#if birth control hadn’t made me suicidal I would say I’d want to go back on it lmao
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A long bitch of an interview with Euronymous, from Orcustus zine in early ‘92.
What is Orcustus? Orcustus was an early 90’s black metal ‘zine run by none other than Bård “Faust*” Eithun— murderous pretty-boy, and o.g Euronymous simp. I think he might have also played drums in a band called Emperor... but I’m not sure! Its full name is actually “Orcustus— The Shadow of The Golden Fire”, and no, I’m not making this up.
This particular issue here opens up with a quote from a short story called ‘The Doom That Came To Thomas Parkes*’.
Assuming the reader hasn’t read the story, Faust explains that the quote is in reference to what happened to the titular ‘Thomas Parkes’ when he tried to raise spirits. Faust then admits that he’s unsure of his own ability to ‘raise spirits’, but says he hopes that he’ll raise some fists in agreement that there’s something wrong with the underground scene. Ironically (you’ll see why this is ironic very soon), he doesn’t like that certain bands, namely Entombed, are selling so many copies of their LPs.
After a brief diatribe on just that, he goes on to explain that he was in a rush to get this mag out because of problems with the printer. Then, he tells anyone who doesn’t like the fact that this ‘zine only features black metal that they can fuck off, with three exclamation points.
Finally, we get to the end of the opening page, where Faust pulls what can only be called an early form of the Twitter exposed thread. It reads as follows, with absolutely no changes to the text:
“I would suggest you to not do any business with that sucker Evil Ludo from France. He have riped me and several others off, by not return what we ordered. I suppose he’s a medical sensation, as I didn’t know it was physical or psychical possible to live without a brain”
Why am I telling you all of this, when this is only meant to be a transcript of an interview with Euronymous, you may be asking? Because I find it funny, that’s why.
Anyhow, the Euronymous here acts and feels very differently from the Euronymous of the last interview I posted. However, I hope you’ll still enjoy it, and I hope you’re able to appreciate the tiny glimpses of humanity talking to a close friend allowed him, even though they both behave like complete asses. Even though it’s hard to sympathize with him at points.
Like last time, any (sparse) commentary will be between (parenthesis) and in bold. Without further ado, let’s get into it.
.
F: Well, how in hell shall one be able to come up with an intro worthy enough for this band? The words I wanna describe Mayhem’s music with, is not yet created, and it won’t be created either, because no one has really experienced the real darkness and pure brutality with lays behind Mayhem’s hellish sound, but I suppose you all are familiar with this band anyway. Well, in the first place, I hadn’t really thought to enclose this band in this issue, because if we look away from rereleases of old demos (“Pure Fucking Armageddon”) and live tapes, it’s a pretty long time since their last release (in ‘87 that was). I thought I rather should interview them when they released their forthcoming album “Dee Mysteriis Dom Sathanas”, but due to the circumstances, I realised the time was right for an interview now. I won’t bother you with any history shit, but I could tell a bit about what has happened last year. You all know that their vocalist Dead comited suicude in April ‘91, that was a bigg loss for the underground, and I suppose I don’t need to say that this mag is dedicated to the memory of that infernal man. Anyway, Dead was replaced by Cultòcùlus (back then called Occultus), but due to different problems within the band, he left the band in January ‘92, but let’s not say more about that, as Euronymous didn’t want me to say anything about it at all (but Euronymous, you must admit that it has sounded pretty artificial if I hadn’t mentioned it at all). So now, the band consists of Hellhammer (drums) and Euronymous (guitar (and probably bass too)). I know the singer of Tormentor (rip) from Hungary (Esihar Attila) is interested in singing on the album, and also even moving to Norway, so it seems like Mayhem got some sort of predilection to foreign vocalists, but this Hungarian guy happend to be a good one as well, so never mind that. But I don’t think this is official, so don’t tell anyone you read it here, ok? Well then, it’s an honour for me to dedicate the next following pages to one of today’s most legendary and infamous bands......... THE TRUE MAYHEM!!!!!!!
F: First of all Euronymous, I know you and Dead live/lived totally for the old black metal attitude. Is your hate now total to young and trendy bands after Dead’s suicide?
Euro: YES, we have declared WAR. Dead died because the trend people have destroyed everything from the old black metal/death metal scene, today “death” metal is something normal, accepted and FUNNY (argh) and we HATE it. It used to be spikes, nites, chains, leather and black clothes, and this was the only thing Dead lived for as he hated this world and everything which lives on it. If we had the economic possibility to do it, we should meet up at concerts and beat up ALL trend people ALL the time untill they would be too scared to go to concerts at all, now we need to suck their money instead. It’s impossible to stop the trend no matter how much we want, we have to do the best out of it and sell lots of trend shit to them. (I don’t need to tell you that that’s totally not why Dead killed himself, right?)
F: In the spring of ‘91 you started up a shop in Oslo which sells all sorts of music within metal. Is there anything you can tell us about the shop (ideas? plans?)?
Euro: Well, the original idea was to make a specialist shop for metal in general, but that’s a long time ago. Normal metal isn’t very popular anymore, all the children are listening to “death” metal now, I’d rather be selling Judas Priest than Napalm Death, but at least now we can be specialized within “death” metal and make a shop where all the trend people know that they will find all the trend music, this will help us earning money so that we can order more EVIL records to the evil people. But no matter how shitty music we have to sell, we’ll make a BLACK METAL look on the shop, we’ve had a couple of “actions” in churches lately, and the shop is going to look like a black church in the future. We’ve also thought about having total darkness inside, so that would would have to carry torches to be able to see the records.
F: Well, how is the situation all in all in the Mayhem camp right now?
Euro: Difficult as usual, but we’re closer than ever to record the Mayhem lp. Almost all the material is completed, then I and Hellhammer will record the whole thing with 3 guitars, 2 basses and so on. It will be very massive. Who’s to sing on the lp is not yet decided, we’ll wait and see what happens. We have several people who can do the job very well.
F: As Metalion of Slayer mag* said: “it seems like you at certain times lives on the edge of starvation”. Have you ever been on the thought to just give up the whole band and become a normal 9 to 5 person, or is this a completely stupid question to ask?
Euro: It has been very hard at times, but I am not a normal person anyway so it would just not be possible to do that. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why things are as they are (this answer will be long) (that’s okay for me/Ed). The reason why we don’t have any money, is because of hardcore. We have for too long been following the “underground” rules, which say that you must hate money, you must not think you are anything, you must be open-minded, you might have a lot of attitudes and so on. Extremely stupid. But the situation has been that if you don’t follow these rules which are made by hardcore pigs, you are not accepted as a death metal or black metal band! Then you MUST be signed by some big label to be able to make some money, and we’ve never wanted to do that. Then you would anyway be labelled as “commercial” by the HC pigs. This has caused that after 8 years, we are still as broke as ever, while the HC pigs themselves are controlling all labels, and they sign only the bands which fit into their own idiotic world, that means “death” metal bands with society lyrics and jogging suits, and this is what the people see when they grow up. They don’t see any EVIL bands with spikes, as we did. Well, I’m tired about being broke, just to be “underground”. I’m tired of not having money to eat for just because tons of people will call you a “rip-off” if you don’t write 20 letters each day. It’s time to say fuck off to the whole system, which is built to strangle the evil bands in the birth. We must start taking inspirations from the ancient ones, from Venom and their likes. They did their thing BIG, and they never had to think about any idiotic underground rules. They did it big and so must we, but it must never become a trend, it must become a CULT. This is why we have started on a brand new policy with the band and the record label. It’s about time that someone makes a label for black metal and other grim music, and STRIKE BACK. There is NO reason why DSP shouldn’t be as big as Peaceville or Nuclear Blast, if we can just get the business on its feet again and get good distribution. That’s the only way to compete with the HC labels. It’s about time we start taking control over our own scene. We must spread the EVIL bands and pervert people’s souls.
F: What about the Norwegian scene then? Don’t you think that something is terribly wrong when it have gone so far that we have a christian “death metal” band here (Crush Evil)? Advices on how we should kill them?
Euro: First of all— the Norwegian scene is the BEST. There are a lot of GREAT bands (yet with no album out) and of course some shitty trend bands, but nothing as in Sweden. There you have 2-3 good bands out of 100, while here we have a few shit bands who hardly have made even a demo, while all the great bands will make records in the near future. Such as Darkthrone, Burzum, Immortal, Thorns (I’m flattered/ED*), Arcturus, Enslaved and newer bands like Malfeitor and others which I have not yet heard. BUT— when it comes to bands like Crush Evil, we must take serious action. It’s bad enough to have a couple of society bands, but a CHRISTIAN band is too much. But don’t worry, we have plans. They will not continue for a very long time.
F: And now over to something more humouristic....yes.... snuff movies. Who had been the perfect actor for a snuff movie, and why the hell aren’t they legalized? Don’t you think that every video-store should have its own section with snuff-movies?
Euro: Actually I think it’s great that movies like that are forbidden. If they were legal and easily accessible, all the small trend children would be watching them, and then it would not be something extreme anymore (I’m not sure if I agree with you here Euronymous. Snuff movies are usually too raw and brutal for the people with their “peace and life” infected minds. Remember the HC rules/ED) (shut the fuck up, Faust*) It’s just the same what happened to death metal— it became something everyone could buy in every store, something normal and accessible for everyone. All the mystic and evil atmosphere is GONE. I do not think snuff-movies are funny, I think they are DARK. I’ve seen people laugh at them, but that’s probably because they will not be mentally able to take the PAIN and EVIL on over themselves. That is the best way to watch such a movie, to try to FEEL the actual pain of the victims. It becomes much more gruesome then, and that’s great. One must be alone in the darkness and suffer with the victims, if you watch it with other people, they will often talk, laugh and so on, and then you get more distanced from it, it’s not supposed to be funny (death to fun), it’s much better when it’s depressive.
F: Through the years you have been talking about releasing bands like Samael, Rotting Christ, Master’s Hammer, Tormentor, Matricide, Imperator, Massacre etc. on Deathlike Silence Prod., but now some of these bands have released lp’s on labels which only have money in their eyes and know that black metal sells. Doesn’t that frustrate you, and don’t you feel it like the time is running out for you?
Euro: It’s a bit frustrating, but it is also a result of trying to be “underground” which is a suicide policy. Anyway, the main thing is that these evil records get released at all, and not who’s releasing them. We will probably release a record with Tormentor, they’re split up, but they still want to make their Anno Domini demo on vinyl, and we’ll try to fix it within the summer. The time is not running out, because there are a lot of really evil bands around. — most of the Norwegian bands which other labels haven’t heard about. Burzum is ten times better than all the bands on Earache together, and so are Thorns and Arcturus. So there is no problem, really. As for bands like Rotting Christ and Master’s Hammer, we might do something in the future instead. I’ve never been talking with Samael about any deal, but I wish I had as their album is FUCKING GREAT.
F: Almost all bands in the underground today says that they think they got their own style and originality, but the fact is that 95% of the bands sounds totally the same. What is an original death metal band today?
Euro: There exists no death metal bands today. There are only a handful of (mostly great) bands (in case someone hadn’t got it right— black metal has nothing to do with the music itself, both Blasphemy and Mercyful Fate are black metal. It’s the LYRICS, and they must be SATANIC. If not, it is NOT black metal) and what we choose to call LIFE METAL bands. Take a band like Therion. Their music is quite ok, it’s actually one of the best Swedish bands (even though that doesn’t say much) but their lyrics STINK. They are about society and pollution, what the fuck has that got to do with DEATH? If a band cultivates and worships death, then it’s death metal, no matter what KIND of metal it is. If a band cultivates and worships Satan, it’s black metal. And by saying “cultivates death”, I don’t think about thinking it’s funny, or being into gore, I’m thinking about being able to KILL just because they HATE LIFE. it’s people who enjoy to see wars because a lot of people get killed. How many bands think that way? Not many. I can’t think of one.
F: You’re maybe not the most active band when it comes to gigs, but at least you’ve managed to tour Germany and Turkey. What can you tell us from the tour, and is there any new gigs planed?
Euro: That tour was a big mess, we’ll NEVER take the train again! We lost quite some money, but still it was great to get to East-Germany and Turkey. The memories of the tour consist mostly of the starvation and idiotic custom officers, but still I wouldn’t like to have missed the opportunity. We don’t have any concrete plans, we’ll see happens in the future. We don’t like to play for a lot of trendies in jogging suits, so we prefer to leave it be.
F: What do you think of the fact that death metal has been on MTV?
Euro: It sucks. But it isn’t death metal anyway, so....
F: I know that you will soon release the debut album of Abruptum on DSP, so, what can you tell us about it?
Euro: It’s EVIL. It’s PURE EVIL, they were torturing each other in studio DURING the recording and you can HEAR on the music how they SUFFER. It will be the most demented record EVER, and it’s NOT for normal people. This is music which NEVER can become trendy, because normal people won’t be able to understand it. And that’s great. The price for the album it’ll be the same as for the BURZUM lp, which should be somewhere else in this ‘zine*. It’s called “Obscuriratem Advoco Amplèctere Me”, and stay away from it if you don’t like pure DARKNESS.
F: Don’t you think that people in the underground should respect others ideas and views more? I mean, it’s not accepted to spread unpopular thoughts. It seems like there is some sort of guardians of morality and most people keep in mind not to say or do anything which is not accepted by the public.
Euro: I don’t think people should respect each other. I don’t want to see trend people respecting me, I want them to HATE and FEAR. If people don’t accept our ideas as their own, they can fuck off because then they belong to a musical scene which has NOTHING to do with ours. They could just as well be Madonna fans. There is an ABYSS between us and the rest. Remember— one of the HC rules is that you must be open-minded (except for themselves), so we must be careful and avoid being open-minded ourselves. The HC pigs have correctly made themselves guardians of morality, but we must kick them in the face and become guardians of anti-morality.
F: You say you want your riffs to have a dark mood and really sound evil, but what if you came up with a riff which just sounded good, but not evil. Would you use it then?
Euro: Well, if a riff sounds good to me, it mostly means that it sounds evil too. At least when I make the music myself. Haven’t really thought about this about this before.
F: Do you think you’ve been playing this sort of music today if it weren’t for those old bands like Mercyful Fate, Venom and Hellhammer?
Euro: It’s impossible to say. Venom and the other ancient ones have been fundamental influences on Mayhem, and also the direct reason of the band’s existence. We like to think that if they hadn’t started up this, we would have, but who knows? Doesn’t really matter anyway, we hail ancient Venom as the CREATORS.
F: Ok, no more questions at the moment. End the interview in what way you want......
Euro: Perhaps it should be mentioned that well re-release the MAYHEM mini-lp “Deathcrush” VERY soon. We also have t-shirts available now. People should write for prices on things. Be EVIL, not open-minded.
Ok, I suppose some of you already know that Euronymous started up a shop in Oslo in the spring of ‘91. The shop is called “HELVETE” (which is Norwegian and means “HELL”) and are specialized within underground stuff and death metal in general (though he also have some other styles of music there). As he said in the MAYHEM interview, the shop really have a black metal look, so if you ever visit Oslo, I really recommend you to visit “HELVETE” as well. I think it’s good that people take the initiative to start up with such things, because if everyone were just passive, we would all get ruined by poser-shops like Hot Records where they take 140 NKR for the Earache albums (which you in “HELVETE” can get a CD for the same price). Euronymous also sells though mail, so write and ask for a list or something: HELVETE, Schweigaardsgt. 56, 0656 Oslo. NORWAY.”
That’s all! :)
And now for the things I put in asterisks, in order of their appearances.
*If for some reason you actually don’t know who Faust is, he was the drummer on the Emperor LP and “In The Nightside Eclipse” but you might also know him from other great hits such as “threatening to kill Mortiis from prison whilst simultaneously attempting to plead murder of the secondth degree”, “I’m glad the people Euronymous ripped off won’t get their money back because he’s dead hA hA!”, “I got fourteen years for murder because I’m a socially inept virgin— oops” and “bad... bad lyrics who’s quality somehow don’t improve with the passing of time”. All jokes are done in good humour— if it seems like I dislike him, it’s not that at all. I just find him easy to make fun of.
Here is another short bio, this one less sarcastic: he was born in Trondheim, lived around Kvikne, and Lillehammer, worked at Helvete, was a close friend of Euro’s, and has his sun in Taurus.
He also beefed with Glen Benton for dissing the Party City cape (Note: of course I’m being extremely reductive) he and Euronymous seemed to share. Here are a few pictures of Faust:
Here is the infamous Party City cape:
*This was surprisingly hard to find. I think he read it in a mag or something. Here’s a link to where you can find it: https://issuu.com/davidgamble/docs/paranormal37/3 page 64-65.
*Slayer mag was another zine, this one by a bloke named Metalion, who was Euro’s best friend.
*Faust (who felt the strange need to make a distinction between himself, the editor, and himself, the interviewer) also played in Thorns (well, Stigma Diabolicum), under the hilarious moniker: Fetophagia✨
*He’s being a fucking idiot, what was I supposed to say? It should be noted that Faust actually went down for the snuff films too.....
*In case you’re interested, for whatever reason, the prices for the Burzum LP were as follows:
Norge— 130 NKR
Norden— 100 K
Finland— 60 FN
Island— 1000 IK
Europe— 15$
Outside Europe,
Overseas— 15 $
Air— 22$
East Europe— 10$
By ‘norden’ he presumably meant ‘northern Norway’, and “Island” is the Norwegian word for Iceland. Notice the way he doesn’t include Sweden! (Edit: Originally I thought he didn’t include Finland because there was a black metal war with them as well, but it seems as though that feud came a bit later or had already passed)
That’s all, for real this time!
Legal disclaimer: I am absolutely, in no way shape or form, claiming that the stupid cape you see them wearing is literally from Party City. From my limited research, I’ve gathered that the Party City chain hasn’t yet opened its doors in the beautiful and glorious country we know as Norway— Norge. However, I am saying that the cheap, dinky piece of cloth covering their backs and shoulders are of the same kind of shitty quality you’d expect from a Party City Count Dracula costume and that maybe Glen had a point about how stupid Euronymous (and Faust) must’ve looked.......
#black metal#euronymous#mayhem#emperor#euronymous interview#interview#Faust#Orcustus zine#true norwegian black metal#my transcript#Bard Faust#look at these fucking dorks
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Spiraling To Meet Me - Bordertober
Tonight: Tyreen v. other people. Framed as her dealing with massive spoilers from Satellite. Contains: blood, gore, death, referenced suicide, medical stuff and... [see tags]
The first person she ever met, she killed.
He was dying. There wasn’t anything she could do to save him. He went into her as a flash of syrup and heat. She’s never been sure how she recognized him as a he in the brief moment she knew him through her mother’s skin.
He left her dizzy with delight as she sprawled there in Leda’s sandy glass remains and the air coral rattled against the rift of sky in the temple roof.
Troy, too stunned and hurt to cry, rattled too.
*
She told Dad: “I didn’t mean to!”
It was kind of true. She didn’t mean all of it. Mama was dying, same as a manta gored in a trap.
That part, she meant.
The little fish just hadn’t realized Leda was dead. Tyreen got him with the rest.
She hadn’t had any idea before he evaporated in her leech.
*
Nobody else realized. There was no crystal clump of sand that gave away what Tyreen had done. Or if there was, no one noticed while they carried Mama out of temple in buckets and bottles. She never saw it, anyway. She just climbed up the toppled stones along the path that one more time, remembering not to eat the very small larvae and worms because they could still become big things, and then there could be more.
She also still licked her lips when she thought about him. Maybe she couldn’t have touched him, but she could have heard him, seen him, smelled him when he was just born and still wet.
Instead she ate him and he was gone except for this vague sense memory that crawled around on her tongue and the bottom of her own belly.
*
She didn’t stay away from the grave like Dad. Mama wasn’t there.
She didn’t go to the grave after midnight like Troy. Troy said Mama wasn’t there.
Sometimes when the storms roiled over the valley, she listened the air coral shuddering in the wind. Her mouth watered and she balled her marked hand into a fist.
Having another baby wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world. No, that was clearly her trying to prove as much to herself reading books out of the medical suite that made her blush and cringe.
She was supposed to be stronger than blushing and cringing.
She realized though that she might have been biased when it came to what was and was not awful about pregnancy. She had never not eaten for two.
*
She wouldn’t say she met anybody from her family. They were always just there, until Mama wasn’t. Dad tasted rich, Mama stale as recycled air. Troy held no flavor or sensation outside of his bone-leaf skin and skittering pulse.
Oh, she tried to eat him too. Just once with any seriousness. What if all of her brothers tasted that delicious?
Tyreen wrapped her arms and her leech around him, pouring herself against his body and begging him to slosh back, fill her instead of the other way around.
Instead, she drained into him, slow and crystal damp, even though she hardly had enough to share.
“It’s OK,” he told her, gently scratching at her fingers. “We can go outside again soon. You won’t have to be hungry.”
Back on the couch, Dad laughed at something on his old video screen.
*
Troy had put on one of the old, airy tracks that Mama had liked to play after dark in the summer. He was trying to sing with it and maybe Tyreen had tried a little bit too. At least, she was whistling along under her breath when—
“Boy, you shut that off!” And a crash so sharp and musical Tyreen thought at first it must have come from the speakers.
She peered into the front room to find Troy rattling against the wall. One of the good drinking glasses oozed down the wall.
Tyreen cleaned it up without complaining and Troy vanished, same as the liquor vapors.
*
She put her marked hand down beside Dad’s head.
He startled awake, stared up at her, tried to smile.
“Throw anything at Troy again I’ll do to you what I did to Mama.”
She doesn’t remember what he said to her, besides calling her Starlight. That might have been all it was in the end.
Tyreen stalked off. Her heart slammed in her chest and her joints felt all slippery.
It had taken her days to decide to say anything. It wasn’t on impulse like hunting or dodging or staying up way too late watching video clips of little fish fetuses kick.
She guessed she just didn’t care about Troy in that particular impulsive way what would have let her subsume him. It wasn’t like he was any good at hunting, after all.
When she got to Mama’s grave, she spit up and coughed. She didn’t cry. Crying was dumb.
Nobody followed her to ask if she’d shed anymore teeth or eaten anymore brothers.
And they wouldn’t know any of those things unless she told them.
*
Years passed before the one time she almost did. Troy was in a bad way, feverish and unsteady on his feet. She half-carried him to the bathhouse and heated the water up as high as it would go while she stripped him since he couldn’t seem to get his clothes off himself. They climbed into the water together and talked about Keats for a while. He said she looked different. Tyreen laughed at him for taking so long to notice. Then she untied his hair and pressed him against her chest, both of their hearts cranking in the swell of warmth from the water. She rested her hand on his empty shoulder as his breath tickled her skin.
“You ever get lonely?” she asked. It seemed like it might be kind of an OK leadup.
“Yeah,” he answered. “I don’t even know what I’d do with another person ‘round here. How about you?”
“Me? What? No. No of course not.”
The next part should have been I’m stuck with you, aren’t I?
But Tyreen said nothing.
*
The second person she met, she killed.
And the third.
And the fourth.
And all the rest. There were nine Maliwan researches altogether and Troy only got one, the one that grabbed him. The guy looked like he was feeling Troy up to Tyreen. Mostly, he pissed her off.
She wouldn’t have liked to have eaten him . Instead, she sang through the rest, sucking them down. The living bruise underneath her skin had them in gushes of fear and the kissed-out brightness of their wonder. Some were savory, others liquid tart. When they were all gone, she twisted on the toes of her boots and went down.
The rain stirred over her and the mud. She thrilled with what she’d gotten from them, flavors and memories of screams and not wanting so hard her mouth water. Actually, it was hardly damp, at least before Troy came around and tried to get her to stop laughing by tickling her feet— what a dumb thing to try, but it worked.
They knelt together in the rain, surrounded by strangeness and dead bodies made of sand.
*
It took hours to stash and secure their booty. They could only carry so much at one time, so they took the silliest, prettiest things like rings and name tags and somebody’s pocket knife that wouldn’t have been useful for trimming even tiny pieces of air algae, but it was new.
They hiked back over storm-slippery stones, hardly five sentences between them on the way.
It was when the lucernae on Mama’s grave came into view that the slippery twinge surfaced in her joints. Tyreen paused, scenting the air out of instinct. There was only home and water. Her hand went to her neck and she sighed.
