#ive mentioned it before but man. he really attempted a murder-suicide with him | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

optimistic-dinosaur-nacho · 4 years

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Chapter XII

Warnings: Violence, Murder, Mentions of Murder, Language, Mentions of Rape, Mentions of Suicide Summary: Y/N is Andy and Laurie Barber’s 14-year-old daughter who is a high-grade student in Archer Middle School. Her best friend, Alice Miller had been gone for a while. They search for the lost student and find out that Alice Miller’s body has the prints of Andy and Laurie Barber’s daughter, Y/N.

Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII Chapter XIII

—DEFENDING JACOB SPOILERS—

Your Full Name Initials - F/N/I

Also some sad dog scene. Very sad. Not abuse no that would’ve been a warning but it’s not that. No gore either

~~~

“You’ve been with the state’s crime lab how long?” Neal asked. The woman at the witness stand sighs, “Eleven years, almost 12,” She replied. Neal nods, “Ms. Carlson, could you describe the blood evidence at the point of attack?”

“There were a few small spatters less than an inch in diameter,” She says. Neal looks over to the jury, “Yesterday, we heard defense contend that there should have been blood on the clothing of an attacker in a stabbing like this.”

Andy shuffles in his chair. “Do you have an opinion on that?” Neal asks.

“Yes. That’s not necessarily true, since no spatter seemed to cast off with force. It’s also possible the assailant stood behind the victim when she stabbed him which would have meant she was out of the trajectory of any spray or spatter.”

Laurie gotten a flashback when she first caught Y/N almost hurting another girl at the bowling alley. Y/N went to attack from behind. She shook her head. “What can you tell us about the murder weapon?” Neal asks.

“We were looking for a knife with a four- to six-inch blade and a serrated-edge.” Neal walks over and pulls out a box from under his table, “I see.” Andy leans forward to right somethings down. “So, a knife like this one?” Neal asked.

Andy turns to the recent call from Neal, lifting up his head, his blood ran cold when Neal held up a familiar blade. “Objection,” Joanna says. “Commonwealth moves to enter into evidence--”

“Objection!” Joanna calls, everyone seem to whisper and gasp at the slightest. Neal looks at French, “Your Honor, the jury will soon hear testimony from the defendant’s best friend that the defendant owned a knife exactly like this one: a Schnell Tactical.” Neal was holding it up towards the jury.

“Your Honor, this is a cheap stunt. The Commonwealth had yet to link any such knife to the defendant, and to wave it around in here now is irresponsible. It’s inflammatory,” Joanna states.

“Agreed. Objection sustained. Put away the knife, Mr. Logiudice,” Judge French says lowly. Neal nods and turns away, “In that case, no more questions, Your Honor.”

“Cross,” French said. Joanna nods, “Absolutely, Your Honor.” Joann stands up and walks over, “Ms. Carlson, we were just on the subject of blood. Was there any blood evidence recovered from the defendant?” She asks.

“No,” Ms. Carlson said. “Genetic evidence?” Joanna asks, “DNA? Hairs? Fibers?” Ms. Carlson shook her head, “No, just the fingerprint.”

Joanna stood by the jury, “May I propose a hypothetical?” She asked. Ms.Carlson nods at the slightest, “Okay.” Y/N looked over to the old woman, “Let’s suppose the defendant Y/N, was walking on her way back home after the party when she was left behind by Alice and came across the victim lying on the ground. And suppose Y/N lifted the victim by the collar to see if she was okay. Might that create a fingerprint consistent with the one you found?” Joanna asks.

“Yes, that is possible.”

“Now the knife-” Joanna says to the court, “-that the Commonwealth attempted to enter into evidence had you ever seen it before?” Neal leans forward, “Objection. Relevance.” The judge looks over to him, “Overruled. You opened the door, counselor.” Neal sat there in silence.

“Yes,” Ms. Carlson says, “The DA’s office asked me to determine if that particular model of knife was consistent with the victim’s wounds.” Joanna nods, “Ah. And I assume they gave you other models to compare as well?”

“No.”

“No?” Joanna turns to the jury, “Did they at least ask you to determine how many other knives might have made those wounds?” Ms. Carlon’s brows go inward and she shook her head, “No.”

“Well, how many would you think?”

“I-- I don’t know. That-- That would be speculating,” Ms. Carlson replies. Joanna grins, “A thousand?” Ms. Carlson slowly shook her head to think, “Uh... A large number?” She sounded too unsure.

“Seven hundred? Five hundred?” Joanna counts. Ms. Carlson nods, very confused, “Somewhere... somewhere in that range.” Joanna had them now, “In other words, the chances of it being the actual knife are one in 500. Correct?” Andy tried not to grin, holding his hands near his face to hide the small grin.

“Objection. Calls for speculation,” Neal nearly growled. The Judge turns, “Sustained.” Joanna grins and turns to the jury, shaking her head, “No further questions, Your Honor.” Y/N looked over to the jury and saw one of them smiled. And just that, Y/N felt her heart jolt with slight happiness.

Laurie had began to leave the restrooms and head over back to her family in that small room. The halls were crowded with people in nice suits. She heard faint distress from a familiar voice.

“This is all going to shit. She’s gonna walk. Can’t you see that? She’s gonna get away with killing our daughter because of that asshole and his goddamn theatrics.” Laurie spotted Eric and his wife Marla standing off to the side.

“Please, I can’t take this,” Marla says. Eric turns back to her, “Yeah, well, I can’t take it either.” The man turns and walks away. “Eric. Eric,” Marla called, her husband did not look back.

Marla sat down on the bench, pulling a hand up to her face as Laurie looked back. But there was nothing she could do. After Marla had done to Laurie at the mall that morning, Laurie was sure she’d do it again. And Laurie didn’t want someone to drag her out or try to help the mom. Laurie continued on and walked in the room.

“How he didn’t know that that stunt would backfire is beyond me,” Joanna says. Andy nods, “Because he’s reckless.” Laurie sits down and rubs Y/N’s back, “You doing all right?” She asked. Y/N nods, “Yeah.” Y/N remembered the guy who smile.

Y/N turned to the adults, “One of them smiled.” Andy and Joanna look up to the girl. “One of the juror, the guy with the goatee.” Andy sounded shock to hear that, “He smiled? Really?” Andy grins at Joanna.

Y/N smiles, “Yeah, when she admitted it was a one in 500 chance, he smiled.” Andy grins at her while Joanna’s phone dinged. The woman looked at her phone and cleared her throat, causing Andy to turn. “Something wrong?”

Joanna shook her head, “No. No, it’s nothing. We’ll talk later.”

“You and Mr. Barber have worked together on many cases. Is that right?” Neal asks, looking towards the next witness at the stand. Pam Duffy. She nodded at him, “We go back, yes,” Her monotone voice was loud and clear. “Would you describe him as diligent when it came to his work?” Neal asks.

“More than that. He was relentless,” She said.

“Was that relentlessness on display when you were attempting to cut through the school’s red tape?” He asked. “He didn’t feel the classmates were a priority,” Pam answered, “We’d already interviewed Alice’s close friends.”

Neal turns, “Once you did interview the students, finally, was there anything useful that came out of that?” He asks. Pam remembered the day they did, none of them kids spoke much, “After the initial meetings, nothing much. But with some follow-up, we came to learn that there was an ongoing beef between the victim and the defendant.”

“Meaning Alice had been bullying the defendant,” Neal states. “For some time, yes,” Pam replied.

“Was this around the time that you started to view the defendant as a suspect?” Neal asks. Pam looks over to him, “It was.”

