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#dealing with chronic pain

flyingdren · 6 months

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Coping Mechanisms

I had this idea of doing a story with multiple endings for all the people who can't decide between Seb or Ominis.

Plot Summary: So what would happen if you'd been friends with Anne, Sebastian, and Ominis since you were sorted into Slytherin at eleven. What would you do if someone tried to curse your best friend in front of you?

I'll link at the bottom Ominis, Sebastians, and a poly chapter with both! Because why choose

If anyone wants to read anything else about these two please let me know! I'm a little besotted

Disclaimer: This chapter is PG but the final chapters with the boys are a hard (wink) E. If you're not into that and want to read a fluffy PG version let me know!

You woke up the summer of your fourth year to one of your best friends poking you insistently.

“Wake up!” Anne hissed. You blink groggily up at the pale brunette, slightly annoyed.

“I am not helping you put toad spawn in Sebastian’s shoes.” You groan, burying your face into your pillow. Anne rolls her eyes and pokes you again.

“Never mind that. There’s someone at the old manor! I think they’re robbing the place.” You lift you head and stare at her.

“And that pertains to us how?” You ask. Anne huffs and grabs your wrist.

“Because. It’s our village and we have to protect it from thieves and rapists.” You can’t help but snort as you dress, fingers automatically lacing and buttoning your cloths in the dark.

“Your uncle is an Auror. Shouldn’t he handle this?”

“Ex-Auror.” Anne corrects, already dressed. “And he’s not here tonight.

“The boys?” You inquire, nodding towards the door at the other end of the room leading to the room that held your other two best friends. Anne shook her head.

“They wouldn’t let us go. You know how Sebastian is.” With that she grabbed her wand and marched out of the house. And, knowing how Anne was, you followed vowing to keep your friend as far from bodily harm as possible.

You met her outside the house and with a jerk of her head and a finger to her lips Anne guided you up the hill towards the old house that stood like a lurking creature at the top. As you squinted at it you saw that what Anne had said was true. Torches were moving back and forth in the windows and you could hear voices carrying down to you. The two of you quickly made your way there and stopped just outside the stone fence, crouching behind it and peeking out. You saw short figures moving to and fro and heard dark gravelly voices muttering back and forth. Anne’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“Goblins? What would goblins want with an old house?” Before you could answer Anne stood up and ducked around the wall.

“I’m going to get a closer look.” Before you could protest she was running into the dark. You hissed her name and followed, but when you went around the corner of the house after her a dark voice ripped through the gloom.

