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j2h5b5 · 1 year

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There was only one thing that could have dragged Steve out of bed at two in the morning when he was nursing a booze-induced headache and an Eddie Munson-induced heartache.

“We need you,” she said.

He didn’t even bother putting on a jacket.

***

Dustin was sloppy, red-eyed and so unsteady that when Steve thunked a strong hand down on his shoulder, he almost lost his balance turning away from the group of asshats he’d taken up with to see who had grabbed him. Some of the drink in his hand sloshed over the sides of the cup and dribbled down the front of his shirt and onto the already filthy kitchen floor.

“Hey, what the—” he began, and then he dragged his gaze up to land on Steve.

There was a time, not so very long ago, when those same eyes would’ve lit up at the sight of his babysitter slash idol slash best friend. He would wrap him in a hug if it had been a day or two since he’d seen him, or sling a companionable arm around him, or punch him good-naturedly in the arm in hopes of initiating a play scuffle, which inevitably ended with him in a headlock getting his mop of curls aggressively tousled because he was just never going to have any kind of athletic edge on Steve.

But now.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” the younger boy asked in a tone so sharp and cold and so very NOT-Dustin that it made Steve’s heart squeeze painfully in his chest.

“Hey, man,” Steve said, aiming for casual if only to keep Dustin from embarrassing himself in front of his new asshat friends. “Can I talk to you? Step outside with me for a sec, okay?”

“Um, no,” Dustin bit out. “This’s my party, i'ss my house. It would be rude to leave my guests.”

“Yeah, since you brought that up … who are these people?” Steve swept his gaze over the Henderson kitchen, which was almost unrecognizable with all of the clutter, displaced furniture, and wasted teenagers. “And Dustin … where’s your mom?”

“Not here.”

“Well yeah, I kind of gathered that. Listen, Dust…”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Are the others here?”

“Oh, you mean the traitors who called and ratted me out to YOU? Who the fuck cares?” His voice lowered to what he seemed to think was a conspiratorial level but was really just an extremely loud stage whisper. “Maybe they tripped and fell and landed their buzzkill asses back in the Upside Down.”

“Okay, that’s it.”

Before Dustin could protest, the cup was plucked from his hand and tossed expertly across the room, over the heads of several unwary drunken youths and into the crusty-dish-crowded sink and he was being towed along behind Steve through the kitchen, the living room, out the front door.

“What the fuck, Harrington? Let go of me! Let go!” Dustin struggled against the vise grip on his bicep but only succeeded in ensuring he’d probably have finger-shaped bruises there tomorrow.

Steve paid him no mind until he had deposited the boy into the passenger seat of his car, slammed the door, and locked it. Then he walked around to the driver’s side, unlocked it only long enough to get in, relocked it, and turned to Dustin.

“First of all,” he began loudly, drowning out Dustin’s sputtering attempts to find the words he wanted to hurl at Steve in his outrage at being manhandled out of his own party. “First of all. Joking about the Upside Down in a room full of strangers? NOT OKAY.”

“They don’t even know what—”

“Not. Fucking. Okay. SECOND, if you ever imply again that one of ours should BE in the Upside Down, you will find yourself with my foot so far up your ass you’ll choke on my shoe, and if you think I’m joking about that, Dustin, try me.”

This time there was only an eye-roll from Dustin, because he kind of didn’t want to try Steve on that point and because he kind of felt bad about saying it.

“Third, your friends are not traitors. They care about you and they’re worried about you; they called me for help because you’re treating them like shit and shut down every attempt they make to help you. Listen, I know I’m not your favorite person right now, Dustin, but you have to let someone help you. You’re not okay, buddy. This isn’t you. And all this shit you’re doing, the drinking and the partying and the pretending not to give a damn? It isn’t going to fix anything. It … it won’t bring him back.”

“Shut up!” Dustin shouted, flinching so hard at the words that he smacked the back of his head against the side window. Steve winced at the sound of skull meeting glass and resisted the urge to reach out and check for blood, or a bump. Dustin seemed not to have noticed that he’d nearly brained himself, infusing his next words with all the venom he could muster. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Steve. Even if you were right, it’s none of your business what I do! I am none of your business.”

“Don’t say shit like that, Dustin. Of course you’re my business.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah! What are you saying?”

Dustin barked out a humorless laugh. “As much as I’d like to sit here with you and have a heart to heart right now, I have to get back to my guests.”

“No,” Steve snapped, reaching over Dustin to slap down the peg lock when the teen yanked it up. “We’re not done here. Now I can go inside and clear out your house and we can talk there, or you can drop the bullshit and talk to me right now.”

“You’re not shutting down my party.”

“Then we talk here.”

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“Right, sure you don’t. Maybe I can give you some words, then. How about this, Dustin? How about: ‘Hey, Steve, you useless idiot loser, you promised to keep us safe and then you fucked it all up like you always do. The plan didn’t work and Max got hurt and Eddie fucking died, and you couldn’t stop it. I hate you for that, for lying and making us feel safe and telling us it was going to be okay. I can’t even look at you anymore and I hate my friends because they don’t hate you for some reason, but we know, don’t we? We know whose fault it is that we came back a man short. It’s yours, Steve. Yours.’” Steve’s voice was cracked and painful, like he’d been eating gravel and chasing it with cheap whisky and cigarettes. It hurt, that voice. “How’s that, Dust?” he finished, staring unflinching into Dustin’s shocked eyes. “Am I in the ballpark?”

Before Steve could react, Dustin unlocked his door and flung himself out of the car. He was drunk and it was dark, though, and he only made it a few yards before tripping and landing hard on the grass. Steve was on him almost instantly, hauling him up by the arms and scanning him for injuries.

He didn’t see the punch coming, wouldn’t have believed Dustin Henderson capable of such an effective hit, right in the mouth, knocking him back a couple of feet. “Jesus, Dustin!” he shouted, touching his lip and staring dumbfounded when his fingers came away wet with blood. “What the fuck, man?”

“Hit me back.”

“What? No! Dustin, what’s—”

“HIT ME BACK, STEVE! You have to!” Dustin’s voice cracked, the sudden violent burst of emotion threatening to unleash something big and scary and unforgivable. A tidal wave that had a name.

Steve grappled wildly with the boy, trying to grab his flailing arms so he could pin him, but Dustin was surprisingly swift in his current state, and he launched another punch, this one landing heavy in Steve’s gut and socking the breath right out of him.

“HIT ME, STEVE! I KNOW YOU WANT TO, JUST DO IT!”

Fueled by a burst of frustration and a sharper burst of fear (what is this?), Steve recovered enough to trap Dustin’s arms against his body, using his own weight to twist the boy around until he was trapped with his back against Steve, the hold immobilizing him so all he could do was squirm and shout out his fury. “LET ME GO FUCK YOU STEVE WHY WON’T YOU JUST FIGHT BACK YOU ASSHOLE?!”

“Dustin, stop. Stop it. Breathe, Dustin. Take a breath. No, hey, stop. You’re not going anywhere until you calm down for me. Breathe. Shhh, buddy. Breathe,” Steve’s hold was unbudging, his tone stern but soothing. Dustin’s violent struggles gradually slowed, and it took a couple of minutes for Steve to realize that the boy was shaking with silent sobs. And then the sobs became words, almost indecipherable in the wrecked, wretched voice that was rough and strained from screaming.

Every sentence Steve parsed from the stream of horrible self-accusations added another crack to his heart, which couldn’t have been more than a mess of spiderwebbing at this point.

It’s my fault.

He’s dead because of me.

I couldn’t save him.

You loved him, I know you did.

Why don’t you hate me?

Finally, finally, the words stopped and Dustin sagged, exhausted, in Steve’s arms. Only then did Steve ease up on his hold, but only long enough to turn the boy around and hug him properly. He bent down to bury his face in the unruly curls, his own tears falling unchecked and inconsequential.

“Dustin,” he whispered into the mop of hair. “Oh, Dustin, never.”

And when he realized he didn’t have the right words, he just stopped. He just picked Dustin up and carried him to his car, buckled him into the passenger seat, and told him he would be right back. He had a party to break up, some kids to chase away, and a boy—his boy—to mend.

“You loved him, I know you did.”

With a soul-cleansing breath that sounded more like a sob, Steve made his way back up to the Hendersons’ house.

#stranger things #found family #protective steve harrington #mama steve #dustin henderson #fanfiction #steddie #mom steve harrington #steve harrington #steve and his children #grieving over Eddie #survivor guilt #poor dustin #poor steve #unhealthy coping mechanisms #arm wrestling for the blame #angst #oh the angst #in my heart Eddie survived but this scene wouldn’t leave me alone

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ecoamerica · 21 days

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Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

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rk-tmblr · 7 days

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“I know that when I'm gone, you'll fall at my feet and scream why did I do it? Why didn't I let you die for her? Not me.”

ALNST Ivan/Till

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steddieunderdogfics · 2 months

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Achilles come down by TheWildBlueYonder for the theme weekend challenge thing - it's a s4 volume 2 rewrite.