No, something else fought to surface. Probably just her hunger returning.
She wondered, if only for a moment: what if she hadn’t eaten the intruders? What would she be doing now?
Talking or waiting or something. She wouldn’t have a new pocketknife.
*
Tyreen set the imaging equipment to warm up. Troy had taken a sharp blow to the belly and they needed to make sure nothing in him had popped.
The control console had broken a long time ago, and they’d patched the general computer in with some old optical cable. That meant that anything they tried to read out of the databanks and not existed would show.
Tyreen realized she’d been the last person in the medical suit and she’d left a rather gruesome birth video cued up.
Troy, leaning sideways on the table said though, “Oh. My bad. I was just thinking about...” He yawns. “Stuff.”
“Yeah? I mean, whatever. It’s a thing that happens, right, killer?” And she laughs, trying to stifle the crash in her heart.
*
The third or fourth person she meets on Pandora is a barkeeper who asks her name and how she takes her whiskey. Tyreen sits at the side of the bar, dazed and trying not to smile. She’s pretty sure the whiskey she gets isn’t whiskey at all. Anyway, it doesn’t smell like Dad’s, but it is in a real glass lowball and it makes her lips sting.
She thinks she should wait for Troy to get out of the can, but if she takes a sip herself he can’t ask her to toast.
She drums her fingers on the fine chips along the bottom and remembers.
“Yes?” says the bartender.
“Huh? Yes, what?”
“You look like you’re a million miles away.”
Tyreen cranes her head to the side. That’s a Troy question. Not a... random person question.
Right?
Right.
Besides, then she has to go and add, “Haven’t named the little guy yet.” She jerks her thumb to the calico bundle in an old apple crate. “Was gonna wait till he turns three months. Never know around here. But hey, now I never have to be lonely again.” She laughs.
Tyreen presses her fists to her knees. She will not blush. She will not cry. She won’t say yes of course that’s what it is, because it is a flickering tender place.
Part of her wants to eat this woman and her son.
But it takes more of her self-control than she’d like just to keep her face steady, just to think. “Oh, I get it.”
Fuck.
Tyreen smiles.
“Does he like music? I could go for some tunes.”
“Sure. What kind?”
“After dark in the summer.”
Apparently, that’s a fine enough answer. Troy comes back to the bar to find her gone in her glass and a softly thudding baseline.
#so tyreen ate her younger brother in Satellite#there I said it#bordertober#border-tober#borderlands 3#Calypso Twins#Troy Calypso#Tyreen Calypso#Tyreen Calypso PoV#blood#gore#violence#suicide#medical content#fanfic#fanfiction#angst#and some drinking
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Destruction in Limbo || Discord
Events: After this discord Illyana decides to destroy the citadel in Limbo and asks Rictor to help her
Date: a few days after Illyana returns from Limbo
Involved: Illyana Rasputin and Julio Richter @rictorscales
Mentioned: Donna Troy, a few others
Trigger warnings: child abuse mention, suicide ideation, abuse mention
Word count: 4,428
ILLYANA: Since her trip to Limbo with Donna and learning Belasco was back in the dimension Illyana had thought a lot about what to do next. If any of the rumors she'd heard were true she'd need to act soon to stop whatever her adoptive father was up to, though stopping him was easier said than done. She'd also had to return to the citadel during her trip with Donna, a place she hadn't been to since she was fourteen years old, a place most of her bad memories from her time in Limbo was connected to. Being there had brought back a lot of those memories and it wasn't something she wanted to ever relive again and the best way she could think of to try to prevent that and create some new memories there was by tearing the place down and building something else. It would also most definitely prevent Belasco from using the resources from the citadel for his plans.
Illyana could control and shape the landscape in Limbo however she wanted but she'd quickly learned that the citadel was different, if she was going to tear it down quickly she'd need help, she just hoped Ric would be open to going to Limbo with her. She wouldn't blame him if he said no considering what she'd done but as she was going with this time and he was getting to destroy something she hoped he'd say yes. Before going to ask Ric for his help she'd removed all the books from the library in the citadel, she couldn't destroy all those valuable resources. Once that was done she teleported to Ric.
"Hey... how would you like to destroy the citadel of a hell dimension?"
RICTOR: Something was different. Something had been different ever since he pulled Genosha out of the sea, ever since he used his powers to build something instead of tearing it down, and Rictor didn’t know if it was a good different or a bad one. He’d never liked change much, so he was naturally inclined to go with the latter, but… He wasn’t sure that was quite right. He didn’t feel the way he’d felt on that rooftop, with his toes hanging off the edge. He didn’t feel the way he’d felt in the cemetery after Rusty’s funeral, either. There was something building inside of him, and Rictor didn’t know what it was but he’d never been much good at building. He sighed, leaning back on the lumpy sofa Guido had brought into XFI months ago when they’d first started the goddamn thing and throwing a hand over his eyes.
He felt her before he saw her. Teleportation was alway preceded by a very specific kind of vibration, like the world was getting ready to split open and spit someone out. And with Shatterstar gone and Nightcrawler too much of a fucking X-Man to ever dip his toes in the gritty world of Madrox’s desperate attempts at noir, Rictor didn’t have to guess who was coming in. “Some people knock,” he said, as soon as her vibrations filled the room. “Not me, but some people. Polite people. You could try that, sometime. I could’ve been naked in here.”
But then she spoke, and Rictor removed his arm from his face to narrow his eyes at her. Limbo wasn’t a place he’d been itching to go back to, but… Destruction was familiar. Maybe if he destroyed enough things, he’d go back to feeling more like himself. There was something to be said, after all, about the devil you knew. “Sounds an awful lot like me doing you a favor,” he hummed, feigning disinterest. “What’s in it for me?”
ILLYANA: She rolled her eyes and reached her hand out, knocking on the nearest surface, "knock, knock." Though maybe she should stop just teleporting in places, or at least text beforehand because she really did not want to see Ric naked, she'd had to keep in mind next time she teleported to Ric's place. "I'll text you next time before teleporting" she shrugged.
"You get to destroy something and help delay whatever my adoptive father is planning" Illyana replied, she should have known Ric would respond like this to her request, maybe she should have thought more about an answer to it because she honestly didn't know what other than destroying something was in it for him. "Look, there's not really anything in it for you but... I need you to destroy the citadel in Limbo" she could do it herself but since it wasn't affected by her ability to shape Limbo to her will it would take a lot longer than it would if she had Ric's help. Ever since she'd gone back there with Donna every bad thing she'd gone through there came rushing back to her and she just wanted to get rid of it all. "It's where I lived when I was Belasco's apprentice, it's where I was turned into a demon" that was only a fraction of what she'd gone through there but she didn't want to get into all of it right now.
RICTOR: “Funny,” Rictor replied dryly as she knocked on the table, crossing his arms over his chest. He shifted at the promise, raising a shoulder and dropping it in a listless half-shrug. It was more than he’d expected from Illyana --- it wasn’t like she was raised in any kind of normal culture, after all. (Christ --- were any of them?) “Thanks.”
She continued, and Ric shifted his weight thoughtfully. “Destruction and daddy issues,” he hummed, considering. “You really nailed my brand here.” But then she went on, and Rictor’s expression softened. Despite everything that had happened between them --- the demon bullshit, the threats, the brief and unwilling trip to Limbo --- Illyana was his friend. And most days? Rictor didn’t really have a lot of those to spare. So he sighed, closing his eyes for a moment before nodding his head. “Fine,” he agreed. “I’ll help you destroy your demonic citadel. But don’t get it twisted, all right? I’m doing this because Jean said I’m not allowed to shake shit up in Genosha and the cops are still pissed at me for the whole ‘crater in the middle of Mutant Town’ thing. I just want to let off some steam.”
ILLYANA: "I know, I'm hilarious, I'm thinking of becoming a stand up comedian" Illyana deadpanned, funny wasn't really her forte. "Sure" she shrugged, even now she still wasn't the best with social cues and all that, it wasn't exactly something she was taught in Limbo, demons didn't really follow them the way people on earth did.
"I did, that's why I thought I'd ask you" she replied, that and because Ric was one of her friends, she knew that even though he'd act resistant at first he'd most likely agree to help her in the end. "Whatever you say" if he wanted to pretend to only do it for those reasons Illyana was okay with that. She hoped after the citadel was gone she could build something better in its place, somewhere she didn't want to actively avoid because of the bad memories connected to it. She was grateful Ric agreed to help her make that happen, even if he said it was just to be able to destroy something. "Thank you" she told him, giving him a small smile before she opened a stepping disk to Limbo.
RICTOR: “I’d say ‘don’t quit your day job,’ but, well… Do you even have one?” As if Rictor could talk. Being coerced into joining a private detective agency because Madrox was worried he’d throw himself off a roof wasn’t so much a ‘career choice’ as an ‘intervention.’ But Illyana, he suspected, didn’t know that, and even if she did, Rictor wasn’t particularly good at keeping himself from sounding like a hypocrite every time he opened his mouth. He offered her a brief nod, letting the subject of knocking drop. It was unimportant, anyways.
“You sure you didn’t just ask me because you needed a favor?” It felt suspiciously like Madrox standing next to him on the edge of a roof and asking him to join X-Factor, like a decision made out of concern more than anything else, and Rictor’s first instinct was to kick against it. He’d never been good at letting people take care of him --- Cable had learned that one the hard way. “Don’t say it like you don’t believe me,” he grumbled, rolling his eyes. His expression softened at her gratitude, but only faintly. Anyone who didn’t know him wouldn’t recognize the change at all, but he suspected Illyana would. It was why he ducked his head before stepping through her portal, why he tried to keep his face hidden from her. He didn’t need her knowing he gave a shit, even if it was sort of obvious.
ILLYANA: "Not anymore" not since the siege and the founding of Genosha, and while she managed she should maybe get a job or something so she could get a new apartment, for now she slept in Limbo but it wasn't the ideal solution. "It's not exactly easy for me to get a job" she shrugged, if she was going to get a job it would have to be somewhere that didn't ask a lot of questions, somewhere she could get by with false information about things like her date of birth and so far she hadn't found anything.
"I asked you because this is important, you have the powers to do it and... and I trust you" Illyana replied, because she did trust him, there weren't many people she trusted but Ric had become one of them, and he was someone she'd come to care about too even if she might not admit it. She noticed that his expression softened, the change was faint but noticeable to her, she didn't mention it though, Ric would probably only deny it anyway. She followed him through the portal and into the dimension she knew so well by now. "We need to walk some distance, teleporting to the citadel is... not easy" last time she did that was with Donna and she had ended up in the last place she ever wanted to be.
JULIO: “Do what I did,” Rictor shrugged. “Get a friend to…” Desperately grasp at straws to keep you from tossing yourself off a roof. “...pull a few strings to hire you on. Madrox is an ass, but it’s not like I’ve got a lot of prospects outside of him.” Rictor’s situation might not be quite as complicated as Illyana’s, but the country was hardly kind to undocumented Mexican immigrants even when they weren’t mutants with no real high school diploma and a family of infamous Mexican gun runners. If not for Madrox, Ric had no doubt he’d be scrounging for cash.
Shifting, Ric pulled a face. The conversation was getting dangerously close to a territory he actively tried to avoid --- the one where he admitted to having feelings that weren’t ‘angry’ or ‘drunk.’ He lifted his shoulder and dropped it in a motion that was meant to be a shrug but looked more like a listless half-attempt at one. “My powers are pretty badass,” he deflected, less than smoothly. Illyana wouldn’t push. He was confident about that much, at least. Limbo was just as shitty as he remembered it, and his shoulders tensed a little. Logically, he knew Illyana wouldn’t leave him here again… but part of him was still expecting it all the same. “You didn’t tell me there’d be walking,” he complained, trying to focus on the conversation at hand instead of the scenery around them. “I want a refund.”
ILLYANA: "Maybe I'll get him to hire me so I can bother you and get paid for it" she teased "or maybe I'll open a magical taxi service" she joked. She had thought that she wanted to do something where she could get to use her magic for something good, she just wasn't sure what yet, though before she could even think more about something like that she had to deal with S'ym and Belasco.
Ric deflected and Illyana didn't push, she knew him well not to and she'd said what mattered, that she trusted him, that if he ever needed anything she would be there to help just like he was helping her now. She figured he already knew that though, like she knew he would help her with this when she asked, it was unspoken but maybe they both preferred it like that, everyone needed a reminder sometimes though. "Walking won't kill you Ric, though if it really is that awful I can call someone to fly us instead."
RICTOR: “Pretty sure he’s gone ghost, so good luck finding him,” Rictor hummed, feigning neutrality as if Madrox’s sudden departure didn’t ache in a way he hadn’t quite expected. People left. Ric had gotten used to that a long time ago. “There’s an idea. You’d either make a killing or wind up in jail. Or, hey, maybe both! The world’s your oyster.” Finding a job as a mutant wasn’t exactly easy, but maybe Illyana had it easier than some. Her mutation wasn’t physical in a way that was impossible to deny, after all.
The tender moment passed, and Rictor was happy for it. The last thing he wanted was to talk feelings in any given situation, but especially here. Limbo fucking sucked over all, no matter what Illyana said about it. His goal was to get in and out as quickly as possible, but… “Yeah, if you call one of those demons over here, I’m quaking it to bits. Those little shits freak me out. I’ll just walk.”
ILLYANA: "So if I find him he pretty much has to hire me?" Not that she was serious, she couldn't really see herself as a private investigator, and if things got too bad for her concerning money she could always ask Zatanna for help, though she'd only do that as a last resort as she didn't want to bother her. "Why would I end up in jail? Not that it's very easy to lock me up" the blonde shrugged, teleporters were a pain in the ass to catch, especially one who could teleport through more than just space, she could teleport through time as well as other dimensions.
"Gee, thanks" she said sarcastically, though maybe the comment did hurt a little. She tried not to take it personally because she knew it wasn't meant like that, but she was a demon as much as she was a mutant, sometimes she was sure she was more demon than anything else. Her demon form was hidden most of the time but it was still part of who she was. "Let's go" it fortunately wasn't that far of a walk, maybe twenty minutes or so.
RICTOR: “Pretty sure if you find him, he’ll say no out of spite,” Ric retorted, huffing a laugh. Madrox had always been difficult to pin down, hard to understand. That was probably why he and Rictor got along as well as they did. Ric didn’t try to understand him, and Madrox didn’t feel like he needed to make himself easy to swallow. It was a good system. “I usually end up in jail,” he shrugged. “Kinda figured it was a universal thing.”
Shrugging, Ric trudged along beside her, trying not to look around too much. His family was religious. It was funny to think of, considering their occupation, but Catholicism was so ingrained in Latino culture that he often thought they had never considered it much of a choice at all. His stepmother used to pray in the kitchen, seated at the table with a rosary in her hands. This wasn’t Hell. Illyana had told him that before, had seemed almost offended when he insinuated otherwise. This wasn’t Hell, but it felt like it. It looked like it. And Rictor wanted to get out just as soon as he could. After a while, shapes came into view. “That what we’re looking for?” He nodded towards what seemed to be a building, standing tall in the distance.
ILLYANA: "I don't think I fit as a private investigator anyway" Illyana shrugged, maybe she'd accept Zatanna's offer to do more work for her, going back to teaching mutants meant going to Genosha and she wasn't at that stage, not yet. "I usually disappear before I can get arrested" though there was probably a lot of times she would have ended up in jail if not for her teleportation powers.
Limbo looked like hell, it didn't usually look like this anymore, but because she had been gone for long periods of time it had reverted back to this, barren wastelands, red sky and barely any sign of life. "Y'know, it doesn't always look like this" she said as they walked towards the citadel "before I died it looked much more like a paradise than a hell dimension" hopefully after she'd stopped her adoptive father she could get Limbo back to that. "Yeah... yeah that's it" she sighed, coming back here a second time wasn't really any easier than the first time with Donna, at least this time she wouldn't need to enter the citadel.
RICTOR: “Neither do I,” Rictor admitted with a huff, shrugging his shoulders. In all honesty, this wasn’t the job he’d seen himself winding up with as a teenager, though that might have been due to the fact that a teenaged Julio Richter hadn’t pictured himself living to adulthood at all. Still, it paid the bills. It gave him something to do, a reason to get out of bed. And most days, that was all he could ask for. “Must be nice,” he said dryly, snorting lightly.
He listened to her speak as they walked, tried to picture this place as anything other than what it was. He’d never been particularly good at that. Seeing things for what they could be, looking on the bright side of things, it wasn’t in his nature. It wasn’t who he was. “I’ll take your word for it,” he muttered, because it was all he could do. Nodding when she confirmed his suspicion, he held out a hand experimentally in order to get a feel for the vibrations. On Earth, he knew exactly how close he needed to be to take something down. But here? The frequency was different. Rictor tilted his head to the side as he attuned himself to it, finding the right wavelength before dropping his hand back to his side. “I can take it out from here,” he said. “All I need is a green light from you.”
ILLYANA: "At least you're getting paid" Illyana pointed out, Zatanna had offered her a job but Illyana hadn't 100% accepted it yet, maybe she should, once this whole ordeal with Limbo and Belasco was dealt with. "It makes things easier at least" teleporting before she could get caught had saved her a lot of times, so had casting an illusion spell to trick the cops.
She knew it had to be hard to believe that this place could ever look like a paradise, but it could, and it had before she died. Her goal was to bring it back to that but until this was war against her adoptive father was over it wasn't high on her list of priorities. "It's a shame you can't see it like that, someone who likes nature as much as you..." she trailed off with a small sigh, it looked so dead now because of how long she'd been gone. On earth she had been dead for three years but in Limbo so much more time had passed. "You need to slow down a little" Illyana told him as she sat down with her legs crossed "there's a reason I need your help with this" she said as her eyes started glowing. The citadel had its own defenses that Illyana would need to lower before Ric could take it down, it was one of the reasons she'd asked him, she couldn't hold the defenses down and demolish the citadel. After a few moments she looked up at Ric "take it down."
RICTOR: “Not much,” he retorted with a snort. “Madrox writes a shit check. When he remembers he’s supposed to be paying us, anyway.” Other ‘teams’ like theirs didn’t get paid at all, he knew, but… X-Factor was a little different. None of them were really in it for the good of mankind. “Best I can do is open up canyons under the cops, and Summers always gets pissy when I do that. You know how that guy is. Stick up the ass.”
Nature had always made more sense to Rictor than people did. It was more forgiving, more long-lasting. It a plant died, you could regrow it. You could bring it back to life. When you buried it in the dirt, you got a garden instead of a graveyard, and for someone who’d been to as many funerals as Ric? That was a hell of a thing to see. He was quiet for a moment as Illyana spoke, pausing as he walked to hold a hand out over the ground. A sprout of green pushed its way up from the cracked soil, growing until it sprouted a sunflower at their knees. It was a show of trust --- other than Daisy, he hadn’t told anyone about this particular evolution of his abilities since they’d started shifting. “That’s the thing about nature,” he said quietly. “It’s resilient. Better than people are, at least.” Illyana took a seat, and Rictor rolled his eyes as she spoke. “Slowing down’s not really my style,” he murmured. Glancing down, he waited until she gave the word to hold out his hand again. The motion was for show, more than anything else. Rictor didn’t need to make hand motions to use his powers any more than he’d needed to use finger guns to shoot vibe blasts as a teenager, but… He’d always liked the style. The ground rumbled beneath their feet, the world groaning as it adjusted, and then…
The citadel fell in on itself, collapsed all at once. There was something there, and then there wasn’t. There was a structure, and then there was rubble. Rictor had been best at destruction since the start. It took seconds, not minutes, and then the world was still. “Bam,” he said flatly. “All done.”
ILLYANA: "I just borrow money from Zatanna, she always say no when I offer to pay her back" Illyana shrugged, she knew it was because Zatanna knew Illyana didn't really have the money to pay her back and the magician cared about her, Illy still didn't know why, she didn't deserve it, yet... Zatanna still cared about her and looked out for her. "Well, next time you get up to something where you need a quick get away, invite me" she did sometimes complain about being the transportation when on missions with the X-Men or New Mutants but she didn't really mind using it to help her friends get out of trouble.
Illyana watched as Ric held his hand out over the ground and as the sunflower sprouted from the ground. "I didn't know you could- how long have you been able to do this?" It was impressive, making something grow, something that was alive was something Illyana could do with magic but she'd struggled with it at first, it had taken her years to get to that point. Creating something instead of destroying something was much harder and much more impressive to Illyana. She closed her eyes and focused on the energy in Limbo, her connection to it and soon the dry, cracked ground was replaced with green grass and flowers. She could do a lot more but until this war was resolved there was little point to it.
"The citadel has defenses" she explained, lowering them wasn't easy and required all her focus but once they were down and she gave the go-ahead to Ric it didn't take long until the citadel was reduced to nothing more than rubble. Illyana got to her feet and looked at where it had stood just seconds ago, a place she'd lived in, a place filled with so much pain and grief and now... it was gone. She let out a shaky breath as the realization set in, the place she had most dreaded in Limbo was finally gone. "Thank you" she whispered with a shaky voice.
RICTOR: “Well, in that case, I’m gonna start borrowing money from her, too,” Rictor replied with a hum, flashing a grin. It was mostly just to fuck with Illyana… mostly. There was never a zero percent chance that he’d ‘borrow’ a little cash from someone at any given moment. Most of the X-Men had learned that a long time ago, and he was sure Yana knew it too. He shrugged at her offer, shaking his head. “Maybe. Maybe I’ll just wait to call you from the cell. Jailbreaks are kind of fun.” As if his heart wasn’t in his throat any time he found himself in the back of a police car. Rictor talked a big game, but he knew how bad things could go when you were a brown man with an officer’s cuffs around your wrists.
Looking down at the flower in the dirt, Ric shrugged. It was a simple demonstration, one without much effort and without much point. “Since I pulled Genosha out of the water,” he replied. “Don’t really know why, but… I’ve been told it’s not a bad thing.” Daisy, her hands on his wrists, telling him in gentle tones that he wasn’t broken. He still wasn’t sure he believed her. The field filled with more flowers, and Rictor felt a little less tense with the green sprouting. He’d always been better with life surrounding him.
It happened quickly, after that. The earth shook, the citadel fell, the world went quiet. Looking out into the ruins, Rictor took a deep breath and nodded. He thought of Guadalajara, of San Francisco, of the warehouse where Rusty had bled out on a wooden floor and the hospital where nurses had told them all of a tragedy they’d already known occured. He thought of all the places he’d turn to rubble if he could, of how grief hurt a little less when you could tear something to pieces. Closing his eyes for a moment, he turned away from the ruins and back to Illyana. “Come on,” he said, “let’s get the hell out of here.”
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Sometimes Wish I'd Never Been Born at All
I posted this on AO3 for Michael Guerin week back in September of 2019 (here's the link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20709674 ). I thought I'd repost it here, though, because it is basically a reworking of the Christmas classic "It's a Wonderful Life." But with aliens!
Warnings for violence, illness, racism, and homophobia. Something Very Bad happens to Alex in this story, though it is not graphically detailed.
***
Max has been dead for months.
Maria broke things off a week ago.
Isobel looks at him like he’s broken.
Alex… shit.
Michael takes another swig of acetone. Alex has moved the fuck on.
More acetone. Then some more. It’s not enough.
He looks at the alien glass in his hand, runs his new, perfect hand along it. It’s the nicest part of him now, miles better than his heart.
“I wish I’d never come here. I wish I’d never set foot on this fucking planet…”
***
He wakes up to the sound of knocking at the door of the Airstream. His head aches. “Coming!” he calls out. He must have passed out fully dressed. He goes to move the paper he uses to cover the windows of the Airstream, only to discover that the windows are bare. Huh. Moving stiffly, he makes his way to the door and flings it open.
“What is it, Sanders?”
Old Man Sanders just squints up at him. “How the hell do you know my name, boy?”
Michael scrapes a hand over his face. “Christ, Sanders, it’s me, Michael.”
“I’ve never seen you before in my life!”
Michael laughs a bit at that. “I know your eyes are going, but come on…”
Sanders glares at him. “You’re trespassing on private property.” He sniffs the air. “And you’re a drunkard, to boot. Sheriff should be here any minute.”