“Children should be seen and not heard.” A bolt of red shot through the air at your friend. Without evening thinking you threw yourself forward, hitting Anne and taking her to the ground. As a result, the curse hit you full in the back and you felt your skin splitting down to the bone as agony coursed through you. You’d never had Crucio cast on you but you could imagine that it felt like this. You heard screaming but you weren’t sure if it was you or Anne.

~~~

You woke later the next day in St. Mungo’s. At your change of breathing you heard frantic shuffling, then a familiar voice.

“Hey. Hey, you’re awake. Thank Merlin.” You open your eyes to see Sebastian standing over you, eyes wide and hair even messier than usual. Glancing around him you see Anne slumped asleep in a chair by the window next to an also sleeping Ominis. Sebastian glances over his shoulder at the two then back at you.

“How are you feeling? I was so scared when I heard Anne screaming. I – we – thought you were dead.” You open your mouth then wince at the dryness of your throat. Sebastian sees this and quickly goes to work grabbing you some water. He carefully lifts your head and helps you take a sip before settling you back down.

“Thank you.” You whisper and he nods.

“No, thank you. Anne says that the curse was meant for her. You’re a hero.” His eyes are a little shiny in the dim candlelight and you flush a little at his words and shake your head. You plant your arms on the bed and try to push yourself up to refute his claim but a wave of agony so strong you almost pass out whites out your vision. It feels as if you’re being skinned alive and a strangled scream leaves your throat. Both of your sleeping friends jolt awake at the sound and suddenly you have three sets of hands holding you up.

“What happened.” Ominis is staring at you in that uncanny way he has, always able to find your face and eyes even across the room.

“I don’t know.” You whimper. “My back. It hurts.”

You’re gasping by now. Slowly and gently, the three of them pull you up to a sitting position and Anne carefully pulls the back of your gown down, her fingers feeling amazingly cool against your burning skin. You’re too busy lost in the soothing touch to even be embarrassed about Sebastian seeing the bare skin of your shoulders.

“There’s nothing here.” She whispers. “Just a scar. Where the curse hit you I think.” You frown.

“I felt it cut me when I got hit.” Sebastian’s fingers tighten in rage where they held your arms.

“They put a healing salve on it.” Ominis explained. “I heard them say so to Solomon.”

“It looks like those four sided stars they put on Christmas trees.” Anne said, putting your dress back to rights. You lay back, the pain fading to almost nothing.

“At least its pretty.” You sigh. Anne smiles but then begins to cry.

“It’s all my fault. I brought you there. I wanted to see what they were doing. I’m so sorry..” She trails off, burying her face in her hands.

“No, no.” You coo, slowly leaning forward so as to not aggravate your injury. “I’m glad it hit me and not you. I can handle pain much better than you.”

Anne stopped crying instantly, her indignation cutting off her grief.

“What makes you think that?” She demanded.

“I’m taller than you.” You say pertly and Anne sputters.

“You’re the same height.” Ominis pipes up dryly and before you can ask him how the hell he knows that, a nurse pokes her head into the room.

“Oh good, you’re awake.” She says smiling a little too brightly. You sit up again and Sebastian quickly moves to help you, settling you fully upright against the pillows.

“Your parents are here. I’ll send them in. Your friends can wait outside.” You swallow and nod, sending a slightly panicked look to Anne who glances back in commiseration.

You were muggle-born and while your parents weren’t ‘anti-magic’ it scared the hell out of them. They thought you might explode either themselves or their house at any second which was the reason you spent so much time at the Sallow house even if they did claim it was because the train ride was shorter from Feldcroft to Hogwarts.

Your friends shuffled out and a pair of terrified muggles shuffled in. Instead of coming to sit next to you as the others had they both stood at the foot of the bed, your father standing slightly in front of your mother as if shielding her. Suddenly you realize that your earlier explosion metaphor may not be all that far off in their eyes.

Over the next few minutes you alternately try to coax them closer and calm them down but in the end, its Solomon’s intervention that saves you. He announces that you would stay with him for the rest of the summer and the professors at Hogwarts would surely have a solution in the coming semester. You knew they trusted the man, all you’d had to do was tell them he was a wizard police officer, so they agreed quickly and with relief. They left soon after that, edging nervously around Ominis as he and the others came back in. This made you scowl at their backs as no insult to you could.

“They still think he’s cursed?” Sebastian asked in a low voice at your look. You nod.

“Superstitious twaddle.”

You spend the next few days with healer after healer attempting to rectify the curse placed on you. It caused terrible pain radiating from the scar if you moved too quickly or harshly; otherwise it was a dull ache. You insisted you could manage it. You had to. If you couldn’t return to Hogwarts you would be consigning yourself to being a muggle for the rest of your life and after five years of magic, the thought of having your wand snapped gave you worse pain than any curse could ever.