Achilles come down by TheWildBlueYonder

Rating: Mature

3,606 words, 1/1 chapters

Archive Warning: Chose Not to Use

Tags: Eddie Munson Lives, Eddie Munson is a Sweetheart, Eddie Munson Needs a Hug, Eddie Munson Has a Crush on Steve Harrington, Gay Eddie Munson, Post-Stranger Things 4 Vol. 2, Scars, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Survivor Guilt, Not Canon Compliant, Inspired by Achilles Come Down (Gang of Youths), Hopeful Ending, Eddie Munson Has PTSD, Dead Chrissy Cunningham, Steve Harrington is a Sweetheart, Steve Harrington Has a Crush on Eddie Munson, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug, Internalized Homophobia, suicidal ideation (only in the song/implied), Stranger Things 4 Vol. 2 Rewrite, One Shot

Summary:

He stands upon the roof swaying like a broken branch in the wind. The breeze grabs onto his jacket, seeps under his clothes and chills his skin - it's uncomfortable, it almost feels like it could hurt. He must cut a dramatic figure, he imagines, gazing into the darkness and the quiet, eyes set upon the starless, cloud ridden sky, perching like a gargoyle upon a castle. 'Eddie Munson is here, hide your children' he'd mock, hands thrown to the side, ugly grin on his face - if he had the energy, that is. As it is, he stands, sways against the current of air, eyes watering, and it's all so quiet. There's no audience, no one to talk back to, no one to perform for, just the cold air, the howls of the shuddering trees and the thundering in his mind, the endless waves and waves of thoughts for company. On the roof of his fucking, crumbling trailer, where Chrissy Cunningham died.

Thanks for the rec!

Know a fic that deserves extra love? Submit through our asks or the submission box!

#steddie #steddie fic recs #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve x eddie #stranger things #angst #hurt/comfort #canon divergent #survivor guilt #rated m #season rewrite

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sulkylaw · 2 months

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I was looking at Cora-san and Law edits. It struck me. As I once posted/said Law went to Dressrosa to seek revenge for Cora-san at the cost of his own life. He didn't expect to make it but he did.

Imagine now, he defeated Doflamingo, he's alive, his life did not ended there but... What if he was struck with overwhelming urge to share his victory with Cora-san but Cora-san is not there. And nothing will bring him back no matter what.

He feels his chest squeezing, his breathing getting rapid, and tears swell in his eyes and what's worse is - he can't stop it. He's a doctor, he knows how to deal with panic and anxiety attacks, he knows he needs to calm down but he can't. He breathes harder, his sight blurred and his mind repeatingly playing all the moments he spent with Cora-san.

All the good, silly, funny moments engraved deeply in his mind now causing him heart ache due to surge of emotions that have been released with the sole victory against Doflamingo. All those memories feeling like they are tearing his heart little by little, his chest feeling like there is no room for air in them.

And then waves and waves of memories fall down upon him and all he can do is go hide somewhere. Somewhere no one can find or see him. Somewhere where he can be vulnerable on his own, where he doesn't have to wear the mask of toughness. He finds a corner secluded from the rest and sits down against the wall unable to contain the sob from his throat and tears from his eyes that he shades with his hat.

In this scenario I imagine Robin would come across him trying to find her own silent and calm corner to be by herself but when she sees Law and hears his silent sobs she approaches him and sits down next to him, not saying anything whatsoever. She knows how he feels so she doesn't ask only looks at him who is kinda surprised and shades his eyes away so Nico doesn't see his tears.

She'd say nothing, and lean against the wall. Although she'd reach with her hand to hold Law's. Law does not refuse, he shifts his hand so he can interlock his fingers with Robin's and lean against her shoulder crying and sobbing not caring he is vulnerable in front of Robin.

"Don't feel guilty that you survived. You have done everything you could, we are not God, Law."

"I was supposed to feel relief but why is it so hard Nico-ya? It feels suffocating."

"It gets easier, I promise." Robin says in a light voice squeezing Law's hand and resting her own cheek on his fluffy hat.

Law keeps on crying silently but Robin's presence kinda makes it easier for him to savor all his emotions and process them properly. The warmth of her hand remind him of the present moment, reminds him of the reality that was not as easy but it was enough to stop his mind from racing. Whether it was because he finally released mass of emotions from his body or because it took only one person with same back story to make him feel like he is not alone.

#trafalgar law #one piece #trafalgar one piece #trafalgardwaterlaw #trafalgar op #heart pirates #one piece law #nico robin #lawbin #devil child nico robin #survivor guilt #trauma survivor #one piece anime #panic attack #suffocation

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kyojirokagenuma · 19 days

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Commission Being Made For My Beth Survives Story The Lost Twin!

Art by Gibbs santos

In this illustrated scene Beth is being hunted by her own sister in Wendigo form.

#beth washington #until dawn #horror #survivor guilt #artwork #commission #female protagonist #fanfiction

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wangxianficrecs · 1 year

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Survival by Jinko

Survival

by Jinko

Series, WIP, 40k, Wangxian, Xuanli & Eventual Yanqing

Summary: Jiang YanLi didn't die on the battlefield. Wei WuXian still did. Jiang YanLi reminds Lan WangJi that he has a son and a nephew he can't abandon as he mourns.

Kay's comments: Canon-divergence series in which Jiang Yanli lives (and in later works, so does Wen Qing) and everyone has to deal with it. She becomes Lan Wangji's friend and gets to raise her son. The series is marked as incomplete, but I don't think that should deter anyone from reading, because it's definitely worth a read!

Excerpt: Tears filled his eyes when Jiang YanLi crouched in front of him, her newborn son strapped to her breast. “Hanguang Jun.” She pushed the hair out of his face, tucking strands behind his ear to look at him more clearly. She was supposed to be dead. Her death had been the reason for Wei WuXian giving up. The confusion must’ve shown in his face. He didn’t care much for controlling his emotions anymore. The ribbon was discarded somewhere. “My brothers didn’t realise I was still alive after I was stabbed -- a medic found me and brought me back to good health. When I woke, I found out…” She sobbed and Lan WangJi completely understood.

canon-divergence, jiang yanli & lan wangji, xuanli, jiang yanli/jin zixuan, yanqing, jiang yanli/wen qing, jiang yanli lives, wen qing lives, somebody lives/not everybody dies, mental health issues, suicidal thoughts, survivor guilt, regret, masturbation, coming out, @jinkohhh

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for this hard-working author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)

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inklessletter · 1 year

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Faith, should I take a leap?

Eddie was no stranger to fear. He’s never been. He was raised on it, he drank it since he was born. Eddie wasn’t even a teenager when he had to hide under his bed, or in the closet, or in the kitchen cabinet, next to the filthy trash can, so the piece of shit that was his biological father wouldn’t beat the fuck out of him. He was way too young to feel lucky when he came back home way later than he should, in the hope of finding his dad passed out on the couch, drugs filling his system. He can’t really make out any childhood memory that isn’t somehow based on fear. Not at home. Not at school. Certainly not a birthday. Not in the brief time he spent in foster care. Not even when his uncle Wayne showed up to take him home. God, especially when Wayne came into his life. He was terrified when he claimed him. Wayne, all awkward and candid, and full of “it’s okay”s and “you’re safe now”s. Wayne, with his pats in the head, and one-armed hugs. Wayne, with his consistency in worrying about him eating enough greens and doing his homework everyday. Wayne and his weird, rare habit of not yelling at him, or spitting at him, or slapping him when he spilled his juice. Wayne, who definitely didn’t beat him, or held him by the neck against the mattress to haphazardly shave his curls calling him a queer, a faggot, when he saw him and his friend Mark Harvest holding hands at the age of fucking seven.

It took awhile for Eddie to understand that “the lucky days”, as in those in which he wouldn’t get beaten, was his new normality. Wayne has saved him from that kind of brutal, dehumanizing fear that built Eddie, in a way. The kind of terror that he couldn’t hide from, or run away from, not really, not when his age was barely reaching double digits. He was starting to make peace with it, with trusting Wayne, falling asleep in the coziness of finding himself finally at home. Feeling safe, cradled, taken care of. Yet Eddie woke up that one night screaming from a nightmare. Wayne came to his room, to see Eddie making himself as small as he possibly could, in the furthest corner of the room.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please, please, don’t hit me. Please, I didn’t mean to—” Eddie sobbed.

The pleas hung in his mouth as an echo of a past life, begging mercy to a hand that belonged to a man who first asked him if it was okay to touch him. A person who asked for permission. Like it mattered.

That night, Wayne taught him that fear might never go away, but he could fight it. He could armor up himself. He could find something that grounded him. He could run away, because when you’re in danger, there’s no shame in running. He could face it if he felt ready for it. He could ignore it. He could do a great number of things with it.

“It gets to us all eventually. Fear, that is. We all fear something. And we all deal with it differently, but you’ll learn to face it and grow stronger. We all do, in the end. And it’s okay. It’s okay that you figure out the best way for you to face your fears, kid. This is a safe place for you to do it.”

So, he came back to the warmth of his bed, and let himself fall asleep with that thought in mind. He had a safe space to experiment how to face his demons. That night he really learnt what feeling lucky was like.

And he did just that. He came back to school and it wasn’t as frightening anymore. He’d come from an abusive home, and a school bully that was his own age was absolutely nothing. He built up. He taught himself how to look bigger, how to be louder, how to exist unapologetically. It took him years to perfect it. He dressed in dark, aggressive colors, sizes bigger, many layers, leather and cut off denim. He listened to loud, angry music, sung by loud, angry people that screamed loud enough to drown his terrors. He read fantasy, and adventures, and found it extremely exciting learning how different heroes and characters in his stories overcame his past, and his demons. Fuck living in crippling fear. Fuck hostile environments. Fuck buzzed hair, and black and blue skin, and being small. Fuck being silent. And most of all, fuck not feeling safe.

So when he was sixteen, he made his personal goal to create a safe spot, fear free. He’s gotten really good at detecting fear in people’s eyes. Like, really quickly. So there he was, founding a D&D club at school, retrieving lost souls with fearful eyes, giving them some space to create their own adventures, their own heroes, in which they projected their own tragedies to overcome, so they, themselves, could destroy them. So they could be bigger, grow stronger from their very own history. He could be that helping hand, he decided. He would guide them, he would listen carefully enough, he would learn about what decisions they usually made and throw monsters in their way that helped them to get out of that comfort zone, and face the danger. All in a safe space. A healthy one. He could do that. He knew how, he’d been there; he got out. He could help others find the way.