“You called Valenti on me?” Michael says, incensed.
Sanders gives him a confused look. “Valenti? Sheriff Valenti’s been dead for over a decade. You okay in the head, boy?”
It’s only then that Michael looks around the Airstream. It’s bare and run-down, like no one lives here, like he just…
Appeared.
A prickling sensation goes up his neck. “What day is it?”
“September 20, 2019,” Sanders says.
Huh, okay, that’s right. He starts to hear sirens. Sanders nods his head, pleased. “That’ll be Thomas now.”
A tall man exits the first cruiser, while a familiar blonde gets out of the second car.
“Cam!” Michael exclaims. “I thought you left town, but I’m glad to see you. Could you tell Sanders here that it’s me?”
She takes off her aviators, stares at him blankly. “And who are you?”
Shit. Shit shit shit…
Michael breathes. Okay, so things definitely aren’t right. Sanders doesn’t recognize him. Cam doesn’t know who he is. Some old white dude – Thomas? – is the Sheriff now. Valenti has apparently been dead for ten years. It’s the right date.
What could have caused something like this? His mind immediately goes to alien stuff – mind control, body snatching, influencing, weird tech stuff…
Weird tech stuff.
The glass, last night. His desperate wish.
“I’ve never been born,” Michael murmurs in disbelief. “I’ve never been born…”
Cam is looking at him, concerned. “Let’s get you down to the station.”
***
He’s in his familiar cell. He’s had time to think, and he’s wondering if maybe this version of things isn’t a good thing, a better thing for everyone involved.
“Is Max here?” he tries. Max is dead in his reality, languishing in a pod. Maybe without Michael around, things hadn’t gotten so fucked up.
Jenna eyes him. “Max? Don’t know a Max.”
Michael wants to smirk at her, say some smartass comment. He refrains, just nods his head. “Never mind.”
Sheriff Thomas strolls in, makes a big show of unlocking the cell. “Well, Mr. Guerin, it appears you’re free to go. Sanders has decided not to press any charges. Says he just wants ‘that poor boy to get some help.’ End quote.” Thomas’s eyes narrow. “Can’t say I would have been so kind.”
Yeah, so Thomas is an ass.
“Thanks,” Michael says curtly.
Thomas leans in close to him. “Hey Guerin?”
“Yeah?”
“I suggest you leave my town. We don’t take kindly to drifters here.”
***
Michael goes straight to the Pony. It’s not a long walk. He doesn’t have a watch, or a phone, but he imagines it’s open already. From what he’s seen so far, he knows that something has happened, but he has yet to determine if that something is bad.
Because when he thinks about it, wouldn’t Max and Iz have been better off without having to worry about his sorry ass all their lives? Maria wouldn’t be pissed and hurt. His mom, oh god, she could be alive, maybe, and Alex? Fuck, maybe Alex never joined the Air Force, never went to war, never lost his leg…
He feels half sick and half hopeful when he sits down at the bar and sees Maria’s stunning face.
Christ, she’s beautiful. He’s always thought so. He wishes he could have held it together with her. There’s a temptation as he looks at her here to just pretend – to flirt, see her respond, do their familiar dance. Just the way her eyes are appraising him now, looking him up and down, he knows he could do it. It would be easy.
“Hey,” he says, giving her a slow smile.
She tilts her head to the side with a little smile. “Hey yourself. What can I get you?”
“I’ll take a whiskey.” She nods. “And if you don’t mind, a phone call or two? I seem to have lost my phone.” Her smile falters just a little. “Both local numbers,” he adds quickly. You can watch me dial if you want.”
The smile’s back. “Sure,” she says, and directs him to a landline mounted near the bar. He dials Max, then Isobel. Strangers answer.
Is it possible that, when he made the wish, Max and Iz never crashed here either?
He sits down at the bar thoughtfully. Would… would that be bad? Without Isobel, Noah would have never been freed, Rosa would be alive. Well, alive the right way…
“Penny for your thoughts?” Maria says lightly, as she cuts up lemons. The sharp scent brings Michael back to the present.
“Listen, do you know a guy named Max? A woman named Isobel?”
Maria lays down the knife. “Hmm…”
“Friends of mine from around here. My age?”
“Can’t say I do, sorry.”
Michael takes another slow sip of whiskey. “Okay… okay. Um, how about a woman named Liz?”
“Liz…” Maria says the name slowly.
“Yeah, Liz,” Michael says. “Liz Ortecho?”
“Oh my god,” Maria mutters, half to herself. She gives a little shake of her head.
“What?” Michael asks, alarmed.
“What did you say your name was again?”
“I didn’t.” Michael sticks out a hand. “It’s Michael, Michael Guerin.” Maria looks at the offered hand for a long moment before reaching out and shaking it.
“Okay, Michael…” She gives him an odd look. “Liz hasn’t lived here since we were, like, 14. I… I have no idea where she is now.”
“What… what happened?”
Maria’s once-open face is now wary. She glances around quickly.
“Maria, please,” he says.
She looks startled, backs up. “I never told you my name.”
Michael drops his head. Shit. It’s still early, and there are only two other people at the bar. “Look,” he says, voice low. “I’m sorry to lay this on you, DeLuca, but something weird has happened to me, and I need your help to figure it out.”
Her expression gets even more closed off, and she pulls back. “If you’re about to say something gross, or, like, sexual, then you can just leave right now.”
Michael huffs a little breath, “No, no, it’s nothing like that.” He takes a deep breath and decides to just be direct. Be direct, ha… it’s what he should have done with her in his reality.
“You see, I woke up this morning, and I wasn’t where I should be.” She’s staring at him, confused. “Like, it wasn’t my reality. I… I made a wish last night. In my reality. That I’d never been born.” She bites her lip. “I’m, I’m not suicidal or anything, but… but I’ve just been through a lot of shit, and in my reality we were friends… um, more than friends, actually…” She’s backing away from him. “But not anymore, because I fucked things up, like, well before we even started dating, and…” He sees her reaching under the bar toward where she keeps the pepper spray. “Shit, Maria, please don’t get me with the spray. I know I sound insane, but I think my wish came true, and that now I’m in a reality where I was never, um, here. And I just need some answers so I can see if things are actually better here.” Her hands are still under the bar. “And if they are, well, you’ll never see me again. I won’t, like, linger here and just mess up everyone’s lives again, okay?” He sounds absolutely batshit, and he knows it. “I… I really did know you well, in my reality. I can prove it, if you want.”
“What? How?”
Michael looks at her. “You have three little birth marks, on your left…” he gestures toward her left breast. She gapes at him. “Yeah. Your necklace is from your mom. It’s been in your family for years.” Maria’s hands clutch at her necklace, and at least she’s not gripping the pepper spray any more. “Should I keep going?”
Maria’s brow is furrowed. “No, no,” she says quickly. Her face is scrunched up, and she’s staring at him. “Suppose I went out on an enormous limb and decided to believe you.” She crosses her arms. “What would you want to know?”
“I guess first, I’d want to know, um, are you happy here?”
She’s staring at him. “What? Am I happy?”
“Yeah, you know…” His shoulders slump a little. “I… I think I just wished myself away, and I want to know that it was worth it. That things really are better without me. So far, I just don’t have enough evidence either way.” There’s still confusion on her face, but a hint of pity, too. Michael hates it. “Where I’m from, you owned the Pony. Your mom, she was sick, though. I know things were tough for you.”
Maria’s mouth twists a bit. “It… it sounds like things are pretty similar here, honestly.”
Michael nods a bit, looks at her sadly. “I’m sorry about Mimi.”
Maria ducks her head. Sniffs. “Ask me something else. Please,” she says quietly.
Michael clears his throat. “Okay. Um, back to Liz, then. What happened to her?”
Maria pulls up a stool on her side of the bar, sits down, and looks at Michael. “I don’t know why I’m talking to you about this shit. I mean, you sound insane, but, just the fact that you know her name?” She shakes her head. “It was right after Thomas became the Sheriff.” Her eyes narrow. “He’s a racist asshole. It was right after Jim Valenti died – he was the Sheriff before Thomas. His death was real sudden – “
“Cancer?” Michael interrupts, knowing what he’s going to hear and fearing it all the same.
“Yes,” Maria says quietly.
“Super fast acting?”
“Yes, yes,” Maria says. “Your, um, reality too?”
Michael nods. “Happened later, though, just a few years ago.” His mind is going. The alien got him here, too. So there was definitely still a crash, definitely still aliens, right? But he wasn’t among them. Were Max and Iz? And Jesse still killed Jim, but even earlier, why?
“Huh.” Maria gives him a considering look, then continues. “Anyway, there was a special election. Jim’s wife ran, but Thomas opposed her on this ridiculous anti-immigrant platform, and as soon as he won he just started cracking down. Liz’s dad – “
“Arturo, yeah. Sweetest man.”
“Yeah.” Maria shakes her head. “Thomas decided to make an example of him, turned him into ICE and got him deported.”
“Oh my god.”
“Liz and Rosa, they were still in school, obviously. My mom and I, we begged them to stay with us, but they wouldn’t leave Arturo alone. They went back to Mexico with him, and that was the last I heard from Liz.” Maria looks down at the bar. “I still google her sometimes, you know? Nothing ever comes up, nothing that’s definitely her, you know? She was so smart, so kind. It’s still hard, not knowing what happened to her, you know?”
“I’m sorry for bringing it back up,” Michael says. It feels odd to him that there could be such a large deviation in this reality. Like, what part could he have possibly played?
On the other hand, if Rosa had moved to Mexico at 15, then she hadn’t been murdered by an alien.
“In your reality,” Maria says tentatively, “what happened to Liz?”
Michael considers the question. “Well… Arturo was never deported. He was still running the Crashdown. Liz, she travelled around right after we graduated, then became a biomedical engineer. She was up in Colorado for a while, then came back to Roswell.” He leaves out everything about Rosa. “Um, recently, things have been… tougher. Her boyfriend recently passed away.” It’s still hard for him to say that Max is dead. “You and her are still best friends, though.”
Maria smiles a little. “Liz was always so smart.” Michael nods his agreement. “Back in school, you know, it was always me, her, and Alex, the three amigos. God, we did everything together.”
Michael wills himself to sound casual. “How, um, how is Alex?”
Maria stills. “Um, Michael?” she asks cautiously.
Michael swallows thickly. “Yeah?”
“Your Alex…” Her eyes search his face, looking for something. “Was…” Michael doesn’t like her hesitation. “Um, was he attacked?”
Michael’s eyes close of their own accord. “Fuck.” When he made that goddamned wish, the point was for things to be better. “Yeah… damn. He joined up here, too?”
“Joined up?”
“Yeah, the Air Force?” She’s looking at him, disbelieving. “He was attacked? Iraq? Lost a leg?”
“No, oh god,” Maria’s shaking her head. “No. Oh god,” she repeats. “Michael, no, the military?” Her head’s still shaking. “No, Alex would have never… No.” Her hand is at her mouth now. “His leg?” She looks pained. “Why would your Alex have ever joined the military? No… maybe he was different, in your reality. Here, he… he loved music, and riding his skateboard…”
Michael is cold all over. “Loved?” Past tense. She’s using past tense.
Maria’s biting her lip, hard. “Senior year, right before graduation, there was a break-in at Alex’s place. His family’s toolshed, actually.”
Oh god.
“Whoever did it stole a bunch of stuff and they… they…” Her eyes are welling up, now. “I’m sorry. It was so, so bad, Michael.” She closes her eyes, wipes at her nose. “It’s just… They never caught who did it, but… but Alex was there, and they just, just…”
Michael’s voice is cold. “What, Maria? What did they do to him?”
“They beat him. With a hammer.”
***
Maria closes the bar, after that. Sends the other two people home, locks up, turns the sign, and pours big shots for she and Michael.
Maria’s nearly done with hers. “He’s in the same care home as my mom,” she says, not even looking at Michael. “He’ll… he’ll never be able to be on his own, with the traumatic brain injury, you know?”
Michael’s all cried out, and yet…
Maria just loops her arm around him as he shakes against her. “I see him there, when I visit Mom. I go see him, too. He… he’s peaceful, I guess. Like, I don’t think he’s in pain, but…” She’s quiet. “It’s hard, it’s just really fucking hard.”
“It was his dad,” Michael says, finally. “You know it was his fucking dad, right?”
Maria’s mouth is set in a tight little line. “Jesse claimed he saw a guy leaving the scene. Latino. Sheriff Thomas latched onto that, of course, made life that much more hellish for everyone.” She sniffs. “Jesse was the one that helped get him elected over Mrs. Valenti. There was no way Thomas was going to investigate him for the attack on Alex.”
“Was anyone else hurt?”
“No.”
“That you know of,” Michael says, bitterly. Maria looks at him quizzically. “I love Alex,” Michael says. It feels simpler to say it here, to this Maria. Her eyes still go wide with surprise. “I… I was with him, in his shed, when his dad found us together. Senior year, just like here. His dad, he came after us with a hammer. Broke my hand.” Michael sees her looking, shakes his head. “My hand, it… it’s better now, and that’s a long story. But within weeks of that, Alex enlisted.” Michael looks away. “I don’t know what happened here. Maybe he was with somebody different, maybe not. Maybe he was just, like, by himself, looking at porn or listening to music, or like, doing a thousand other things his dad didn’t like.” Michael closes his eyes. “Or maybe that day his dad would have been out for blood, no matter what he walked in on. It’s not like he would’ve even needed a reason. He’s a fucking monster.”
“Poor Alex,” Maria whispers.
“Yeah,” Michael murmurs.
***
“So… we dated? And you love Alex?”
“I’m bi,” Michael shrugs.
“Okay… but, um, that’s not what I was getting at. Are you with him, where you’re from?”
Michael shakes his head.
“Why not?”
Michael gives a small, harsh laugh. “Oh, I’ve hurt him DeLuca, hurt him bad. You know how you were best friends with your Alex? Ditto for my reality, too.”
“Oh… oh.”
“Yeah.”
***
They’re well on their way to drunk when Maria stills, narrows her eyes at Michael. “Those first two people you came in here asking about, what were their names again?”
“Max and Isobel.”
“Last names?”
Michael stretches his neck. “Same one for both of them. Evans. They’re twins. Our age.”
Maria looks thoughtful. “Twins… okay… yeah. She was blonde, he had dark hair?”
Oh no, there was the past tense again. “That… that’s right.”
“They went to middle school with me. Before, when you asked, I was trying to think of, like, customers or something. But no, I remember them now. They moved away in the middle of 8th grade, I think.” She’s frowning a bit. “Yes, it was definitely 8th grade, same year Liz left, but they left earlier in the year. We didn’t have a big class to begin with, so it was weird that three people left so close together.”
Michael relaxes a little, but not completely. “Do you know where they went?”
“No…” Maria says. “It was all really sudden. One day they were there, and the next day they just… weren’t.” She cocks her head to the side. “I mean, they just brought in cupcakes for their birthday, and then the next week they were gone. I wasn’t close with them, but I remember even the teachers seemed surprised.”
Oh shit.
Oh fuck.
“Their, their birthday?” Michael asks shakily. “8th grade? And then they just fucking disappeared?”
The desert campout. The drifter. Without Michael there to help fight him off, to help dig the grave, something must have happened, they must have been hurt… or discovered, somehow.
And disappeared.
That was 15 years ago.
His mind begins racing. 15 years! Fuck, if Project Shepherd got them, that could mean 15 years of experimentation, torture, of god knows what. Are they in Caulfield? Another site? Dead?
Oh, fuck, and now it makes sense, why Jim Valenti was killed earlier, in this reality. Max and Iz were just kids – he must have pushed back against Jesse, pissed him off, and Jesse took him out.
Michael’s hyperventilating now, and his heart is beating so fast in his chest that it’s all he can feel, all he can hear.
“Michael? Michael!” Maria is screaming.
“I’m sorry,” Michael sobs, to the world, to the universe. “I shouldn’t have made the wish. It’s so much worse now. I… I’ve been so focused on what I didn’t have that I didn’t see what’s still there, and I’m sorry,” he cries. “I’m so sorry!” His body’s shaking. “Please, goddammit, please! I need to go back! I need – “
The bar phone starts ringing. Maria’s cell starts ringing.
She jumps, reaches for the cell first. “Yes?” she says, voice trembling. “Oh… okay.” She freezes. “Holy fuck.” She puts her hand over the phone. “Guerin, Guerin… it’s the care home, it’s my mother. She says she needs to talk to me, has a message for you.”
The hair on Michael’s forearms stand on end. He watches as Maria puts the phone on speaker.
“Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?” Mimi’s voice sounds oddly calm.
“Mom?” Maria says. “Mom? Why did you ask for Guerin?”
“Strange, isn’t it?” Mimi begins. “Each man’s life touches so many other lives.” It’s the same damn thing all over again. “When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Michael hisses.
“I don’t know,” Maria hisses back.
“Strange, isn’t it…”
“Fuck, Guerin,” Maria finally says. “She’s doing the movie thing again. She’s quoting ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’”
“How do you know?”
“We used to watch it every Christmas. And I just googled it.”
“Right, right…
“Have you ever seen it before?” Maria asks frantically.
“No.”
“It’s… it’s, god, it’s like the same thing you told me. The main guy, he gets shown what his life would be like if he’d never been born.”
“You see, George, you’ve really had a wonderful life.”
“Fuck… um, okay. Well, does he get back? I mean, he must, it would be a bad fucking movie if he didn’t, right?”
Maria runs her hands through her hair. “Yeah, yeah. He… he realizes that what he had all along was good. That his life, it matters.”
“Don’t you see what a mistake it would be to just throw it away? Don’t you see? Don’t you see? Don’t you see?”
“I’ll be better,” Michael pleads. “I’ll be so much better. I… I’ll stop with the acetone. I’ll… I’ll work on me, I really will. I see now that, that just being there for everyone, it matters. I want to be better. Not just for Alex, or Max, or Iz, or Maria, but for me. I won’t… I won’t throw it away. Just please let me go back.”
“Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.”
Michael looks around wildly.
“Every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings. Bell rings. Bells rings. Bell rings.”
Michael grabs Maria’s hand, squeezes it hard.
“Thank you,” he says.
He focuses on the old red fire alarm bell in the corner of the bar, uses his powers, and lets it ring.
***
There’s a ringing.
Michael shoots straight up in bed.
His Airstream bed.
Oh thank god.
He scrambles for the phone. “Hello? Hello?”
“Michael?” comes Isobel’s voice. “I just… I just felt you. Are you okay?”
Michael looks around, exhales. “I am now, Izzy. I am now.”
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Scars Trigger Warning - Mentions of Self Harm and attempted suicide
TITLE: Scars
CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: One-shot
AUTHOR: breemaggs
ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki finding his favorite humans self harm scars. His reaction?
RATING: Mature
NOTES/WARNINGS: TRIGGER WARNING: Mention of self harm, panic attacks, and attempted suicide. Enjoy! Also posted on AO3.
I had almost, almost forgotten about the scars. I had forgotten long enough to put the swimsuit on. I had forgotten long enough to walk outside in it. I’d forgotten long enough to greet him with a smile full of sunshine when I found him standing in the garden; unexpected, but never unwelcome. And at first, he returned it and pulled me in for a hug. After a few moments I pulled away and he did the same.
And then the moment changed.
I saw it in his eyes first. The light in them faded and confusion flooded them. I saw the slight droop in his brows as the confusion spread from his eyes to his entire face. His lips thinned into a hard, flat line.
It took me only a second to follow his gaze to my arms, my stomach, and then my thighs. Realization was a swift, heavy boulder that dropped into my stomach.
The fucking scars.
They were years old at this point. Most days they were a reminder of how far I had come. A twisted sort of milestone for myself. Most days, I remembered to hide them after I gave in and carefully examined their patterns. But today…
Today had been different.
It was finally hot outside. Hot enough to swim. Hot enough to tan. And I had been planning on being by myself, making the scars a nonissue. And Loki… he had a way of putting me at ease. I felt… normal when I was with him. All of my crazy, all of my emotions, all of my thoughts… Everything calmed down and quieted in my brain when he was close to me. I felt safe with him.
But today…
I couldn’t read the emotions on his face. Anger? Disgust? Sympathy? Pity? A mask had fallen into place almost immediately after he’d seen them. I didn’t know what he was thinking. But it didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to stick around for the fall out. I wouldn’t take another rejection well.
I started backpedaling, some kind of excuse tumbling from my lips. I don’t know. I just had to get out. I stumbled down the path and into the house, slamming and locking the door behind me. I raced through the front room, heading towards the back bedroom that I called my own. I wouldn’t feel safe until I was being devoured by my blankets, free to let the dark thoughts consume me.
I should have known better.
Mere locks and doors could never keep him out. My breath caught in my throat and the tears that were beading on my lashes quivered before finally giving in and falling down my face. He was standing in the middle of my room. I tried to choke the sob down, I really did. But the anxiety was quickly becoming all consuming. A full blown panic attack was imminent.
“I…”
That one syllable almost broke me. It was nothing of substance, but it was surely the beginning of the end. I’d heard it all before. And it always started with an, “I.” I can’t do this with you. I can’t deal with your baggage. I don’t want to deal with your problems.
“Do-don’t,” I managed to get out, taking half a step backwards.
I couldn’t bear to hear what he was going to say. I pressed my hands against my mouth, desperately trying to keep the sobs at bay, but this made it hard to breath. I pulled them from my lips and instead dugs my nails into my arms in an attempt to ground myself.
It didn’t matter. The panic gripped me hard and I could feel the walls closing in. My chest tightened and ached. I felt like I was dying and for one, small, shameful moment, I wished I would. At least then it would all be over.
Logically, I knew this was a panic attack. Logically, I knew I would survive it. Logic has no hold or sway in the midst of a panic attack.
At this point, I was beyond the situation. Loki disappeared. The room disappeared. Everything disappeared until it was just me. Just me and my anxiety. I clawed at my arms, fighting the attack. I tried to slow my breathing, to bring it back into some kind of recognizable rhythm.
I wasn’t sure if I was still standing or not, so lost was I. I vaguely realized that I must have been because I felt myself teeter and start to drop. But there was no impact. Not that I would have felt it anyway.
But then I was feeling. There were arms around me. They wrapped me up and tightened around me. I was awkwardly cradled in a lap. There was a chin pressing against the crown of my head.
And almost as if magic, my breathing finally slowed to something close to normal. My hands loosened their hold on my arms. My chest relaxed and the tension I’d been holding in my body released. I’d never felt anything like it. And as the clouds in my head began to clear, I understood what had happened. It had felt like magic because it was magic. Loki’s magic. I wanted to be angry and frustrated that he could manipulate me like that, but all I could feel was peace.
“Stop, I mumbled against his shoulder.
“I would, but it would be counterproductive at this point.”
Infuriating god. I sighed loudly, accepting my fate. I had no other choice. I was a slave to the calm he was pumping through me. It was making me sleepy. And I was so comfortable…
“If you’re recovered from your ordeal, I would ask that you answer some questions for me.” His voice was quiet, barely a whisper. But I heard him. I sighed again.
I nodded. There was no escaping now. I waited for him to ask me something, anything, but it dawned on me that, even though he’d asked, he was waiting for me to open up to him. I didn’t know where to start. It had been a very, very long time since I’d opened myself up to someone. It was opening a door to hurt and disappointment.
I gently reminded myself that he was here. He had helped me through my anxiety attack. Granted, his methods could use some work, but he’d done his best to help me.
I took a deep breath and I started talking. I didn’t know if any of it made sense, but once I started, I had a hard time stopping. I bared my soul to him, hoping against hope that it wouldn’t be too much. That it wouldn’t scare him away.
I told him about how much I hated myself. I’d been made fun of for being different. Being different had been unavoidable; it was a product of my birth. Being a witch in a mortal education system had been hard. But I’d endured, if barely. By the age of fourteen, my magic was out of control due to my emotions and I was pulled from school.
I started cutting myself when I was fifteen and I was finally able to establish some control over my magic. The release I got from cutting was… euphoric. It was control. It was healing. Having control of my emotions extended directly to my magic.
But the control didn’t last. The longer I cut, the less I felt the control. It had lost its novelty. As I fought to regain that control, I was pulling anything remotely sharp across my skin. I started falling into a downward spiral. I secluded myself. By seventeen, my magic wasn’t the only thing out of control anymore.