So, in a week you return to the Sallow house with your three best friends to support you. By the time you are all back at Hogwarts, you’re starting to get a handle on what causes the pain to worsen and what helps in the times when it's unavoidable. The dull ache fades to the back of your mind most of the time but it's always there and it's exhausting. There are times when you can’t sleep for hours on end because of it and even when you can you are plagued with nightmares. What if you hadn’t been there? Or if Anne had woken Sebastian or Ominis? What if the pain was bad all the time? You’d wake up covered in sweat or wracked with agony. At first, you woke the others in your dorm with your cries but after a while, you got better at keeping silent. You knew Anne was so full of guilt already, that you didn’t need to add to her suffering.

It was when you stopped sleeping that you noticed a difference in the two boys. They had always been caring in their own way, they were your best friends after all, but now they took it up to eleven. Sebastian in particular wouldn’t let you carry anything heavier than your wand and would probably carry you from class to class if you’d allow it. Ominis was always fetching anything you wanted or needed and encouraging you to eat even if the pain got too bad. Because of your injury, you couldn’t ride a broom so you spent those classes with your blind partner in crime. You found it soothing to read to him on the lawn while the other student flew around far above your heads. He joked he wanted to be close for when Sebastian eventually fell off his broom.

Sebastian got many a-detention by sneaking into the restricted section in hopes of finding ways to help the pain until you impatiently asked him why he hadn’t asked a teacher for access. This befuddled him enough that he didn’t say anything while you marched to Madam Scribner and asked if Sebastian could help in the library in return for a pass to the section. He became an assistant of sorts to her and what that meant was that you barely had to think of a book you wanted before he had it for you.

To be fair he did find a few helpful treatments, including a numbing oil that he commissioned from Garreth Weasley after you explained a muggle version you’d read about. It made it so that drying off after a bath wasn’t agonizing. Of course, Garreth brewing this did come at a cost, namely Sebastian not turning him into a small mammal after he finally asked Anne to go to Hogsmeade with him, which you were grateful for. You would hate for all your hard work encouraging them to actually talk to each other instead of staring longingly across the potions table to come to nothing because of a jealous twin brother. You even held his attention on the day of the big date by insisting Sebastian teach Ominis to fly while you shouted encouraging things from the ground.

At the end of the year, you went home and spent two whole weeks with your parents with them alternately scurrying around you, and trying to make you take muggle pain relievers, which you outright refused; you knew what things like cocaine did to people's minds. Thankfully they sent you to Feldcroft not long after for which you were thankful.

In your sixth year, Ominis found out you weren’t sleeping when you fell asleep during charms, a class you actually enjoyed. After much coaxing, you admitted to him about the nightmares and he finally opened up to you about his. You discovered his secret about his parents using the unforgivable curses on him and found solace in your shared experiences. You also discovered what a nice napping buddy he could be and, as you both found the undercroft soothing, you could often be found there curled up in a pile; like bunnies in a warren.

Ominis never kept secrets if he could help it so after hearing Sebastian ask you for the umpteenth time about the dark circles under your eyes he took Sebastian aside and quietly explained the situation. At first, the dark-haired boy was angry, demanding to know why you hadn’t told him yourself. Ominis told him your worries about Sebastian’s anxiety and Anne’s guilt. How Sebastian had finally stopped constantly looking for a cure. He listened, and together with Ominis, met with you at the library where they softly comforted you and explained that they would always be there to help.

A few nights later when he couldn’t sleep Ominis found you in the common area, staring out into the water. Without a word, he sat next to you on the lounge and pulled you close, and together you fell asleep. This became routine, one of them would come down to the common room in the middle of the night and curl up with you on the couch by the window where you'd both be found fast asleep in the morning. It was like they had a second sense of when your pain got bad.

As you got older, the burden of the pain became harder to bear. You found yourself, instead of waiting for one of them to join you on the couch, simply going to their dorm room and slipping into one of their beds. Usually whoever was most awake. This is how you found that Sebastian was a serious cuddler, he liked to wrap his arms around you and pull you so tightly to his chest that you could barely move.

Ominis on the other hand simply liked having you close to him and would lightly lay a hand on some part of your body. Top of your head, arm thrown over your waist, or holding your hand in his. If you woke with a nightmare or pain he would whisper gentle words to you and stroke your face. Sebastian would hold you tightly and do the same.

When you told Anne she acted scandalized and later confronted the boys about the possible consequences to your reputation.

“Reputation?” Sebastian scoffed. “Who cares about something daft like that.”

But Ominis looked concerned for a moment.

“Wait. Maybe Anne’s right. What about when she wants to get married?”

Sebastian glanced at the girl in question who was deep in conversation with Poppy across the lawn. She was clutching Duncan tightly by the back of the robes as the Hufflepuff girl held a Puffskein out to him. Sebastian grinned as he turned to face Ominis.