“Even as her father was still running the investigation?” Neal asks. Pam blinks at him, “Certain aspects of the investigation had to be carried out without Mr. Barber’s knowledge.” Pam looks over to Andy who sat next to Y/N, he seem to shuffle in his seat as he looked upon her.

“What did that reveal?” Neal asked.

Pam looked away, “That the defendant supposedly had a knife consistent with the wounds, that she had sufficient motive, and she had opportunity in that her movements the night of the attack placed her near or at the scene.”

“Did you arrest her at this time?” He asked. “Not until the fingerprint came back,” She says, “We then obtained a warrant and searched the house, trying to find the knife, which we did not.”

Neal looks down at the notes in his hand, “Did you seize the defendant’s computer?” Pam nods, “We did, but we found nothing directly incriminating.” Neal looks down at the ground, “Detective, are you aware of a program called Disk Scraper?”

“I am. It’s a program that wipes hard drives, deletes files, that kind of thing.”

“Was that program on the defendant’s laptop?” Neal asks. Pam took a while to answer, “It was.” Laurie furrows her brows and Andy looked over to Y/N. He noticed her swallow and stare blankly away from him. “Is it possible that there was incriminating evidence on the laptop, and it was removed by the defendant?”

“Objection. Calls for speculation,” Joanna called. Neal thought of a different question, “What about pornography?”

“Objection. Relevance.”

“Sustained,” French says. Neal shrugs, “Let me be more specific. Did you find any violent pornography on the defendant’s laptop?” Y/N slightly turned her head to the sound of that. Pam looks up, “I think all pornography is violent.”

Neal nods, “Of course. I mean, specifically, images glorifying abuse or torture.”

“Objection. Relevance,” Joanna calls again. The Judge furrowed his brows, “Overruled. The witness will answer.” Pam turned her head to the judge and nodded at Neal, “Some, yeah.”

The spectators began to mutter and Laurie raised her hand up to her face. Andy looks over to Y/N as she tried not to look at him. Neal nodded, “No further questions.”

Once Neal went back to his desk, Joanna stood up, “Detective, I assume you have executed countless search warrants in your career, yes?” She asked. “Sure,” Pam said.

“Seized a lot of laptops.”

“Yes,” Pam says. Joanna continues, “Have you ever found one that didn’t have some pornography on it?” The whole court chuckle while Pam grins, “I don’t think so.”

“Detective, is it true that you were the first to identify Leonard Patz as a person of interest, and not Mr. Barber?” Pam nods, “Yes. I brought Patz to Andy’s attention, and we agreed that he was someone we should be looking at.” Joanna points, “One last question.” Joanna looks over to Y/N and Andy before going back to Pam.

“At any point in the investigation, did Andy Barber behave in any way to suggest that he suspected his own daughter?” Pam shook her head, “No, not in the slightest.”

Joanna nods, “No further questions, Your Honor.” French looks down at his desk. “Mr. Logiudice, redirect?” For a second, Neal looks over to Andy, waiting to find the moment to admit the event to everyone. Andy looked over as well and so Neal turns away. “Detective...” Neal stood, fixing his suit, “...have you ever known Mr. Barber to be violent?”

Andy turns his head to Pam with his brows creasing inward. Pam furrowed hers, “No.”

“Are you sure? Never seen him grab somebody by the jacket? Push them into a wall?” Andy rolls his eyes and drops his pen on the table, leaning back. “Objection. Relevance,” Joanna calls. French looked upon Neal and he felt curious, “Overruled.”

Pam licked her lips and slowly sighed, “Once. You,” She answers, “After your provoked him with that crack about his father doing time for--” Pam cuts herself off knowing that “Bloody” Billy Barber was close to mentioning. It was too late.

“Doing time for murder?” Neal asked.

“Objection! Your Honor!” Joanna shouts, slamming her hand on the table. The jury began to look over with grimace. “Sustained,” French says, “I’ll see counsel at sidebar, right now.” Joanna and Neal both walked over to the sidebar with Judge French.

“I’m appalled at what I just saw. We went over this in pretrial,” Judge says. “Your Honor, it was the defense counsel who first raised the issue of whether the defendant’s father had reason to suspect his own daughter. I am simply trying to make that argument.”

Joanna rolls her eyes, “You have got to be kidding me. Your Honor, the defense moves for a mistrial-”

“Oh, come on,” Neal says.

“-He was given specific instructions.” French glares at Neal, “You are on extraordinarily thin ice, Mr. Logiudice, you understand me?” He asks, “Now you wrap it up with this witness right now. And if I hear even a whispers about the defendant’s grandfather going forward, Ms. Klein will get her mistrial. Am I clear?”

“Yes,” Neal says, a bit too harshly, his eyes drew away, “Your Honor.” After that, Neal goes back to his table, looking over to Andy who shook his head at him. Everyone in the court seem to calm down after the recent question about “Bloody” Billy Barber.

“Ladies and gentlemen, there’s a saying in the law, ‘You cannot unring the bell’...” Andy turns to Laurie and he shook his head, mouthing towards her. Laurie turns her head and shook it. “...but I’m going to insist that you do just that with regard to the last question.” Andy turned back to the front and shook his head.

Before the next trial, Andy had visited Joanna during nights. Looking over their next witness who would be going up at the stand. Derek Yoo. Andy tried to find pulls and connections between Leonard Patz and Derek, find strategies to keep this going.

So, the day of the trial. The usual thing was sitting and waiting. Laurie looked over to the Yoo family who sat on the other side. But that wasn’t the only problem. Joanna received a text and stood up, walking over to Andy. Her hand gently goes on Andy’s back. “We’ve got a problem.” Andy turns to her. “Madelyn McGrath. I can’t find her.”

“What?” Andy asks.

“Ellen’s been trying to call her cell all week, and she finally got in touch with her mother this morning. And she said that she and Madelyn had a fight three days ago, and that she took off. And her girlfriend just posted online from Florida, and the mom thinks that she’s down there with her.”

“What are we supposed to do? She’s supposed to take the stand tomorrow,” Andy says, gesturing to the stand. “Don’t worry. We’re gonna think of something. Okay.” Joanna taps his shoulder and walks back to her seat, leaving Andy in thought.

Madelyn needed to take the stand tomorrow. She was the one who could end the trial from there. Now it made it look like they didn’t have enough evidence that Leonard Patz is not the suspect here.

Andy turns to look over to the laughter and chatter by Neal and his assistant. The two laughing as if they were best friends. Even when Andy helped Neal through his time being the commonwealth. Taught him everything he knew. Like a friend would.

Neal felt Andy’s eyes and looked over, his smile slowly dropped and he turned away without any other expressions to continue his conversation with his assistant. Andy turned back to the front again, Laurie behind him was stressing more as she rubbed her face in her hand.

Turning around, Andy made eye contact with her. All he could do was give her a gentle smile. Laurie nodded to indicate him that she was doing okay and that he didn’t need to worry much about her.

But then someone brought his attention. Walking into the courtroom, Lynn looked around the room and her eyes landed on Andy’s. The two shared a long gaze and he was the first to turn away from her and stare at his own notes that were written either from last night or today.

“Court, all rise!” The woman shouts. The whole court rose in silence. And their witness was put up to the stand.

“I was like, ‘That’s the same way you go to school. Did you see anything?’ And Y/N said no,” Derek says.