Fuck, he even found a way to provide (illegal) substances to help some fearful kids to get out of their own minds for awhile. Not that anyone would believe that his first intentions were honest, all loud and obnoxious that he was, all metal music, horns signs and ‘fuck the system, fuck the cops’. Not that anyone would believe that he really didn’t need the money, living in a trailer park in Forest Hills, not when he had a place to sleep and someone was actually filling the fridge. Not that anyone would actually believe him. Not that he cared, at this point. Not that anyone, in fact, asked. Business was good, and parties at Loch Nora were usually where he got most of his income, but there was in the middle of fucking Nowhere, Indiana, a hell lot of kids that bought weed from him because their minds were a scary place to be alone. Like, way too many underage kids asking for a way out to just be nobody’s problem. And there were at least twice as much pair of eyes looking the other fucking way.

So, yeah. Eddie was no stranger to fear. Eddie knew that people dealt with fear in different ways. Eddie was fully aware that it made people raw, uncomfortable, wanting to run away, or towards it. But most of all, most of fucking all, Eddie fucking knew that you need a danger free environment to learn your ways. He knew what fear could do to people that felt unsafe.

“They’re just scared, man”, Eddie said, low and breathy, shaky hand holding a half smoked cigarette. “I get it.”

Steve Harrington did not. Steve fucking Harrington did not get it. Not like Eddie. There was no fear in those hazel pupils of his. Which made absolutely no sense. Not with all Eddie knew those eyes had witnessed, not with every story that Dustin Henderson filled him in that involved Steve. Not with what he knew Steve had gone through.

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“It doesn’t.”

Steve let out a shaky breath, in the middle of the night, and took the cigarette from Eddie’s fingers to take a long drag. He looked into the void, brows furrowed at the top of the roof next to his bedroom. The sky was clear, the summer was approaching fast. He held the smoke in his lungs.

“I don’t know how you are so chill about it. Half this fucking town hunted you down, Munson.”

Eddie chuckled, tearing his gaze apart from the guy next to him, focusing on the blue eerie haze coming from Harrington's pool.

“The other half didn’t.”

There was silence, but Eddie couldn’t really measure how long neither of them spoke. Might have been two minutes, or thirty. Steve broke it first.

“I didn’t expect that you were the type to see the glass half full.”

“Did you expect things from me, Harrington?” Eddie teased.

“Yeah,” Steve replied, granting him a glance. “Shocks me to the core that you're a helpless optimist, though.”

“Why? Because I dress in black, and talk loud, and hate authorities? Or is it because I ran away when a minor fucking died in my living room? Is that it? Is it because I ran away, Harrington? Because I’m a coward? I’ve got news for you, Steve; that’s not expectation, that’s called prejudice.”

That earned him a look from Steve. And man, what a look. Eddie didn’t raise his voice, but from the way Steve was looking at him, dead in the eye, mouth hanging, he seemed pretty much offended. Eddie couldn’t foresee if he wanted to punch his face.

“That—That’s not it, Munson. Far from it.”

And with that, he looked away. If Eddie didn’t know better, he could say that Steve’s cheeks were growing darker, embarrassed, maybe.

“Then, why—”

“I can’t conceive that you’re so calm about it. How are you not freaking out? It’s just—” Steve cut himself, trying to find the words. His voice did a weird, wobbly thing that Eddie couldn’t identify. Eddie didn’t pressure him, waiting patiently so he could find the words he was desperately looking for to express himself. “You didn’t do anything wrong, and yet half Hawkins still give you those looks, and it’s fucking infuriating. Yeah. And you’re not—you’re not even angry, man. You’re not even mad about it. I’m mad about it. I’m fucking upset about it!”

Steve didn’t look at him while he spoke. He raised his tone a little bit at the end, and Eddie’s gut did something funny. He’s seen people get angry, and mad and upset at him, but he didn’t remember if someone has ever felt that way on his behalf. What a time to live in.

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not, Eddie. It is not okay. Don’t say it is, don’t fucking dare to say it’s okay, man. Don’t fucking talk like you deserve this shit. Just—please. Please.”

And there it was, the missing fear in his eyes. Don’t fucking talk like you deserve this, he has said. Like you deserve this. Something clicked, and the knot that was forming in Eddie’s throat fell heavily to the pit of his stomach.

“Harrington—”

“You don’t deserve this. It is not your fault. It is not.”

Steve still didn’t look straight at him, all brows furrowed, distant look and blue underlight. Steve didn’t look at him while his fear was showing through his voice, and probably, through his eyes, too.

“I know that. I know it’s not my fault, and of course I’m angry. I just—I just can’t blame them, y’know? I can’t blame them for being scared. They fucking think I killed her, like I summoned a fucking demon to tear her apart. I’m not exactly thrilled either for being the object of their fear, but—I don’t know, man, it gets to us all. Fear, that is.”

Eddie parroted those very same words that Wayne told him that night all those years ago, probably because they got tattooed to his very soul as soon as he heard them. With this, Steve turned his gaze to Eddie, so straightforward, so piercing, that made Eddie feel a little bit lightheaded.

“Tell me ‘I don’t deserve this.’ I wanna hear it.” Steve lowered his voice, discarding the roach of the cigarette.

“Who the fuck would think they deserve a hell like this?”

“Please—”

“I don’t think I deserve it, okay? I don’t. I’m just saying that I get it. I know what fear does to people. That's all I’m sayin’. Jesus fucking Christ. Why would you think I’d agree to a fucking mob after my ass to burn me on a stake, huh? Who would—”

And he stopped. He stopped dead because now he could see the source of Steve’s fear. He could see now, in the gleam of his eyes what Steve was afraid of.

“Steve, I’m not—I don’t think I deserve it. I really, really don’t, okay? Fuck, I need you to believe me when I say I’m not there. Absolutely not.”

“Okay.”

“Not even fucking close, okay, man? Oh, my god.”

Eddie felt a tingle creeping from the tips of his fingers, a thin coat of cold sweat damp his forehead. The air grew thin as he learned to read the fear in Steve’s eyes. As he understood.

“Why did you think I felt this way, Harrington? Why—fuck, Steve, why did you assume that?”

Eddie spoke softly, trying to swallow the thickness in his throat, trying for it to go to the pit of his stomach, as it happened before.

“You weren’t expressing any emotions that I thought you’d show,” Steve said, almost apologetically. “You weren’t getting angry, or scared, or—”

“Loud, or obnoxious, or fighting the system. I see it now.” Eddie smiled, and Steve almost smiled, too. “So you became angry and scared for me?” Eddie’s voice was slim, barely audible. A tightness grew in his chest.

“I just—I didn’t want you to feel like this thing was some sort of karmic response, or any kind of cosmic atonement that you deserved. You—You just don’t. This situation, this is all fucked up. I just wanted you to understand it.”

“I know. I do.”

“Good. Cool.”

The question that Eddie was willing to ask was boiling in his mouth. He had a feeling that he didn’t want to really confirm. He didn’t really want to, because if what he was thinking was true, well, fuck him. That would break his fucking heart. It took him a full minute to speak again.

“Why?”

“Huh?”

“Why—Why were you afraid that I felt that way?”

Because I know how it feels, and it’s awful.

Because that goes along with deeply hating yourself.

Because I care about you.

None of the options that lied unspoken comforted Eddie. Not a single fucking one of them. Every one of them scared the shit out of Eddie’s guts. But Eddie, you see, Eddie was no stranger to fear. Eddie knew what fear could do to people. Eddie knew the many very ways someone could react to fear. And by the way Steve was keeping his mouth shut was a clear answer.

“It’s not your fault either. What happened to me, or what happened to you. You understand that, right?”

Steve snorted, still not looking at him. That sound might pass as the breaking of an hysterical laughter, but not a muscle in his face indicated that. Eddie noted that he was holding himself in the middle, and that his fingertips were white. Steve swallowed around nothing. He must have had that knot in his throat, too.

“I’m not sure about that.”

“Oh, come on, Steve. Give me a break. You don’t really think that a bunch of douchebags murderers paid by the fucking government for experimenting on kids that eventually tore an opening in time and space to another dimension was really your fault, do you?”

That earned Eddie something closer to a laugh, but Steve didn’t look apart from the pool.

“Not that, no. But—”

And he fell silent again. Under the blue lights of the pool, so still, not blinking, his face morphing into an unreadable expression, Steve seemed a statue. One of those that appeared in the Art History books, an old Greek god or something. All perfect locks and gorgeous factions and sad eyes fixed into the void. When Eddie realized that he was staring, he tore away his gaze. He wondered if Steve could see that his cheeks were getting darker, too.

“Do you know what happened to Barb?” Steve asked, mimicking the soft tone, still not looking at Eddie. “Have we—Have we told you what really happened?”

So, that was it. Eddie knew what he’d been told, though. She died in 1983, attacked by one of those creatures from the underworld. She was Nancy Wheeler’s best friend. A year or so after that it was told by the news that she was accidentally killed by a chemical leak. And that she died in Steve Harrington’s pool in a clandestine party. He only got to learn the mystical part a few months back, when Dustin told him briefly about it. Eddie nodded, quietly.

“Yeah. Kinda.”

“She was there, you know?” Steve pointed at the pool with his head. “I saw the picture that Jonathan took of her, and she was there alone, sitting in the pool, when she was attacked.”

“Hm.”

“I was in my room having sex with Nancy. Barb—she got hurt, Nancy told her to leave, but Barb stayed there, alone and bleeding. For Nance. And I was fucking Nancy Wheeler.”

Eddie looked over at the blue pool, and let Steve talk. His voice was tight.