I didn’t want to live anymore. Cutting became less of a habit and more of a dangerous game of roulette. How far would I go this time? Would I finally cut myself deep enough to bleed out? Would I finally surrender to death?
After one close call at the age of nineteen, I landed myself in a witch’s coven dedicated to mental healing. There I made friends. I learned control. And most importantly, I started to heal. I learned coping skills that didn’t involve spilling my blood.
It was the best thing for me. I had been on an upward trend ever since. I hadn’t cut myself in years, despite the fact that the temptation did sneak up on me from time to time. I met with a witch doctor once a month to regulate medications and meditation routines. I met with the coven every six weeks as a sort of counseling session.
I talked to Loki until my throat felt raw. I told him things I had never told anyone before. And he listened to it all. When I finally stopped talking, I waited for the fall out. I waited for the disgust. Or worse, the pity.
But it never came. What did come was a whisper soft kiss across my surprised lips. And laughter. He laughed at me. Probably at the ridiculous expression I was sure was on my face.
“You have been so brave for so long. There is no shame in asking for help when you need it,” he told me softly. As he spoke, his arms tightened ever so slightly.
I could only nod, agreeing with him.
“I am pleased that you are comfortable enough with me to share your struggles with me. And I am grateful that you are still here to do so.”
I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. As he kept talking, I was beginning to accept that there was no other shoe. His nice words weren’t meant to soften a blow. He meant everything he was saying. That made my eyes well up with tears again.
“Shhh,” he entreated, rocking me gently. “I can’t promise that it will always all be all right, but for now, it is.” He swept a kiss across my brow and started humming to me softly.
And for me, that was enough. I gave in. I admitted defeat at the hands of the Norse god. I was at his mercy.
I was exactly where I belonged.
#Loki#Submitted one shot#Panic Attacks#Hurt/Comfort#AU#Others#Mention of Self Harm#Angst#submission#Trigger warning#breemaggs#attempted suicide#scars
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I’m Sorry PT.1- Stucky x reader
Hello Loves!! This is what i remember to be the first Poly!Fic i ever wrote, but i remember i wrote it around the time i started reading tumblr. Again, as of right now i am moving my works from Wattpad to Tumblr. I will not be editing them, as i would like to show my evolution as a writer. Thank you!
Pt.1 Pt.2 Pt.3
Category; Fluff, Domestic!avengers, Angst(!!!), Listen Before i Go(billie eilish, about suicide)
Rating; 16+
Let the Fiction Begin!
—
Ash wakes up, the soft light of the mid morning sun shining through the large full wall windows of her room. I open my eyes, stretching slightly, a yawn ripping through my body. I cough, remembering my cold as I search for my boyfriends.
I frown slightly as I see that both Steve and Bucky aren't in the bed with me, or in the room. I listen to see if the showers running, or if there's water splashing in the bathtub, but there's no sound. Just the recordings of bird in the rain that Friday always plays once I wake up.
I sigh, getting out of bed and opening the large dresser tony had made specifically for the three of us. I open one of Steve's drawers, grabbing his biggest and fluffiest grey wool sweater. I throw it on over the tank top I have on, grabbing a pair of short shorts from my drawer and sliding the soft denim up and putting on a black belt. I throw my hair up in a new messy bun, grabbing grey wool socks and combat boots from the walk in closet.
I turn around to see if Steve or Bucky has wandered back into the room, but it was still quiet. I grab my phone, slipping it into my pocket as I walk out of our room. I make my way through the maze of walls that makes up the Compound, trying to find the main communal area where I think Steve and Bucky will be.
I hear laughter drift into my ears, bright and happy. Thor's booming voice follows the laughs, cracking a joke I can't quite understand. I walk into the large room quietly, not looking around the room. I walk into the kitchen area, grabbing an extra large tea mug and an earl grey tea bag, dropping the encased leaves into the mug. I fill the kettle and put it on to boil, grabbing a glass of water. I reach for the antibiotics on the bottom shelf, taking out the needed pills and downing them all before draining the water.
“Yknow, you're supposed to take them one by one, right kid?" Sam jokes with me from the expansive island where the majority of the team is sitting. Tony is sitting on the couch, talking with Rhodey about something while Morgan watches BBC's Sherlock.
I give him a look. "Yknow, I don't need the water, right?"
"So what, you can take pills dry?" Wanda smirks slightly, easing an eyebrow in questioning.
"I can if I want to."
"Ah, what is the point in these 'pills', doctor banner?" Thor asks, somehow not knowing.
"Well, they can prevent sickness, supply nutrients, prevent pregnancy, subdue pain, a lot of things actually."
"And speaking of preventing pregnancy..." I mutter to myself, trying to reach for my birth control pills. I try to reach them before sighing, turning around to the team.
"Who put my pills on the top shelf?" I glare at them, mainly at Loki, Thor, Steve, and Bucky as they're the only ones who can reach up there. It's silent for a bit, Steve has already gotten the pills down for me. I grab my dose, downing it dry and looking at Sam mockingly.
"I did. O-on accident of course, but I did it." Bucky says, looking slightly nervous.
"Oh. Okay." I say nothing as I give Steve a kiss on the cheek. He grabs the whistling kettle and fills my tea mug. I thank him with another kiss before Clint and his big mouth speak up.
"Ew. PDA is NOT needed. Get a room, there's a pure innocent child present." Natasha slaps Clint (not lightly) on the bicep, worsening his laughter.
Everybody stares at him, natasha slipping a bunch of salt into his oatmeal when he's too busy falling on the floor to notice.
"Yknow, if I had a dime for every time I've seen you eyeing Ash and Wanda, I'd be richer thank Stark and his father combined." Bucky says, slipping his arms around me protectively as vision tightens his grip on Wanda.
"Oh please, I haven't done any such thing!" Clint, writhing on the floor, manages to get out between a few laughs. At this point, there's a mound of salt mixed into his oatmeal and milk. At first it was only Natasha, but now I've gotten out the big container of salt and started pouring it in the oatmeal, a red wispy encased salt shaker dropping salt into the milk.
"Christmas, last year. You were drunk and practically eye fucking our girlfriend. Same goes for wanda." Steve says, glaring at clint over the counter.
“There's a crap ton of tea here, is Friday getting all of it daddy?" An 8-year-old Morgan says, a small smile on her face.
"Damn I love this kid." I mutter under my breath, understanding her reference.
"Clint, get your ass in your seat before I call fury and tell him you were having fantasies last night about his favorite agent." Natasha threatens in that tone that tells you to get shit done. Clint scrambles into his stool, taking a bite of oatmeal.
The way his face scrunches up is priceless, and when he goes for the milk, probably thinking it would help with the bitterness, he spits it out. It would have hit me if Bucky hadn't turned his back and covered me.
"Oh hell no, that's my favorite sweater on Buck." I say as I set my tea down, taking a step towards Barton. "Five? Or just start."
"I'd say give em five. He's a slow old man anyways." Pietro smirks from the far end of the island.
"Barton." His head snaps up at me. "You have five seconds until I slam you into the ground and shatter your spine. I recommend you don't try the vents either seeing as Tony just installed some lasers to evade intruders." I say this all in a soft, slightly (aka VERY) psychotic tone. I let a sick smile play across my lips as I lean Over the table.
"One." I say, lunging for him. I push him into the ground, pinning him down with his arm behind his back on his stomach. I have his legs bent in a way so It'd hurt to move, his other arm held down by the hand with my boot. I press my knee into his back, smirking slightly at the exasperated sigh he lets out.
"Cmon kid- let me go." He pleads before I push down harder with my foot and knee making him whine in pain.
"Notice how no one is moving to defend you Barton." I say rather loudly. I push down on his arm more, getting another groan.
"Cmon kid. I didn't mean it." He is clearly distressed by the situation, looking rather embarrassed to have been pinned in such a position by an "untrained ten year old". He moves his head to look at natasha, pleading silently for help. She shakes her head, perfect eyebrow raised.
"She's right clint- Shes 22, way too young for you."
"Oh really? Last time I checked, Cap and Barnes are well over 103 Years old!" This earns him more foot and knee pressure as I twist his arm, closing to breakage.
“Be careful what you say about my boys Barton. It won't look pretty when I'm done with you if you keep insulting my princes like that." I say this, pushing down with my knee as I shift my weight ever so slightly to lean into his ear. He whines again. 'What a baby.'
Suddenly, there is a cold And warm hand under each of my elbows, picking me up off the agent and setting me down on the floor.
"Now now, little ужасный волк (dire wolf), his loneliness is enough to hurt him. He doesnt need his old man back breaking because he threatened us." Bucky holds my face, looking me in the eyes as Steve slinks his arms around my waist.
"Plus, we're physically younger than him." Steve says, his head resting in the crook of my neck.
"But it's funny to watch his egotistical snarkyness fade as his life flashed before his eyes." I Whine, my words, despite their content, sound like that of a spoiled 5 year old. Even though I'm trying to be sarcastic, I can still feel everyone's faces flinch a little.
"Baby we've talked about this, you don't let your false murderous intent cloud your actions." Bucky smiles slightly, Goin g along with my joke before picking me up out of Steve's arms and carrying me bridal style to our wing. Steve follows behind with my tea and two pieces of avocado toast in hand.
Bucky sets me down on the floor-inset couch, jumping over the back and landing next to me. Steve sets down my tea and hands me the plated food. He turns on the TV and opens our Spotify account. He plays the song that was playing at the party of Tony's we all met at.
I found myself dreaming
In silver and gold
Like a scene from a movie
That every broken heart knows
I take a bite of my toast as Bucky stands up, dancing with Steve.
We were walking on moonlight
And you pulled me close
Split second and you disappeared
And then I was all alone.
I smile as they sway back and forth, taking small steps as they lean on each other's shoulders. I smile, watching the two. They've always Been so photogenic, always posing the right way. I reach for my phone, snapping a quick picture before setting it down on the table.
I woke up in tears
You by my side
A breath is relief
And I realized
No, we're not promised tomorrow.
Steve grabs my hand, pulling me around the coffee table to dance with him, Bucky taking a picture with his own phone. Steve kisses the top of my head, pulling me closer by the waist.
So I'm gonna love you like I'm gonna lose you
And I'm gonna hold you like I'm saying goodbye
Wherever we're standing
I won't take you for granted
'Cause we'll never know when, when we'll run out of time
So I'm gonna love you like I'm gonna lose you
I'm gonna love you like I'm gonna lose you
Bucky takes me from Steve, moving around more with me. Steve snaps another picture before walking off to our small kitchen. Bucky and I move around the room gracefully, hands intertwined tightly together as we hum and sing along to the words. I start violently coughing again, Bucky pulling me close to his chest in a warm hug once I catch my breath.
In the blink of an eye
Just a whisper of smoke
You could lose everything
The truth is you never know
Steve takes me away from Bucky, picking me up and placing me back on the couch. Bucky drapes a blanket over me, handing me my tea which I gratefully sip.
So I'll kiss you longer baby
Any chance that I get
I'll make the most of the minutes
And love with no regrets
They both settle down beside me stuffing their bodies close to mine as they both kiss my cheeks before kissing each other above my head.
Let's take our time to say what we want
Here's what we got before it's all gone
'Cause no, we're not promised tomorrow
I pull out their dog tags on each of their necks, then looking at mine. They hug me tighter, each one nuzzling into their side of my neck.
So I'm gonna love you like I'm gonna lose you
I'm gonna hold you like I'm saying goodbye
Wherever we're standing
I won't take you for granted
'Cause we'll never know when, when we'll run out of time
So I'm gonna love you like I'm gonna lose you
I'm gonna love you like I'm gonna lose you
—time skip to infinity war—
"Steve? Ash?" Bucky says before dusting. I look down, only to see the same happen to me.
"Steve? Steve please I don't wanna-" darkness.
|—☆—|
I wake up, feeling a cold, hand, a familiar metal holding me close to a warm torso.
"B-Bucky!?" I claw at him, straddling him and pulling myself closer to his body.
"G-God, I thought I lost you, and Steve." He kisses my head before his breath catches in his throat. "Where's Steve?"
I look into his eyes, seeing the same feelings. Denial, fear, worry, love, anticipation.
"Come on! It has been five years we must go fight the battle!" A heavy Wakandan accent yells out at us. I give Bucky a quick kiss before tossing him another magazine. I run off towards where the crowd is heading, Bucky on my heels. We are let through the crowd, walking through the sparky portal.
I look around me to see rubble. Everywhere. There's a huge alien ship tearing Through the deep rusty red sky. There's no sign of Steve in the portal, or any of the others coming around.
Bucky nudges me, pointing out in front of us. I look out to see Thanos, in his large set of armor, and Steve facing him. Thor is splayed out on the ground, Loki next to him. Steve looks behind him, seeing me and Bucky approaching him with hundreds of people following.
“Oh my god I thought I lost you two." He smiles, looking at me and Bucky.
"I thought I lost you two..." I smile, looking at Steve's smudged up face.
"And I third that." Bucky says briefly. Steve turns around, tightening his broken shields strap with a sudden tug.
"AVENGERS!" He yells out, projecting to the whole area. He reaches his hand out, Mjolnir, of all things, comes flying at him. He catches the weapon, making a show out of it. "Assemble."
Thor yells, T'challa's voice soon joining as everyone changes against the horde of aliens.
|—☆—|
I see peter, shooting an alien that's about to come get him. He nods at me, getting picked up by Valkyrie and her Pegasus, the Iron Gauntlet in hand.
I look over to thanos, seeing Wanda talking to him. She hurls rock at him just before all hell breaks loose. Beams of energy race down towards the ground, trying to hit anything in sight. I dodge to the left, hiding under a large piece of rubble. Suddenly they stop pointing at us and aim for something in the sky. A large ball of orange light flies through the ship, one wing tearing off after the figure stops. The ship crash lands into the water, causing a large wave to come off of the lake. It starts up into a funnel as a sorcerer uses his magic to guide the water.
The ball of light lands in front of peter, getting the glove from him.
"I don't know how you're gonna get it through all that." I'm already behind Okoye as she answers.
"Don't worry-"
"She has help." I finish, the other women landing around me. Morgan in the light blue armor looking like her late mother. Wanda behind me, and I can hear Valkyries horse land. Us ladies start doing our badass walks towards the oncoming battalion, shifting into a run as the battle continues.
|—☆—|
I see tony lunging for the stones, thanos following in suit. I push back on thanos, giving tony the chance to get the gauntlet and transfer the stones before thanos pries it away from him.
The titan places the gauntlet on his hand, letting the adaptive size fit him. The other original six avengers, minus... Clint... gather around tony, me and Bucky joining as well.
"I am... inevitable." Thanos snaps, only for the gauntlet to make a clink noise. All of us avengers put our hands together and on tony, as he raises his right hand with the stones arranging themselves in his suit.
"And we are..." Bucky looks at me, then Steve, who gives a reassuring nod.
"The Avengers."
Tony snaps, and energy corses through me, pain mixed with desire and power. I walk over and rip the stones off of the suit, placing them in thor's cape.
We look around, the whole Army starts fading away. The world is suddenly filled with the dust of our enemies. Thanos slowly moves to sit down, turning to dust once he falls. Tony falls into the ground, an exasperated laugh leaving his mouth. We all follow suit and plop down next to each other, looking up at the catastrophic sky. I hold Bucky and Steve's hands in mine, letting them kiss me and then each other with smiles on our faces. We sit up and hug each other, happy to be together again.
"Thank god you two idiots are alive.. god, I don't know what I'd do without you two testosterone junkies." I joke, kissing each of them on the cheek as we all bask in the glory of victory.
—timeskip to after the battle, at the TOWER—
Bucky and Steve all sit on the couch, leaning on each other with such purpose. I sit back and look at them, seeing if they would be without me. 'Maybe that's better.'
I sit down on the couch, next to Natasha and the end instead of in-between the two. Bucky and Steve look at me, surpise on their features as I talk with Natasha about Clint.
"Remember that time when I pinned him on the ground and we all put salt in his food." I laugh briefly before staring at the floor, Grief on me and Natasha's features.
"Maybe... maybe it's better this way. Somebody had to die to get the stone, and that bastard actually chained me down..." she smiles, and chuckles, then frowns, reaching up to her neck to hold her arrow necklace.
"I'm sorry nat... I'm sorry you had to loose him." I rub her shoulder as a single tear drops onto her lap. "But at least he's with his family."
They had randomly come back in the middle of the battle and were quickly torn apart by thanos' goons. We hadn't noticed they were even there until well after the battle, about three days into cleanup. Damn, Natasha looked so sad looking at the kids and Laura. Morgan was sad that her friends were dead aswell, finally able to process such a thing at the age of 13.
|—☆—|
I've been distancing myself from Steve and Bucky for three and a half months now. I don't even know how I'm still alive. They have started sleeping on the couch, where I used to sleep, causing me to move into an extra room. I returned all of their sweaters and sweatshirts and T-shirt's and jackets that I had taken from them over the years, sneaking into their room and moving everything into their drawers. I took all my clothing out, moving it all into the room-my room. Everyone was happy when Tony has been cleared to use his arm again, as it had been damaged from the stones. But Steve and Bucky just sat there, eyes on me sipping a glass of wine as I laughed with Natasha.
"Wait, so you're telling me that if even one person hadn't been in the chain, Tony would've died?" I look at Bruce with disbelief, my mouth slightly ajar.
"You are correct."
"And if we hadn't been there at all, tony would have died in even less time than two hours?"
"Yes Ash, now please go uh... talk to someone else. I need to work." Bruce shoos me out of the lab, locking me out.
"Fine." I turn around, getting into the elevator and going to the top floor. I get onto the fire stairs and take them up to the roof, bringing out my laptop and sketchbook. I play some Billie eilish, sketching pictures of me, Steve, and Bucky. After a while I take myself out of the mix, creating more intimacy between the two enhanced men.
Take me to the rooftop
I wanna see the world when I stop breathing
Turning blue
Tell me love is endless
Don't be so pretentious
Leave me
Like you do.
—
songs; Like I’m Gonna Loose You (Megan Trainor, John Legend) listen before i go (Billie Eilish)
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Father Daughter Duo Ch.5
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 6
Chapter Title: Moving in. Pairing: Eventual DarylxOc. Setting: The prison. Warnings: Rape, Non-customary situations, Suicide attempts. Word Count: 4,136.
When I came to I was laying in the back seat of an old Chevy truck. Someone had dressed me in the clothes that I had brought to the river with me and my hands had been bandaged in fresh linen. "Dad," I looked in the direction the voice had come from to see the back of a young boy's head who was standing where the front passenger seat had been leaned forward. "She's awake." The boy turned around and looked at me with a blank face. "You know you really shouldn't walk around the woods by yourself. It's not exactly smart these days." Like I didn't already know that? Before I had a chance to say anything he ran off and the wavy haired man that I had seen in the woods replaced him. He didn't say anything to me as I sat up and pulled my knees into my chest. He just stared at me, like he was expecting me to say something first. We ended up just sitting there looking at each other.
The stare down between us was broken when a severely pregnant woman walked up to him, said something quietly then handed him a bottle of water. She cautiously smiled at me before she walked off. "I'm Rick." I just stared at him and tried to control the urge to run because I knew now that if I did I wasn't going to get very far, my body wouldn't let me. "Your name?" he tried to hand me the bottle, but I just ignored it.
"Bay." I choked out my name. I noticed the other man from the woods standing at the front of the truck looking at a map that was spread out on it. There was also a bald man, and a grey haired man that reminded me of my grandfather.
"Well, Bay, were you alone out there?" I thought about telling him I was, because my father was dead to me now, but I didn't.
"No." He looked at me like he was expecting me to say something more. "I'm sure my father wants to know where I'm at." I looked around me realizing that my backpack, which contained my weapons, was no where to be seen. "So just give me my things and I'll be on my way." I couldn't help but think that they weren't going to let me go that easily.
"I'm afraid I can't do that." Of coarse it couldn't be that simple. "Where are you and your father staying and are there more people?" Did he really expect me to tell him, and if I did would my father get mad at me? "Look around you," I did and I saw three more people that I hadn't noticed before. Two girls, a brunet that looked to be about my age and another younger blond, were standing guard at one end of the line of cars while a Chinese looking man stood guard on the other. It had been a while since I had seen a real group, and these people looked almost normal compared to the string of horrible people my father and I had encountered. "If you're living in a safe place, we would appreciate it if you would let us join you." I once said that eyes were the first thing I noticed about people. Well, if I was reading this mans right at the moment, he was desperately in need of help.
I took another look around and my eyes stuck to the pregnant woman. She looked like she was going to pop at any moment. The more I thought about it the more I realized that the prison was big enough to share, and I couldn't let that woman give birth out on the dangerous streets. "It's just my father and me." He took several steps backwards and motioned for me to get out of the truck. So I braced myself on the back of the tilted seat and eased myself out. My knees were wobbly and he reached out to steady me, but I quickly dodged him and crossed my arms protectively over my chest. "Give me my things and I'll tell you the rest."
He huffed out a heavy breath and glanced at the other man from the woods. He looked me over before he gave Rick a single nod. "Fine, but no funny business." He walked around to the other side of the truck and came back with my backpack in his hands. He held it out to me and I quickly took it from him and checked it over for my stuff. It was all there so I tucked the gun in my waist band at my back and tossed the bag over my shoulder. "Okay, you have your stuff now where are you staying?" I really didn't want to tell him, and I probably would have just taken off if it hadn't been for the pregnant lady staring at me with one hand on her back and the other on her belly. My stomach twisted from fear and my heart went out to the pregnant woman. My sympathy for the woman pushed the fear aside.
"We made camp in the prison yard last night." They all made faces like they didn't believe me, but I kept on talking and told them how my father and I happened upon it. I told them how to get there. I was just going to walk back, but the man that I learned had bandaged my hands, Hershel, told me that I was too weak and would never make it on foot. I wasn't going to argue with an old man so he introduced me to his daughters, Maggie and Beth. I ended up riding with them and the Asian guy, Glenn, who I quickly figured out, was Maggie's boyfriend. It was nice knowing that there were other women in the group and that I wasn't going to be completely surrounded by men.
They chatted on the way to the prison, but I blocked them all out. If they were talking to me I didn't know it. I just stared out the window watching the trees go by eventually I got bored with that and stared at the tire of the motorcycle in front of us. Finally the prison came into sight and the sick feeling in my stomach only got worse.
When we had all gotten out of the cars I walked off and Rick followed. "I know you're probably expecting me to just let you people come waltzing in, but I need to talk to my father first." He squinted at me like he was expecting me to pull something, but I really had no intentions of doing anything like that. He didn't protest so I entered the yard to find my father still passed out even with the sun straight up in the sky. So I scooped up the Jack Daniels bottle from where it still laid in his limp hand. There was a decent sized rock next to his head and I let my eyes move between the stone and the bottle a few times before I threw it down hard. Whiskey and glass shards flew all over him and the loud sound caused him to wake up stringing together a line of curse words I didn't even know he knew. "ShitGodDamn. Bailey Simone Clark! What the fuck's the matter with ya!"
"You want to know what's the matter with me?! What's the matter with you?" he looked around him realizing that our prisoner was no where to be seen before he took in the look of pure outrage on my face. "When exactly were you going to tell me you started drinking? When walkers break down the fence and try to eat us?" he opened his mouth to talk but I interrupted him. "No, you were going to wait until there was a horrible disgusting man tied to an old rusty school bus. Oh wait that was last night." I said sarcastically and his brows knit together in confusion.
"Bailey I…" he tried to defend himself, but I held up my hand stopping him.
"Save it Sean." I could tell that it hurt him when I called him by his first name, but I didn't care, "I don't want to hear it and we have visitors." I pointed to where Rick stood with his group outside the fences.
"Who the hell are they?" he asked just as angrily as I thought he would.
"Survivors, like us. They found me down at the lake." It was the only explanation I felt like giving at that time.
"What the fuck were ya doin' at the lake by yerself?" the anger in his tone bordered on hysterical.