“Then one of us will have to marry her.”

Ending A: Ominis

Ending B: Sebastian

#hogwarts legacy #ominis gaunt #ominis gaunt x reader #sebastian sallow #Sebastian sallow x reader #comfort fic #dealing with chronic pain #ominis gaunt x reader x sebastian #ominis gaunt smut #sebastian sallow smut #hogwarts legacy fanfic

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puppetmaster13u · 26 days

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Prompt 303

Constantine might be cursing everything and everyone he’s ever met because this? This is a goddamned mess that he does not want to be cleaning up, yet here he is! Three infant godlings who the American-Fuckin-Government decided to try and kill and worse clinging to his legs and huddling beneath his trenchcoat.

Look when he followed the instructions on the magic green sticky note he was not expecting this level of bullshit, and honestly do these imbeciles want to get the entire universe devoured by angry eldritch gods!?

Damnit, he needed a smoke- and to inform the League so they could deal with the government side of this shit- but mostly a smoke. Ugh. He was so not babysitter material, but none of the bloody tykes would be letting go or leaving the trenchcoat anytime soon.

#DCxDP #DPxDC #Prompts #Constantine: Oh bloody hell I am no dad-#The Traumatized Dannys: This is new caretaker he smells safe #Look if a baby eldritch primordial godling imprints there’s no way to get rid of them #Constantine is now stuck with them #He arrives to the Watchtower slams down papers says “Trenchcoats Haunted” and gives no other context #He’s panicking a bit & also REALLY needs a drink but the infants keep stopping him #He’s gonna have to find another way to deal with that chronic pain & is close to fireballing everything & everyone here

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raekiez · 6 months

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Been thinking about this a lot recently cuz I have chronic pain, I think Old Snake would have a lot of chronic pain from his rapid aging. So, here are some ways he and otacon deal with it <3

Id like to imagine post-mgs4 snake uses a cane (camo patterned). He was stubborn about it at first but Otacon convinced him it would help (and to his dismay, it did). He uses compression socks and gloves, knee braces, heating pads, ice packs, etc. Otacon brings him whatever he needs when he's too weak or in pain to get out of bed. When it's real bad otacon massages his back, helps him bathe, brushes his hair. Snake still tries to do things himself, it's hard to accept whats happening and he doesn't want to burden otacon, but he always ends up overexerting himself and flaring up.

He also has really bad fatigue. He always tells Otacon to wake him up earlier, but otacon always let's him sleep until he wakes up naturally, he needs the rest. Him and Sunny hold off on eating breakfast until snake wakes up so they can all eat together as a family.

Here are some doodles based off of these <3

#raekiez art #otasune #solid snake #otacon #metal gear solid #mgs #im insane over them #otacon would go to the ends of the earth for snake #imagining my scrunkly dealing with chronic pain is so cathartic #a lot of this is based off my own experience :)#chronic pain #chronic illness #disabled #mgs4 #hal emmerich #sunny emmerich

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brucewaynehater101 · 3 months

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Alright. I suffer from chronic pain and there's no way the batfam doesn't as well. They brutalize their bodies by pushing them to the extremes, not resting when they get injuries, and keep a rigorous workout.

I need more fics where the batfam has to wear compression gloves/socks/etc. They rely on heating and ice packs because it's just one of those days. I want fics where they complain and grow upset because they should be able to power through the pain, but by the gods does that take so much energy. They have multiple discussion on what they should be able to handle and what they can handle. There needs to be arguments about overreliance and under reliance on pain medication. They should get mad and frustrated and sad that they have to feel pain even after the fighting is over and they've healed.

I need the 4 am meetings in the kitchen because their joints ache and they can't sleep. There's different kinds of pains and they, unfortunately, experience them all. At inconvient and annoying times, old injuries and wounds that never healed act up.

They should realize that they are destroying their bodies, they will pay for this if they grow old, but they don't care. They don't care that they're paying for it now, and it'll only get worse.

#dc comics #dc universe #dc robin #batman #dc red robin #dc nightwing #dc signal #dc oracle #dc red hood #dc spoiler #absolute screw chronic pain and pain you can't fix but can only deal with #the batfamily #dc batfam #powering through the pain gets exhausting and the bats should be able to complain about it #the bats may be op but they are human #vent post cause i had to call out of work and that's frustrating as hell and i want realistic character angst for comfort

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blighted-lights · 4 months

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woahg. hand sketch. ravage and first aid's hands. i will never be able to draw a hand or paw like this again

this is for a wip that has aid helping ravage with chronic pain because there is no way that rav doesn't have any given how many times he gets his ass handed to him in idw. they're bonding!! uh,,, kinda.

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ink-asunder · 6 months