“The worst part is that at that time Will was still missing, and I fucking slept after. Nancy went back home on her own. I didn’t even drive her back. Didn’t even fucking offered. That thing could’ve gotten her, too, and I was fucking asleep. How fucked up is that?” Steve stopped to visibly ease the knot in his throat, and by the force of his attempts, it must have been a killer one. Still, Eddie didn’t interrupt him, just let him space to find the words. “I didn’t even have the excuse of not knowing that something fucked up was going on in Hawkins, there was a middle schooler missing, and nobody knew fucking why.”

Steve tightened the grip in his own arms, and took a deep breath. Eddie looked at him for a bare second. His eyes were glassy, and his back was stiffened.

“I have no excuse for that. I have no excuse for what I did after that. I was seventeen, I should’ve known better. I didn’t know what to do with—with that. With what I did, I mean. Nancy saw the bullshit I was, the shitty person I was, trying to ignore what happened. I tried so fucking hard, Eddie. So hard. For her. For Nancy. To—to cover up for what I did to her, to Barb. I couldn’t make it right. I couldn’t—I just—”

Eddie was no stranger to fear. Eddie could recognize it quickly and easily in other people’s eyes. Eddie could read the dormant terror, the trauma, in Steve’s voice, without even looking at him. Eddie could feel Steve’s knot in the throat, his voice growing thinner and shaky, the hard, white knuckles grip. Eddie was no stranger to Steve’s fear.

“Nance knew what to do with that feeling. She used it to give Barb’s family closure, to drag the government in the mud along with it. She’s so fucking smart. She knew what to do. She did it without me. Years later, and I still don’t know what to do with it. I still—I just don’t know, Eddie.

“Then the fucking Russians infiltrated in Hawkins and got us. They got us, me and Robin. They kept us for a few hours, they drugged us, they tortured us. I kept talking to protect Robin, and Dustin, and Erica. I just kept talking, keeping them busy, y’know? That was all I could do, buy some time. And there was this moment, this one moment, they hit me so hard I swear I couldn’t hear, or see anything for a full minute. And all I could think about was her. Barbara Holland. And I—I thought—I, fuck—I thought—”

“You thought you deserved it.”

Eddie’s voice was low and quiet. Eddie saw Steve’s hand travel to his own face. He heard Steve’s few deep breathings, letting it out slowly, calming himself the best he knew. Eddie lifted a hand, to comfort Steve, but he didn’t reach out. Not now, that Steve was all raw, and emotional, and vulnerable. Not now, that Eddie’s hand was also shaking. He put his hand in a closed fist in his own lap and took a deep breath as well.

When Steve talked again, he did it with a much calmer tone.

“I wanted to make sure that you didn’t feel that way. Not for one moment, not ever, because you did nothing wrong, Eddie. Absolutely nothing.”

“Well, I used to sell drugs to kids, but whatever.”

Eddie was unsure that dropping a joke would help the mood, but Steve laughed. He laughed. For a moment, but he did.

“Well, yeah. There’s that. You’re clearly no saint, no.”

Eddie smiled. Yeah, that was a good call. They fell into a comfortable silence that didn’t last.

“You know, in all these past years I didn’t even step in my backyard if it wasn’t strictly necessary. After Barb died, I turned off the pool lights with no intention whatsoever of turning them on ever. My folks didn’t question it, they weren’t around that much, anyway. I don’t think they didn’t even notice.” Eddie looked at the very much alight pool. “After we got to learn that the Upside Down, where her body is, is stuck on 6th November 1983, I turned them on again. In that Hawkins, Barb was still alive that day. So I—I like to think that she’s still somehow alive, I don’t know, trapped in time, maybe? In a—a time loop? Like, stuck two days before where she was still hating my ass for going after her best friend. And I know that she’s gone, alright? For good, but—I—I turned the lights on. Just in case, you know?”

“In case they flicker?”

“Yeah. In case they flicker, and it’s her.”

The air in Eddie’s lungs got stuck under the heaviness of Steve’s words.

“You’re asking yourself to be haunted by Barb’s ghost, Steve?”

“I wouldn’t blame her.”

Fuck him. Fuck him for being so fucking damn familiar to fear. For reading too well in between lines. Fuck him for knowing beforehand that his heart was gonna be shattered. Fuck. Him.

“Hey, Steve,” Eddie spoke, fondness impregnating his tone. He took air, to tell him how nothing that happened was Steve’s fault; how he wished he could just talk him out of the guilt, shame, and regret he spent years perfecting; how he wished he could forgive himself because, yeah, he took some bad decisions, but he was just seventeen. But then Steve reacted at his own name, and redirected his gaze to Eddie’s eyes, and then again, Eddie saw a twinkle of fear, and a whole lot of rifts in his insides. The golden boy in front of him was absolutely cracked, and probably this was nothing he could share, not even with the Party, or Nancy. Probably with Robin, but, by how he was still slightly shaking, what he had just told Eddie, was probably the first time he said it out loud. So, under the expecting gaze of Steve Harrington, Eddie said, “thank you for telling me. It must have been scary. It was brave of you for putting it into words.”

Steve’s hazel eyes, under the blue light of the haunted pool, searched something in Eddie’s face. Eddie wanted to look away, he really wanted to, but he let him search whatever he was hoping to find. He let Steve study him, wondering if Steve would notice that he was definitely blushing.

“I think you’re brave, too.”

Steve’s statement was accompanied by a soft smile. Eddie gulped, and took a sharp breath. He smiled widely to shake away the sudden awkwardness.

“Look at us, the bravest men in Hawkins, Indiana. Not afraid of the apocalypse, not afraid of small-minded folks, not afraid of ghosts. What are you afraid of, Steve Harrington?”

The easy tone, suddenly loud and unnecessarily dramatic put an honest smile in Steve’s full—and fucking pretty—mouth. Eddie didn’t look long to Steve’s smile, but long enough to see it flake for a moment. A moment, when Eddie realized that Steve was, too, staring at his lips.

And see, Eddie was no stranger to fear. Eddie knew fear, and knew how to read it in other people’s eyes. And there was a trace of deep, everlasting, inherent fear behind Steve’s hazel pupils. Almost a trace of panic when he fixed his gaze again in Eddie’s dark eyes, after realizing that maybe, just maybe, he’d been staring at Eddie’s lips a couple seconds too long. Steve’s eyes, who dared to wordlessly answer Eddie’s question of what he was afraid of. Steve’s smile, that flaked until it was barely a smile anymore, gracing his face with the ghost of an unspoken truth.

Yeah, Eddie knew Steve’s fear. It was the very same fear he felt after he laid on his mattress, seven years old, battered and bruised, his hair half buzzed, heavily breathing, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to hold another boy’s hand ever again. Feeling wrong, a big error of nature. Feeling terrified of ever meeting Mark Harvest’s eyes whenever they crossed paths. Yeah, that fucking, disgusting fear.

He had so damn much to thank Wayne. That awkward conversation when Eddie was fifteen, the one that lasted no more than a minute, but it was all Eddie needed to know, that not in Wayne’s household was ever gonna take place any kind of hate for whomever he chose to love. It was that conversation that fueled him to, finally, at age sixteen, kiss a boy in that sweet summer camp in Indianapolis. It gave him strength to actually find a safe place, and meet people like him, and inform himself about safety and what was going on in the world for people like him, and going with Wayne to a clinic to get tested, and learn about his own preferences. He had indeed so fucking much to be thankful for.

But you see, Eddie knew fear, and he could read in the negative spaces of Steve’s family story, the constant absence of parents since he was thirteen, the loveless marriage and picture perfect nuclear family, money based, status based, that Steve Harrington had nothing close to a healthy, safe space to learn whatever he wanted to do with it. But Eddie, bless his soul, he knew fear. And Eddie had a soft spot for helping others to get rid of it. He could guide him out of that pit. Fuck, he could—

Eddie was no longer smiling. Neither was Steve. Eddie raised a tentative hand, slow and soft, toward Steve’s face. He tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, wordlessly asking for permission to touch, like it mattered, and Steve leaned into his touch, holding his breath, closing his eyes. And then Eddie learned about that other negative space of Steve Harrington, another thing never told, never spoken how damn touch starved that young man was, in that big, empty, lonely house for that long. By how he leaned into the warmth of Eddie’s touch, how he melted into it, how he closed his sparkling eyes with fear and curiosity. God, Eddie could help him, give him a way out, a chance to explore until he was no longer afraid. Eddie could help him feel safe to be him.

Eddie was no stranger to fear. He knew fear, fear was familiar, it has always been to Eddie. In the middle of the night, under a blue, pale, eerie pool light, and a clear sky full of stars, with their heart in their sleeves, his soul lost in Steve Harrington’s breathy, quiet moans in between kisses, his mind and his body fully given in to Steve’s hands in his hair, or his waist—or wherever it felt right for both at the moment—; even at that very moment, Eddie felt a new fear that didn’t surprised him. Not a bit. Because it was a logical fear, the one that got him reading his fate in Steve’s soft, wet lips, that he, sooner or later, was going to be broken hearted. It was reckless, borderline dangerous to get experimental and unattached with someone Eddie’s been having a crush on since high school.

But Eddie was no stranger to fear. He knew fear. He knew his odds in this weird, new situation. His mind a mile a minute, he knew that they should be having rather soon a conversation about what was really going on there. Eddie absolutely knew that maybe he shouldn’t be kissing Steve that night, not after all the vulnerability, and the secrets spilled out. Not after talking about bad decisions, and regrets, and dead girls’ ghosts a few feet away from them. Not until Eddie made sure that Steve felt confident, and safe with him. Not after Eddie made clear that he would never hurt him, that while Steve was good at protecting people, Eddie was really good at protecting hearts. Not until Steve knew that they could take care of each other.