"What the fuck were you doing drinking yourself stupid last night?" I asked mocking his tone with my eyebrows raised. "Besides they're here now and they're going to stay here because I said they could." I could tell just by looking at him that he was wondering where this sudden change in me came from, but I wasn't going to tell him. I started to walk away, but he grabbed my t-shirt covered, bruised arm and spun me around before I hissed and jerked it out of his grip.
"Who the hell do ya think ya are young lady? Ya think ya can talk to me like that and get away with it?" his question angered me more than anything else had that day.
"I'm a woman that finally realized what kind of man her father really is. Now if you don't mind I'd like you to meet the men that saved my life today." This time he let me walk away and I could hear his faint foot steps behind me as I made my way through the maze of gates. "Sean this is Rick. Rick this is Sean, my father." I was going to leave them to talk everything out but my father's stupid voice stopped me.
"I'm not done talking to you young lady." I gritted my teeth and turned around ready to tell him to stop talking to me like I was a child but he cut me off. "Where the hell is Merle? Did you let him go or what?" that made me snap and I shoved him hard making him stumble from the unexpected force.
"Let Merle go? Let Merle go! I didn't fucking let him go he-"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. How about you two save the yelling for when we're on the other side of the fence huh?" Rick got between us cutting off my ranting and pointed to a few walkers that were emerging from the nearby tree line. After that our arguing stopped as we all walked along the gravel path that lead to the prison yard. I could hear the others talking from behind me, but the only conversation I paid any attention to was the one that was taking place between my father and the man with the crossbow on his back.
"Who's this Merle guy y'all were yellin' about?" The curiosity in his rough voice struck me as odd. He didn't look like the nosey type.
"Just some ass hole that found us yesterday. Did have 'em tied up to that buss over there, but when she woke me up earlier he was gone. I still don't know what happened." My dad explained, but the guy asked another question as if he was excited about something.
"Yeah, whatever," The curiosity that was once there was replaced with an awkward urgency, "Was he missing his right hand?" it was this question that stopped me in my tracks causing my father to walk into me. I shoved my father off of me and turned around to stare at the crossbow guy.
"You…you know Merle?" I stammered out and he suddenly looked like a little boy on Christmas, but for me it was Halloween and a real live chucky doll was trying to stab me.
"Ya've seen my brother? He was here?" His…his brother? I didn't bother asking, the resemblance was enough to confirm what he had just called the man of my nightmares. Before I knew what I was doing I took off running and ended up hiding under a desk in the nearest guard tower. I hoped that no one would follow me but soon my father, Rick and Crossbow Guy's voices filled the tower. My father crouched down to look at me where I sat with my knees pulled to my chest under the desk.
"What the hell's yer problem? Ya've been actin' weird all day." He wanted to know what was wrong with me? If it wasn't for the fact that I couldn't stop my rapid breathing I would have told him off. My heart was pounding so hard that I could feel it in my head and I just wanted everyone to go away. My hand shook as I tried to wipe off the cold sweat that rolled down my forehead. 'Please just go away' I thought to myself as I listened to Rick tell my father to leave the tower. "And leave her here with just the two of ya? I don't think so." My stomach twisted and I was positive I was going to throw up on my father.
"She's having a panic attack and you're not helping. Leave or I'll make you leave." I heard my fathers familiar footsteps fade as he left the tower. I opened my eyes to see that Rick had kneeled down in front of me and Crossbow Guy was standing behind him. Rick put his hand on my shoulder but I jerked it away never taking my eyes off of the man behind him. "Look at me" I didn't. "Look at me Bay." Only when I felt like I was about to pass out again did I look at Rick's worried eyes. "You have to calm down okay?" his voice was calming, but it didn't put a dent in how I was feeling and my eyes darted back to the brother of the man that destroyed me. I couldn't calm down with him in here. I managed to get out one word that was directed at Crossbow Guy, leave. Rick looked over his shoulder and jerked his head to the door. The man shook his head no and said something about having to find his brother. "Daryl, I'll find out what I can, but I can't do it with you in here." I watched his feet as he walked to the door and slammed it behind him. Now that he was gone I focused my attention on Rick. "Breath with me and try to relax." he started taking slow deep breaths and I forced myself to follow along. Eventually I stopped shaking and got my breathing under control. But I was still sweating and I felt like I was going to puke. "How are you feeling?" he backed off, sat down on the floor and leaned his back against the metal wall.
Now that I looked at him he looked as exhausted as I felt. "Like shit." My voice came out sounding weaker than I had planned and I leaned up from where I had slumped back against the desk and rested my face in my hands.
"Wanna tell me what that was all about?" his voice wasn't demanding or controlling like it had been when he wanted to know where I was staying. It was soft and caring, but no matter how nice he sounded the truth was I didn't know him and I didn't know if I could trust him. "I know you don't know me, but you can talk to me if you need to. You probably won't believe me, but I'm a cop. Or I used to be anyway before all this flesh eating dead people stuff happened." Now that I looked at him and the way he acted before, I could tell. He was telling the truth, because all cops have this cloud of authority that surrounds them and it was all over him. "So you can trust me to keep my mouth shut." I didn't know how he know that there was something bad that I was holding in, but he did and it all came rushing out of me like a horrible title wave.
I told him everything that happened from the moment Merle push his way into my life up to why I was sitting here talking to him. "Just don't tell my father what he did please. I don't want him to know."
He looked like he was thinking about saying that he wasn't going to keep my promise, but he finally nodded his head. "Okay, I promise that I won't tell your father." You would think that letting it all out would make me feel better, but you would be wrong. For some reason it made me feel worse. It was only Rick's promise that made me feel even the slightest hint of relief. "But you should know that no one here is going to mess with you." I somehow didn't believe that. The only women in the group were either too young or taken. One of the men were bound to hit on me and I had a feeling it would be the brother of the man I now hated with every bone in my body. "Daryl needs to know what kind of man his brother is. One of us needs to tell him."
"No! You can't tell anyone." I hated the way Rick looked at me now that he knew and I knew that once my secret got out that everyone would be looking at me the exact same way. They would either pity me because they believed me and feel sorry for me because they would see me as a pathetic little girl who lied for the attention. Either way I didn't want my dirty laundry hung out for everyone to see.
"Okay fine, but both Daryl and your father need to be the first to know when your ready to tell them." He stood up and walked over to the door before he stopped and turned back to me. "And if you ever need to talk again, I'm here." He walked out leaving me by myself. I didn't want to go out there and face all of those people, or my father, but I knew that I would have to sooner or later. So I dried my face, tugged at my sleeve until it covered most of the bruise, then walked out of the door and down the stairs. Only to be suffocated by my father when I opened the door.
"Are you okay? What did he say to you? Did he try to mess with you?" I tuned him out at that point and pushed him back from me.
"I'm fine Sean, he didn't say anything important to me and he didn't mess with me." I crossed my arms over my chest and started walking across the yard to where food was cooking over the fire from the night before that someone had started back up.
"And why do you keep calling me by my fist first name?" my father caught up to me, but I didn't stop walking. "Answer me young lady." I stopped walking and got in his face.
"Stop calling me that and I'm calling you Sean because that’s your name. If I call you Dad it might make you think I respect you when I don't. You lost what respect I had for you last night, when you left me alone with that son of a bitch!" He grabbed my bruised arm again when I tried to walk off and I hissed from the pain and jerked it away from him. Judging by the look on his face the thought the hiss was one of anger. "Don't touch me!"
I ended up spending the rest of the day walking the parts of the outer layer of the fence killing what walkers had gathered there. It was Maggie that came to tell me that supper was ready. I followed her back the fire. There were only two spaces available in the circle, one between my father and T-Dog and another, wider, one between Rick and Daryl. I chose the latter and sat closer to Rick, because I felt like he was the only person here I could trust.
The over all mood around the fire was cheerful and it affected everyone but me. Everyone gorged themselves on the meal that my father and Daryl had killed, but I just picked at the stringy meat on my plate. When most everyone was finished eating and I had pushed my plate away, Maggie and Beth started singing. It was a slow sweet song that I actually enjoyed because it had been so long since I had heard someone sing other than myself. "Oh all the comrades that ere I had are sorry for my going away, and all the sweethearts that ere I've had would wish me one more day to stay. But since it falls unto my lot that I should rise and you should not. I'll gently rise and I'll softy call good night and joy be with you all. Good night and joy be with you all." Every one started clapping including me. My dad looked at me over the fire and I cast my gaze down, wishing I could just fade away.
"Why don't cha sing Bailey?" I rolled my eyes wondering why he was acting like I never even yelled at him. "Oh don't pretend like ya can't. I heard ya when ya thought I wasn't listenin'." I didn't know he had heard me, much less that he thought I could actually sing. I had never done it in front of anyone before other than my third grade music class.
"I'm sure they could care less." I tried to deflect the attention off of me, but it didn't work.
"I'd like to hear, and I'm sure everyone's getting tired of hearing me sing." Beth spoke up and I felt like punching her. Several other people chimed in that they would like to hear, which only added to the pressure. If this would have been happening two days before I probably would have caved.
"No. I don't feel like singin' and I'm not that good anyways." I said and my dad spoke up again.
"What are ya talkin' about? Ya've got a wonderful voice." He sounded happy like the rest of the people and the others made sounds of agreement like they new what I sounded like.
"I said no Sean, now drop it!" everyone got really quiet after that and I clenched my fists digging my fingernails into parts of my hands that weren't covered in bandages. My middle fingernail dug into the hole in the center of my left hand making a sharp pain shoot all the way up to my elbow. I thought everyone would stare at me, but as I looked around the group they all seemed to have started having their own conversations. Well everyone but Daryl. He was looking at where my shirt sleeve had ridden up. I reached my hand up and covered it making him look up at me. The look on his face suggested that he knew what happened. I made myself smile at him, even though I'm sure it looked pained, before I stood up, grabbed my sleeping bag and headed to the nearest tower.
My father grabbed my hand when I walked by him, and I jerked it away from him. "Where ya goin'?" I told him that I was going to sleep in the guard tower. "Why don't'cha sleep here at the fire where it's warm? Ya will freeze to death up there."
I looked between him Rick and Daryl a few times. "I'll risk it." I said coldly before I started walking to the tower again. I locked the door behind me before I pressed my back against it and slid down. I cupped my head in my hands and let the tears I had been holding in for the past five hours fall until I ran out of them. I almost didn't have the will power to even pull myself up the stairs, but I somehow convinced myself that I couldn't sleep on the filthy dirt floor. Once I made it up the stairs I rolled out my sleeping bag, took my pillow out of the foot of it and slid in. After a while I was able to push everything out of my head and I fell into a nightmare filled sleep.
Daryl Tags: @jodiereedus22 @mtngirlforever @zzeacat @winchester-angel@moodygrip @beegnc @hells-mistress @lighthope08 @sapphire1727@luisadontcurr @chloebabyboo @ilkaeliseb @twdeadfanfic @ravengalaxia@1lluminaticonfirmed @my-current-fandom-is @nikkiloves-bailey @coffeebooksandfandom @lonewolf471 @gruffle1 @mblaqgi @calumstuffs@beltzboys2015-blog @neontiger007 @lonewolf471 @sourwolf-sterek32 @dixonluvv @dotslabyrinth @kayln97 @art-flirt @beltzboys2015-blog @cbarter
Note: If you would like to be added to the Daryl tag list just pm me and let me know. Otherwise your request will most likely get lost.
#The walking dead fanfiction#The walking dead fanfic#the walking dead fan fiction#the walking dead fan fic#twd fanfic#twd fanfiction#twd fan fiction#twd fan fic#daryl dixon fanfiction#daryl dixon fanfic#daryl dixon fan fiction#daryl dixon fan fic#daryl dixonxoc#daryl dixon x oc#daryl dixon/oc#daryl dixon / oc#daryl dixon&oc#daryl dixon & oc#dark themes#daryl dixon#the walking dead oc#the walking dead oc fanfiction
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My period/body journey (with PCOS)
Age 9-10
I start developing faster (up top) than my female peers. Three girls corner me in the bathroom and tell me I need to start wearing a bra. My mother hadn't even spoken to me about bras, I thought only adult women needed them. I wore my itchy and uncomfortable jacket the rest of the day to hide my chest, sweating and feeling gross the rest of the day. I had to go home and beg my mom to take me and buy me some training bras. She does. No talk. No help. No assurance about my body changing.
Age 11-12
I grow 2 cup sizes over the summer. I start back at school and all of the older boys (much too old to be noticing an 11 year old little girl) start harrassing me. They talk and make motions about my body and make sure I see and hear their vile words. I don't tell my mom. I never told her anything.
I start getting serious stomach cramping, headaches, light headedness. My mom calls me lazy. She says I'm faking it to get out of school. A girl my age shouldn't be that tired all the time. But the pain continues and she relents. She takes me to the hospital, where they perform an ultrasound. The nurse says everything is fine, but have I started my period yet? I don't know what a period is so I tell her no. She explains it to me. That's why I've been feeling so bad. I can tell she wonders why my mother hasn't told me yet. I wonder why my mother hadn't told me yet.
I finally get my period. The cramps are bad. I get sick to my stomach easily. I have constant headaches. All I want to do is sleep. The blood wasn't bad and the period didn't last long. My mom stocks my bathroom with pads and tampons. A girl at school bitched me out for asking for a tampon, she hadn't started yet and thought what I was telling her was made up and gross. I bled through my pants.
Age 13
The periods got worse. I would bleed for 10+ days and go through a whole box of pads and tampons. I would wear a tampon and a pad so that I wouldn't ruin my panties when I inevitably bled through the tampon. The headaches persisted. The exhaustion was terrible. My mom still called me lazy. She forced me to get up and go outside, even though I knew the activity would make me bleed even more. Me puking was "just something I ate" rather than my body becoming sick from blood loss and pain.
I bleed so much that I miss my first football game. My dad had gotten tickets to a big State game and was excited to take me. I had to tell him I couldn't go. I was having to sit on the toilet because I'd insert a tampon and put on a pad and would fill both with blood after 15 minutes. I ruined 3 pairs of panties and shorts. He was angry he had to sale his tickets and didn't get to go.
At school I try to go to the bathroom. My period had started. My male gym coach tells me to sit back down. I tell him I need to use the bathroom. He tells me I should have gone when I came in and he's not letting us go so that we "can just play on our phones or vandalize the stalls." I insist that it's an emergency, hoping he'd understand my meaning. He tells me to go back to the bleachers. I bleed through my pants and go to the office to call my mom. She gets pissed at the idiot gym coach, another pair of underwear and pants ruined.
Age 14
I'm anemic. My periods have become irregular. I'm told it's normal for girls my age. My hormones make my right breast enlarge and I get a big cyst that has to be removed. I have to wear certain bras and baggy shirts to hide my two different sized breasts. I still feel like shit. I still bleed abnormally heavy. Some months there is no period and some months I bleed for two weeks straight. One day I pass out in the school hall. My friends freak out and my best friend takes my phone and calls my mom. My mom takes me to the doctor and they put me on iron pills to help with the anemia. They don't check for anything else.
Age 15-16
My mom takes me to the gynecologist for the first time. She has begun having period problems herself and now is more believing about my struggles. The doctor puts me on birth control to help regulate my hormones. Insurance won't pay it all, my mother can't afford $30 for each of our birth control. She continues paying for her own but doesn't see mine as a necessity. I get off the birth control, my periods go back to being irregular and intense. We try two more times with different doctors and each time I only get one month worth of the birth control, meaning it doesn't even have time to take affect before I'm off it again, mom can't afford it. My periods stay irregular.
Age 17-18
I go nearly 8 months without a period. People make jokes, "are you pregnant?" My stepmom puts me on her insurance and I go to a new gyno. She gives me something to force my period to start, then she starts me on birth control. The birth control makes my acne much worse and I go back after the three months. She changes the formula and we try again. This time it makes my acne worse and aggravates my depression, spiking my anxiety.
I stop taking the birth control. Doc refuses to give me anything else. I'm too young. I don't want to mess with my chances of having kids. At first my periods we're fine and regular. Lasting about 5-7 days and normal blood flow. But it doesn't last. Once the pills begin working completely out of my body my periods become irregular again. The blood flow is either very light and spotty and lasts 2 weeks or is very heavy and goopy and lasts 3 days.
Age 19, Today
The headaches persist. I'm living on ibuprofen and Tylenol PM (for insomnia). The cramps are insane. I can't stomach food, the pain makes me sick. The bleeding is back and forth from barely none to too much to handle. My depression and anxiety have been at an all time high and I'm still trying to figure out what to do about it. The suicidal thoughts. The eating disorder. The self harm. The constant stress and anxiety.
I'll be 20 in a few months. I'm already tired of being alive.
#pcosfighter#pcos#pcoswarrior#pcoscysters#polycystic ovary syndrome (pcos)#periods#period problems#blood#diagnosis#life#my life
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Isn’t Life Strange? || Chapter II
Hey guys! Sorry I’m a bit late, but here it is!
Genre: Mature (strong language, mentions of drugs use, suicide, death) but still a bit of fluff in the future.
Members: Yoongi x Reader
Word count: 2256
Summary: You wake up in class after a far too realistic dream and discover you can now rewind time.
You got out of your hiding place behind the dirty toilet stall and extended your right hand toward Namjoon to stop him but it was too late, the sound of the gun was ringing painfully in your ears. After the shot your sight was blurred and your head was pounding.
Was the sound of the shot supposed to have those side effects on you?
The mint haired guy fell to the floor in slow motion and Namjoon dropped his gun, which fell in slow motion as well. For an unknown reason, tingles were spreading and getting stronger and stronger on the fingertips of your right hand. When the gun touched the floor, everything played backward before your eyes and you couldn’t move, the tingling sensation in your hand even stronger, it felt as if a force was emerging from your fingertips.
When your vision cleared, you abruptly jerked your head backward and looked around with panic. You weren’t in the bathroom anymore, but back in your seat in art class.
You wondered how that could be. A moment ago you were in the bathroom, Namjoon shot that poor guy, you held up your hand and now you were back in your classroom?
You vaguely listened to Mr.Kim and noticed you’ve already had this lecture. Your thoughts were racing as you tried to process everything that was happening. You analyzed the situation quickly to remind yourself the events that happened before in class and you waited to see if they would happen again. You listed the elements one after the other and waited.
Now Jimin is being hassled again ...And if Eunjin's phone rings, this is real... You concluded.
Eunjin’s phone rang. You couldn’t believe everything happened like it did before the bathroom event. The succession of all the events startled you and in your surprise, you hit your camera with your left elbow. The device fell off the desk and it broke in pieces as it crashed on the floor.
You cursed at your clumsiness and looked at the device on the ground and tried to calm yourself to avoid doing another mistake.
You couldn’t believe what was happening right now. Were you going crazy? If you were indeed going crazy then, was it safe to say you could actually reverse time?
You extended your right hand and concentrated. Again, you felt a strong tingling feeling in your fingertips. Every words Mr.Kim told were said backward and then, you saw from the corner of your eyes your camera repair by itself and go back to its place on your desk, as if nothing had happened.
I'm a human time machine...! You screamed internally, but you felt like you were going crazy. You still needed one last proof to make up your mind. Or more like, before you freaked out. Earlier, when you took a selfie Mr.Kim asked you a question, you conclude that if he asked his question again, you’d know everything was real.
Your thought were all over your brain, you still couldn’t believe what was happening.
You took a quick selfie with your now repaired camera and waited for Mr.Kim to say something.
As if everything happening wasn’t already crazy, Mr.Kim told the same thing as before about the “wonderful photographic tradition” that was the selfie. And that’s when you freaked out.
You finally knew everything was real and you could truly go back in time. You needed to go to the toilet as soon as possible to check out if you could save the guy’s life.
“Now Y/N, since you've captured our interest and clearly want to join the conversation, can you please tell us the name of the process that gave birth to the first self-portraits?”
You needed to check as soon as possible if that guy was still alive and in your panic you blurted out the stupidest thing you found at that moment.
“I'm sorry I feel sick. May I be excused?” You answered, hoping he would let you quit class for a short amount of time.
“Nice try, but you're not going to get away that easy. We can talk more after class.”
Oh shit, Mr.Kim wants to keep me after class. And I need time to save that guy…
You were trying to find a way to quit class earlier when Eunjin turned and started being mean to you like before. What if you rewound again and gave him the right answer ? You extended your hand and rewound the time exactly when Mr.Kim asked you his question and responded with Eunjin’s earlier answer.
“The Daguerreian Process, Invented by a French painter named Louis Daguerre around 1830”.
Mr.Kim seemed genuinely surprised by your answer.
“Somebody has been reading as well as posing. Nice work Y/N.”
Eunjin send you a death glare but right now all you cared about was to save that guy.
The bell rang and once again, Mr.Kim told the class the exact same thing as earlier.
Y/N, you're not crazy, you are not dreaming. It's time to be an everyday hero. You thought
You were walking toward Mr.Kim’s desk when Jimin interrupted.
“Nice answer Y/N, Are you okay? You look pale.” He said with a genuine smile on his face
“Jimin, uh, did we talk at all today ?”
“This is the first time, what's wrong?” Jimin looked truly worried for you.
”I'm sorry, I'm just tripping. Too much stress.” You lied
“I know the feeling.”
“I wish we didn't. I do have to go, but we can talk later if you want.” This time, it was you who decided to end the conversation quickly.
“I'll see how I feel, thanks Y/N.”
Once Jimin bid you his farewell, you walked in the direction of your teacher’s desk.
You saw Mr.Kim and Eunjin talking together, you made your way toward Mr.Kim and started a conversation with him, cutting short Eunjin’s little rambling.
“Excuse me, Mr.Kim can I talk to you for a moment ?” you asked, scratching the back of your neck.
“Yes, excuse you.” Eunjin replied curtly. Mr.Kim was surprised by Eunjin’s tone. He raised his eyebrows and looked at her.
“No Eunjin, excuse us.” He ignored Eunjin’s outraged expression and turned to you. “I'd never let one of photography's future stars avoid handing in her picture.”
“I'm not avoiding, just...” you replied unsure, looking for the right words.
“Biding time, waiting for the elusive "right moment" ?”
“Exactly” you replied with a smile.
“Y/N, don't wait too long, John Lennon once said that "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans". Go on now, don't let me stop you.”
You decided to rewind time again to gain a little of time and started the conversation again and told him everything he just told you, he looked really surprised when you quoted John Lennon. In the end, he just reminded you of the deadline and told you he had faith in you (which somehow made you happy in all this mess as crazy as it sounds).
You got out of class and ran to the toilets, hoping you would have enough time to save the guy. You were all by yourself, you couldn’t tell anybody they would think you were crazy.
You entered the toilets in time and retraced every step you did few minutes ago.
You washed your face, shredded your picture, and took a photo of the blue butterfly on the bucket.
When you finished taking the picture of the insect, you heard loud voices in the bathroom.
“Leave them out of this.” You recognized the voice. Namjoon’s voice.
“I can tell everybody Kim Namjoon is a punk ass who begs like a little girl and talks to himself-“
“You don't know who the fuck I am or who you're messing around with!”
That’s it, you had to do something quickly if you wanted to save this guy from an inevitable death.
You looked behind you and saw the fire alarm button and a housekeeping trolley. The voices were getting louder and you were running out of time. You decided to trigger the fire alarm, but you needed a hammer to break the protection glass which was nowhere to be seen.
you moved the housekeeping trolley on the left and saw the hammer on the ground behind it, you broke the glass and triggered the alarm just in time.
You watched the unknown man punch Namjoon square in the face and run away. Namjoon fell on the ground because of the force of the punch.
“Another shitty day…” He said mumbling. He hid his gun under his shirt and ran out of the toilets.
That did not happen ! This cannot be real! I just saw a guy get shot and then saved him! What the fuck is going on?
Do.Not.Freak.Out. You thought.
You got out of the toilet when someone stopped you.
“Hey, do you hear that fire alarm? That means you should be outside.“ Said a menacing voice.
You looked on your right and saw the university’s security guard come to you with quick steps.
“I... Hm... Had to use the bathroom.” You answered.
“Girls always use that excuse.” He told you harshly while standing to close to you for your liking.
You could see every wrinkle on his face, his dark brown furrowed brows and his tired eyes looked right through yours.
You could tell from one quick glance he had seen a lot of bad things in his life, but it didn’t mean he could treat you like shit.