“Nothing about seeing Alice on the ground or trying to help him?” Neal asks. Derek fidgets in his seat, “No. Uh, and she made a joke. Said something like, ‘Couldn’t happen to a nicer girl’,” Derek’s eyes seem to look only at his hands or the wooden surface, eyes locking with Y/N’s he saw the cold stare from her. He looked away immediately.

“And this is within a week after learning about Alice’s murder?”

“I guess, yeah. We were at Y/N’s house, playing video games during the break,” Derek said. Neal nods, “When you said that Alice used to pick on Y/N, what did you mean by that?”

“Alice always kinda had it in for Y/N. She was always calling her ‘bitch’. Like a nickname. Like she’d ask Y/N questions about different sex things lesbians do, but in front of everyone, to embarrass her. Or she’d fake soccer kick at Y/N if she passed her in the hall. Stuff like that.”

“And all of this bullying, it upset Y/N,” Neal said.

“Yeah, of course,” Derek replies. “Did it make her angry?” Neal asked. Derek shook his head slowly, “Not so much in front of Alice, but... privately, she’d go off on how much she hated Alice’s guts. Which I got. I mean, Alice would be a jerk to me too sometimes.”

Neal licks his lips, “At what point after Alice’s murder did you begin to consider your friend Y/N’s role in it?” Andy didn’t like that. “Objection. Leading the witness,” He called out.

The Judge turns to him, completely not phased by his objection. “Overruled.” Joanna looked over to Andy who did as well, he didn’t say anything to her. As if he gave her a silent ‘sorry’. “You can go ahead and answer young man,” French says.

Derek nods, “I guess it was three days later.”

“Was there anything other than her temper that began to make you suspicious?” Neal asks. Derek stutters, “Well, yeah. The knife. Y/N had this scary combat knife she’d bought in town. She used to bring it to school sometimes.”

“To show it off or-- or what?”

“Not really. I mean, she showed it to me and our friend Dylan but it was more like she liked having it on her, walking around with it. Like... it was this secret thing she had,” The boy says.

“I see,” Neal replied, “So the bullying and the knife... But you knew about these things, and still, you didn’t suspect Y/N immediately?” Derek stammers, “I don’t know. Maybe part of me did, a little. But it wasn’t until I read what she wrote online.”

“Online?”

Andy peered up to the boy. Was he talking about the photo Y/N posted? Or that Cut Up Room?

“This messed up site Y/N was into called The Cut Up Room,” Derek says. “By ‘messed up,’ I’m assuming you mean pornographic.” Derek nods, “Yeah, but, it’s not really so much about sex. More violence. Like, really graphic stuff.”

Joanna writes three question marks and shows it towards Andy who just moves his brows. “Are there stories on this site?” Neal asked. “Yeah, people post all kinds of stuff. Photos, videos, stories.”

“And do you know if Y/N posted any stories?” Derek looks up and shuffled a bit, hands fidgeting with each other. “She did. Yeah. She called them F/N/I stories.”

“F/N/I stories?” Neal asked.

“Yeah, you know, like her initials, F-M-B?” Andy looks over to Y/N, her leg began to bounce on the floor again. “That was her screen name on there.” Joanna leans in towards Andy, “What do you know about this?” She asks.

“Not enough. You got to shut it down,” Andy whispers back. “And did F/N/I post a story about the murder of Alice Miller?”

Derek took a while to answer before he spoke, “Yes.” The answer made the spectators murmur all around the court. Andy froze in his seat. “Commonwealth moves to enter into evidence--”

“Objection,” Joanna calls, she stood up, “Your Honor, may we approach?”

“Settle down, please,” French raps the gavel onto his desk. Joanna sighs, “Respectfully, Your Honor, we ask to approach.” The judge nods and Joanna walks up to his desk. “Your Honor, this is an ambush. None of this was disclosed in discovery.”

Neal comes in, “Your Honor, this story was authored by the defendant. If she chose to hide it from his attorney, that’s hardly the Commonwealth’s fault.” Andy turns to his daughter who hung her head low.

“What’s this about, Y/N?” He whispers to her. She never answered. “Y/N?” Her hands began to twist in each other as her legs bounce anxiously. Laurie stared at the back of Y/N’s head. The courtroom goes silent when Joanna began to read the story about Alice’s murder. Seeing every single detail of it.

Turning back to the judge, “Your Honor, I need to confer with my client.” French nods, “All right, go ahead.” Neal and Joanna separate from the Judge to their own tables. Neal took a good look at Y/N who sat in her chair fidgeting. Not once did he show empathy. Not guilt.

“I’m gonna ask your patience while I allow defense counselor a moment to confer with her client.” Andy leans on the table once Joanna sat down to talk to them.

“He’s going to allow it unless our position is that Y/N didn’t write that story.”

“Then that’s our plan--”

“They know that she wrote it, Andy. They’ve got an IP address,” The two look over to Y/N who didn’t budge to look up at them. Joanna looks at her closely, “Y/N.” Lifting up her head, she looked at Joanna and just nodded. Joanna turns back to Andy, “If we push back now, we’re only going to shine a brighter light on it.”

“How bad is it?” Andy asks. Joanna didn’t even have to tell him on how bad it was. He didn’t bother to have her answer.

“Emma stood there on the path as Kate kept walking toward her, grinning. If Kate knew the real Emma, she would have been scared shitless. ‘Don’t fuck with me,’ Emma warned him, ‘I mean it.’ But Kate just laughed and grabbed her by the arm, twisting it back like she’d down so many times before. ‘Stop. You’re hurting me,’ Emma said. But it didn’t hurt that much. She just wanted Kate to think that, so she would let go.”

Andy was leaned to the side, holding a hand up to his face. Anxious to see this come together from what the man from last trial had said. “Kate laughed again, the way she always did, a fake laugh. Emma’s hand slipped into her sweatshirt pocket. There it was, her trusted friend. She curled her fingers around the grip and felt a surge of power through her arm, up into her shoulder. She knew there was no turning back now. The park seemed to know it too. She could hear the breeze in the leaves and birds chirping.”

Everyone was still silent throughout the reading. Laurie began to stare at the boy who slightly shook the paper in hand, afraid.

“Kate saw the knife coming for her, but it was too late to do anything but stare. It slipped in so easily Emma thought she was stabbing air. That surprised her. She did it twice more, telling her brain to remember the feeling for later. Other than feeling hands on my arms during that party at Hannah’s.” Andy knew that sentence was referring to his daughter in the bedroom.

Did Alice do it? Derek continued the story, flipping the page.

“Kate fell backward and rolled down the slope, until she stopped down below. Emma knew she should go, but she couldn’t help herself. She went down to Kate’s body to make sure she was dead. The smell of blood in the air made her feel dizzy. She found a small stream nearby and washed the knife off, and her hand too. She could see her reflection in the water, but her face looked different to her now. ‘It’ll be our secret,’ it seemed to say.”

Y/N felt a tear fall down her cheek as she lightly twitched her fingers. Derek puts the packet in front of him, “The End.” The silence was ended when Marla choked a sob, covering her face in her hands.

Neal sighs, “This story was posted three days after Alice Miller’s body was found?”

“Yeah.” Laurie could hear her own heartbeat, knowing this wasn’t right to her. Y/N had done enough. And Laurie was doubting.

The day, the trial had ended. Laurie, Andy and Y/N began to head to the car in the garage. The three were silent throughout the whole walk there. What were they supposed to say? Whatever was said during that trial, no one could say anything about it.