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Someone could make a really cool post about how autism burnout is affected by chronic illness. And by someone, I mean me.

Just consider it. Autism burnout occurs when an autistic person is overworked by the demand of living--as opposed to occupational burnout, or "alot of things keep happening all at once" burnout. And the demand of living is so much higher when you're chronically ill, disabled, and/or in chronic pain.

Self care now has a barrier of being in physical pain. Keeping your livingspace clean so it's not sensory hell is impossible when you can't even bend down. Being in constant physical pain just wears on the body, mind, and emotions in general, meaning even a "sensory good day" still merits the demand for noise cancelling headphones and sunglasses indoors.

Appointments are sensory hell. Offices are always brightly lit, cold, the chairs are uncomfy, and you have to be there and sit still and mask for so fucking long. Not to mention all the physical touch you have to endure. Oh, and the DEMAND AVOIDANCE of it all. I could kill god over giving his most autistic soldiers a chronic illness, because having a chronic condition is just Demands Central, babey.

And keep in mind this is still my life post-accomodation. I wear headphones and sunglasses, I use a shower chair and cane, I block out recovery days after appointments to help recharge. But there's just So Fucking Much that happens as a baseline to being chronically ill that just doesn't happen irl for everybody. Accommodation doesn't stop the meltdowns. It doesn't fix things.

#chronic illness #chronic pain #chronic fatigue #chronically ill #disabled #i could also go into how my medical physical pain compares to autistic physical pain--#think of 'when i repress a stim it physically hurts'kinda deal #but this post is long enough #autism #actually autistic #autism burnout #chronic illness burnout

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chronicpaingirlie · 2 days

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it’s crazy to me that people will say “i don’t wanna know what it’s like when your pain & fatigue is at its worst, i just want to know what an average day is like” as if my worst experiences don’t count . bestie i still have to live thru those experiences and i would like the help please

#does this make sense. i always record my pain log with the worst pain i felt that day bc even if it wasnt for long #i still had to deal with it yknow.#0 #chronic pain #chronic fatigue #disabled #disability

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acroagoraphobe · 4 days

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josh chronic pain hcs?

Oh yeah!! Heck yeah!!

Joshua with the chronic pain that he absolutely has because nothing at all healed right. He's screwed up and how is he alive?

Barely gets up and out of bed on most days because everything hurts so much. It would be enough to make the average person throw up.

He definitely has bones that were broken that didn't heal right, like in his arms and legs from being tossed into the grand canyon.

Refuses to actually do anything to help himself, even though its agony to exist, he takes his pain as punishment for his crimes.

Can't carry heavy objects because it hurts too much to put too much weight on anything.

This man would heavily benefit from something like a wheelchair ir some ofher mobility aid but ofc he has the mentality of both "I aint no bitch" and "I deserve this punishment"

Constantly sitting down because its the only time he can feel even slightly any relief from pain, that's why he usually sits and works on his guns.

Desperately tries to hide the fact that he has a limp when he walks. But it's pretty obvious that he's in pain when he walks.

Also the fact that he's an old man he has the usual old man pains along with that like back ouch and such.

Life is pain for him, he says its the burns but it's really not. I already said that he has broken bones that didn't heal right, but also probably improperly healed sprains too.

His sleep is plagued with frequent nightmares caused by the pain and waking up every 30-50 minutes because his body is screaming at him in agony.

Very limited range of mobility, not flexible at all obviously, but he has such a high pain tolerance and forces himself to walk around and do things.

#fallout #fallout new vegas #fallout nv #fnv #joshua graham #honest hearts #ace rambles #ask #//#My mom deals with Chronic pain and its horrible for her #She's not even 50 and she has RA and A thing with her Jaw that causes extreme pain #And I occasionally get paralyzing back pain where I can barely move #It doesn't happen very often though so i don't thjnk that classifies as chronic

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thisaccountisagainstmywill · 5 months

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In the Garden of Grief

My first published fanfiction. Finished just in time for everyone to be super upset about Gort changes. Huge thank you to @dandelion-bride for beta reading for me. Shout out to @the-grand-gemini and my own winter-swollen fingers for helping me think too much about Chronic Pain Gortash. Pairing: Implied Dark Urge/Enver Gortash Rating: T Summary: Set soon after the Dark Urge goes missing. Gortash waits for a meeting with the House of Grief and cannot help but reminisce. Warnings: Angst, Descriptions of Chronic Pain and Injuries, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Grief, Depression Word Count: 2,962

Below the cut or on AO3

Counselor Enver Gortash pulled his simple cloak tighter and carefully turned his face from the checkpoint guards as he entered the Lower City’s streets. He was dressed down without his trappings of office, and bare of all but a few baubles of his faith and personal necessities, leaving himself almost unrecognizable.

