow King, the tyrant, trembling before them on the ground. The catalyst of the war, the thief who'd stolen Tansy's family— they wanted to run, forget they'd ever seen him here, but they couldn't bring themselves to turn away.

Because it was clear to them now that the Council had indeed sentenced Cerus to death. A slow, drawn-out death, to be carried out in silence, with no ceremony, no recognition. Tansy doubted the fallen ruler would live through the winter… unless he had help.

And who would help him? they thought, even as they knelt. Who would help him, if I turned my back?

"Cerus," they said again, taking a great effort to shape their tone into something resembling gentleness. A single gray eye peered warily at them from beneath dark hair. Someone had cut it, they realized, and not with a careful hand.

Tansy sighed. "Do you have a place away from the rain?"

The response was a rattling breath, an almost inaudible, "I have nothing."

Those words, hollow and hopeless, pierced Tansy like an arrow. In that instant, it didn't matter who he was, who he'd been. In that instant, Cerus was just another human who was suffering, and Tansy was so tired of watching people suffer.

"Then come with me," Tansy said, holding out their hand.

Without a word, perhaps because he thought he had no choice but to obey, perhaps out of desperate hope that someone cared whether he lived or died, Cerus took it.

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@whumpwillow @rabbitdrabbles @kixngiggles

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whumpr · 8 months

Text

Stay a While

“Y’ come to see me just to sit?” He asked.

Let's look back to younger Cedar! He's going through it. Needs some good old fashioned late night porch therapy.

Contains: Comfort, Emotional Whump, Identity Crisis/Doubts, Gender Dysphoria, Brief Mention of Detransition

____

It was December, close to Christmas. But the air was warm and light like late summer. Cedar stared out over the field in the darkness, nothing between him and the horizon. There wasn’t a sound around him but the rustle of the cool wind over the tall grass. He looked up to the sky overhead, unnaturally vibrant and dazzling stars danced in constellations he didn’t recognize.

A screen door swung shut behind him. He turned to see a house standing alone, old wood and a faded red door cast in the welcoming orange glow of a buzzing porch light.

An old man settled into a rocking chair with a mug in each hand. He set one down on the floor next to him, and the other on a small side table beside a rickety porch swing.

He didn’t look at Cedar.

Cedar made his way to the porch steps.

“Is that for me?” He asked, fingers following chipped paint and splintered wood.

“If y’ want it.” The old man replied.

Cedar looked into the mug on the end table; steam drifted out of pitch black coffee. It smelled like it’d been made over a campfire. Somehow, that unfamiliar night sky swirled through it like cream.

“Am I asleep right now?” Cedar asked.

“I’m sure you are, somewhere.” The old man answered.

Cedar looked at the old man, then back down to his coffee. He sat down on the porch swing and pulled his feet up under him.

Neither one of them spoke for a while. Cedar watched the empty field in silence. The old man lifted his mug off the floor, took a sip, and set it back down.

“Y’ come to see me just to sit?” He asked.

Cedar looked over at the old man. He still didn’t look at Cedar.

“…I don’t know.” Cedar answered after a moment. He pulled a blanket off the back of the swing to cover his legs. “Nothing important enough to be here.”

“Must feel important.” The old man answered. He lifted his mug off the ground, took another sip, and set it down again. “T’come all the way out here.”

The silence stretched on for a moment longer.

“I just don’t wanna waste your time with it.”

“I ain’t got nowhere to be.”

Cedar looked down at his hands, at the dark hair just starting to creep up the backs of his wrists. He wondered if people still thought his hands looked feminine.

“I just…” He started, folding his hands over the top of the blanket. “What if this isn’t right?”

The old man didn’t say anything. Cedar didn’t want him to.

“I mean, I just started T and I… I mean I’ve wanted this for so long. But now that I have it I just feel…” He hesitated. Self hatred felt heavy on his tongue. It felt wrong to admit. “I feel gross. I feel awkward, and clunky, and my facial hair hurts like hell when it’s growing in. And I’m self conscious all the time. I’m just realizing how I’ve never, really related to people before this. It’s like I’m starting from scratch. It’s like I’m a kid again. I feel too young.”

The old man raised his eyebrows. One leg crossed over the other and he reached down for his mug again.