“Excuse for what?” You were seriously pissed by his tone and he was slowly but surely getting on your nerves.
“For whatever you're up to. Your face is covered in guilt.”
“The alarm tripped me out.” You defended yourself.
“Then trip on out of there missy, or are you hiding something? Huh?” He came even closer if that was possible, you were feeling really oppressed and you were sure you would have said something disrespectful to this guy if the principal hadn’t intervened on time.
“Thank you Mr.Gwon, the situation is under control. There's no emergency here.
Leave Miss Y/L/N alone and please turn off that alarm, since that's your job.”
The security guard complied. You were thankful for the principal’s help and opened the entrance door to go to the campus when the principal stopped you.
“Hold on Y/N. Come back here. You look a little stressed out. Are you okay?” You walked up to him and looked at your feet.
“I'm... I'm just a little worried about my... future.” You lied.
“You're sweating pinballs. Is that all you're thinking about? You can always be upfront with me, Y/N.” He made a small pause in his speech, and then continued
“Or have you done something wrong ... is that it? Well, Y/N? Talk to me.”
You felt a lot of pressure because of his words and you had the strange feeling that you couldn’t lie to him anymore, so you told him the truth.
“I just saw Kim Namjoon waving a gun around... in the girls’ room.”
“Kim Namjoon? Are you sure?”
“Yes, he was in the bathroom talking to himself with a gun. I saw everything! He was babbling like crazy-“
“Ok, slow down, slow down. So now you saw this... Without him seeing you ?”
“I was hiding behind a stall. I have the right to be there. It's the girl's room-“
“I know, I know, I just want to be completely clear what happened. Mr.Kim happens to be from the town's most distinguished family. And one of Busan Art College's most honored students. So, it's hard for me to see him brandishing a weapon in the girl's bathroom. So, what happened next?” You tried not to roll your eyes after his sentence. Still, you continued your tale.
“Then… Then he left. I ran out here wondering what to do. Are you going to bust him?”
“This is a serious charge. I'll consider the matter personally. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.”
“That's it? After what I told you-“
“We'll continue this discussion, later, in my office. Please go outside with the rest of your class now, Miss Y/L/N.”
Of course this academics drone won't do anything since the Kim family owns this college.
You were irritated by this situation. You got out and sat at the campus’s fountain and let your thought run freely in your head.
This day has been so insane... Everything is happening too fast... And none of it makes any sense... these visions, this power ... I keep expecting to wake up one more time... But if this is a dream, then I'm not asleep. Which means somehow ... I did rewind time... So there has to be a reason ... And I have to find out why.
You decided to take some fresh air to change your mind. Some students took advantage of the fire alarm to relax under trees while others were skating or drawing.
You felt something vibrate in the back pocket of your jean. You took out the device from your pocket and looked at your notification.
Hobi: Hi Y/N, can you get my flash drive ? I need some info, and space
Hobi: Hello ?
Y/N: Sorry, running late. insane day.
Hobi: I'll meet you in the lot. Looking cool, you'll see.
Y/N: My camera will be ready see you shortly.
Hobi: I hope so.
Okay, I better get to my dorm and grab that flash drive.
#suga x you#suga x reader#bts#bts suga#bts fanfic#bts fanfction#life is strange#kim seokjin#min yoongi#jung hoseok#kim namjoon#park jimin#kim taehyung#jeon jungkook#bts scenario#bts imagines#yoonkook#bts!au#seokjin#yoongi#hoseok#namjoon#jimin#taehyung#jungkook
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the ‘me too’ and ‘i will’ and my conflicted emotions
on tumblr, not fb or twitter, as fewer personal friends are on here, and zero co-workers / former bosses, and my real name isn’t attached.
1. What good are two words, even if spread like wildfire? Are they worth the “i don’t believe you” bullshit? Is it education? Is it activism? What good is awareness, really? Who isn’t AWARE that sexual assault is a huge problem? People who aren’t aren’t unaware. They’re willfully ignorant so as to not feel guilt, responsibility, or a call to action. They’re the victim blamers and slut shamers and “there are levels” and “that’s not so bad” and “i wish someone would do that to me” fucktwats and I don’t think two words are going to do anything.
[here i recognize that while I mostly attempt to not use gender, i sometimes will in what follows. I am speaking as a woman for women. I recognize that men are abused, sexually assaulted, and raped, and view it as equally horrifying and all that follows is a response to ALL sexual assault, not just assaults against women]
2. the response from what was probably a well-intentioned dude who doesn’t get it inspiring other dudes who don’t fucking get it: “i will” / “i believe you” / “i saw” / “i did” what the fuck ever.
Expecting applause for admitting you saw harassment happening and did nothing, or that you committed an act of harassment or assault and are recognizing finally that you’re a piece of shit is FUCKING INSANE. I am completely fucking baffled that you feel like you deserve to be applauded for recognizing your fucking garbageness. I will not say thank you, admire your bravery, or give you any fucking awards for being honest. It’s literally just as bad as continuing to do nothing. You’re co-opting our abuse and making it your cunting acceptance speech. FUCK YOU.
Anyone can type I’ll believe you / I will / all those other variations, but how many of you have stood idly by while your friends did some shady shit? How many of you have participated in marches, education spreading, reading, or have made any effort to understand and actively create change? How many of you will do ANYTHING other than type your own self-congratulatory bullshit? Because it’s my turn to say: I don’t believe you, and I’ve seen that lie before.
Many of them are asking for how they should do something about it / some variation of not knowing how to intervene. IT IS NOT ON THE VICTIMS TO TELL YOU HOW TO KEEP THEM FROM BEING ABUSED / RAPED / ASSAULTED. DO YOUR OWN GODDAMN HOMEWORK AND STOP BEING AWFUL. GODDAMN.
3. My story. Of course I’m a me too:
“Uncle Paul” who always grabbed my ass, felt my chest, kissed me on the mouth, and made certain I knew he was only waiting on “the day you’re legal, so we can really piss your mom off.” Started when I was 9 and he let me watch The Wedding Singer when he babysat me. They divorced when I was 15 or so. Don’t know what happened to him.
When I was 8, I was biking home from the local library when 3 old drunks who were sitting on their concrete fence thing started to slowly follow me, talking about my body and the things they wanted to do to it. I freaked out, biked as fast as I could to the Eckerds (defunct, now Rite Aid) and called my mom to pick me up. She said I was over-reacting. I stopped going to the library.
My youth group allowed some 19 - 22 year olds to join because they were from the local street gang and wanted help, and we didn’t have anything appropriate, and the pastor was also pretty weird (hindsight...). They called themselves the McIver Boys. One groped me and stuck his hands down my pants in the back of the church bus after giving me vodka and telling me to ‘be cool’. I was 12. He was 20.
A few months of the last one went on. There were 3 of them, but only one had messed with me so far. I had started avoiding church, but was friends with another one’s cousin, and went to stay with her over Thanksgiving. Her cousin raped me and I cried out and tried to get away. He got her brother to join him in “wrestling” me and locked me in their chest freezer. My friend got me out. I left and never went back to that church or her house. Because of my mom’s previous reaction, I never told her. I know my lack of reporting probably means other girls were victimized. I carried a lot of guilt for that for a long time, and was committed to a psych ward for a suicide attempt shortly thereafter.
I started high school. A 19? year old that hung out in our high school parking lot / talked to a lot of people I was an acquaintance of started passing me letters. He got in my space. He hovered over me and cornered me on walls and in general made unwanted advances. I told him to leave me alone. He followed me to the county fair. He showed up anywhere I was. He touched my legs and grabbed my hair. He tried to kiss me. It didn’t go further, thankfully. Eventually, another girl at our high school started dating him. He eventually left me alone.
I dated a guy after high school for less than 3 months. We had been friends beforehand, I thought, and had worked together. When I broke up with him, he got one of my friends to help him get into my house while I was sleeping where he left a note by my bed and took photos of himself on my cell phone. He then told everyone on campus I was a whore and had cheated on him. I hadn’t, but I was ostracized from certain campus groups anyway.
I dated another guy, for a pretty long time. I had been back in a psych ward and then my best friend committed suicide and I started having nightmares about my rapist again. I went back to therapy. I couldn’t have sex. It was awful, I felt awful. But this guy said I was his girlfriend and girlfriends had sex with you and I should at least help him out. I didn’t have the luxury of autonomy when I was attached. We went to couple’s therapy, then we went our separate ways.
I dated someone else. Moved out of state for them. They abused me in ways I didn’t think I’d ever let myself be abused, in ways I didn’t even recognize: coercive birth control manipulation, isolation from friends, isolation from resources, gaslighting, adultery. I felt absolutely worthless, helpless. I feared telling my two best friends on this earth because I was terrified they would not believe me. That my partner, so able to charm me, would certainly have gotten past them. I’m glad I did. They saved me. I went back to therapy. So did my partner. We’ve also gone in together.
4. Realize that these are only the worst ones. That they ignore street harassment, employer harassment, catcalling, victim shaming, and the like. That these are less than 5% of the experiences I have had, and I am not special.
5. Realize that I am a white woman in a respected industry with access to health care, birth control, therapy, and other systems of support. There are MANY who have so much less than I do, and fewer opportunities.
6. Stop talking and do something.
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we could’ve made worse mistakes ( you might imagine we did )
Series: leigh crain has powers au
Summary: Steven has ideas about the future. Children factor into it. They do. Truly.
He just didn't think it'd be this early on in his life.
Warnings: mental health issues, suicide, implied child abuse/neglect, death, one ( 1 ) use of the C slur, ableism, menstruation mention, mention of skipped meals & weight talk in the beginning
Other notes: for the discord chat (especially charlie bc ur ocs are Canon Now to me) and also myself because i have headcanons for Leigh; might rewrite the reveal-to-Shirley scene because she does seem wildly... not into it, idk
Two months have passed since they’d first slept together, two months since and she’s not seen blood. It might not mean anything, just stress over this semester’s workload, and cranky from skipping meals from time to time (not often! maybe she should snack more, at least, because she and Steve and Shirley have a little rota system of sorts so that could work out, right?), and... it doesn/t mean she’s pregnant, necessarily. They’d been careful -- birth control, protection, the works. Maybe it’s just her body being a little wonky even though she’s not underweight (not severely enough, or at all, not really), and she doesn’t feel stressed. Better than being at home. “Home”. An aunt and uncle and cousin do not make a home.
Leigh checks the test again. Checks the box to make sure she’s reading it correctly. Beside her, Steve looks them over as well, and her stomach clenches when he hisses through his teeth; she pulls her knees up to her chest when his brow wrinkles into a frown. A small noise (fear) climbs out of her mouth when Steve stays silent.
“I’m sorry.”
“Hey.” No judgement in his voice; an arm wraps around her shoulders, pressing them both together even tighter than thigh-to-thigh on the bathroom floor of their shared apartment. “It’s not your fault. It’s not...” She hears the smack of his lips as he struggles to find something comforting to say, something that sounds natural and not just scrambling to keep Leigh as calm as possible. It doesn’t seem possible right now, or even in the future; still too young for children, still too Markey for this new life, still too tied to Victor and lightning and ghosts for a real life. “We’re both in this, together, no matter what happens. If we keep it, or if we do something about it, or if... we give it up.” Pressing a kiss against her temple, stroking her hair, he says, “I don’t think I’d want to give it up if... if we don’t do something about it.”
It, it, it. So sure “it” is not a “them”. Funny how one’s genetics can mess with stuff like that. Twins, nature control, ghosts. She’s surprised there isn’t a spot of necromancy in there, either.
She has to squash it all down and pray her children (more than one, she can feel it like the night when Victor left, the traitorous shitstain) will not be infected.
Leigh doesn’t dare ask Steve. She knows what he’s told her.
It’s been a month since the test proved positive. They haven’t made any more to do something about it (them); they’ve talked about it (them), and safety nets.
“So.”
“... Yeah.”
“We’re keeping it?” He sounds excited about it. Barely, but the undercurrent is there in his voice, the shine in his eyes, the hopeful clasp of his hands around hers. The way his eyes keep flickering to her barely-there bump. He fucking should be, too -- she is.
“Yeah.” She laughs, exhaling long-held breath. “Yeah.”
Shirley is less than impressed when Leigh breaks the news over a later dinner. It starts off as a joke, “Oh I’m eating for two,” when Leigh really means three as she scarfs down a bigger helping of food. Shirley, looking between her now wide-eyed brother, looking as though he’d been caught out and wasn’t really trying to keep it a secret, and Leigh, looking like the cat with the canary and the cream.
“What the fuck?”
Leigh’s cheeky mood dips, sours. “Don’t be like that.”
“No, are you seriously--?”
Steve tries to placate his sister, reaching for her hand. “Shirl--”
“No!” Shirl whips away, hands to herself. It’s a miracle she doesn’t leave the table, calling them both careless idiots. “What’re you thinking? You can’t be having kids now!”
“Shirl.” He tries again, standing his ground; he knows where Shirl’s coming from, he does, because he’d react the same if she was in the same position. “Me and Leigh have talked about it, and we’ve decided to keep it.”
“Have you?” The question's a sharp wheeze. “Have you considered--”
“Yes, Shirl! We’ve talked about how we’re gonna be able to support our kid, with or without our family’s help.”
Leigh’s thankful there’s no mention of her own family, although she’s not sure if Shirl’s caught on yet. She hopes not.
“Oh Jesus, Stevie--” She's pressing the ball of her palms into her eyes, like the picture in front of her might change and this conversation will cease to be real, as though a the thing (the baby-to-be) in Leigh’s belly will simply disappear. “You’re actually serious about this?”
“Yes.” Joint answer. Shirley just shakes her head, but says no more about it.
When summer break rolls around, Leigh’s stomach is rounder (four months into it now) and she’s debating on whether to beg to go with Steve and Shirl (might as well meet her kids’ other aunts and uncle and great-aunt, right?), or whether to suffer under the eyes of her uncle and cousin and the fretting hands of her aunt. At least Cathleen means well. It’s not enough.
The night before leaving, before her ultimate decision, Victor slips into her dreams again. She’s tried so hard to keep him out while wishing he’d stayed and it’s only worked to make them both upset.
“This wouldn't have happened if you hadn’t killed yourself,” she says, more sulky than all the other times she’s told him this same thing. Her beloved brother, her idol, her hero, her sun-in-the-sky, her do-no-wrong posterboy, her motherfucking protector from all things wrong and evil in this world -- made her watch as he killed himself with that triangle of lightning.
Don’t look away, Leigh. Don’t look away. Don’t look away. Eyes on me. Eyes on me. Eyes on me, Leigh.
“I know,” he says, ever-regretful as all the times before. As much as she wants to hurt him (but God, no, not really, no no no), she knows how sorry he is, how much he regrets it. How he regretted it at the time, at the terrifying need to make something stop but having no other option he could see--
He lays beside her in the dewy nighttime grass as the eternal nighttime sky of their shared world rolls overhead, stars speeding past their eyes; the trees circle them widely, like nature’s earthly crown. Victor rolls over to his side, grasping her forearm in his hand. “You can’t go back there. You know that; if you want these kids to see the world, you won't go back to those assholes.” She shouldn’t be surprised that he knows about them since he’s never wholly left since that night, but it still makes her skin crawl. (Why didn’t he do something about it, as she knew he did with so many other things? With the playground bullies? With the teachers? Did he fear her falling into the foster system? What’s to fear now?)
Leigh's throat clogs; everything is thick with tears. “I know.”
“It’ll kill them. It’ll kill you.”
She’s not sure whether if it’ll merely hurt her, or if she’ll join him here. She doesn’t ask for clarification.
Steven, the oldest brother, the most responsible of the Crain siblings, returns home with Shirley and his pregnant girlfriend. His girlfriend of a year and a half, who came home for a couple of weekends over that time, who chimed in on calls home, who is known by name and middle name and surname and age and hobbies and prospective career. Theo doesn’t shake her hand, instead going in for a hug (and if Theo were to be asked, and if she were to answer honestly, she’d confess that she felt that beat of preternatural in Leigh's blood), and Leigh is relieved that she’s got at least three out of six on her side. The twins hug her, too, before they pay attention to their own siblings. Janet is much the same. A home run; six outta six. Not bad, kiddo, not bad.
Later, during a quiet game after dinner, Leigh offers to clean up with Janet, insisting on it despite everyone saying she should rest. C’mon, she's only four months along, give over.
“Have you told your parents you're not going home?” Janet asks. It’s an innocent presumption, but the weight of everything -- of her brother’s death, of her father’s death, of her mother’s unravelled mind, of her remaining family’s pewter-cold regard -- is suddenly crushing her shoulders. She takes a chair out from under the table and slumps down, leaning against the back of it. Her hands are clammy.
“Sweetheart?” Janet's hand curls around her shoulder, and this tenderness, this genuine care that’s freely given to her, shatters that last wall of preservation: she weeps. Collected into Janet’s arms, she weeps harder, howling into her shoulder, snot dribbling freely as she cries aloud how her father is dead and her mother let herself lose her mind because why stay sane for her only daughter and only surviving family? And it was all Victor’s fault that she was stuck with her stupid frail aunt and boar of an uncle and cunting bitch of a cousin and she hated them all and that's why she’s here instead because the babies would die and she would die and it’d be the end of her because all the love she’d had had been swept away when she was only eight years old.
Janet tells her she can stay. She’s home.
The twins, Diane and Michael, are born on a Monday. Twenty-third of October. Janet has promised to look after them along with Theo, Luke, and Nellie. It’s almost too good to be true, but it’s perhaps the one thing that’s worked out for Leigh and Steven so far.
When winter break swings around, Steven proposes to Leigh, down on one knee in their shitty green-carpeted living space, short fibres rough on his knee and shin. They’re both still sleepy from the late night and late rising, and they’ve only talked about this since August, but of course Leigh says yes.
It’s all too good to be a fairy tale.
Two years later, they’re on their honeymoon, and Leigh is positively pregnant again. Nine months later, Robin and Eleanor, “Nora”, are born, and it’s still too good.
Fifteen years later, Nellie’s dead. Steven sees her in his hotel room.
At home, his children see her too.
#mine#my writing#mw: the haunting of hill house#mw: rp related#wc: 1000 – 2000#series: leigh crain has powers au#ch: leigh crain#ch: steve crain#sft#/ it's not a series yet but yeet lmao#/ also only tagging leigh & steve bc it's About Them
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my birth stories
I have two beautiful, healthy daughters. They are so perfect that I don’t know how or why I am so lucky, so let me start with that. But bringing them into this world was a trauma. It doesn’t affect my love for them, but it affects my life and my mental health every day.
I’ve realized I can’t really tell the story of my second delivery, the one that almost killed me, unless I tell the story of the first one.
In the last week of 2012, I was 36 weeks pregnant and spending my time reading books about natural childbirth, practicing pain management, talking constantly with my wife about how together we would deal with my pain and anxiety during labor. We had been together for over seven years and she was well-versed in helping me through my mental health challenges, of which I had many. I completely trusted her to get me through it – I even looked forward to it as a bonding experience.
That said, I am a big fan of modern medicine and never considered anything but a standard hospital birth. I wanted to try to manage labor without intervention if I could, and my California hospital was friendly to that decision. Unfortunately for me, nobody checked my daughter’s presenting position until I was already full term, shortly after the turn of the new year. At my 37-week appointment, my OB couldn’t find her head through the cervix. An ultrasound confirmed that she was frank breech. I tried everything on spinning babies, contorting my pregnant body into so many awkward positions that I gave myself migraines. I found a chiropractor and tried the Webster technique; I found an acupuncturist and tried moxibustion. A week later, I was headed for a C-section unless I wanted to try an external cephalic version (ECV).
For a first pregnancy, the success rate of attempting to manually reposition the baby in the womb is about that of getting heads on a coin flip. I read extensively about the risks, which seemed acceptable to me, and certainly not worse than those associated with a surgical birth. My wife completely deferred to me on the decision; most other people uniformly disagreed with, or didn’t understand, my decision to try it.
I have terrible doctor anxiety, so the morning of the procedure, I was terrified. They gave me a dose of terbutaline to relax my abdominal muscles, and it felt like an awesome caffeine jolt, a feeling I sorely missed after eight months of pregnancy. But fun fact: ECVs hurt, a lot. I was cursing and grunting and crushing my wife’s hand while two doctors pushed and twisted my huge pregnant belly. Two tries were unsuccessful, and I was crying from pain. They asked me if I wanted to try one more time.
“Baby’s okay?” I croaked.
“Ultrasound and monitor look great.”
“Go for it.”
I left disappointed, but glad that I tried everything I could. They told me that I would schedule my C-section at my OB appointment the next day. Wife and I grabbed lunch on the way home since I hadn’t been allowed to eat anything before the procedure. On the drive home, I noticed a lot of discharge. I worried that they had broken my water, but didn’t say anything out loud. I could not acknowledge that thought.
In the bathroom at home I learned that it wasn’t amniotic fluid leaking onto my underwear, but bright red blood. On the drive back to the hospital I numbly thought, “Well, either they’ve damaged my internal organs or it’s a placental abruption.”
It was the latter, of course. They occur in 0.1% of ECV attempts, and I knew that, and I’d accepted those odds. After an agonizing wait for a doctor to examine me, I learned I’d be having a baby that day. I told that doctor over and over again that no, I couldn’t today, I wasn’t ready, no no no. But the baby was full term, and the placental abruption had the final say. Seven hours later (because I’d just eaten a big meal and was considered non-emergent), my E.M. arrived by C-section, healthy and beautiful.
Pretty much immediately after her birth, I plunged into the depths of post-partum depression. Looking back, I think that the birth experience was a huge contributor, and that I actually had undiagnosed symptoms of PTSD. I cried every day all the way to and from work. My panic attacks were on a hair trigger. I couldn’t read news stories about anything involving violence without feeling it had just happened to me; the internal screaming was deafening. And I knew – I just KNEW – that either my daughter or I was going to die. I didn’t know how, and I wasn’t suicidal, but I would console myself by saying, at least you got to know her for three months.
I had never planned to have more than once pregnancy. We had planned that my wife would carry the second child and after that we would foster or adopt. But by the time EM was four months old, despite my mental state or maybe because of it in some desperate cry for a do-over, I knew I wanted to carry another baby. And I was already completely immersed in VBAC literature.
In the spring of 2016, seven months pregnant with my second daughter, I told my VBAC class my birth story. When the instructor asked what I wanted from my second birth I said, “I want the chance to try it vaginally, and naturally as much as possible. But mostly, whatever happens, I want to feel connected to it. I felt so out of control with my first birth; I was completely unprepared. This time I understand that anything can happen… I just want to be emotionally present for it.”
I understood that I could wind up with a second surgery, but I was okay with that if I got to hold her right away, got to feel excitement and positive anticipation about her arrival in my arms.
Facts are facts: 1% of VBACs end in uterine rupture. Of those, 6% of the babies die.
If that were to happen to my baby, I knew I would never forgive myself. But I trusted my hospital, my doctors. It was absolutely crucial to my mental health, to my experience as a mother, that I give myself the chance to try.
They had been concerned about my blood pressure the entire pregnancy. At my first appointment at 8 weeks, my reading in their office was 180/95. When I say I have doctor anxiety, I’m not kidding – my readings at home, well into the ninth month, were in the 120s/70s. That did not matter when I clocked a 165/100 at my 39 week appointment. I got sent to labor and delivery.
I had known that they were going to try to strip my membranes to trigger labor at that appointment, and so my older daughter was already tucked away at my parents’ house. When I called my wife and told her to come to the hospital, neither of us was terribly surprised that the doctors felt it was time for new baby’s arrival. My cervix was 1cm dilated, high, and not effaced. I was given three options. Go home and wait (not recommended, but ultimately my decision), have a C-section that afternoon, or be induced.
Induced? For a VBAC? I was confused.
A “gentle” induction involves a Foley bulb to widen the cervix and a slow, low dose Pitocin drip. I was told it could take days. For all my desire for the chance for a vaginal birth, at that moment that did not sound like a marathon I was prepared to run. But I didn’t want to go home; I wanted to have the baby that day. My daughter was taken care of. My wife was there. I was ready. I wanted to meet my baby girl. I was scared and the “devil I knew” was appealing and even, in that moment, comforting. I told the resident I wanted the C-section.