They were distraught. Laurie and Y/N jumped in the car and buckled their seat belts. Laurie already reaching for her face to rethink on what just happened. Andy got in last and kept his eyes low. Staring at the ground as the family sat in silence.

Y/N only looked out the window. “It was just a story,” She says softly. Andy closes his eyes. “I didn’t know it would be a big deal,” She sounded heart broken. Scared. Everything coming to his head, he didn’t want to say it. But he had to. This is what’s happening right now. And they needed answers from this teenage girl.

He took it out. “Did you do it?” He asked, lowly. Y/N looks over to the front and Andy turns to face her. “Just tell me. Did you kill her?” The hurt in his eyes and the look of doubt. Y/N looked broken. Scared. It took a while for her to answer and they stared at each other.

“No,” She muttered, his stare made her look away and her eyes began to tear up, “No.” Laurie didn’t even say a word. Not even took a breath. After what happened today. She couldn’t trust Y/N’s innocence.

That night, the family and Joanna sat in the kitchen. Trying to go over things for the next trial, knowing that this next one is going to be difficult. Madelyn wasn’t there for the witness stand. They were in trouble.

“I could ask the judge to issue a bench warrant for Madelyn McGrath,” Joanna states. Andy sat in the chair, leg on the other as he held his head, “He won’t. Not for some secondary witness holed up in Florida. We don’t have a choice. We gotta go straight at Patz,” He says.

“Yeah, his subpoena was served this morning. I’ll call him as a hostile witness and see what we can get out of him,” Joanna says back. Andy uncrosses his legs and leans on his knees, “We gotta run every play we have. Not just on the Patz front, Derek too.” He scratches the back of his neck.

“You don’t think we covered Derek on cross?” She asked. Andy stands up, “You did your best,” He sat at the table, “You were distracted.” Andy looked over to Y/N, “Everyone was.”

Andy flips open the file while Laurie began to head over to the table. “We need to backstop Patz. I say we go harder on Derek, subpoena Sarah.” Y/N turns to Sarah’s name that came out. Y/N didn’t like that. Not to bring in her friend into her case and her problem.

“Andy, we discussed this,” Joanna said. “That was before. We need Sarah to hammer home Derek’s obsessing. We need to have her repeat his words on the stand,” Andy looks up to the old woman.

“Yeah, you’re right. That could be powerful,” Joanna says. “Show the jury the selfie again-”

“No.”

The three look over to Y/N’s word. “I don’t wanna bring her or Matt into this. It’s my trial. I’m saying no.” Laurie looks over to Andy. He looked at his hands, “Sorry, but you don’t get a say in this anymore. Not after today.” Y/N sat there in silence, staring at Andy with a cold look.

What was colder was the food that was untouched by her. She stood up and walked away. Milo peering up while laying down as Y/N stormed up the stairs. Joanna sighs, “I’ll get into it first thing tomorrow.”

Later that night after Andy organized the things in his office, he headed into the kitchen and saw Laurie at the sink. Leaning in the walkway he watched her. Laurie felt his presence and stopped cleaning the cup in hand.

“You haven’t said one word all night,” Andy says.

Laurie thought about that story. Feeling hands on my arms during that party at Hannah’s. The story about the murder and that sentence stuck in her mind. Andy didn’t tell her. “Did you know?” She asked, “About the story?”

“No,” Andy answered, his forehead creasing. “Just tell me the truth,” Laurie says.

“I am-” Laurie turns around, “The truth. I need to know,” She insists. Andy steps in, “Laurie, I swear I’m telling you the truth.”

“What about the website? The Cut Up Room?” She asks. Andy comes to the edge of the table and leans on it, lowering his head, “I only kept it from you ‘cause I knew it would--”

“Don’t. Don’t,” Laurie cuts him off. Andy lifts his head up confused, “Don’t what?” Laurie shook her head, “Explain it away like you do everything. Excuse it away.”

“I knew it would set you off,” He says, “You were already half convinced that Y/N was guilty. I didn’t want to add--” Laurie shook her head. “Not anymore.” Andy’s eyes were hurtful at the start. But when she said that, he fixed his posture, “What’d you just say?”

“I don’t believe her. Not after what I heard today.”

“Not listening to the fact that our daughter had been raped, Laurie. So you’re gonna let this one thing change--”

“It’s always one thing,” Laurie cuts him off, Andy sighs, “Don’t you see?” She asked. “We’re guilty too. If we protect her, we’re as guilty as she is.” Andy hisses and lifts up his hand, “All right. Just keep your voice down. You’re gonna freak out the dog.”

“I’m not even saying I know what to do about it, I don’t. But I know what I heard, and I know what it means,” She said. Andy held his hand up still, “Laurie, I’m begging you. Don’t talk yourself into something ‘cause of some made-up story.”

“It’s not a story,” She shook her head.

“Yes, it is!” Andy turns, “This is a girl that bullied her. Maybe did rape her. She probably fantasized about hurting her a thousand times. So she let her imagination run wild, and she wrote it down,” He tried not to yell as everything came out as a low whisper, “Maybe...” He sighs.

“Maybe she got some sick thrill imagining it. And is that horrible? Yes. It’s terrible, and it was wrong, and it was stupid, but it was a story,” He lowly says, he walks towards her. “Joanna vetted every single line from it. There wasn’t one detail that hadn’t already been reported by the news. She was fantasizing.”

“She was confessing,” Laurie said, Andy sighed and leaned on the counter, “To call it anything else is just lawyer spin, and you know it.” Andy turns around and walks back to where he originally was. His back was turned to her. “What if you knew?” Laurie asked, “What if you knew in your heart that our daughter did this unforgivable thing? Took the like of another child? Would it even matter?”

“I’d still love her, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“No, it’s not. I’d still love her too,” Laurie held her hand to her heart, “I will always love her, no matter what.” Andy turns back to her. “You don’t know how badly I wanted to hold her tonight and tell her it’s all going to be okay. But I can’t play this game anymore, letting her pretend she didn’t do it, pretending to each other.”

“She’s not pretending. She didn’t do this. I know she didn’t do it,” Andy snaps.

“No, you don’t!” Milo peered up at the couple, “No one can sustain that level of deception-”

“Of course she could. You of all people should know that,” Laurie says. Andy leans back and lets out a scoff, seeing Laurie tear up, he shook his head, “Yeah. Yeah, of course. She learned it from me,” He shrugs.

“Maybe she learned it from both of us,” Laurie says. Andy looks over to her, seeing her look for an answer, “What do you want me to say Laurie? You’re right. Our marriage is a lie. Our whole fucking family is based on a fairy tale, built on nothing. And our daughter’s a murderer. Is that what you want to hear?” He asks.

Laurie shook her head, “No. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.” Andy stared at her before turning away and walked up the stairs without another word. Leaving Laurie in the kitchen sobbing.

That night, he was gonna take the couch. He made sure not to see Laurie the rest of the night. Not speak to her. Once he settled the things on the couch, he looked over to Milo who sat on the couch. Andy stared at him, “Down.” Milo jumps off and follows Andy to the backdoor.

Andy let Milo outside. The large dog spins to look at his boss who just stared and closed the door on him. Leaving Milo out in the cold. The dog sniffed the door and slightly scratched it. Snorting once, the hound turns and walks into the dog house that sat in the corner.

The next morning, the house was silent throughout the next hours. The sun shining through the home. Andy had slept on the couch. After the big argument, he wasn’t sure if Laurie wanted him in bed that night.