“I mean. I’m 19.” Cedar added sheepishly. “I am young. I know that. It just feels like no one else is as young as me. It feels like everyone else knows where they’re going. And–”

Cedar gripped the blanket tighter. His voice tightened in his throat. “I know I’m not wrong. But what if I get to the end, like, five years down the line and I don’t like it? Then I’m like, halfway through my twenties? Halfway through my twenties and I have to start over, I have to figure out something else.”

He looked out over the old man’s land. Darkness swallowed the landscape only a few yards past the porch. It felt like they were the only people alive.

“I just, I know I’d never go back. I know I’d never go back. I don’t want to detransition, or change anything, it's just…” His voice was soft and small, his hands gripped the blanket tighter to keep from shaking. “It’s hard right now. What if it doesn’t get better?”

He lifted the collar of his shirt to wipe his eyes, looking up to see he was in the passenger seat of the old man’s truck. It was bright out, and the windows were down. The wind was blowing noisily through the cab, and the sun was setting behind them in a way that it glared off the face of the radio and kept Cedar from checking the time. The old man drove with his hands at the top of the steering wheel.

“Does it feel right?” The old man asked.

Cedar blinked, looking up at him. The old man’s hat cast a stark shadow over his eyes. Cedar noticed the cigarette hanging between his fingers.

Cedar’s voice threatened to waver if he spoke again too soon, but he cleared his throat and spoke anyway. “Uh. I guess. Yeah. It feels right… where are we going?” He fumbled for a switch for his window beside him, finally looking over to see the crank sitting lower on the door.

“Woah,” Cedar wiped his eyes, leaning down to roll up the window manually. “How old is this truck? You keep it running yourself?”

“She doesn’t give me much trouble. My boys take care of her when she does though.”

He didn’t answer the other questions. Cedar decided not to press it. He rolled up the window and stopped halfway, just enough to keep the wind from drowning out the conversation. He leaned his head against the doorframe, watching the road curve and straighten in front of them as they drove.

“Where are we going?” He asked again.

“Just wanna show you something.” The old man answered.

“Can I lean my seat back ‘til we get there?”

The old man gave a hum of approval. Cedar searched along the side of his seat for the lever and let his seat fall all the way back. He was standing again when he opened his eyes–this time at the quarry where he used to spend his summers. He hadn’t been back since his senior year. Transitioning had made it too uncomfortable–his binders never mixed well with swimming, and he could never shake the feelings of strangers’ eyes on him.

This time, no one noticed him, he stood like a ghost in the shallows of the water. People around him screamed and laughed and shared drinks out of cheap looking coolers. Music echoed off the walls of the quarry. Cedar could feel the sun on his chest.

“How’s that feel?” The old man’s voice asked beneath the noise.

Cedar reached a hand up, closing his eyes and letting his fingers spread flat over his bare chest. He felt the ridges of new scars, not yet healed and not yet ready for the sunlight, warm under his fingertips and soaked in light against some future surgeon’s wishes.

“It feels right.” He answered.

He opened his eyes again to find himself back on the old man’s porch. The field in front of him was filled with the soft blinking of floating fireflies, cicadas cried distantly, filling the space between Cedar and the horizon

He looked over his shoulder, the old man sat in his rocking chair with his empty mug in his hands. The porch swing rocked gently in the breeze.

“I have to go back soon.” Cedar said.

“Sooner or later.” Time replied.

Cedar walked back to the porch swing, having a seat on the edge. The fireflies danced over the tall grass.

“Can I stay to finish my coffee?”

“I ain’t got nowhere to be.”

#emotional whump #whump #my ocs #Comf #my writing #trans oc #Cedar #James Cedar #Time

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kimludcom · 3 months

Video

youtube

7 Ways To Achieve Hygge At Home - The Danish Cozy Lifestyle

#youtube #HYGGE #The Danish Cozy Lifestyle #cozy #comf #cocooning #Winter #home & lifestyle #warm cozy atmosphere

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comfy-whumpee · 1 year

Text

Progress

Almost let the day go by without posting a Jax piece for @ashintheairlikesnow. Happy birthday, co-conspirator. (Izzy is her character.)

Dadjaxtaglist: @bloodybrambles, @wildfaewhump, @lektric-whump, @that-one-thespian, @raigash, @burtlederp, @rosesareviolentlyread, @eatyourdamnpears

“Hi, good to see you.” The young woman on the call has a professional, but genuinely warm smile. “Jax and Kieran?”

“That’s us. I’m Kieran, that’s Jax.”

“It’s great to meet you both. My name’s Mya, I don’t think we’ve spoken before. How are you today?”