One of my doctors, whom I had talked to extensively about my VBAC desire, heard about this decision and put a hold on the proceedings. He sent in another doctor to talk to me further. She was warm, empathetic, and extremely forthcoming about the procedures when I asked a million questions. Ultimately, she confirmed what I truly wanted and talked me down from my anxiety-induced decision. Despite everything that happened after, I am extremely grateful for that doctor. I wish I had told her that when she visited me the next day in the ICU with tears in her eyes. Now I don’t even remember her name.
With the decision made, they wheeled me into my delivery room. It was around 3PM. I hadn’t eaten since 8, so they let me order lunch, knowing delivery was a safe distance in the future. I can’t remember what I ate. I think there was pizza.
The placement of the Foley bulb was the first procedure. It hurt, much like bad period cramps. She had to try it twice because she couldn’t get it to stay the first time. When she told me I was all set, I smiled. She said if I could smile after that, I was going to do great.
They hooked me up to the Pitocin, and the waiting began. I watched the electronic trace of the contractions rise and fall on the monitor. I couldn’t feel anything besides muscle tightening, and wondered when the pain would begin. A few hours later, I went to the bathroom and the bulb fell out in the toilet. There was bleeding, and my heart dropped to the pit of my stomach. But my nurse was thrilled – it meant my cervix was dilated. The blood was normal.
More uneventful waiting ensued. The contractions got stronger; I could feel (and see) my abdomen tightening. Sometimes it would be strong enough that I would get a little breathless, but I still didn’t have any pain.
Women who have VBACs are highly encouraged, though not required, to get an epidural. I’d had to make peace with that months earlier, because in the event of an emergency, having an already placed epidural can be lifesaving when seconds count. It can also provide the mother with the chance to be awake for the surgical birth of her baby instead of having to undergo general anesthesia. By 9PM, I knew in my gut it was time. I cried the whole way through the procedure. I didn’t want it. I was scared of the side effects, scared of the unknown. But most of all, now I knew I was about to have my second baby, and would never get to feel a single labor pain. The feeling of loss was immense. It is not an overstatement to say that the feeling of disconnection from my body and the work it was doing was devastating.
The epidural placement went smoothly. The anesthesiologist was wonderful and tender with me through all of my emotions. When it took effect, I was surprised to feel I could still move my legs a bit, that they just felt heavy and sluggish. About an hour later, I felt like I had to pee. The nurse seemed surprised, because usually the epidural takes away the feeling in your bladder, but she gave me a bed pan. I couldn’t go.
The nurse said at this point, my job was to try to get some rest before things really got going. Wife and I lay down, and put on the TV. Ocean’s Eleven was on.
As I lay there, sleepy but knowing full well the idea of actually sleeping was laughable, I felt a little nauseated, a little dizzy, and a little sweaty. I knew labor could do that sometimes, and I knew I had drugs in my system. It may have been normal. It may have been a series of warning signs. I’ll never know.
Around 11, I think, I felt my whole body jolt, like an electric shock had run through me. That was followed shortly by a gush of fluid between my legs. I threw off the blankets and looked at the sheet, and touched the fluid on my body. It was clear – not blood, not greenish or brownish. Relief. I had to wake Wife up. “Sweetie… my water broke.”
I am so grateful for the classic labor milestones that I did get to experience.
But I was definitely not feeling well by this point. Woozy, sweaty. I have terrible anxiety and shit was getting real, so I chalked it up to that. At one point a doctor came in and repositioned my fetal monitor, the belt of electrodes around my belly.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s okay.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
I’m not sure exactly what time it happened. It feels to me now that it was very soon after my water broke, but based on the timing of the birth it must have been at least an hour later.
Out of the blue, like a truck hit me, I was enveloped by the worst pain of my life. (And keep in mind, I’d had an epidural already.) It felt like someone had reached into my body and was pulling apart my abdominal muscles. It felt like a vise gripped my bladder and twisted. It coincided with contractions. I became the classic “woman in labor screaming in the hospital bed.” I curled up on my side in the fetal position to try to get away from the pain. My nurse asked me questions, but I was in too much pain to answer her. She told me I needed a bolus of my pain relief. Wife put the controller in my hand, but I couldn’t hold onto it, and it dropped to the floor.
I thought, “Well, I guess now I know what labor feels like.” And that conclusion came with a bit of disappointment, because I knew I could never withstand that level of pain for hours, no way in hell.
But… that wasn’t labor.
The timing of the next events is hazy to me. I know that I underwent a couple more of those excruciating contractions before the frenzy began. I know that the doctor who had been occasionally checking me for dilation progress was called out of a meeting, and I know the room began to flood with people, some of them in scrubs, some of them with walkie-talkies. I know now it was because my daughter’s heart rate was dropping.
Suddenly the lights were bright. The doctor sat down at the foot of my bed and reached inside me and I will never, ever forget the puzzled look on his face.
“This baby is sky-high,” he said.
I’d read enough to know that the baby’s loss of station in the pelvis is diagnostically indicative of a uterine rupture.
The doctor went to the monitors, scanning readouts, clicking on things. “Doctor, should we get her to the OR, given her history?” a woman said.
“Just get her out,” I said. “I’m scared.”
Wife noted, and told me later, that at this point my heart rate was 155. I was tachycardic and going into hypovolemic shock. They had to wheel me to the OR without Wife, who had to get dressed and, I later learned, had to be held outside until the doctors were sure that our baby wasn’t dead. As they wheeled me down the hall, I heard one of them say the word rupture.
“My uterus ruptured?” I asked.
“Your membranes ruptured,” she said. She was protecting me, I know that now. They saw me bleeding as they were wheeling me down the hall. They knew. Wife heard them call “Condition O” over the loudspeakers. Obstetric emergency, all hands on deck.
From the time the doctor was called to check on me to the time I was cut open, a total of nine minutes passed. I was heavily drugged and woozy from blood loss, staring up at the ceiling, bright lights in my eyes. Wife wasn’t there yet. I noted that I did not feel the tugging sensation that I’d felt when they delivered E.M. I didn’t hear the baby cry, either.
I wanted to pass out. My brain really, really wanted to go to sleep. My eyes were closing and I had to fight it. I kept thinking, “If you pass out, that is bad. Don’t do it. Stay awake.”
Every time I started to feel my head spin like I was going to faint, I would look up at this woman who was standing by my head. I didn’t have to say anything; she would look at my face and know I was in trouble, and she would do something to my IV and it would fix it. I still don’t know who she was or what she was doing. Nobody has been able to answer me that.
Wife finally joined me, sat down next to my head. She had tears in her eyes but I was a little too out of it to register at that time what she must have been through. I cried and she held me, at least as much as she could while I was strapped to an operating table.
The first time we saw our daughter C.J.’s face was in an iPhone picture taken by an OR nurse. I remember gasping and sobbing twice with joy when I saw those pictures. She was okay. She was here. She was real. Her APGARs, miraculously, were 5 and 8.
I was on that operating table for two hours, about three times as long as a standard C-section procedure. I’d experienced a complete uterine rupture, which means that the contents of my uterus were open to my abdomen. When they opened me up, the placenta spontaneously delivered, and C.J. was in my upper abdomen. When I later asked how long she had been like that the answer was, “Well… it couldn’t have been very long.”
They estimated that I lost three liters of blood. They did not give me a transfusion, but did give me two units of platelets to make sure I didn’t bleed more. My rupture extended to the broad ligament on the left side, which is a long, flat, structure that connects the uterus to the abdominal wall. When I get menstrual cramps now, I still have sharp pains in that ligament – a lovely monthly reminder.
When they were confident they’d repaired the damage and the bleeding had subsided, I had some time in the ICU. I know I got to hold the baby that night, but I don’t really remember doing so. I was pretty drugged and actually slept a little; Wife sat in a chair next to me, crying. The next day I got visits from some familiar faces, many of the doctors who had treated me throughout the process. I don’t remember much about what they said to me. I tried to eat and drink but vomited everything back up. I barely had the energy to hold the baby. I felt numb.
That night I got transferred to a standard recovery room. On the surface that was great news, because it meant I was healthy enough for standard and not intensive care. But it also meant I was treated like a standard C-section patient and not one who had undergone a life-threatening event. It was one of the worst nights of my life. My anxiety was nearly unbearable, I was shaking and in pain. The oxycodone was the only thing that kept me from losing it.
For all of that night, I was unable to urinate on my own. I felt a terrible urge, but once I dragged my shredded body to the toilet, the muscles would not work to make it happen. I don’t know if that’s because I had a catheter for 24 hours or because of the rupture. Either way, it was nearly unbearable. I would send for the nurse and then sit there on the bed in agony for nearly an hour before she would finally acquiesce and straight-cath me to empty my bladder. Because the volume was too low to warrant such an extreme urge, she took me less and less seriously each time. My wife, who is not confrontational by nature, had to demand that the nurse get me Ativan to rescue me from my torment.
It’s clear to me now I must have sustained some damage to my bladder or those muscles and that caused the feelings – it was the same thing I felt soon after getting the epidural. In the morning, I was finally able to pass some urine on my own, although it would take minutes and minutes.
I spent most of the recovery period alone in the hospital. My family did visit for a few hours the next day, but for the remaining three days I sent Wife home to get rest and take care of our E.M. I needed her to be well rested so she could take care of us when we got home.
In those bleary, painful, lonely days of recovery. . . when I held C.J. to my chest, skin to skin, it was pure bliss. I was connected to her immediately, which was not the case with EM.
Which is not to say I was okay. I broke down in tears upon being woken up from a precious nap to have my blood pressure taken, and the technician chastised me sharply. “With your blood pressure history, we have to cover our butts.”
The morning I was due to be discharged, the doctor who had delivered C.J. came to check on me, and I was curled up crying. She was the first person to mention PTSD to me. I was interviewed by more than one social worker about my support network and how capable I felt to take care of my daughter.
The recovery at home was brutal. When your body has been pregnant and realizes it no longer is in that state, it works to reduce your blood volume. This is a reasonable physiological response, but when you lose three liters of blood and need to build up your supply, it is a counterproductive one. I was weak and devoid of energy. I needed so much sleep that my wife was practically a single mother for the first few weeks. The guilt was horrible, but I couldn’t fight my physiology. I literally didn’t have enough blood in my body. I ate cheeseburgers and spinach every day to combat the anemia.
The nightmares where I am being shot in a hospital parking lot, or torn open by wild animals, or holding a shriveled dead baby have only recently begun to subside.
My daughter is a year old today. I have a toddler again. She is absolutely perfect, with big blue eyes, little curly flips of hair on the back of her head, four tiny teeth, a round kissable tummy, and rolls of chub on her arms and legs. She dances like a maniac and shrieks when she’s excited, or angry, or bored, or about everything, really. Sometimes I still don’t understand how she is with us, except to realize that my doctors and nurses may not have been perfect, but I owe them her life and probably mine.
I am not religious. My spirituality derives from the science behind the mysteries of life and reality – from physics, from neurobiology. I am a human animal, and my connection to life, to nature, to evolution, is something I recognize in my rational mind and also in my gut… or in my soul, if you will. If I am to borrow the language of religion, there is nothing more “holy” in my heart than making a human life. It is a horrible, brutal, messy, terrifying, indescribable, transformative experience, and one of the most unifying components of being alive on Earth. It is one that should never be undertaken lightly and never chosen by or forced upon someone who doesn’t unequivocally want to experience it.
And for me, it is going to be a years-long, if not life long, process to accept that my experiences with pregnancy and childbirth have left me feeling disconnected from nature, betrayed by my body, and inferior to the mothers of all the generations before me. In that sense I am processing a trauma on two levels – the physical near-death experience for myself and my baby girl, and a profound sense of loss. The latter has left me unsatisfied in a very deep and spiritual way. I do NOT glamorize the pain of childbirth, but I deeply wanted to feel a baby being pushed from my body. I wanted to feel myself accomplish that. I wanted to be held by my wife while I birthed our child, whether it was in a delivery room or an operating room. I wanted a bloody, messy, wailing infant to be placed on my chest after we went through birth together.
And yes, I wanted us both to live. My gratitude that we did doesn’t erase what I feel as a loss. Those who would say things like “a healthy baby is all that matters” or “just be grateful, because 100 years ago you would have been dead” are of no use to me. Those statements tell me that you don’t see mothers as autonomous beings separate from their status as a vessel. You are no better than the people who would force a woman to go through this experience against her will. And in that vein, while my healing proceeds, one of my greatest hopes is that we as an animal species can cultivate a sense of the vitality of the dignity of mothers, in pregnancy, in labor, in birth, and in recovery.
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I was labeled the “psycho ex-girlfriend” by two different guys. Here’s my side.
For the sake of transparency, names used will be altered.
I dated Guy #1 on and off from 2005 to 2007. We’ll call him Andrew. We’d been friends since 2000 because we were in band together. Middle school brought us together as friends and then high school we still hung out regularly. My teen years were hell and he was a great friend through all of it, though very detached as a person. I was sexually assaulted by two different people, when I was 12 and then at 14. I’d had a thing for Andrew on and off for probably about 3 years before we actually started dating. I was honest about it and he was not comfortable with the idea of dating anyone. For the longest time he was very uncomfortable with sexuality in any way. I respected his wishes and we remained friends, since we still had a ton in common.
At some point he matured more and either became more knowledgeable or just grew up. He asked me out in August 2005 and I was thrilled. We were together for a few months but he broke it off. He thought we were too different romantically and had baggage he didn’t feel I should deal with. A couple months later, beginning of 2006, he asked me back, he felt that things were unfinished, and so did I. Things were going really well, but I developed feelings for someone else and so this time I broke it off. It wasn’t fair to him at all and I’m not a cheater. This was April 2006.
Fast forward 8 months, to the end of 2006. We were very close again, and we spent a great New Year’s Eve together. We hooked up (minus sex) and we talked nonstop when I went back to college. Spring break in 2007 I was back home, and we started dating again. I took his virginity and we were together. He couldn’t take the distance though, despite being a detached person who enjoyed his personal space. So he broke it off.
I came home from school in May 2007 and we hooked up, this time with a LOT of sex. We were back together for maybe 3 months and finally, in the beginning of August 2007, we were done for good. We talked here and there, hung out once or twice, but we were better not together. I had body image issues and major self-esteem issues, and I’m sure I projected that onto him. He felt it was his duty to make me feel good about myself, but I never wanted that to be his responsibility. It was my job, but I had a terrible home environment so I had very few supportive people in my life to surround myself with. Nevertheless, I’m sure it became a burden for him.
Now we’re in 2008, and I’d had some heavy shit happen. I was dating a guy since the end of August 2007, and he happens to be Guy #2. We’ll call him Ernest. Through the end of 2007 and into 2008, things got really bad at home. It became a toxic, abusive environment and I wanted to be out of there as much as possible. I spent nearly all my time with Ernest.
Despite using condoms and birth control, I became pregnant twice in 2008, and miscarried twice. The first one was because my stepmom pushed me. The second was because someone fell on me at a concert. My relationship became really controlling and abusive. Ernest would verbally abuse me, threaten to kill himself when I wanted to spend time with other people, and micromanage my every move. He never hit me, but anytime I tried to leave because he was scaring me or I felt my “fight or flight” instinct kick in, he would grab me by the wrist tightly and keep me there. He’d guilt trip me into keeping me there, saying I didn’t love him, that I was going to leave him. He was always paranoid that I was going to leave him. He hated the time I spent with friends without him and would threaten to hurt himself unless he could come or I could come see him.
Throughout all this, I was still friends with Andrew, and Ernest knew it and was okay with it because we rarely hung out. Andrew and I still confided in each other, and I thought he could still be a confidant. So I told him about all the abuse at home and in my relationship, told him about my miscarriages, and I also had one of the men who sexually assaulted me following me around and threatening me, because he worked up the street from my father’s house and knew where I lived. So I told Andrew about these things, and he was very encouraging and kind. I know it may have been weird to discuss these things with an ex, but it was a mutual separation and we’d been friends for 8 years by that point. He’d discussed his home life and personal issues as well, that it didn’t matter at all. Or so I thought.
One day in June 2008, I Googled my AIM screen name because I was looking for my old AOL Hometown page from like 2001, because I had pictures on there I wanted and I was hoping it still existed. Instead, I found a website titled, “Rachel, or as I prefer to call it, ‘Conversations With A Psycho Ex-Girlfriend’”. On this website is pages, FOLDERS of these private conversations we had. My AIM screen name was readily available and my identity was revealed to mutual friends we had, that I still associated with. These conversations detailed the abuse I was dealing with between my home life and relationship, miscarriages, and other deeply personal information. In between these lines of IM conversation, he narrated bits of information about how I lied about everything, and how I was so overly dramatic. He cut down every line of text I had written, and made me out to be a pathological liar. By the time I found it and called him requesting he take it down, it had apparently been up for months and he just kept adding to it. He took it down and sent me the archive, laughing and sneering the entire time. I removed him from all social media and cut him off completely.
Now back to Ernest. I was smack dab in the middle of an abusive relationship and I had no idea. All I knew at the time was I was growing more and more depressed and felt trapped in my situation. I loved him and didn’t want to make him upset. I was so blind to the abuse at the time, but I had friends questioning the fact that I was spending every minute with him and ditching them for him, though they didn’t know why. I was back to self-harm and tried to take my own life but nobody knew. He experienced my self-harm but he didn’t know I tried killing myself. The relationship had gotten that bad and I knew if I’d let on he would be triggered. When he saw I was self-harming, he was self-harming too out of “guilt”. I saw what was happening to myself and put myself in check. I didn’t want to die, I didn’t want to keep hurting.
I was out of school at this point, he made me come back home to Jersey from New Hampshire where I’d been going to school in the middle of the spring semester in 2008. So I left that school and enrolled in a state school. I began again September 2008, and our relationship was finally much better. My mental health was in check, his was as well because he was back in school also, and there was distance but not much since I was only an hour away. He was still micro-managing me, however. He demanded all of my time, even if I was in class and he was as well. But he finally wasn’t self-harming or threatening suicide.
Then, for Halloween weekend, my best friend drove to visit me at school. She came of her own accord, made all the plans, was paying for everything for me since I was broke, and was driving herself down. Ernest wanted to come too, but my best friend messaged him explaining it was going to be a girls’ weekend. She hadn’t seen me since I left for school, whereas he’d seen me a few weeks prior when he was visiting potential colleges. He was pissed at first because he was insisting on riding with her, but then his parents wouldn’t let him go. Then he backed up from the situation and agreed he was being unreasonable, and things were fine. Then, however, on Halloween itself, he broke up with me. Ernest said that Toni was controlling me and my every decision and it was interfering with our relationship. He turned around and made me out to be psychotic.
Did I have issues? Yes, absolutely. But I got help, put myself in check, and learned from my relationship with Andrew to not project that onto him. It was not his job to fix me. Not to mention Ernest caused most of the issues I was having! I was so happy to be rid of him. I did so much better after that.
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Sensitive (or Shout)
Day 4 of Nursey Week!
The majority of this takes place at a doctor’s office, so trigger warning for symptom discussion (although actually a lot of that is implicit instead of explicit), diagnosis and medication and stuff.
Also on AO3 here.
“I just have to take a few details, Derek, and then we can have a chat. What is your date of birth?”
“Er, February the fourteenth, 1996.”
“Valentine’s Day!” Nursey just stared, unimpressed, at the doctor, who smiled a little sheepishly. “Happy birthday for Tuesday.”
“Sure,” he replied stiffly. Being in the doctor’s office a few days before his sixteenth birthday wasn’t what he would describe as ‘happy’.
“And you are a student at Phillips Academy?”
“That’s right.”
“Are you sure you would not rather have a teacher in here with you?” The doctor glanced at Andy.
“I’m sure. I don’t want to talk about this in front of either of them.” Derek nodded his head in the direction of the waiting room, where the two teachers who had brought them out of school to come to the doctor’s office waited.
“You would like your friend to stay, though? Brother?”
The noise Andy made almost made Derek crack a smile. They didn’t look anything like each other. They weren’t even remotely the same ethnicity.
“Friend, and yes.”
“Okay. Tell me what the matter is.”
“I feel tired all the time. Or not even tired, but I want to sleep. My dorm buddies have to practically drag me out of bed every morning. I just don’t want to do anything. Nothing’s interesting.”
He saw, in the doctor’s eyes, the moment she decided that Derek was wasting her time. “That is a perfectly normal feeling for teenagers of your age,” she started.
“No, you don’t understand,” Andy cut across. “We live in a dorm with ten other people, so I know teenagers our age. This is more than is just a normal amount of sleeping in, or apathy towards classes. He doesn’t care about anything anymore. Not even hockey, and he loves that shit. And compared to the beginning of the year-”
“Sir, I promise you, this might not be something everyone feels, but I see a lot of teenagers who have gone off a hobby they used to have.”
“At the beginning of the school year, he was interested in everything. He wasn’t sleeping, because he had too much to do. He was happy. Almost too happy.”
“Yeah, there were times it got really scary,” Derek agreed. Tears pricked in his eyes. He never cried in public, but the past few weeks he had felt more and more sensitive. He bit on his lip until it hurt, and the urge to cry disappeared.
The doctor’s attention had been caught, now. “How long did this enthusiasm last?”
Derek and Andy shared a look. “A few months, maybe. It started when it was still the summer, and by Thanksgiving, I’d mellowed out.”
“He was back to himself again in November,” Andy said with a nod.
“And this recent dip in mood, when did that start?”
“A couple of weeks ago,” Andy said. “I know that’s not really long enough to get a picture with things like this, but it’s been long enough to affect his schoolwork and hockey, so I persuaded him to let us bring him here anyway.”
The doctor hummed thoughtfully. She reached for a thick book on the shelf behind her, and flicked through it until she found something. “I would like to ask you a few questions, Derek. I want you to answer with your own thoughts and feelings, not influenced by what you think I should hear, or what your friend might think or want to hear.”
Derek nodded. “Okay.”
“The first questions, I would like you to answer with how you have been feeling the past couple of weeks. If you could reply with whether you have felt it nearly every day, on more than half the days in those couple of weeks, just on some days, or not at all,” she told him, and then she started asking the same questions Derek and Andy had found on a site about depression a few nights before. Derek let out a shaky sigh before he started to reply. He had done this test online, and come out as severely depressed. He could see the doctor’s lips growing tighter as he answered ‘nearly every day’ for each question, until he told her that he had not had any suicidal thoughts and she relaxed almost immediately. It wasn’t completely true, but given that even if he had had the energy to act on them, they had only been fleeting notions, he and Andy had decided that the best thing would be not to mention them.
“Okay, it sounds like you have been suffering from a depressive episode, and given what you were telling me earlier, I have some more questions about what you experienced at the beginning of the school year.”
This, Derek hadn’t expected. His mouth dropped open a little, but he nodded.
“You can just answer these with yes or no,” she told him. She asked a string of questions, nearly all of which Derek, with barely any hesitation, answered yes to. “You were more interested in sex than usual?”
“Oh, no,” he said easily. She seemed a little surprised that he had actually answered negatively, but without pressing it, she moved onto the next question.
“Do you have any family history of bipolar disorder?”
Derek frowned. “Uh, I don’t know. I don’t think so?”
She smiled softly. “I will have to ring your parents for consent to prescribe you any medication, so I can ask them myself. Do you know what bipolar disorder is?”
Derek shrugged. “Like mood swings and stuff?”
“Not really. It is a mood disorder, but it does not ‘swing’ in the way people think. It is characterized by manic and depressive episodes. These can each last months, or for some people even years, and there are usually periods in between where you are not suffering any sort of episode, and these periods of normality can also last between months and years. The fact that it has only been a few months since your last manic episode may suggest rapid cycling, so I would like to get you on mood stabilizers as quickly as possible. Because of the nature of the disorder, I would also like to set up regular meetings with you.”
“With you? Not a therapist?” Andy asked in confusion.
“With Derek’s description of his feelings, I can be fairly certain bipolar is the correct diagnosis, but it will be easier to tell if anything else changes, or if the episodes of hallucination and dissociation worsen, if I am monitoring him myself. Those are psychotic symptoms, and while they are an aspect of mania for some people with bipolar, they may indicate another issue. Similarly, the fact that he reports no change in his sex drive—”
“He’s fifteen.”