So he gave her space.

His phone began to buzz on the stand. His eyes fluttered open and he began to rub his eyes. Looking over the armrest, he sees his phone. Shuffling on the couch, he leans up to grab his phone. Squinting at it, he answers. “Yeah. Hey, Joanna. No, it’s okay.” Andy began to stretch on the couch, “What’s going on?” He grunts.

Sitting up with a sigh, he froze when Joanna gave the news. “What? When?”

After talking with Joanna, he knew he had to tell Laurie about it. He wasn’t sure to think it was good news or bad news. Either way it was messed up. He stepped into the bedroom and reaches for Laurie, “Laurie.” He sits down. “Honey.” His hand rubs her back.

“What?” She asks.

“It’s over,” He says. Laurie looks at him, “What?” Andy looked heartbroken, “He confessed. Patz.” Laurie was confused on what he was talking about, “I-- I don’t...”

“Joanna just called. Leonard Patz hung himself last night. He left a note for the Rifkins. It’s a full confession,” He says, Laurie began to sit up, “The cops just confirmed his handwriting.”

Laurie stares at him with the same look, “Are you sure?” Andy nods, “Yeah,” He sobs, “I know it doesn’t feel real, but it is. Joanna’s moving for a dismissal first thing this morning.”

“Oh, my...” Laurie whispers, “I was so... I thought--”

“Don’t,” Andy says, “Doesn’t matter now. It’s over.”

Though the suicide was unbelievable and very despairing. Andy and Laurie had to tell their 15-year-old daughter about her dismissal. So, they walked into her room. Seeing her laying on her bed asleep. Laurie was the first to hold her, “Y/N,” She whispers.

“Wake up, sweetheart,” Andy says, Y/N inhales sharply and turns, “We got something to tell you.”

“Court, all rise. Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye. The Honorable Judge French presiding. This court’s now open. Please be seated,” With a small grin, Y/N and the rest of the courtroom sits down.

French raps the gavel, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, at 8:00 am, this morning, the Commonwealth filed a nolle prosequi announcing its decision to drop the charges against the defendant, Y/N Barber.” Joanna looks over to the distraught Neal Logiudice who failed his mission to prosecute an old friend’s kid.

“This is a response to recent development in the case you, no doubt, will be learning of shortly. The defendant will please rise,” French says. Y/N stands up for the Judge.

“Young lady, I’m sure you’re anxious to get out of here. So let me be the first to say to you the words you and your family are, no doubt longing to hear. Y/N Barber,” He states.

“You are now a free woman,”With the hit of the gavel, the spectators began to all clap causing Laurie and Andy to smile with glee. Y/N couldn’t help but smile as well, “Y/N M/N Barber in the matter of indictment 08-44-07, it is ordered by the court that you be discharged of this indictment and go without day. Bail posted shall be returned to the surety. Case dismissed.”

With more of the claps, Laurie stands up along with Andy, the two pull Y/N into a huge hug. And after that, they were free to go. But, of course, they would answer a few questions by the reporters that have been sitting outside.

The clicking sounds of their cameras and people holding their mics towards the woman. “Obviously, we are thrilled with this outcome. But as you can imagine, this family has been through a lot. So we’re gonna ask that you respect their privacy and allow them to process this ordeal. Thank you very much.”

“Y/N, how do you feel?” A woman calls out, Joanna looks over to her, letting her do her thing with the question. Y/N grins, “Uh, great.” The short pause was then interrupted by the clamoring of the reporters once the family began to step down. Police holding them back as Andy held Y/N by her shoulder to keep her close.

The four stepped out of the elevator and began to head toward their cars. Andy pulls out his keys and sighed, “Joanna, I don’t even have the words.”

“Oh, please,” Joanna grins. “Andy’s right,” Laurie says, “We couldn’t have gotten through any of this without you.” Joanna chuckles softly, “The best I could’ve done was a verdict of not guilty. This is a thousand times better. This is proof of innocence.” Andy grins.

Joanna held out her hand and Y/N took it with a smile, “Congratulations, young lady.”

“Thank you, Joanna,” Y/N says. Joanna nods, “I know that this has been rough for you. But I think that someday you’re gonna realize...” Y/N’s eyes look away to the figure who came from the stairs. Eric Miller. Alice’s dad. He began to storm up to the family and Y/N tensed up.

Then a bald man came up behind Eric. “Dad?” Y/N asks. Andy follows Y/N’s gaze and he sees Eric. “I know it was you,” Eric points, Laurie instantly pulls Y/N close to her while Andy jumps in front, “Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!” Andy shouts. Andy holds Eric back as he points at her. “I know it was you! I know it! I know it!”

Eric gets grabbed by the bald man in the blue Lincoln, “Whoa! Whoa!” Andy says as Eric gets pulled back and slammed onto the back of the car. “Let me go!” Eric sobs.

Andy turns to his girls, “Are you okay?” He looks back to the sobbing Eric. The bald man turns, “What do you want me to do with this guy? Want me to hold him for the cops or what?” He asked.

“No!” Eric shouts. Laurie knew the family was in much pain than they were. They went through enough, “No,” She says. “Let him go,” She nods. Eric sobs on the hood of the car while being pushed into it. “Please,” Laurie says.

The man pulls Eric up and pushes him back, “Come on. Get outta here.” Eric turns back to the family with Andy standing guard in front of his family. “She didn’t do it, Eric.”

And with that, Eric took that and walked away, wiping the tears off his cheeks as he headed back for the stairs. The man turns, “You okay, kid?” Andy looks over to him, “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m an old friend of your pop’s. He asked me to look out for you. Congratulations, by the way. I guess it was your lucky day, huh, kid?” Laurie held Y/N close. “Get in the car,” Joanna insists, helping the two girls over to Andy’s car.

Joanna looks up to Andy, “I’ll call you later.” Andy nods at her. With the man standing there, Laurie looks up to him and nods, “Thank you.” The man swats his hand, “Anything for old Billy.” Laurie jumped in the car while Andy was the last to get in.

“Make sure you give your old man my best, okay?” He asked. Andy slightly glares at the man one last time, before getting in his car without another word said to him.

They returned home to a street filled with new reporters and journalists. People taking photos as Andy drives up the driveway. The family stepped out and gave their grins towards the people while they headed back inside their home.

Ever since Y/N was freed by the charges, Andy knew there was no normal to go back to. There was a before. Then after. No one couldn’t get it out of their minds. Not even Laurie.

After their meal outside, Laurie thought to go through her daughter’s photo book. Seeing her as a baby. Growing up in every picture they had. She quietly cried as she flipped through every page.

“Hey, honey. I’m gonna make some coffee. You want some?” Andy comes in and looks around to see Laurie on the couch, crying. His face falters in worry, “Hey. What’s going on?” He comes near and sits next to her, instantly bringing his hand to her back.

“That day in court, when Derek read the story, I was so sure. In some crazy way, I was almost relieved. I thought ‘At least now I know’,” She sniffles. Laurie turned to look at him, “What kind of mother would think that about her child?”

Andy inhales softly, “You were under a ton of stress. We both were. That story shook me up too. More than I let on,” He says. Laurie felt his hand stroke her hair and looked up at him. He shook his head, “You just gotta let it go.”

Laurie nods, “I’m trying.” Andy grins sadly and takes the book out of her hands to place it behind him before he brought her into a hug.