He knew that he would have to work rather sooner than later about what was going to happen to him whenever Steve decided to leave him when he’d had enough. But it was worth it if it helped Steve through this. Steve, who was growing confident with every kiss until leaving Eddie breathless; who needed, desperately, to feel safe, and cradled, and taken care of. Steve, who cut himself raw to explain Eddie why he didn’t want him to feel like he deserved everything bad. Steve, who totally missed the pool lights flickering for a second.

So, yeah, Eddie was no stranger to fear. And the panic rising in his soul at the melting touch of Steve’s taste in his lips was absolutely no surprise. Because, you see, that was the first time in Eddie’s life that he thought that he could live in this fear, as long as it was in Steve Harrington’s arms.

And that—that was really scary.

---

Hey, y'all. I am absolutely in love with these two. This is the first fic that I've ever fully written (or posted), so I'm kinda nervous, not gonna lie. Thank you very much for taking your time and reading this.

Tbh, I've been using Tumblr for awhile now as an espectator, so, yeah, if I do anything wrong, I'm sorry. I promise I'm doing my best. I'm still learning (do we ever stop learning?).

Also, English is not my native language, so, if you detect any mistakes, I'm sorry about that, too.

The link to ao3 of this fic is in the title.

Again, thanks a lot, and I hope you're having a wonderful day. See you around!

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #wayne munson #fanfic #ao3fic #ao3 #first fanfic #please be kind #kinda scared ngl #stranger things #fanfiction #steve x eddie #eddie x steve #survivor guilt #late night confessions #vulnerability

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lbibliophile-sw · 7 months

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Memories Caught in Amber

Also on AO3 @whumptober - day 9: polaroid @clonefandomevents - Haunted Clones week - day 6: [image] dogtag memorial @clonefandomevents - 501st bingo: angst

Rex never had much to call his own. Now, he has less.

He walks away from the crashed Tribunal with just four things: his Commander, his armour, his Name… and a flimsy-copy of the holo that sat by his bunk.

He looks at it sometimes, in quiet moments when the grief is overpowering. Those four beloved figures a distillation of all he has lost.

Echo. Lost to war, though once more found. Fives. Lost to lies, trying to save them all. Cody. Lost to betrayal, gone beneath the chip. Rex. Lost to… Lost.

His younger self feels like a stranger.

#haunted clones week #501st bingo #whumptober 2023 #no.9 #polaroid #star wars #sw:tcw #drabble #post-order 66 #grief #survivor guilt #captain rex #bingo fill

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rachelspoetrycorner · 1 month

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Survivor Guilt (2014) by Ron Padgett

In Episode 310, Rachel shares a poem guilty of being simply too good!

Rachel: The poet James Tate wrote: “Ron Padgett's poems sing with absolutely true pitch, and they are human-friendly. Their search for truths both small and large can be cause for laughter or at least a thoughtful sigh.” Which is exactly the kind of poet that I'm looking typically to bring to Wonderful. You know. Uh, a poet from a human.

Griffin: You did bring that dog poet one time—

Rachel: [laughs]

Griffin: —which I thought was... interesting?

Rachel: Bark... bark, bark, bark. Bark.

Griffin: I carry it in my bark.

I was gonna add a personal comment as usual, until I found this quote by Ron Padgett, that seems to have been made almost specifically for Rachel and Griffin: “Survivor Guilt is not about feeling bad about watching Survivor (the T.V. show). It’s about fickleness (a word we don’t hear much anymore). Plus ça change…”

If you'd like to hear about Ron directly soliciting poems from well-known authors to publish in his literary magazine and succeeding to do so all while still being in highschool, you can do so here: Body Burn, from 5:23 - 12:43

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ashintheairlikesnow · 1 year

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The Only Survivor

CW: PTSD, recovery whump, two former whumpees meet, referenced murder

Jameson Masterlist | Death Valley (Finn’s story)

For @amonthofwhump, day 2: Unhappy family reunion

"Just hang out in the den for a few minutes, okay?" Nat gestures to the room, but Jameson doesn’t get why she calls it a den at all. It’s just another living room as far as he can tell, only smaller and with warm wood-paneled walls that feel decades out of place

There's a couch, a couple of armchairs, a coffee table with a scattering of books and magazines and a TV hanging off the wall. Some blankets are thrown around, thrift store buys on their sixth or seventh home. Some of them, he thinks, might even have been patched.

Who patches a thrift store blanket?

People who need to make them last, he figures, and whose hands work better than this.

There are other rescues around here, somewhere, but they're staying upstairs and Jameson would rather claw his own face off than make small talk with Domestics and Platonics who think he must have done something to earn all those scars, that he's something to fear.

Or worse, that he’s a silly brainless slut who can’t be trusted not to try and jump them one by one so he can feel alive.

Maybe he was that, once upon a time, before he was torn to shreds, but he doesn't want to think about it right now. It doesn’t feel true, but he can’t say it isn’t. He can’t face their stares, the whispers behind their hands, their murmuring about how he must have been ruined by his scars, so ruined no one would want him any longer even for resale.

He can’t listen to it.

So he just glares at the ground, very much aware he looks more sullen and sulking than angry, but unable to help himself. "You said we would take me to get Allyn's present-"

"I will." Nat puts a hand on his arm and Jameson doesn't even bristle anymore, just rubs at the back of his neck with his other hand, leaning his weight on the crutch and the leg bothering him less. Her voice is low and gentle, not irritated or snapping, even in the face of his impatience.

From another room, he can hear low conversation - other people who run safe houses - but he can't quite pick up their words.

Nat waits, until he looks at her. Then she smiles. "This will take ten minutes, maybe twenty tops, I promise. Okay? There's a couple people here tonight that I don't usually get to see."

Jameson nods, expression softening against his will. He leans the crutches against the wall and sits down in one of the armchairs, picking up a TV remote. His fingers twitch, the tendons and bones protesting even this small independent movement, and he nearly drops the stupid thing before he clamps down on it so hard it hurts. "Yeah, okay. Don't make me sit here all fucking night, though, yeah?"

"I won't. Girl Scout promise." Nat shoots him a wider smile - one he finds himself returning - and walks out the door and down to the room with the others. He watches her braid, the rich brown more and more streaked with silver, swinging against her back as she goes, against her eternal flannel shirt.

Her voice is added to the chorus of the others, muffled by walls and distance. People greet her with cheerful exclamations and she calls back. If he closes his eyes, he can imagine the hugging.

He can taste all their voices, layering over and around each other, some in conflict and some in harmony.

He shudders, pulling a blanket over his lap.

His fingers curl around the bunched fabric, giving him a visual excuse when they won't straighten out, if anyone notices. Nobody's in here, but the motion is still automatic. When his fingers twitch, there's nothing to drop on the ground, nothing to look at.

Jameson finds some dumbass cop show on TV and mostly ignores it, focusing instead on spending a few minutes slowly reclining his chair, bit by bit, until his feet rest almost straight out from his body. The throb of pain that stretches down his thighs to his ankles is at its baseline, medication holding back the worst of it.

Thank God for the fucking pills.

One of his knees jerks, bends like a reflex after being hit with a hammer, but the more he takes deep, even breaths the more he is able to slowly unfold it again. Finally, he sits back and relaxes into the low ache. It's so familiar and constant that he wonders what it would feel like if one day his legs didn't hurt at all.

Would it feel like they'd been cut off, if they stopped hurting? Is it the only way he even remembers he has them, still?

There's a figure in the doorway. It’s not Nat, he can tell that much, so he doesn’t look up. He’s very aware that from this angle, whoever it is will see the scar across his face, the way some of his hair is shorter than the rest, growing more slowly as it comes back. If he keeps his chin down, he can hide the worst of it, maybe hold off questions he doesn’t want to answer.

Maybe, with the blanket, they won't notice anything else. Won’t notice his fucked-up legs. But, wait, the crutches on the wall…

The guy - it’s a guy, he thinks, not that he can see more than a blur without looking directly - is just standing there, silent. It makes Jameson feel uncomfortable, prickly and uncertain that he’s really welcome here, whatever Nat says.

Is it another rescue?

Another runaway, one who will run upstairs and hiss to the others, Nat Yoder brought one of the whores, what do we do?

Don’t let them touch you. They can’t stop, if they touch you. They can’t stop.

Joke’s on those assholes, Jameson thinks, hunching his shoulders up nearly to his chin. He never wanted to start in the first place, not with anyone but Nanda, not with anyone but… but Allyn.

You don’t have to get me anything, they’d said, laughing with their hair a mess, a halo on the pillow, as he’d kissed them. I don’t think I celebrated Christmas.

I want to celebrate you, I don’t care what we call the holiday we do it on.

They’d slid their arms around his neck, and pulled him down to them, bit at his lower lip until he hissed from the pain. The memory spreads like liquid warmth through him, then freezes as he realizes the guy is still just standing in the doorway.

“You need fucking permission? Just sit down, if you want, I'm just waiting for Nat to finish." The words come out a gravelly near-croak, more hostile than he means to be. He tells himself to apologize.

I’m sorry. It’s that easy.

He can’t make the words come out.

The guy just shrugs and sits on the couch. Close, but still more than arms' length away, neither of them an immediate danger to the other.

Jameson, trying not to look, has an impression from the corner of his eye of a brown canvas coat lined with corduroy at the collar and ribbed knit at the cuffs, a thatch of ashy blond hair nearly shaved at the sides and longer on top - brutally neat compared to Jameson's growing messy mop of dark hair. Pale under a driving tan, not like the way Jameson looks now that he sees the sun, the way it feels like his skin was just waiting to soak it up again.

There's an angular jaw and a blank expression.

Jameson doesn't offer a greeting - neither does the guy.

They just sit in silence for a while. On the screen, police officers investigate the disappearance of a rich woman's Domestic as time runs out before the kidnapper's deadline. One of them shakes the other by the shoulders, insisting we’re running out of time to save them! You have to help me!