For the first time in years, he was alone outside of his office and estate. No peasant crowd gathered to hear him speak, not one guard or attendant at his heel. He felt vulnerable without them, but no one could know what their lord was about to do.

He had not slept in a tenday. Food would not sit right, so he resigned himself to black coffee and smoking tobacco just to remain upright. The ever-present bags beneath his eyes had sunk even deeper and darker, leaving his face gaunt and looking bruised. The purpling served only to emphasize the spiderwebs of broken capillaries that reddened his eyes. Black stubble across his cheeks had gone untended and now sprouted in unruly growths that framed cracking lips.

Enver felt a shell of himself, and his Dark Lord was beginning to notice. During the too-long blinks that served as whispers of sleep, his Lord would sow his mind with doubt. To rule over Banites was to rule over constantly circling sharks. A faltering ruler was doomed to be torn apart, as he had torn apart so many before him. He could not go on as he did - he had reached the breaking point. Something needed to change. He would purge himself of this weakness before it could be preyed on by his lessers.

The streets of Baldur’s Gate were dimming as the sun sank lower over the Gray Harbor. He had planned this excursion for when the City would be empty enough for him to pass unrecognized, but not enough to raise suspicion. Children rushed through the streets to answer calls to dinner. Fisherfolk and other tradesmen slowly ambled their way home. Shopkeeps closed up street stalls, and newspaper hawkers rushed their unsold supplies back to the Mouth.

No one paid him any mind. He was no lord today, just another weary man.

As he made his way over cobblestoned streets, he favored his good leg the best he could, but recent rains made the ground damp and his gait slow and awkward in turn. More than once his boots skidded too wet across uneven stones. A bad ankle made it hard to brace against looming falls, and he had to pause and will himself steady anytime the threat arose. So he resigned himself to trudge onward, tentatively shifting his weight from side to side as his body allowed. His Master’s blessing kept him from aging as Chosen, but on these days when Bane’s favor waned and the Black Hand’s grip loosened, the reminders of mortality reared their spiteful heads.

Enver paused a moment, the effort made just to walk corroding his resolve. With his back pressed against the wall of a house, he rubbed the swollen joints of his fingers. He left most of his rings at home, the Netherstone stowed carefully in a pocket close to his skin. Exposed to the world now, his fingers swelled red, ugly, and noticeably crooked. He hated the sight of them. Too many injuries and too many years past now, he could not remember exactly what caused each of them. A fracture left untreated. Too many sloppy resettings. A mishap while tinkering. Maybe he had hit an underling too hard. Perhaps they swelled simply as a warning of another storm on the horizon. It didn’t matter. He was all aches these days. The worst of them penetrated through his flesh, past his bones, and into the core of the man beneath. He exhaled a slow, steadying breath and scanned the emptying street.

He had plotted his route meticulously before he deigned to take this trip. Save for the rare crossroads, he would only pass residential buildings. By design, this would keep his business secret. In his hard-won experience, Baldurians did not care what their neighbor did, as long as it did not inconvenience them or feed the gossip mills. If he did not give them a reason to care about him, they wouldn't.

Across from his brief shelter stood a bulletin board decorated with local announcements and requests long left unanswered. Amongst them, he was greeted by the shining smile of the man he had been a month ago. The image of that man mocked him with its vibrancy. He could not now bear to look at himself, be it in a mirror or these false fragments he had too diligently plastered across the city. The consequences of his successes and plots weighed heavy on him. With a silent snarl, Gortash pushed his pains and self-pity down, swiftly paced across the street to the board, and tore the poster down. His body groaned at the effort, but he drowned its protests out in rage. Piece by piece he ripped through the printed façade of his own wretched face and let the remnants fall away limply into the mud. A hero's smile and shining halo faded as the dampness claimed the shreds.

That man who was in those posters did not know hurt as he did, not the gaping wound of loss, not hungering maw of words unspoken and deeds left undone. That man did not know what was to come and, oh, how he envied him now.

There has been no body. No evidence. No closure. Just another seated where his companion should have been. That was all the evidence Enver needed. He was not fool enough to hope.

He ground the last bits of paper into the mud with his dressed-down boots. Filth splattered over the freshly waxed leather. His face twisted down into a sneer at them. Perhaps he would make that his parents' problem before the end of the evening.

With a sharp flex of his fingers, he cracked his knuckles and returned to his path. His momentary show of weakness had only impressed on him the importance of completing his mission tonight.

Enver passed an iron fence and crossed a low bridge, arriving finally at the House of Grief. He had never been here himself - it was a refuge for men weaker than him. The House’s reputation and skills had reached him through idle chatter at a meeting of counselors, and with no current confidants to discuss such sensitive matters with, he determined then and there to make an appointment.