~~~

The story is close to its end guys.

TAGS:

@jtargaryen18 @princess-evans-addict @captain-a-rogerss @nbarnes @bucksgoat @sophieelizebeth-01 @ssebstann @irishfaulk97 @avengerswon @wandascarlett @marvelouspottering

Want a tag? Just ask!

#chris evans x reader #chris evans #cevans #andy barber #andy barber x daughter!reader #andy barber x reader #andy barber as a dad #defending jacob #the cut up room #murder #defending jacob x reader #laurie barber #imprisoned series #optimistic-dinosaur-nacho #opti-dino-nacho #opti-dino-nacho series #steve rogers #captain america #chrisevans

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randomfandomz · 4 years

Text

GET READY FOR A LOT OF HUSK HEADCANNONS

Im not sorry–

Depressed as f*ck so he doesnt have the modivation to take care of himself

He drinks mainly to forget, and to releive stress

Not only that but he H A T E S water(not as much as Baxter does, but he still avoids it like the plauge)

He never showers until he absolutely has to

Like his fur is always matted and alchohol scented

And he thinks licking himself clean like non-demon cats do is absolutely out of the question, it is gross and undignified, he doesnt want to lick himself and water makes his fur feel heavy and cold and he w i l l argue with you about this

He hates having fur. He just hates it. Its hard to take care of and things get stuck in it, it gets caught in things and just hhhh h h h H H - NO

Will straight up refuse to shower until Charlie makes him

Everyone in the hotel knows about shower day

The day when they make Husk take a shower because e w g r o s s o l d m a n -

Baxter somewhat sympathizes with him about his hatred of water

Not like he actually shows it or does anything to help him though- because 1) Bax really doesnt give a flying f*ck, he just wants to do science and this doesnt concern science so he couldnt care less, and 2) He doesnt wanna speak up because s o c i a l a n x i e t y . S o c i a l i n t e r a c t i o n ? N o t h a n k y o u .

Hes literally a cat, so he hates water with a burning passion

Husk's self image is kinda... ehhhhhh- I mean, its not like he really is that bad looking, if anything he looks pretty damn cool, but he honestly finds himself pretty unattractive. "The fur and wings d o n t h e l p "

Doesnt care if you call him old unless youre trying to be offensive; Hes proud of his age and experience

Even though he acts like an old man(well, he kinda is, but-) hes actually younger than Baxter, Mimzy, Alastor, Angel, and Nifty

Only Vaggie and Crymini are younger than him

When Husk first arrived at the hotel he didnt really wanna interact with anyone; New places kind of stress him out, so it took a long time for him to adjust and not snap at every little thing

Dont get me wrong, hes still a pissy alchoholic^tm, but the anger is less serious/genuine and more just because thats how he is

Husk fought in the vietnam war, and he attempted(and failed) suicide multiple times after the war until he was eventually beaten to death outside of a bar

He turned to alchoholism and gambling as a coping mechanism

Husk suffers from PTSD(Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), along with the obvious alchoholism and gambling addiction

He is very salty/sad that he's a war vet but died in a bar fight, and wouldn't be remembered for his fighting but rather for being beaten to death in a bar while trying to drink away the feelings he had about not being welcomed home because of the way the media portrayed him and his fellow soldiers that fought in Vietnam

Upon learning that Husk is a vietnam war vet(he mentioned it while drunk off his ass- more than usual) one patron who attended the hotel for a short time told him "Welcome home doc!". Husk was surprised, as he had come to terms with the idea that he would never be thanked or welcomed for his services, but he did make sure to be maybe a bit less pissy to that particular guest. He will never forget them. It meant more to him than he would like to admit.

((I can't really think of a better reason as to why Husk would bring it up, but having seen one or two instances of someone saying "welcome home" to Vietnam war vets, I really wanted to add this. The "Welcome home doc" thing was me referencing a specific instance of this ive seen. Im so sorry if I'm wrongly portraying this in anyway, I tried to do enough research first before typing this part out, but I just wanted to point out that I tried my best to be respectful while talking about the subject.))

Moving on- L A S E R P O I N T E R S

One time Angel was just casually messing around with a laser pointer, out of boredom or something

HUSK'S RESPONSE WAS IMMEDIATE

HE WILL CHASE THAT RED DOT TO THE ENDS OF THE GODDAMN EARTH

"That DAMN RED DOT where the FUCK did iT gO!?"

He HATES that he does this, but he really cannot help it

Being a cat demon, and being Husk, his hunt and kill instinct is through the roof(hunt and kill instinct is why cats chase laser pointers btw)

Was VERY pissy for the next few weeks after this incident

Husk will purr involuntarily whenever someone pets him or strokes his fur

He WILL murder anyone who attempts to pet him or make him purr without consent(*COUGH COUGH* ANGEL *COUGH*)

Same goes for the wings DO NOT TOUCH THE WINGS, JUST DONT-

In his room, Husk's bed is literally a mound of blankets and pillows inside a box

Even he needs to get warm and comfortable after a long day

He never lets anyone in his room

Like n e v e r

Angel snuck in one night- Husk's half asleep drunken a*s shoved him out and yelled at him, waking up practically all the hotel staff and a few guests

In his defense, Angel, upon seeing the sleeping Husk, scratched behind his ears. Husk started to purr, but then snapped to somewhat conciousness, and realized what the f*ck was going on-

Yes, Husk is v e r y defensive

Give him a compliment? He wont accept it under any circumstances. He will probably be flustered and claim that the other is either lying or just kissing up to him

"You know you dont have to kiss my a*s to ask me something, right? The fuck do you want?"

Charlie honestly finds his reaction to compliments very sad

Has a kind of "well ya didnt need to point it out" attitude towards insults

Alastor insults him with the worst names in the book? He accepts it and couldnt give less f*cks

Even if its someone either than Alastor insulting him, usually even if he acts offended and p*ssed off, somewhere in his mind he just accepts it

Usually Alastor is the one insulting him, but in a "best friend rights" kind of way

He likes being creative when it comes to colorful language

"Look out to my sea of f*cks, and see how it is barren"

Doesnt have a "soft spot" for kids like Angel, but doesnt mind lessening the swearing a bit and doing a few magic tricks for the occasional child that somehow found their way to the hotel

He HISSES

If Husk is hissing at you you better f*ckin rUN-

He usually refrains from hissing- its part of him rebelling against his cat-like nature, but if he is openly hissing at you it means he is at his wits-end and is honestly P * S S E D .

sERIOUSLY, F*CKING R U N -

Crymini has a blog documenting all the cat-like things Husk does, and she sometimes does the classic "THIS IS A HUSK IN ITS NATURAL HABITAT" or "LETS SEE HOW THE KITTY REACTS TO THIS NEXT THING" bit, and Husk honestly finds it insulting as f*ck

Crymini pranked Husk with a cucumber(you know how cats on the internet are terrified of them) and Husk was actually scared of it, and he ran up a f*cking tree and wouldnt come down for a solid hour, partly put of legitimate fear, and partly out of spite from seeing the slightly guilty look on Crymini's face after the first 20 minutes of him hiding up there

Being a cat demon, alchohol is actually slightly toxic to him, and he is prone to alchohol poisoning. He usually drinks beer, which has low ammount of ethanol(5-7%)[ethanol is what makes alchohol so toxic to cats]

Baxter has a spray bottle to use on Husk if he is being particularly stubborn or bothersome. Charlie sometimes uses her own spray bottle for similar purposes, but she usually says something like "Bad kitty! No!" Along with it to tease him. Husk finds it humiliating and hates when his fur is wet, so surprisingly the spray bottle thing usually works.

He is demi-panromantic and asexual

H A T E S being touched, like under any circumstances

"The last time I voluntarily made physical contact with another being was in 1970 and it was while I was loosing a bar fight. It was also the day I was beaten to death and setenced to hell."

Bonus:

Angel: Hey kitty~! Wanna cuddle~?