“Which is exactly the age I would expect more fluctuation in interest in sex, whether combined with an affective disorder or not.”
“But he’s-”
It was as if something snapped inside Derek. “He’s right here,” he hissed. “Why does it matter if I don’t care about sex? Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing considering it’s not even legal for me to have sex yet. And I live at school. It would be kind of weird if I was attracted to anyone I live with, or wanting to masturbate or any of that shit.”
Andy was staring at him with a strange look on his face, now.
“Okay,” the doctor said softly, as if Derek was some fragile child who needed to be handled with gloves. “I have some booklets you can read for more information, and while you are looking at those, I will ring your parents and we can see about getting you on some medication, okay?”
Derek bristled, but nodded.
Andy came into his room that evening after dinner, while Derek was lying in bed, staring at the new pot of pills on his desk.
“Hey, there.”
Derek didn’t reply. He just shuffled across so that there was space for Andy to slide under the covers next to him.
“How are you feeling?”
“The same. A little confused. Totally overwhelmed. Like I should have cried by now but nothing’s happening.”
“It’s a lot.”
Derek wanted to scream at Andy that he had no idea. Instead, he pressed his lips together and turned his face into the pillow.
“I do have a question.”
“Yeah?”
Andy took a while to formulate what he wanted to ask. Derek almost started to drift off to sleep. “Were you serious? Have you never had a crush or anything on anyone here?”
“I’ve never had a crush on anyone. Except maybe in elementary school, this one girl, but I don’t think kid crushes count. I don’t want to think about people like that. Not here.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like you can control how you feel about people.”
Derek frowned. He didn’t know what Andy meant, or where he was going with this.
“I just— Never mind.” They lay there in silence for a while. Finally, Andy seemed to decide he couldn’t let the topic drop. “Just most people do have crushes on other people at school. It’s normal. It wouldn’t be weird if you did.”
Something about the conversation set Derek on edge. It had already been a difficult day, and all he wanted to do was sleep. “But it is weird that I don’t. That’s what you’re trying to say, isn’t it?”
“For God’s sake, stop being so sen—”
Andy cut himself off with an intake of breath. They stared at each other warily.
“Stop being so sensitive?”
“Shit, I’m sorry. I don’t mean that. I know it’s been a horrible day. You have a right to be upset right now. It’s not a bad thing if you’re feeling a bit touchy, or if you don’t have any crushes, or if that never changes or anything. I’m not saying it’s weird. I’m just— I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”
His eyes darted upwards, which Derek knew was a tic of Andy’s when he was lying. He bit his lip and rolled over. “I just want to sleep, okay? You can stay if you want, but I want to sleep.”
There was a soft sigh, and the brush of fingers over his hair before Andy settled his arm around Derek’s waist and they fell into silence.
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This Is How It Gets Better
This is a story of how it gets better.
This is about overcoming years of manipulation and emotional abuse.
This is about breaking free from a persona I've created of myself.
This is about being myself, embracing myself, and knowing my self-worth.
This is my story of self-love.
Chapter 1: This Isn't Even Me
For the most part, I didn't really like high school. The two years I regret the most are Grade 8 and 9, because there hadn't been a more significant time where I was not myself. It was a typical 'new kid trying to fit in' situation, and I surprisingly managed to feel like I did blend in with everyone else. It was also the first time I felt popular and I'm almost 100% sure that was the only motivation that kept me going with this outward masked identity for two years.
I was everything I knew I wasn't. I followed trends, I managed to get a boyfriend (which literally surprised everyone including myself), I must've been outgoing (considering all the people I met), I woke up earlier than I do for most of my classes now just to straighten (though I like to use the word 'damage') my precious curly hair that I love so much... *sigh* the list goes on. Everything just felt so wrong and at some point, I just wanted to drop the role and be myself.
Chapter 2: Unloved, Mistrusted, Broken
The thing is that there were so many other things going on as well. This drastic change from being this quiet, shy, and innocent girl I was known to be in elementary school to who I became once I entered high school (whom I don't even know how to describe) had shook everyone, and suddenly, my world had flipped. So many questions raised from myself and others. From 'Who am I? Why am I doing this again?' to 'Where are you going anyway? What are you doing?'
What hurts the most is that the biggest assumptions came from loved ones, and eventually, I started believing that I was no more than labels. Labels such as 'slut', 'no future', 'wasted life', 'stupid', 'dumb', 'disgrace of a daughter,' etc. I was not trusted, I felt extremely unloved, and after two years of emotional abuse, it broke me to the point where I became suicidal. The monster in this story was everyone against me. It took me and ate up all of the love and respect I ever had for myself.
Chapter 3: Existential Crisis
Along with external battles, the most significant ones happen within ourselves. Not only was I having to deal with the environment around me, I was already breaking beforehand on the inside. I never realized that I didn't like what I was doing, yet I did it anyway. It became a battle between my mind and my heart. My mind was telling me that I needed to fit it, and my heart was telling me to drop the act. Looking back, I never thought I'd get my first existential crisis (that I was aware of) at 14/15-years-old.
I was going through so much stuff all at once. First off, I kept questioning why exactly I was receiving harsh treatment from my loved ones, as well as why I wasn't being myself at school. 'Have I not always been a good person? What have I done to receive this kind of treatment? What will it take for this nightmare to end? Am I really what they think I am?' -- Lindsey, of course not.
Chapter 4: Solitude & Healing
At the end of Grade 9, I had an epiphany as I was watching other performers at a dance competition. I decided that I have had enough of mistreatment that I did not deserve and I was exhausted of not being my true self to those around me and myself. I threw away the idea of 'fitting in' and replaced it with a new project. Another great change within was going to happen, but this time, it was only for me.
In Grade 10, I spent a lot of time by myself, because I was figuring stuff out, as well as keeping quiet out of fear for worse situations. Physically speaking, I had stopped damaging my hair with heat and I started dressing the way I wanted to dress. Inside, I was still broken, sad, and angry, as I was recovering from trauma that had not fully stopped, but had calmed down. It's hard to recover from people who hurt you when you live with them, and even harder when there isn't accountability from the perpetrator(s). Despite the bad experiences, I lived with hope in my heart that I would one day heal and my life would get better.
Chapter 5: Take Back What You Said
Now that I think more about it, 16-year-old Lindsey was my 'angst-teen' era. Despite becoming very attached to the Catholic faith at the time, I was ironically judgemental towards those who did not have faith in God, or who claimed they did, but still continued doing bad things. I wanted to prove to my family that they got it all wrong, almost that I had adapted their own judgements, but it was obviously done in a very unhealthy way.
Bashing others and their life choices didn't make me look or feel any better. I was being negative towards others and myself, when what I needed was optimism, hope, and love. After a year of hateful attitude towards basically my whole grade, I took a step back and decided that I should stop this unhealthy 'I'm better than you' comparison habit that I had developed in order to cope with the trauma of misconstrued labels placed upon me. The journey of self-love doesn't develop when you're comparing yourself to others. It starts when you start taking responsibility for your actions and start making better decisions on how you want to live your life.
Chapter 6: Be What You Believe In
After having my second existential crisis, most things went uphill from there on out. I discovered role models that I could look up to, drowned myself in positivity and self-help books, and most importantly, I started to regain love and respect for myself. The depressing feelings that I had were slowly, but surely making their way out. More than three years after the start of my trauma, 2015 was a whirlwind of obstacles (read This Is My Story for more details) and I wasn't fully stable from what I've been through from the past.
Aside from it being a difficult year, it was also very empowering. My trip to France that year was a huge highlight. I fell in love with the country because of the feelings it gave me. It had given me new perspectives -- the notion that there are so many places to explore in the world, that there are so many people out there to meet, and that life can be so beautiful and worth living if you choose to make it that way.
It was also the year I created Livin'Lin which was a project I've been wanting to do for years, and look where its brought me. Look where I've brought myself!
Chapter 7: Hi, I'm Lindsey, aka Livin'Lin, aka That Girl In The Yellow Jacket
You know how everyone has a story to tell? That one story that has shaped them into being who they are now? What you've just read is that story for me. For that reason alone, despite my past self going through the lowest of times, it's for those experiences that I overcame which remind me of how strong I really am.
Most days, I am proud of who I am and I am so thankful to be here.
If I hadn't decided to be myself, I wouldn't have found some of the best and closest friends I have now. If I hadn't decided to kill myself, I wouldn't be able to be my little brother's role model. If I hadn't decided to take a stand against false labels and home bullies, I would not have been the outspoken, shameless, and badass woman I am now.
If you've made it this far, thank you.
This story means so much to me.
MENTAL HEALTH NOTE:
If you're wondering why I've decided to share this story, it's because it empowers me to open up about experiences I could not talk about before. With such traumatic experiences, it's no doubt that the healing process will be lengthy and full of surprises. In fact, I didn't even realize I was being emotionally abused until I saw a Buzzfeed video last year on the subject that still brings me to tears whenever I watch it. I used to think about abuse as physical abuse, but later on, I found out that abuse can also destroy you mentally.
I also didn't realize I was being manipulated by someone until a few weeks ago when I was having another introspective moment at night, wondering more of the why in my creation of false self-image in my early teens.
This story still causes me to break down when I talk about it (oh man, I bawled my eyes out when I was writing the first three chapters that I had to take a walk), but I've gotten a lot better at controlling myself.
The summer of 2015, I went to my family doctor and told her that I may be depressed because of what I had been through. At the time, I was very scared of labels like that, fearing that despite my hard work in becoming better, I was actually a mess. I started telling her My Story and burst into tears; resulting in me not being able to finish it. My diagnosis was social anxiety, PTSD, and situational depression.
For a long time, I've been quiet about what has happened to me, because it brings back (mostly) terrible memories. I endured being severely anxious to speak to loved ones, out of fear that what ever I was going to say was going to be misconstrued and turned against me. I was scared for a long time, so what ever growth I was going through, I kept to myself.
From the birth of Livin'Lin to now, I've opened up so much towards myself, my friends, my classmates, my family, and whoever reads my words online. If I could go back in time, I would tell my younger self that what ever she is experiencing, she will get through it, because she is so much stronger than what others think of her. She is a warrior and she can get through anything life throws at her. I want her to know that even though she didn't receive the love she needed, she found it within herself. And when she discovered that love, she would share it with the world to inspire others, bring happiness into their lives, and hope that they also discover their full potential.
To my readers, to the countless strangers who have sent me long messages that weren't necessary, not a day goes by that I'm head-over-heels thankful that I made all of the decisions I've made so far in my life. I dreamed of having my voice heard for a long time and because of me creating this blog, my voice was heard, and now, I only want to create an even bigger impact.
Remember that you're the one in control of your own life and you have all of this power inside of you to do some good in this world. Even if you haven't found it, believe that you will. -- You are loved, you are so important, and you are so special -- the world is just waiting for you to share your soul with them.
Love, always
Lindsey xoxo
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Muffled in German Luxury
By Paul Teodo & Tom Myers
The following is an excerpt from the forthcoming novel Call Me Z by Paul Teodo and Tom Myers.
I HAD NOTHING TO REPORT, AND NO ONE TO REPORT IT TO. It was barely noon. I lived alone. I hadn’t spoken to my ex in twelve years. My two boys were gone, one in Fiji teaching yoga and meditation, the other living in the city at a job he’d just started. They didn’t need my grief. My dog loved me, but lately I bored him. Most likely when I got home I’d find a pile on the floor to welcome me.
I’d clean out the office later. I found my car in the visitor lot where I always parked. I pressed my fob. Nothing, not a twitch or honk or anything. Again. Nothing. Dead. Just like me. I stabbed the key into the door and twisted the lock open. I slid into the seat. My soggy suit stuck to my chilled skin.
And yes, Rebecca was gone. After four years she left the ring on the nightstand and shut the door. She had pushed for that ring. But we never set the date. Never called me her fiancé. Walked out with a sad look on her face, but not enough sadness to get her to stay. Maybe we weren’t a good fit either. I don’t think it was the drinking. I kept that from her pretty good. And the few times I didn’t she joined in. Her reasons were just as clear as Greta’s. “We’re going nowhere. We don’t communicate. You’re far away and we have no future.” Stuff I knew was more true than not. So instead of fighting for us, I let us drift away.
A triple Dewar’s White Label with a splash of water would go good right now, but I almost had a year. The last time I had that drink I woke up in Mexico, lying on a cot embracing a bearded goat. Turns out I’m not a farm animal kind of guy. So I wouldn’t let Rebecca’s rejection and the evisceration by Greta with all its accompanying humiliation drive me to the bottle.
I could hear Tommy telling me, “Cunning, baffling, powerful.” He talked like that. He worried too much. He was my sponsor.
I should call him. I always felt better when I did. He’d chew my ass. But I was sixty, not a kid. And I just got fired.
I started the car. Cold air blasted my legs. I was jumpy, rubbing my hands together, waiting for the warmth. Some idiot was barking on sports talk radio. I didn’t need his big mouth yelling at me. He was trying to make everything sound important or profound, but like he was from the neighborhood. He probably was a media-wise shill from an Ivy League school knocking down a couple hundred K a year selling Viagra to guys who didn’t have anything better to do in the middle of the day. Now I was one of them. How long before I started calling in?
I’ll call Tommy instead. He’d give me his crap, and I’d listen, then feel better, and then he’d throw in, “Let’s go to a meeting.” A meeting was his answer for everything. Sometimes, you know, it’s not. Sometimes, you have to hit the problem between the eyes. He’d always say, “Pause, pray, proceed.” Sometimes, it was just too much. I threw on Puccini’ instead. Tosca. Depressing as hell, full of torture, murder, and suicide, but the music was beautiful.
I backed up my Audi. The white Crown Vic patrol car I signed a requisition for just a few months ago edged closer. For Christ sake, what did Greta think? I was going to go nuts? Randy, the old guy, sat behind the wheel, Brylcreemed hair and weird handlebar mustache. Junior, his sidekick, a steroid pumped, over-caffeinated, blonde kid coiled next to him, ready to jump out of the car. Both carefully watching to make sure I left without incident. Security. Highlands’ finest.
I threw it into gear. Randy and Junior in pursuit. What the hell, give them something to do, I’d liven up their day, and make them earn their money. I drove slowly around the campus heading towards Greta’s office. Would they just follow me or flip on their lights? Training would indicate caution, but no lights. I shouldn’t be doing this. One was old, near retirement, and the other’s juice-strained mind was totally unpredictable. As I exited the campus they looked relieved, staring between the wipers on the Crown Vic. With a nod they each saluted, acknowledging my final departure. I was touched by their deference and disappointed in my behavior.
My phone buzzed. It was stuck inside my wet pants. I yanked it out, ripping my pocket. I flipped it open. “Boss, Joe. What the hell happened?”
“Just wasn’t working out, Joe.”
“You get canned?”
“Did you talk to Jenna?” Joe and Jenna got along. He said he had a daughter that reminded him of her. Gullible and kind of quiet. She and her three kids lived with Joe and his wife. The kids were all under seven. Joe joked that he’d take any overtime he could get just to stay away from the nut-house.
I took a deep breath. Why make it worse for Joe? I was his guy and his misplaced loyalty could screw up his job. He only had three years left to retirement. “Mutual understanding, Joe. Not my kinda place and Greta agreed. I’ll land on my feet, and things will keep going at The Highlands.”
Joe cleared his throat hard and coughed. He quit smoking years ago but he was still paying for his vice.
“Okay boss, wish you well. Keep in touch. You always had my back.”
“Joe.”
“Yeah?“
“Get that temp down in the OR for our good friend.”
He hacked again. I could see his neck turning red. “Fuck him, boss. And fuck his cold dead wife.”
“Take care, buddy.”
“Keep in touch.”
Nobody keeps in touch.
“I will.”
✶
I DROVE AROUND AIMLESSLY, THE SCOTCH CREEPING BACK INTO MY HEAD. I was done with Puccini. I put “Sona Andati,” the death aria from LaBoheme, into the CD player, trying to distract myself. It didn’t work. I shut it off before I looked for an oven to stick my head in. No real taverns in this town. I needed to call Tommy before I settled on a cocktail lounge attached to a sushi bar. It was noon and the streets were jammed with stylized fashionistas in hybrid SUVs driving their car-seated darlings who’d been born in our Taj Mahal Birthing Center to ballet, voice, or parent-toddler yoga. Having taken advantage of our Women’s Self Improvement Center, they wore their expensive yoga pants with great pride, bejeweled hands wrapped around a caramel low-fat macchiato, designer water bottle at the ready.
I couldn’t drive and dial. Even with this damn flip phone. I pulled into the parking lot of a dog groomer. An eight inch miniature something or other, tethered to a blue spring-loaded leash with a black satin harness, led its mistress towards an Audi A-8.
I pecked at the buttons like a hooded hawk. I could never remember his number. I had it stored in my phone but any attempt at technology made me sweat. First attempt got me a bakery, the next a Chinese woman, and the third an old guy who wanted to talk and didn’t care if it was the wrong number. Finally Tommy picked up. ”State your business.” His usual greeting.
“Tommy.”
“What’s up?”
“You got a minute?”
“You drinkin’?” Every time. Every single time.
“No.”
“Good.”
“It’s not just about drinking.”
“It is with us. We drink. We got no chance. So it’s all about drinking or not drinking. What’s up?”
I felt like throwing the phone out the window. Aiming at the miniature mutt whose shrill bark penetrated like a police whistle.
“What’s that?”
“Dog. Sort of. One of those squawkers.”
“Sounds like it’s being tortured.”
“I wish.” Its mistress lifted the horrible creature into her Audi. It spun in circles on the back seat. She closed the door on its high pitched yap, muffling it in German luxury.
“What happened? Did you shoot it?”
“I got fired.”
“Good. You didn’t belong there. I’m surprised you lasted as long as you did.”
Asshole. He didn’t even take a breath.
“Okay meet me at the 2 p.m. meeting at the firehouse.”
“No.”
“Really, what you got better to do?”
“No meeting.”
“I’ll meet you at Nina’s Coffee Shop at two.”
“That’s in the city.”
“That’s where you belong.”
Tommy clicked off his phone never giving me a chance to respond to his invite. It wasn’t an invite, it was an order. That’s how he operated. I hated it, and it was good for me. I was soaked. I should change. But if I went home and put on dry clothes I’d never make it by two. It was miles of busted up black top, potholes, trucks, smoke, and congestion. Two hours travel time, minimum. What the hell. I felt like a bum, just getting fired, might as well look like one. I’d fit in fine at Nina’s.
People snaking along this God-forsaken, cruelly misnamed expressway looked like zombies propped up behind the wheel in their seats. How the fuck did they do this every day?
For once the weather-guessers had been right. It had gotten colder and the drizzle turned to sleet. My teeth chattered. I banged on the vent, no evidence of warmth appeared. And my swollen prostate needed a place to piss.
I drove east. The gorilla inside me calling Tommy every vile name it could conjure. Traffic was surprisingly clear when I caught the 355 extension towards the Stevenson. You never let yourself think that in Chicago. The hell started as the ramp merged. First with the orange signs. Construction. Down to one lane. Forty-five miles-per-hour speed limit. And nobody, not one goddamn person around. Not a hard hat or yellow vest. Everything blocked off and not a soul carrying out construction.
A bearded, leather-jacketed asshole on a Harley, replete in red bandanna, shades and cigar swept by on the left claiming that all-important extra six feet of travel time, forcing me to jam on my brakes, skid and miss him by only inches. He raised his leather-gloved middle finger as I regained control.
Only thirty miles left.
We crawled through the deserted construction zone never topping fifteen miles-per-hour. My windows fogged. My suit grew musty. Forty minutes later traffic cleared slightly and we reached the breakneck speed of twenty-five miles-per-hour. People snaking along this God-forsaken, cruelly misnamed expressway looked like zombies propped up behind the wheel in their seats. How the fuck did they do this every day?
Eventually the construction cleared, I gunned it and shot between two semis belching smoke. As I passed the Harley, he saluted again. I didn’t wave goodbye. Then a jolt rattled the right side of my car, the vibration like an electrical shock through my hands. Pothole. Shit. The front end continued to shake. The steering wheel danced like it had a mind of its own and was happy with what just happened.
Pull off? Here, in the middle of semi-hell? The shoulders on this road were invitations for death. All I could do was slow down, and proceed. At best I’d wobble into Nina’s with a bent rim and malfunctioning suspension.
I exited at California near the Cook County Jail and immediately came to a stop behind a dirty green articulated bus. Four miles left. Inside the car was now a steam room. Droplets of foul smelling sweat dampened my seat. My disfigured vehicle no longer moved in a straight line, I relaxed my hands on the steering wheel, and tried to catch my breath. I unhinged my jaw which had been locked shut for the past ninety minutes. Just miles from my destination, I was trapped behind the world’s slowest moving vehicle and flanked by a continuous parade of broken cars dragging bumpers, tailpipes, and trailers overflowing with decrepit furniture, soon to be delivered to a home instead of the dumpster where it belonged. I loved this city despite its infamous traffic.
Thank you, Tommy, yeah, this is exactly what I needed.
The bus was a permanent fixture. It wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe it was housing for the homeless. It was definitely a stretch to call it transportation.
I saw an opening, snapped the steering wheel to the left and shot around the bus. The car responded angrily shaking and shimmying as if the front wheels were pointed in different directions.
Proud of myself, I looked in the rear view mirror to see how much distance I had put between me and the bus. My eyes were distracted by blue swirling lights following me. I didn’t need this crap. “Pull over, sir.” The cop’s loudspeaker blared. At least he gave me due respect. It’d been a long time since I’d been called sir by anyone.
I needed a drink. In a real tavern with a sticky stinking bar, dirt on the floor, and people who served you by just nodding their head. I could pull over, slide in, and drift away for days talking with construction workers, the homeless, and hangers on. Or I could be left alone. Those places knew how to leave you the fuck alone.
I momentarily thought of making a run for it. But with a wobbly front end, a foggy windshield, and congested streets I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. I put the bar on hold and adhered to the cop’s order. I slowly guided my damaged car into a lot that serviced a small strip mall containing a currency exchange, a cigarette store, and a beauty salon featuring nails, weaves, and extensions. A crowd of about a dozen young punks dressed in black, saggy pants defying gravity, some with braided hair, but mostly bald, shuffled about, music blaring, passing joints and bottles in brown paper bags.
Now I was grateful that the squad followed me in.
A freckle-faced redheaded cop exited his vehicle, hand at his side gripping his pistol. The crowd taunting, pointing back and forth between the two of us. The cop’s eyes constantly shifted between me and the group. I rolled down my window “License, registration, and insurance,” he said, eyes on the kids. “Slowly,” he emphasized as I rummaged through my glove box.
Methodically, I pulled the documents from the box and placed each, one by one, into the redhead’s hand. He didn’t belong here, nor did I. His eyes kept a constant scan on the parking lot. The music pounded louder. The wind chilled my still damp body through the open window. “Wait here.” He turned and walked back to his car.
Fucking Tommy. He drags me forty miles from home to a parking lot full of gangbangers. What the hell was I doing?
The young cop returned after running my stuff. He handed me an orange and white citation. “You can show up in court, or…” both our backs stiffened as the blaring music somehow grew more threatening, “or pay direct. Your choice.”
“Thanks.” I said. My window swiftly rising, providing a false sense of security.
He began to leave. He turned, “and your front end is out of whack. If you’re gonna be driving around here, you need a car that works.”
No shit. I acknowledged his advice with a wave through my closed window.
I studied the ticket. Improper lane use. $125. Do not send cash. Lucky me.
I eased slowly through the lot to return to the street. The kids didn’t move. My car wobbled even more. “Better get that fixed.” One of them laughed and kicked at the front end. I hit the gas and sped out of the lot.
Finally I pulled up to Nina’s. Soaked from the elements and my own fear. I exited my damaged vehicle spotting Tommy through the dirty window sitting alone at a table, his starched white collar peeking from under his gray hooded sweat shirt, his foot tapping to the beat of Wilson Pickett. He was fidgeting with the menu, his gnarled hands scarred from years in the ring.
I rushed in, the bell above the door jingling, my prostate screaming for a bathroom. I made a bee-line for the toilet. He looked up. “Any trouble getting here?”
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