"Hmph." There's a world of derision in that simple single sound the man makes.

Jameson glances sidelong at him. Something is familiar about his profile, but he doesn't know what, exactly. Maybe he's seen him at other meetings before. He's good-looking, yeah, but hard and bitter, you can see it in his face.

Jameson's own scars itch. Just like you can see it in me.

"Be nice if they actually cared that fucking much when someone hurts us," He says, half-joking. Maybe he means it as a kind of apology for being an asshole earlier. The guy's not big but he has muscle, Jameson can see that, too, and it sets something in him on edge. They're alone in here. Anything could happen.

He tells himself that Nat is in the next room, that he could call for help if he had to. He could fight him off, no matter how much it hurt. But all the guy does is turn to look at him, a wry smile lifting one corner of his mouth slightly higher than the other.

He looks like someone Jameson saw in a supermarket a few times, the way you start to catalog familiarity in the world around you even if you’ve never spoken to someone.

Something about it sets Jameson’s heart to beating faster, and he fights back a wince as his fingers feel like they throb harder in response.

"It would be nice if they look this much for anyone missing," He says, voice slightly raspy. Just a little, not as bad as Jameson's, but he sounds like he's been hoarse for a long time. His voice tastes like cherry sauce on cheesecake. Jameson fucking hates cheesecake.

He has an accent, mouth open a little too much when he speaks. His th in this comes out like it’s dis. Some kind of European thing.

And, all at once, Jameson feels the thunderclap roll through him. The hair on his arms and the back of his neck stands up and he knows why this guy seems so familiar, suddenly.

His mouth goes dry, but he swallows hard and closes his fingers tightly around the blanket. “Hey, are you… uh. Sorry, I’m not great at this kind of fucking-... are you Charles Ingvall?"

The guy stills, briefly, and then levels an even analytical stare at him. After a moment, he snorts and sits back, shrugging as his eyes go back to the TV screen, where two detectives beg a shadowy man to just let her go, just let her walk away, nobody has to die here today. "Chaz," He says, after a beat. "Mostly I am called Chaz when I use that name.”

"The cops are looking f-for you, I saw-... uh, an announcement or something-"

"I see it, too. They aren't looking very hard. Thank you for telling me, though.” Sank you for tellingk me. The accent makes him feel a little bit sick. “Is it the police in Utah? They are irritating. Idaho is worse. Montana, they leave me alone mostly.”

Jameson swallows, his throat feeling oddly small and constricted. He looks away - and then forces himself to look back, to meet the man's gaze. He has to see how he reacts.

He has to be sure.

"They, uh. Yeah, but also… um. They’re looking for you here in California, too.”

Charles Ingvall’s eyebrows raise. They’re darker than his hair, just a little. “California? I do nothing here yet.”

“You’ve… been here, though?” Jameson’s voice is getting worse, rasping itself into a whisper as his throat tries to close. He doesn’t want to talk about Robert. He doesn’t want to admit-

But someone else survived Robert.

Someone else lived.

Jameson wants to know why.

“Yeah,” Charles Ingvall says, and looks away from him again. He picks at the seam of his thick denim blue jeans. The word comes out yah, as hoarse as Jameson’s voice. Not quite as ruined, but not much better.

How often did he hurt you to make you scream? The question dies before Jameson can ask it. Instead, he just says, “They found your fingerprints."

The man closes his eyes. There’s a breath, a beat, and then he shakes his head. "Damn. Where? I thought I had wiped them from the last truck. That is irritating. Next time I will ask for help to be sure. This is what I get for trying to do alone, right?”

Jameson’s heart is racing. He feels almost faint with it, and the constant pain of his hands and legs fades a little under the buzzing adrenaline flooding his system. If he had to, right now, he could still run. His body always comes through in a pinch, when he has to run.

For a while, anyway.

Before his legs give out and he collapses on a sidewalk, unseen, just another WRU runaway starving in the street who should have just stayed and hurt and burned and bled for the pleasure of-

“Robert Weber.”

The words come out like flytrap stickiness, nearly gumming his tongue and lips together with the taste. Just saying it makes Jameson smell, briefly, the scent of lemon cleaning products layered over decay. Dead people stuck up his nose, down his throat, stuffing up his ears with their screams for help that wasn’t coming, help that would never come, help that was locked in a cage with his hands over his ears wishing they would just die already so he could stop caring about them so much.

The man goes still when he hears the name. He seems briefly carved from stone, except for the flare of the whites around his eyes. "Who?"

"You… you know goddamn well who.” Jameson’s voice is thready and thin, barely there. His own voice on his tongue has lost nearly all its taste. “They found your fingerprints in a closet in his house. They’re looking for you, you’re-... your family is still looking for you.”

“I don’t have a family.” Charles Ingvall stands abruptly. “And I do not know Robert Weber.”

“Yeah, you do. Hey, don’t-” Ingvall’s moving away, about to walk out the door, and Jameson pushes himself up, too, nearly crashing right back to the ground before he manages to grab one of his crutches, jamming his arm into the grips and holding tight to the handle. The other one clatters and thumps against the hardwood floor. “Shit! Fuck, don’t leave, look-”

Ingvall pauses in the doorway, looking down at the crutch, then back up at Jameson. “You are injured.” He doesn’t sound pitying. Just someone pointing out a truth. “Let me get that. I don’t want to talk about Robert Weber.” He reaches down and picks up the crutch, helping Jameson get his arm through the guides so he can balance again. “Do you understand? I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Yeah, well-... I do.”

“I don’t care.” Ingvall turns away again, and Jameson closes his eyes.

He never admits how bad it was.

He never tells anyone what it was like living in Robert’s house.

He’s swallowed down the pain and the fear and shoved it as far as it can go. But this is his only chance to know someone who has survived what he has, and he can’t stand to lose it. So he follows, thumping along behind Ingvall, and says in a rush, “The cage was made for you, wasn’t it?”

Ingvall stills once more.

Jameson keeps going, his mouth with a mind of its own driving the words even as he feels his shaking get worse. “He bought it for you, but he put me in it, too.”

Ingvall stands there with one hand on the doorframe. His fingernails dig into the painted wood and Jameson wonders if he’ll leave little half-moon marks there, signals of someone who felt something so much bigger than his body and had nowhere for that feeling to go.

Then he looks back at Jameson, over one shoulder. “He did not buy the cage only for me,” He says, heavily. His cheesecake voice weighs down Jameson’s tongue, sticky cherry sauce on top. “He bought it for someone like me. It was there when he brought me into his home. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. If I had not stopped my car to check directions…”

“I didn’t know anyone survived. I thought everyone went into the basement or... you know.”

“Or out, in the barrels.” Ingvall looks down at the ground, closing his eyes and taking a deep, deep breath. Then he turns back to Jameson entirely. “He called me his little Mouse.”

“He called me the goddamn dog,” Jameson says, and finds himself smiling, just a little. He feels it pull at the scar that cuts through the corner of his mouth. “You got out and decided to help the-... the runaways?”

“I was rescued by a man who helped them. He thought I was one, until he met me. I owe him my life, so I have given it to him, to doing his work. You…” Ingvall’s eyes drop to Jameson’s wrist, taking in the tattoo still there just peeking out beneath one sleeve, faded and scarred over but visible. “Robert bought one?”

“No. I… I ran away a long time before that. I just needed a ride.” Jameson is swallowing too much, he knows it, but he can’t seem to stop. There’s a lump in his throat he can’t seem to get around. “He offered me a ride. There was a bottle of-... of water. He drank a little of it, so I didn’t think…”

“Yeah.” Yah, the accent softer as Ingvall’s voice lowers. “I drank the water, too.”

“Why didn’t…” Jameson hesitates. This isn’t any of his fucking business, but… “You remember who you are. You remember yourself, that you’re… whatever the name was, I don’t remember-”

“Finn Schneider.” Ingvall says the words like they’re made of pins, sticking him with pain with every movement of lips, teeth, and tongue. “I remember the name.”

“Why didn’t you go home? You had a home to go to… why didn’t you just fucking go home?”

Ingvall blinks at him, as if he’s suddenly started singing in Spanish. “Because I was not Finn Schneider any longer,” He says, matter of fact. “Were you sold, too? Did he trade you for something new?”

Jameson’s fingers clench and unclench on the grips on his crutches. “No.”

“Oh. Then how did you-”

“I beat him to death with a goddamn shovel when he made me help him bury another body.” The words are flat and blunt.

“You… you what?” Ingvall’s eyes are wide again, and some of the hardness and the years fall off of his face. Jameson thinks he can see, now, what Robert saw - just a little - in a younger man who could look worried and vulnerable and not simply hardened. Had he looked like that, when he still felt hopeful, before he knew almost everyone was just shit and would fuck you as soon as look at you, would hit you faster than they’d help you?

“I beat him to death,” Jameson repeats, slowly, “With a goddamn shovel.”

“You-... you killed him?”

“Yeah. I… I was tired of watching people die, just really… fucking tired. And… I didn’t want him to kill anyone else anymore. So I made sure he couldn’t, and then I left.” Jameson feels the strength go out of him all at once, and the crutches are the only thing that keeps him standing. He loves these fucking things so much.

“I never thought to kill him-”

“Yeah, I know. If you had, maybe I wouldn’t be this fucked up.”

It hits Ingvall like a punch to the face, and his eyes close as he flinches at the simple, honest truth in the words. “... I-... I never thought I could-”

“I don’t blame you. I know it sounds like I do, but I don’t, fucking swear it. I didn’t mean it to come out like that. Just… We’re the only two of his who lived. I know that doesn’t mean anything, not really, because like… there’s always people who survive bullshit, but… it kind of means something to me. That there’s somebody else.”