Husk: The last time I voluntarily made physical contact with another being was in 1970 and it was while I was loosing a bar fight.

Angel: Oh really? *snickers* And how'd that work out for ya'?

Husk: Well, it was also the day I was beaten to death and put in hell. So I dunno. You tell me.

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human-trash-fire · 4 years

Text

Beautiful Disaster: Chapter 5 (Pynch Soulmate AU)

Alrighty my loves, this chapter has been a labor of love from the beginning. As you continue reading you will see art pieces and each is correlated with a song (those will be at the end), and references yet again will be made to the EMFS playlist (Ronan’s rehab playlist- I’ve actually made it on spotify! you can find it here)

As usual you can find this story on Ao3 @ glam_reaper 2 if you’re interested <3

TW: Mention of suicide attempt, a panic attack though not super descriptive, cannon typical language.

Iv.

You,

I made a friend last week.

I know for most people that wouldn’t be a big deal, but I assume by now You understand what that means for someone like me. I guess “friend” may be a generous term? I don’t know if we are there yet, Blue definitely disagrees with him “on principle.”

You see, President Cellphone as she calls him, or Richard Campbell Gansey III (I know, what a douchey fucking name) is all boat shoes and privledge and perfect teeth. Gansey isn’t someone I’d normally associate with mind you, Henry kind of met my quota for rich extroverts in the inner circle, and yet…

So, here’s the story. I’m writing my last letter right? And I was so fucking lost. I decided to walk home from Nino’s- I thought maybe it would help me settle. And there, right around the corner is this fucking ‘73 camero. It should have been beautiful, really.. A classic like that? It’s a dream to look at. Only this fucking thing is the UGLIEST color of candy orange you could ever imagine… And it’s blowing smoke all over the damn place. I was honestly going to leave boat-shoes to call his daddy or mechanic or what have you, but he looked so confused. I offered to help him out and was able to get it running long enough to get to Boyd’s.

I expected him to just drop off “The Pig” (the car) like any normal person and come back for it, only I apparently made “quite the impression.”

Gansey ended up staying with me, prattling on about his Masters History program and some welsh king the ENTIRE time I worked on the damn car. At first I was tuning him out, but without realizing it I became completely entranced by the whole story. I’ve never seen such passion for anything, and I have VERY spirited friends.

He has one of those voices you know? The kind that can stop a room, raise an army, lead a nation. The kind that demands to be heard without ever having to raise itself.

That’s Gansey though.

I think he’ll be good for me, I don’t think he’d give me much of a choice in the matter though to be honest. He kind of adopted me this week? That should bother me and yet, being around him is just… It’s being included. It’s a sense of purpose.

I think he needs it too, he doesn’t seem to talk about negative things but you can tell, he’s haunted by something. That’s what solidified it for me really. He may be a senator’s son but he’s seen some shit.

I wish you could have met him, I wonder if you would have been as intrigued by him as I find myself.

Blue is being a total idiot about him, but I’m about 82% sure it’s because she is into him. I know for sure the feeling is mutual. It took Gans approximately 15 minutes after meeting Blue to ask me for her life story, offend her beyond measure, and then haul ass out of Nino’s. It was the first time I’d seriously laughed in so long. Have you ever been second-hand embarrassed for someone? It was that.

I’m going to wrap this up now though, I need to head to Nino’s for my shift, Blue’s working so of course Gans is stopping by. He said he’s bringing one of his best friends with him, some dude named Noah. Apparently he’s pretty cool, so I’m moderately less apprehensive. He said he wished he could bring his other best friend/ his and Noah’s third roommate but the guy is staying with family for a few months or something. Idk? He doesn’t talk about the other roommate much. I honestly don’t even think he’s ever said his name. Who gives a shit though, I can barely handle one new friend, let alone a 3-pack of Ganseys. Good God… I hope Noah isn’t another Gansey…. Fuck.

Welp.

Here goes nothing.

*****

It started with a not-so-subtle idea from the esteemed Dr. Allen. “Show me what happened.” Ronan was never great with words before all this, and since… When he spoke it was usually a litany of curse words. So Dr. Allen had suggested art. In the weeks since his entombment in this fine rehabilitation center, Ronan had kind of already been doing what he was being asked to do now. Though, he didn’t mention it to Allen. He’d spent countless hours sketching his life, the whole thing, in snapshots inside that beautiful leather sketchbook Gansey had given him.

He started at the beginning, pictures of Aurora and his brothers, the Barns, his father playing guitar by the fire. He drew their family vacations, the cows he used to sneak out and sleep beside when he was a child, the feeling of winning the Tennis State Championship when he was 15. He drew the bad things too, his nightmares, his drug-trips, that old stained couch in the basement of Kavinsky’s house. He put every piece of himself, all 22 years of memories down in that book, woven together with song lyrics in the margins.

So when Dr. Allen asked him to look specifically to his addiction and create, he didn’t see a problem. He needed to return to school with a series anyways, Declan had called to inform him that strings had been pulled to allow him to finish his final semester at Georgetown, but he needed to walk in with something to show at the January exhibition. Two birds, and all that.

He settled on 7 pieces, each done in oils on canvas, each accompanied by a song. 7 moments in the life of his battle with addiction, from the beginning to now. With each stroke of his brush he felt infinesmally lighter, pouring his grief into the images before him.

It started with “The Fall.” His father’s murder in reds and greys; fracturing lines and deep shadows. He mixed his paints with tears and used his heart to drag color across the canvas. For the first time in years, Ronan allowed the memory to consume him. He’d re-lived it plenty of times in his nightmares, but this was different. His hands shook, jagged strokes of anger and confusion bleeding through. He painted the brief moment, the final moment, when his world was whole before his teenage mind finally realized what it was he was looking at. His last free breath. And he painted his screams, the cacophony of pain, endlessly mixing with sirens until his vocal chords gave out.

He drowned the canvas in un-kept promises and hung it out to dry with childhood dreams.

Then came “Chasing the Void.” It was a story told in stark lighting. High beams on a backroad, swirling smoke and broken bottles. It was white glasses and white-powder lines on shark-nosed hood. It was going 115mph, bones rattling with the beat of the bass in his sound system. Ronan painted a black tattoo, used the blood on his knuckles to tint bloodshot eyes. His brush moved with his mother’s disappointment and his brother’s anger. Whimsical lines and Gansey’s head shaking when he found Ronan passed out yet again. He painted the highs and lows when sobriety reminded him that he hated the face that stared back at him in the mirror.

Each new piece he added to the collection was brought to Dr. Allen’s office. Together they worked through each memory associated with the piece and slowly Ronan felt the weight on his chest lighten.

Gansey visited every Monday and Friday like clockwork. He kept Ronan apprised to all the goings on of Monmouth and updates on Matthew and Declan. Ronan never asked for them, but he appreciated it regardless. His current obsession though seemed to be a new friend, Adam something. He had been going on for 30 minutes now about how this man single-handedly raised the Pig from the dead. Ronan tuned out most of the conversation, but nodded at what he assumed were appropriate moments while sketching.

“Ronan, are you even paying attention?” Gansey asked, irritation only slightly evident.

“Mmm?” Ronan hummed. “For sure. Pig. Smoke. Some new guy.”

“Essentially. I was saying that Noah and I are heading to his second job, the man works 2 jobs and is getting a masters can you believe it? Anyways Nino’s, so Noah can finally meet him and Blue. Have I mentioned her yet?”

Blue? He thought. Who the fuck names their kid Blue. “Once or twice.”