He paused before the stoop to the main entrance of the House. Hesitation was not like him, but the rashness that brought him here wasn't either. Doubt crept like a cold hand up the back of his neck, raising his nape hairs and setting his empty stomach in knots.

A Griefguard paused their patrol across the House’s gardens to address him somberly, “I am afraid we are closing for the evening.”

Gortash looked up from his brief contemplation. “I sent a letter ahead with a generous donation. An exception will be made,” his reply terse.

“Ah.” A dull sense of recognition sparked across the Griefguard's face. “Very well. The previous client’s appointment is running long. Please take a seat in the garden, and we will inform you when the Inquirer is available again.”

Their flat and practiced tones only served to infuriate him. He did not require the coddling of their typical clientele, only their services rendered on schedule as promised.

Still, he complied and took a seat at the small table in the far garden. At this spot, he was comfortably away from the bumbling patrons who hadn't enough mind to survive the delving of the so-called Inquirers and return home after their appointments. The garden was as peaceful as the Lower City could get. A waterway that framed the garden on two sides, and the lush shading trees and trellis of vines, made the spot seem like an oasis in the urban sprawl. Fine smooth brick buildings and the dividing wall of the Upper City left the garden fairly private and gently separated from the noise and stench of the Foundry and Fishmarkets only a stone's throw away.

Enver did not like being here.

Inaction did not suit him. He sat stiffly, his torso held upright and off the back of the chair. Beneath the table, the foot of his good leg tremored and tapped impatiently against the slate walkway. His right hand, the worse of the two, was stashed away from the growing evening cold beneath layers of woolen cloak. Bulging knuckles clenched together to find some semblance of relief. The other hand flipped idly at the book left on the marble-topped table, an enticingly named tome with contents that served only to disappoint: some sloppily printed and useless dribble about self-improvement. Yet the points within on obedience may’ve held some merit. The place seemed perfectly constructed to lull visitors into false security and reliance.

He scanned the garden, his raptorial mind desperate for something to focus on. Windows from the House itself stared down into the garden. Inside, silhouettes of figures moved lazily about, but he could not make out exact shapes. A deep, loathing frown etched its way onto his face as he thought bitterly on being made to wait. His time was precious and precarious – the city, Faerun, and Toril itself relied on his time being well spent. Now it was being wasted in this damnable garden with its artfully overgrown yard.

He bristled at the sight of the flowers: poppies for remembrance, valerian flowers for a sedative, bixa as a cure-all and aphrodisiac– information he had learned unwittingly while babbled at in his youth by Lady Jannath – or perhaps it was Lady Hullhollyn, he would check his notes later.

With dimming eyes he squinted at the rooftops of the buildings that framed this place. It was paranoia that drove him to search the rooflines, yet he could not help but think of the man who was his cause of being here today.

On idle evenings the two would sit on a balcony outside of his office or at his estate. Enver would give the man a theoretical starting point somewhere in the city or outside of it. The Bhaalist would point to rooftops and with his fingers trace an imagined path across them. All the while Enver would listen, a drink in his hand, while the other man articulated aloud the exact route he would take to arrive where they stood and kill them both without ever being seen.

When he felt roguish, Enver would attempt to break the other man’s plan by throwing complications into the scenario: the structure of that house is failing, the roof can’t support him; the lady of that house suspects her lord of adultery and has been watching all night; that house had a warding alarm; that house has a pigeon problem and has spiked the roof. Then he would watch in awe and delight as his Assassin’s mind would spin its gears and adapt to his challenge.

In the morning, Enver would update his security or mandate proposals to handle the prior night’s winning scenario. The next time they played, he would increase the difficulty for his companion just to make it to him on the balcony: traps placed at blind corners, light-sleeping visitors, a change in patrols, and even once an ill-fated endeavor with guard dogs.

Each time, the man would surprise him by finding an unexpected route around the new obstacles: static sent in questing tendrils over stone walls, a paranoia-induced argument started between two guards as a distraction, a seamless joining of the patrol, or the dogs rallied and set loose on the rest of the house. When he arrived finally at his goal, Enver himself, his eyes would be ablaze with delight.

It was a game for them and though neither ever mustered the will to say it: they relished the precious moments it let them linger together.

Never again.

Hurt welled behind Enver’s eyes and threatened to spill down his face. He frowned ugly and deep. The lines of a life not lived well, but lived thoroughly, cut his features into a grim mask. It was bad enough he was at this House of Grief, he would not let this weakness show more than necessary.

The secrets that threatened to be revealed here if he was not careful would leave him vulnerable and a dead man, but he would be dead anyway if his feeble affliction was not cured soon. He did not like this plan – but he did not have to like a plan born of desperation. It was necessary.