Kieran’s hand reaches out to hold his underneath the kitchen table. She can’t see it, but she can see that they’re sitting close, sharing the same space. “Good, yeah, thank you. It’s been a quiet day here, which is unusual.”

She laughs along with the gentle joke. “A rare day in family life. How’s Izzy today?”

She can see the cabinet over Kieran’s shoulder and the oven hood over Jax’s. She can probably see his scarf. She’ll have worked out straight away who was Izzy’s dad by birth. She’ll have known as soon as she saw their faces.

“She’s good as well. She had a little wobble this morning about a test she has in maths, but we got through it. We’re still working on getting her to not mind about these little things.”

“Of course,” Mya agrees, nodding. “I hope she comes home feeling okay about it, even if she’s not at the point where she feels proud yet. Tests like that are mostly for the teacher’s sake, so they can assess how well the class understands things. At Izzy’s age, they might be looking ahead to Year 6 sets, or maybe even SATs.”

She has their address on file somewhere. Safeguarding, they said when they took it. He almost told them it made him feel less safe that they could follow her home. But then his dad had pointed out it also meant they could send someone to check on him, if Izzy ever said there was something wrong.

“Yes, we found out they have sets for English and maths in Year 6. We haven’t told Izzy. We don’t want her to worry about it.”

Mya’s expression shifts to compassionate understanding. “How has she been finding school recently?”

Kieran glances at him, but continues to answer. “Still hard,” he sighs. “She’s come a really long way, of course. She has some good friends now, a couple of close friends. And they’re looking after her there. She gets worried about her grades, but the school are careful not to pressure her as well.”

“Mm,” Mya hums, a noise just to show she’s listening. She’s looking at their picture on the screen, not the camera, which helps. “Is she getting any support from school at the moment?”

It’s been five minutes and she’s only asked questions so far. Is she preparing them for bad news? Jax drums his free hand on the chair underneath him, fingers tapping in a restless beat.

“She has a pastoral chat thing. She gets to talk about her feelings with them, have hot chocolate and biscuits, that’s once a week for about half an hour. But there’s nothing special for her learning anymore. She had extra reading time when she was younger but she got caught up.”

“I’m glad she’s getting some time for herself and she has an adult she can trust at school. How has she been finding the lessons with us?”

Kieran takes a breath, thinking about the questions, the excitement, the doubts, the tears… “It’s been all about getting her into a routine, really. Some days she gets on with it happily, other days she…” He frowns, trying to find the words.

Jax comes back to the present abruptly, a shock of cold air to the face, and creaks into motion. “She thinks it’s confirmation that she’s stupid,” he explains. “She likes to be able to do things on her own without help. She was told that she was stupid a lot growing up.”

Mya holds a perfectly sad expression as she active-listens. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

Jax ignores the platitude. “So the tutoring sometimes feels like we’re telling her she can’t do things. She doesn’t want to be a burden on us or make us worry. So she tries really hard to ace it, or she panics and gets overwhelmed by all the pressure she puts on herself.”

“The thing you have to understand about Izzy,” Kieran adds, “is that she’s terrified of disappointing you. If she thinks she has, she takes that as a huge hit to her self-esteem. She expects you to be angry or hate her, or be tired of her. You have to win her trust.”

Jax squeezes his hand. Kieran squeezes back. For a moment, they feel like a perfectly united front against the world.

“That makes sense with what I can see,” Mya tells them. Her eyes flicker sideways to another screen. “Izzy has very high accuracy in her questions and gets most of them right, but she works slowly. It could be that she finds it hard to process things quickly, which you see sometimes when children have missed foundational knowledge, they need longer to fill in their gaps. But it sounds like for Izzy, a big part of it is that she doesn’t want to get anything wrong.”

Jax nods firmly. “That’s definitely her.”

“I’m glad that makes sense to you. You know her better than I ever could, and we always get children on their best behaviour.” Her eyes sparkle with humour, and Jax wonders how many times she’s used that line, and how many children it was less true for than Izzy. “That’s the big challenge for her right now, then. That fear of making mistakes.”

Jax snorts quietly. Right now is an understatement. That’s been the challenge her whole life. The fear of… No, not mistakes. “She’s scared of not being enough. Her paediatric psych is working on it with her.”

“But it takes a long time,” Kieran picks up the thought.