Ingvall’s jaw works as he looks down at Jameson - funny, neither of them are very tall at all, but Ingvall’s still tall enough to look down. “Does it?”

“Does it not, to you? Mean… mean, fuck, something that there’s two of us? That we aren’t alone?”

Ingvall’s smile is bitter. It’s not really a smile at all, just an upward tilt of the lips that goes nowhere near his eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“But-”

“I am glad you lived,” Ingvall says, softening his voice a little. “I am. But we are all of us alone, in what we survive or what we don’t. All we have between us is a man who could have killed us and didn’t. That isn’t very much. Besides that…”

Jameson’s cheeks burn red, embarrassed and a little angry, too, at the casual disdain in Ingvall’s voice. He looks down, but his voice has fled - all his angry retorts wither up and die in the face of having his attempt to speak to someone, to… what, fucking bond or something… looked at with such distant dismissal.

Ingvall goes quiet, for a second, just watching him.

“What? Just fucking say whatever you’re gonna say and stop fucking staring at me.” His left knee throbs with his pulse, a sudden wash of pain that makes his leg twitch. It pulls Ingvall’s gaze to it, and Jameson’s face burns hotter - and so does his anger. “Don’t fucking stare, it’s fucking rude.”

“Sorry.” That’s sincere, at least. Ingvall closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry. It’s been so long… I don’t know how to talk about it. I shouldn’t… I have been cruel. I’m sorry. I meant only to say… I guess I just mean-... scheisse.”

Jameson snorts. “Bet I can guess what that word means.”

“Your language stole a curse or two from mine, to be sure.” Ingvall’s voice lightens a little. “I mostly curse in English, but sometimes when I really mean it, well. Scheisse feels more real. What’s your name? I haven’t asked.”

“Jameson. I… I named myself Jameson.”

“The bottles on the fireplace,” Ingvall murmurs. “He always had so many, lining them up-”

“I could read. He didn’t know, usually they make it so we can’t but it didn’t work on me. I could read, and I would sit in the cage-”

“And read the bottles, over and over.” Ingvall nods, just a little. His hands go into his pockets, and he’s still smiling, just a little. Some of the tension has bled out of him. “I did, too. Jameson, what I meant to say, before I was… rude, I was trying to say that we are not the only two who survived him.”

“... we aren’t? There was someone else?” Hope, thin as a thread through the eye of a needle, that there might be other people out there who didn’t end up in the basement or the blue barrels, other people who walked out of that house, or crawled, or-

“You are the only survivor, Jameson.” Ingvall turns away again, and then time he doesn’t turn back.

“... what? What do you mean, you’re right here-”

“Finn Schneider died in the cage. I left as only his Mouse. I go by many names now, but if you called Mouse, this many years later, still I would run to the call."

"But-"

"Listen to me." His voice stays quietly steady, even as Jameson's has begun to tremble. "We are not survivors. We do not share the journey. The stupid trusting silly boy I was, the one who went into that house? He did not leave it."

Jameson stays silent, when Ingvall pauses this time. His face burns even as his stomach twists cold and grows ice from his pelvis to his heart. “Yeah, okay.” He finds himself mumbling and he can’t make himself look any higher than the guy’s knees.

Ingvall sighs. "I am glad someone did survive, Jameson. But I did not. Do not say Finn Schneider to me again. I don't know that man."

He walks away and leaves Jameson standing there in the room with the credits of the cop show playing pointlessly on the television behind him.

When Nat comes to tell him they can go shopping now, he tells her to forget about it, he’s hurting too much anyway, and asks to just go home. She nods, watching him as she gets her car keys out of her pocket, but he says nothing else. While she drives, she keeps giving him sidelong looks, but all her soft well-meaning, careful questions get nothing but grunts.

He makes it to the shower and gets his clothes off before his legs give out entirely.

He sits in the tub with hot water beating down on his back and shoulders, trickling through his mop of hair, hands over his face, whispering fuck fuck fuck fuck to himself while Trash Cat paws at the other side of the door and meows for him. He doesn’t even try to let her in.

He just lets the scalding water burn against his scars.

@finder-of-rings @endless-whump @astrobly @thefancydoughnut @newandfiguringitout @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whump-tr0pes @downriver914 @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @nonsensical-whump @outofangband @eatyourdamnpears @hackles-up @grizzlie70 @mylifeisonthebookshelf @keeper-of-all-the-random-things @burtlederp

@whumperfully @pigeonwhumps @squishablesunbeam @darkthingshappen @whumper-soot @pumpkin-spice-whump @pardonmekreature @d-cs @honey-is-mesi @whump-queen @sowhumpful

#amow winter whumperland 2022 #day 2: unhappy family reunion #unhappy family reunion #whump #jameson bb #finn schneider #ptsd tw #traumatized whumpee #runaway whumpee #escaped whumpee #whumpees meet #disabled oc #disabled whumpee #chronic pain tw #scars tw #bbu #box boy universe #box boy #survivor guilt

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nervouswizardcycle · 1 year

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THE ACCIDENT

#male v #cyberpunk oc #cyberpunkgame #oc: arki #arki: story #survivor guilt #virtual photography #love to @chevvy_yates for making this a comics <3

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excultgirls · 6 months

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I spent years trying to survive, only then to ask myself why did I do it? Why me, and not the others?

I could never understand why I made it, while the others couldn't.

I was thinking about my friends whom I haven't talked to in a year for my safety. I wonder if they got married or had kids. They weren't happy either, but they had less abusive families, which I think makes them stay and believe in the cult.

We often dreamed about being free and travelling and living together. Things we saw on TV, and knew weren't possible for us. We knew it was "sinnful" and "not what god wanted", but dreaming was sweet.

#child abuse #cult #emotional abuse #tw abuse #religious trauma #friendship #trauma bonding #survivor guilt

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gun-roswell · 7 months

Link

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Cartoon), Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, Star Wars - All Media Types Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Clone Force 99 | Bad Batch/CT-21-0408 | CT-1409 | Echo, CT-21-0408 | CT-1409 | Echo/CT-27-5555 | ARC-5555 | Fives Characters: CT-21-0408 | CT-1409 | Echo, Clone Force 99 | Bad Batch Additional Tags: Clone Haven Server's Ship of the Month Event, Fan Events/Prompts, echo's POV, Self-Reflection, Angst, Coping with survival guilt, Echo is a survivor Series: Part 8 of Bad Batch One Shots Summary:

Set somewhere in the The Bad Batch galaxy of things. Timeline? What Timeline?

Echo’s POV of what it means to be, a survivor.

Part of the Bad Batch One Shots // CHSOTM Events/ Prompt “It’s hard being the one that survives”

#fanfic #short stories #Star Wars #the bad batch #the clone wars #chsotm #echo #tbb #echo's pov #angst #survivor guilt #fan events prompts

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kyojirokagenuma · 29 days

Text

The Lost Twin Chapter Three

“At least it can’t be worse than last year.”

-Sam Giddings, 9:07 p.m.

-March 2nd, 2014

Emily Davis was just waking up. She had slept in late that day. It was nearly noon. She yawned, shielding her eyes from the sun shining in on her face through the window. She threw off her blankets, heading for the shower. She passed her phone on the nightstand, which had been set to vibrate all night. After turning the water on, she stripped out of her night clothes and stepped into the tub. Just a short shower to start the day. Her hair didn’t need washing. She let out a long sigh as she felt the hot water rain down like tiny bullets against her skin. After a quick wash, she turned the water off, stepped out, and grabbed a towel. No one was home to see her naked, so she dint even bother wrapping body after drying it off. She still had a towel over her head, rubbing her brown hair, when she stepped back into her room and picked her phone up from the nightstand.

“Ten missed calls? What the hell? Who’s calling me at 3am?” she asked herself, scrolling down the list.

Josh three times. Sam twice. Josh again. Mike twice. Jess twice.

Weird. Did something happen, she thought? She would have to call one of them back and see what was going on. She finished drying her hair and tossed it on the chair in front of her desk as she scrolled through some of the morning news. She was hardly paying attention to them as she passed them by.

“Fuckin’ great, more cold?” she thought with a frown, placing a hand on her bare hip as she passed by the weather. “Politics, boring,” she sighed, combing past a story about the president. Next was something about sports. “I think that’s the team Mike likes. I wonder if he’d like a jersey or something for his bir-.”

BREAKING UPDATE: Miracle on Blackwood Mountain! Daughter of Hollywood Mogul Found Alive!

Emily froze. Her mind just stopped working for a few seconds. Then her hand began trembling uncontrollably.

“No fucking way,” Emily said out loud, quickly clicking on the article.

She held her phone with both hands, her whole body shaking while she waited for it to load. Of course her internet had to suddenly crash now.

“Fuckin’ come on! Hannah or Beth?”

Suddenly she was shivering, like she had just gotten out of an ice bath instead of a hot shower. Finally, the page loaded. She read the first few lines of the article.

In what can only be described as a miraculous turnabout, the once grim case of the missing Washington twins has had a stunning breakthrough after nearly an entire month, when younger sister Elizabeth was found alive late last night by Blackwood forest rangers.

Underneath the paragraph was a picture of a ragged and injured Beth, a selfie that must have been taken with one of the ranger’s phones. She was smiling.

She was okay.

“Holy fucking shit!” Emily all but screamed. She clicked off the article and flew right over to her contacts.

There was no way Beth still had her working phone after missing a month. Josh was probably busy as hell dealing with all of it.

She called Sam. She picked up on the first ring.

“Emily, finally!” came her excited voice from the inherent end.

“Sam, I just saw the news!” Emily asked while hurrying to her wardrobe. She held the phone between her chin and shoulder as she started to get dressed. “Have you talked to her yet?”