In their Absolute Plot, he had prepared for every inevitability but one: the death of his god-born associate. A being sculpted from such power did not die easily, and at the time it seemed impossible.

Maybe when the pain passed he would let himself see the potential and ambition in Orin. For now, the thought was vomitous. She was a feral dog that had eaten its better and nothing more.

Lesser beings had done more calamitous deeds. That fact he was certain of. Yet, try as he might, he could not think of what could be worse. This calamity affected him. His world was cracking at the seams and threatened to fall apart entirely.

As he remained in this garden, the gusto and determination that drove him here faded. In their absence, he yearned for the presence of another. For the confidence and safety he brought. For the wild but ever-present warmth of their love.

He pondered that word, love. He had cast it at debutantes and dilettantes alike who demanded to hear it in the throes of his performative passions. But here it threatened to mean something more than those placating lies. It made the saliva on his tongue curdle at the taste of it now. It was true that he had loved the man as simpletons would understand it, but there was a depth of meaning there that could not be contained within that simple word.

What is it to love more than ‘love’ could contain? Adoration captured his affection, but it could not grasp a sliver of their grotesque intimacies. Exaltation captured his devotion, but it felt too sterile for a bond made hands deep in sinews and viscera.

No, it was not enough. It would never be enough. They were two beings on the cusp of ascension and they loved like gods: well beyond the paltry lexicon of any mortals. They were first at the altars of each other—two gods-to-be in tandem veneration—equal parts in a singular whole.

His left hand slid idly to the trinket remnants of their promise, kept safe with him on his belt even dressed down as he was. The open maw for him, at once Infernal and Banite, and the spiraling wyrm for the man he lost. The symbols united, just as they were by an unbreakable bond. By the time they had sworn their oaths to each other, it had been only a formality, the symbols themselves were mere tokens of affection.

These solid, simple reminders were one of the few things he had left as worldly evidence of the man. When he realized the loss of his companion, he had swept through his saved papers like a machine. Without the man there he was vulnerable. Each letter that could not be twisted to mean Orin was physical proof of his weakness. Systematically he burned the evidence of the man who was. Anything that would not grace his memoirs was turned to ash and left to the wind. He regretted it now, in the depth of his sentimentality. The only other remnants of his Bhaalspawn were their plan and his grief.

That grief was the last and lingering gift from the one man he could not help but love. The last wound that dug as deep as his Assassin’s blades ever did in life. Each ragged breath dragged against the hollow in him, sending reverberations from his core skinward where they threatened to shake the tears loose from his eyes.

They would not take his grief from him. This pain was his.

Enver wrapped a covetous hand around the unified tokens at his belt, his sudden rage driving him as he squeezed until the pointed metal cut into the meat of his palm and sent a crimson trickle through clenched fingers. The sharp pain made him feel alive again. It broke through the dull and longing ache and fueled him enough to stand.

On forcefully steady legs, he determined then and there that he would dig his fingers into the wound in his heart, bore it deeper, and make it scar. A hole in him, borne of them both. He would fill that aching hole with malice and let it fester. He would not let their machinations become what could have been, they would still be. If his love could not live, he would spew the combined remnants of them both across the world and have the weak and unworthy suffer for it.

Where tears had once threatened to pool in his eyes, they now burned with fury. A smile stretched across his worn face, all teeth and no eyes. He recalled an idle fancy of his belated beloved, jovial musings shared in the dead of night, at the time when great and terrible feats are birthed to those who dare listen to wicked whispers. His love and their plans would live on through his deeds.

The first of his love letters to a dead man would be written tonight, painted across the Outer City in bits of refugee.

#cw: grief #bg3 #bg3 fanfiction #bg3 gortash #gortash #enver gortash #lord gortash #durgetash #bg3 spoilers #gortash is an awful man and i love him for it #sometimes bad people love people #sad angry and gay #dealing with grief #chronic pain

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transjudas · 1 year

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“I found for me, being creative and writing songs or writing short stories or creating something or poetry or something like that – if it came out good, if I enjoyed it, I could kind of ride that creative high for at least a day or two. And I felt normal again,” he says. “I would have to force myself to do something productive, and then it made me forget about myself.” (x, x)

#frank iero #frankieroedit #mcr #mcredit #my chemical romance #userkam #chronic illness #chronic pain #disability #long post #ls dunes #medical cw #just in case #i've been really having a rough time dealing with new chronic health issues after having had to adjust to chronic pain in the last year so #i made this as a kind of catharsis #cause i really do look to frank for a lot of comfort and reassurance that even when shit sucks and is hard #with your body #you can keep going and make things that are important to you creatively #fingerguns

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