#i accidentally doubled the length and made it hurt more ur welcome

[rotturn]

@contradictivs / cont:

Jesus. Ryder thought that he had heard the worst of what Kurt had to go through when he lived with his parents. There was a reason that they had cut contact as soon as they possibly could once the pair had settled into married life. It helped that the Dunbar family was there to support them when they needed it. But, god, the rage that he felt with every new piece of information that he got about how the Hortons treated Kurt. “Are you okay?” Obviously not. But it was an attempt to test the waters on how Kurt was feeling. If he was going down a rabbit hole of memories of what he had gone through. There was a small pause. “Do you want to talk about it?”

It would happen sometimes, little things that would set off a slew of bad memories. Plenty of things Ryder wasn't quite aware of, things no parent should ever do to a child. First instinct is to shrug, to say hes fine and brush it off. All these years later and his instincts try to tell him to ignore the pain, that none of it matters, that hes being dramatic. But the look in Ryder's eyes, the concern, tells him that maybe that's not the best idea right now. Things are only just starting to work out between them again, the time spent with his parents only making everything harder. Reliving the past was hard enough on its own, but recent exposure to his parents behavior had made it extra difficult. His leg bounces, the blonde filled with a weird energy he cant explain. The memories make him feel like he needs to do something, still facing the trauma response of feeling the need to escape, to get away, to keep it bottled inside and run as far away from it as possible.

He chews on his own knuckles a moment, staring into space as he thinks it all through, partially zoned out, partially just trying to avoid eye contact. Seeing Ryders face would make him cry, he knows it. “It was bad.” Carefully chosen words, leg still bouncing with anxiety, as if the wrong move here was deadly. “I didn't wanna look weak. He would've been worse if i picked one of the other options, y'know? 'Cause—” He struggles to remain composed even without the eye contact, the anxiety of actually speaking about it flooding through him. “A Horton shouldn't be— shouldn't be weak, y'know? Y'pick the easy option and he does it twice as hard or—or way more times. Learned that the hard way, but he always said thats how life is. Y'gotta make good choices or you— you suffer.”

#i accidentally doubled the length and made it hurt more ur welcome #its 5am the angst vibes hit hard but so did the ‘im not proof reading this’ vibes #contradictivs #contradictivs 012. #kurt horton: in character. #kurt horton: arc four. #abuse cw