“No, not yet. It’s a media frenzy over here. Only family can get into see her right now. She’s in the hospital. But she’s alive! She’s really alive!”

Emily pulled a pair of jeans on over her underwear. “Jesus Christ, I can’t believe this shit!”

“I know, it doesn’t seem possible.”

“Where are you? Right now?”

“I’m at the hospital. It’s St. Mary’s.”

“I’m on the way.”

“Alright, see you.”

Emily hung up and shoved her phone in her back pocket, then picked a clean bra out from her wardrobe. Once she was finished dressing, she hurried down the stairs and out the door. It took her until she jumped into her car to come to a sudden realization. She stopped, and turned off the car. She just sat there, sitting in her seat for minutes on end. A deep, troubled frown had replaced her once exhilarated expression. She took out her phone again and dialed Sam back.

“Hello?”

“Yeah, it’s me again. I . . . I just had a thought.”

“Yeah?”

“What if Beth doesn’t wanna see me? Or the others? I mean, the whole thing was my idea.”

“Emily, we talked about this. You couldn’t have known what would happen. Yeah, it was mean, but-.”

“Yeah, I know. You told me,” Emily said with a sigh. ”But, but I can’t shake it! I thought it would be funny. I told myself she deserved it for wanting to get with Mike, but don’t know if Beth will see it that way. What if she’s mad at me?”

“Well, she might be at first, but I also think she’ll probably forgive you if she really thinks you’re sorry. She’s not vindictive like that, and I know you’re really sorry.”

“Yeah, I am,” Emily said, her eyes falling. “You’ll tell her I am, right?”

“Of course. It’s your boyfriend that I’d be worried about.”

Emily’s frown deepened. She said nothing.

“He hasn’t changed his tube, huh?” Sam asked, noticing her silence.

“No, he still hasn’t even said sorry to Josh. He says we shouldn’t apologize just cause Hannah overreacted and went nuts. Says it’s her fault.”

“Asshole. No offense, Emily.”

“Whatever,” Emily deflected, not even having the energy to get angry.

“Emily, just come over, okay? We can figure this out when you get here.”

Emily pricked her lip, but nodded. “Yeah, okay,” she said, restarting the car.

“You’ve really surprised me on this Emily. You’re actually pretty sweet when you want to be,” she said in an almost teasing manner.

Emily rolled her eyes. “Okay, okay, cut out. I’ll be there soon.”

She hung up her phone and pulled out onto the road. The hospital was a good half-hour away, right in the heart of LA. Beth must have been doing alright if they transferred her there already. Emily wanted to get there as soon as possible, so she got on the expressway. She was approaching her exit when she got another call. Caller I.D. said Mike. She hit answer and brought it up to her ear.

“Hey babe, you heard about Beth, right? I’m headed there now.”

“Yeah, I heard. That’s, uh, that’s not why I called though. We gotta talk, Em.”

Her car rolled down the exit ramp towards an empty intersection. No one was at the light.

“Well, can it wait? I’m kind of driving to-.”

“Emily, I wanna break up.”

Emily's eyes shot wide. Her mouth fell halfway open just of shock. “What? What did you just say to me?”

“Sorry, Emily, but things just aren’t working out. I asked Jess out today, and she said yes. It’s over between us.”

Emily’s world was suddenly crumbling. Jess was her best friend. Why would she do this?

Emily didn’t even notice the light in front of her turn red, or that she was speeding up. This was about to get loud.

“What the fuck? Are you fucking kidding me? You prick!”

“See, that’s part of the reason we’re breaking up, Emily. You’re also so nasty, even to me.”

Emily was clutching the steering wheel so tight it was hurting her hand. She was flying in that little car now, the speedometer was going wild. Every ounce of blood in her body was burning red hot. “So you ask out my best friend? You fucking, you motherfucker! That’s why she’s been ignoring me! Fuck her! And fuck you! Sam was right about you, you piece of-.”

It took a blaring horn to finally break her focused rage. Her head twisted around to see an eighteen-wheeler on her left, barreling right at her through the intersection. Her heart stopped, her eyes wide.

She pulled the wheel as far right as it could go.

The truck slammed on the breaks.

The semi struck the front of her car. The whole engine block was ripped right out, her BMW torn in half. Emily screamed. Louder than she ever had before. What remained of her vehicle was spinning like a runaway tornado. Emily's head whipped side to side, trapped in spiraling metallic coffin. She caught a glimpse of what looked like a telephone pole as she spun across the intersection.

Emily finally came to more than an hour later. Her eyes fluttered open, her world totally out of joint.

“Emily?”

The voice sounded as if she were underwater. Emily was still swimming, about to break the surface. The light was so close.

“Emily?”

Emily found herself blinded by the light shining down on her from the ceiling. She tried to bring up her arm to shield her eyes, but found it restrained.

“Unhhhh,” she groaned.

“Emily, can you hear me?”

The brown-haired girl turned in the direction of the voice, the woman’s figure slowly coming into focus. A young blonde woman. She looked scared.

“Sam?” Emily finally said, managing to recognize her.

“Thank Christ you’re awake,” Sam sighed, a relieved smile forming.

“What the fuck happened?” she asked weakly, still unaware of her surroundings.

“You ran a stoplight and crashed into a huge truck. That’s what the doctor said anyway. Broke over a dozen bones.”

It was then Emily realized her arm was in a cast. So was her left leg. It was all coming back to her. The pain was coming back to her, and not just from her broken body.

“Oh, fuck. My car?” Emily frowned, already knowing the answer.

“Totaled. They said there was pretty much nothing left of it. You’re lucky to be alive, Emily. You really had never scared.”

A thought suddenly occurred to her. “Wait, is this the hospital Beth is at?”

“How do you think I got here so fast?” Sam snickered. “Don’t tell me you almost killed yourself trying to race to the hospital.”

Emily looked away. “No, that wasn’t it,” she said.

She bit her lip, feeling tears coming on fast. “That son of a bitch.”

“Em? What’s wrong?” Sam asked, tilting her head.

Sam rose from her seat and came closer as Emily began to cry. “H-he broke up with me. Over the phone.”

“What? You mean Mike?” asked a stunned Samantha.

Emily nodded weakly. “He asked out Jessica, who’s supposed to be my best fucking friend, and guess what? She said yes! So yeah, he called me on the road and he dumped me!”

Sam put the pieces together quickly. “He made you so upset you crashed your car?”

Emily said nothing. Sam made fists with her hands.

“What a bastard. I’m so sorry, Em.”

Emily didn’t offer a response, she was just sobbing. Sam looked to the open door, then stood up.

“Em, I’m gonna find a doctor. Tell them you’re awake. I’ll swing by later, okay? After you’ve got some rest.”

Emily managed another nod, but said nothing back. She watched Sam leave with a smile and a wave.

Emily faded back out shortly after.

By the time she woke up again, she had no idea what time it was, but the sky was dark. She had passed out for who knows how long. She lifted her head, looking out into the darkened hall. The was a light on somewhere out there. She didn’t see anyone though. There was a few empty chairs at a reception area outside. The hospital was dead quiet. All she could hear was the fan going from the vent on the ceiling. Must have been pretty late. She turned her head the other direction. just enough for her to barely make out a shrouded figure sitting in the chair. Someone was in there with her? She had a visitor this late?

“Sam? Is that you?”

Suddenly Emily heard the sound of helicopter propellers outside. Must have been someone being airlifted to the hospital. The chopper’s light shined bright overhead, illuminating a small streak across the room. Her visitor’s face was lit up for just a split second. Long enough for Emily to at least spot her dirty, ragged brown hair. Eyes cold and dead. Her once lively olive skin was badly decomposed. She wore a pair of mangled glasses. An unnerving smirk lay painted on her maggot-infested face. She rose to her feet, stepping out into the dim light.

Emily’s visage twisted with dread. She just kept coming. Emily was immobile. She could do nothing but watch as the dead twin advanced, until she was looming over her hospital bed. A deafening shriek echoed through the emptied halls.

Emily shot upwards in her bed, drenched in sweat. Sudden agony shot through her system from straining her broken body. The brown-haired girl fell back against the bed, groaning and writhing in pain and discomfort. Her eyes darted about the room. It was day now. The next day? Or the same? She wasn’t sure.

“Fuck, was that a dream? Fuck me,” she said, short on breath.

She slumped her head back on her pillow, trying to get a hold of herself. That was new. That had never happened before. She hoped it never would again.

“Christ. What the fuck? That sucked.”

A nurse came to the door, having heard her cries of pain. “Miss Davis, you’re awake again. That’s good,” she said with a smile, coming to her side.

“Yeah, yeah I am,” said a breathless Emily. “What day is it?”

She gave Emily a drink of water before answering. “Friday,”

Emily’s mouth fell open. “D-did I pass out for two days?”

“Yes, you did. Your body needed the rest. Your parents were here yesterday, but you were asleep. Two other women came to check on you. The nice blonde girl, and that woman from upstairs, the missing one they found.”

Emily blinked. “Beth? Beth came to see me?”

“Yes,” said the nurse, fluffing her pillow and doing a few other things Emily wasn’t sure of. Checking all the nonsense that was attached to her no doubt. “Would you like me to tell her you’re awake? She seemed very interested in speaking to you.”

“Uh, yea, sure,” Emily said, an anxious feeling taking over her.

“Okay, I’ll let her know. I’ll go get you some food in the meantime.”

Emily tried her best to relax after the nurse left the room once more. On top of being stabbed in the back by both her best friend and her boyfriend and a victim of a major car accident, now she had nightmares to deal with. Emily sighed in exasperated disbelief.

“Fuck my fucking life.”

#beth washington #until dawn #sam giddings #emily davis #horror #josh washington #fanfiction #gay women #survivor guilt #romance #fluff #hurt/comfort #alternate universe

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