Mya nods in understanding. “Of course. Are there any strategies you use at home that we can borrow? If there’s something that works for her…”

They look at each other. Strategies are Kieran’s thing; Jax goes by instinct, and it hasn’t failed him yet. “Mostly…” Kieran thinks aloud, “we tell her that we love her. And that we’re proud of her, that she’s awesome, no matter what. Because of things she’s already done or other things she can do.”

Mya listens gravely, her eyes still on the screen. She looks like she’s taking notes.

“Jax does this thing,” Kieran looks at him with a fond smile, faint enough Mya doesn’t get to see, “where he tells her things that she’s good at. She likes being helpful, so he tells her she’s a good helper, and she’s a good dancer, and she’s fun to play with, and she is lovely. We want her to see herself as a rounded individual.”

“We can definitely do that,” Mya offers. “To help her focus on her achievements and not just her challenges. We wouldn’t say that we’re proud, necessarily, because I feel that approval is best given by caregivers, but we can recognise her effort and praise it. We don’t focus on marks here anyway, that’s not what we do.”

“That’s why we chose you,” Kieran agrees. “It’s not about tests and grades. She thinks it is, but it’s not. We just want what’s best for her.”

“Of course. That’s what I want too. And that looks different for every child, and in every parent’s eyes, but I am so on board with what you want Izzy to develop in herself. I want us to come back in six months’ time for our next meeting and be able to look back at how confident she’s become.”

The passion is audible in her voice. Jax feels his shoulders loosening. He’d had the final say on whether they went to a tutoring place. Izzy had been important, but she was still a kid. The place had to have the right vibe. If anything had come across off, he would’ve pulled her out so fast.

But this reminded him of the teachers who had got his ADHD. The ones who had been able to get him to focus while keeping him on their side. It reminded him of his dad. Of Kieran. Somewhere that would try to understand who she was, not make her fit a mould.

They hadn’t been easy customers. That one teacher who didn’t help her with her reading when she was struggling through it, they made sure he never had access to their little girl again. The perfectly nice woman with the blue eyes, who Kieran hadn’t realised the problem with until Jax got a look at her, she was on the blacklist as well. They’d sent strongly-worded emails about the occasional slip of mummy and daddy. And if the tutor changed short-notice, well… They would turn around and walk right back out again, damn the cost of the missed lesson.

But after all his demanding standards for kindness and sensitivity, and all of Kieran’s exacting questions about safeguarding and wellbeing, they’d found a place that had passed muster. They had eyes on her progress, in more detail than school ever gave them. They had time for her learning that didn’t demand more of Kieran, with his work, and Jax, with the demons of his own. Space for her, without Jamie. Just Izzy and her tutor.

Just Izzy. Not having to be anyone else. That was what he’d promised her when they went. If they don’t like you for just Izzy then they are no good. Because you are perfect.

She’d been so scared. Her hand was bigger now, but still tiny, clutching his.

Because what are you? Crouching down beside her before they went in, holding her wide eyes in his gaze.

Her voice a whisper. I’m safe, daddy.

That’s right. And I love you. So let’s be brave.

“Be brave,” he says aloud. Kieran breaks off what he’s saying, something about comprehension or number bonds or whatever the fuck. “That’s what we say to her. To be brave together.”

The manager doesn’t seem put off by him interrupting. She only smiles, and she seems approving, not dismissive. She seems to…trust him, about all things Izzy. “I love that. We can be part of that for her. To help Izzy be brave.”

She’s already brave, his defensive instinct fires off before he can shove it. She’s perfect. Leave her alone. But that’s not what’s happening. No disparaging remarks, no rolling eyes and shouldn’t she know that by now? He’s fighting to protect her from threats that aren’t around anymore.

Kieran’s hand squeezes his lightly. “That’s our goal. We’d be happy if nobody praised her for her grades or her good behaviour. She doesn’t know it, but it’s her personal development we’re here for.”

The grades are just a distraction. Fuck school, it’s bullshit up until the end anyway. Fuck SATs and top set and grammar school applications and whatever else the fuck those kids are going through. He just wants her to be happy. That’s all he wants.

If that means listening to this woman talk about times tables and exception words, Jax can do it. If it means letting her join them on a video call, letting her see his face and his scarf and his home, so be it. If it involves letting them know who he is and where he lives, even though that information will be fiercely guarded for the rest of his life, he’s already done it. He can give more for her. He can always give more, so one day, she has everything.

#heavily inspired by my old job here #i think about teaching a kiddo like izzy a lot #recovery #comf #jax #kieran #my fic #dad jax #aftermath of abuse

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