“Well they both work this afternoon, so I assume we’ll just hang there until they get off. Then maybe grab a bite. I wish you could come, I’m sure you’d get along nicely with Adam.” Gansey said, choosing to ignore the previous sarcasm and barrell on. Excelsior.

“Doubt it.” Guy sounds like a douche.

“On that note, thank you for another lovely visit. I’ll see you Monday, Ronan.” Gansey gathered his coat and made his way to the door with a final wave.

Ronan waved back with a single finger and a saccharine “Bye, Dick.” Then shoved his Airpods back into his ears and lost himself in the EMFS playlist.

*****

As Adam gathered the tub of dirty dishes from above the trash and made his way back to wash them, he was lost in thought. These last two weeks, recent events, had been so much and yet he strangely was beginning to feel some semblance of peace. He knew that Blue had wanted him to write letters to help him cope. If he was admitting to it helping, he also needed to be honest with himself in noting that it may have been hurting just as much. He was falling in love with a ghost. A figment of his imagination that he could tell his every secret too, someone who listened without judgment; Someone who never asked more of him than he could handle. It wasn’t healthy, wasn’t what Blue had intended, of that he was sure. But, if it brought him peace and allowed him to sleep without seeing cold, dead eyes, then what was the harm?

He rinsed the mugs and plates loading them efficiently into the dishwasher, and dried his hands. As he moved to toss the towel into the bin, he heard the bell chime above the cafe door. He made his way slowly to the front, knowing that Blue was currently handling the register meant that he didn’t need to rush. On his way down the hallway he stopped to straighten a missing cat flier on the community bulletin board, taking a moment to snap a picture of the cat in question so he could be on the lookout, then continued toward the front; eyes glued to his phone.

He rounded the corner towards the coffee bar to the tune of laughter, it seemed Gansey had arrived. His eyes found Blue first. For all her insistance that she loathed the man in question, she was positively glowing, head tossed back in a hearty laugh. Lost in the bubble of charm Gansey operated in.

“-And so I asked him, mind you I’ve had a lot to drink at this point, ‘Hey senator, why do you fucking hate poor peo-‘ Oh! Adam” Ganseys story of embarrassing his mother at one of her Republican fundraisers interrupted, as he caught sight of Adam sliding behind the bar.

“Hey Gans,” He smiled.

“My apologies, this is Noah.” Gansey stepped to the side to reveal the man in question, and Adam’s breath stopped.

There, eyes blue and wide with shock, mouth agape stood the man from the alley. The one whose scream still haunted Adam in the dark, solitary hours of sleep. The one that began his every nightmare of that night.

He was different now, tears weren’t pouring from his eyes to dance across the plains of his smudgey face. His blonde hair free of blood was slightly tousled, and his clothes were clean, albeit a little disheveled.

“No,” the word was a broken noise, barely a word at all, closer to a sob. Gansey and Blue looked frantically between the two for what seemed like an eternity before Noah spoke.

“It’s you…”

“Who? Noah, you know Adam?” Gansey’s voice was quietly confused.

Adam began to shake his head slowly, increasing with speed as his breath finally returned to him; Erratic and wild. Crocodile tears blurred his vision, and he finally croaked a simple question, “What… What was his name?”

“Ronan.”

“Oh, god” Blue breathed.

Adam ran, desperately fleeing the scene and chorus of his name called from the front. Ronan, his name was Ronan. Adam couldn’t breathe. His pain fresh, an un-mendable wound reopened now that he had a name to grieve. He paused, only long enough to grab his messenger bag from the back, and took the alley door.

Then he ran, faster than he’d ever remembered running. Tears turning the colors of the world around him to a haunting watercolor. His breath came in painful stabs, each beat of his bleeding heart an excruciating truth.

He somehow made it back to his apartment. The moment the door closed behind him he fell against it and slid to the floor. Ronan Ronan Ronan-

“R-Ronan.” He spoke the name the first time aloud, the feeling of its weight on his tongue was an answer to a question he’d been asking for a month. For a lifetime.

Adam didn’t know how long he sat on the floor, grief taking time and twisting it in on itself. An amalgam of pain, hopelessness, and questions. Gansey, Gansey knew Ronan, knew Noah. Noah the boy he’d last seen carted away in the back of an ambulance covered in red red red. Noah, who’d screamed for help like the world was shattering. Noah, who’d clung tightly to the shredded arms of a bleeding man in a dark alley.

Help me, his mind screamed, his internal voice morphing into Noah’s from that night.

Help me, I’m not okay…

A key twisting in the lock above his head brought his attention to the present. Adam pushed away from the door, and waited as Blue made her way into his dark apartment. Night had fallen sometime since he’d been here, on the floor, lost in the alley. Lost in a name.

“Hey,” she whispered.

“Th-that was-”

“I know. Noah told us after you left. Adam, there’s… Adam. I need to tell you something.”

It was a concentrated effort to drag his gaze from the space between their bodies on the floor to meet her eyes. Lights from the street poured through the window in the living room, painting Blue’s honey warm skin in a haunting glow. He couldn’t bring himself to ask, so he waited. He watched. She brought a trembling hand to his, her brown eyes lined with silver, she squeezed.

“Adam, he’s alive.”

A sob born of heartbreak and pain tore from his chest, he couldn’t form words. He broke then, completely and wholly. Blue came to cradle his head against her chest as he cried. Every hope he’d killed since the alley came barreling to the surface; All the pain and confusion, love and questions, beating like waves against the shores of his mind. Some minutes later he finally raised his head and met Blue’s eyes, her smile was wet and broken. He dragged his hand under his nose, across his eyes, and finally found the word to the question he needed to ask. “How?”

So Blue told him. Apparently, him finding Noah and Ronan in that alley, the tourniquet he’d made of his scarf, that extra minute he’d bought him had been enough. The doctors were able to stitch his wounds, and though it had been a close call, he’d pulled through. She explained that he’d had a hard life, though Gansey wouldn’t give details because he insisted those were Ronan’s to share when he was ready. He did however give her basic facts. Ronan Niall Lynch is an artist, a senior at Georgetown. He’s an orphan, and a brother. He’s an addict in recovery at a facility in Arlington, and Gansey’s third roommate.

Blue explained that, when Adam was ready Gansey and Noah wanted to meet with him, to talk more. She offered to accompany him when that time came, but they all agreed they wouldn’t push him until he was ready. “Thank you,” he’d said to Blue. For getting the information. For telling him. For allowing him space. She understood that his history made this difficult, an addict for a soulmate was something he would need time to process. She eventually asked if he wanted to be alone and when he’d told her “yes” she kissed his forehead, and made her way to the door.

“Adam,” she paused, and he looked up. “We’ll wait on your text okay? Whenever you’re ready. But please check in so I know you’re safe.”

“I will.”

With a perfunctory nod she slid back out the door.

Adam spent another minute in silence before dragging himself from the floor. He made his way in a daze to his desk and he collapsed into his chair. Slowly, he pulled out a blank sheet of paper.

His hand shook.

He took a deep breath.

He wrote.

Ronan,

You’re alive…

**********************

Art Pieces and their correlating songs (linked):

“The Fall” The War- SYML

“Chase The Void” For What It’s Worth- Malia J

#bd au #pynch #pynch fic #Adam Parrish #ronan lynch #ronan x adam #blue sargent #gansey #richard campbell gansey iii #gangsey #soulmate au

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ping-ping-ying · 5 years

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NCT 2019: Mafia! Yandere!

Warning: toxic relationships, mental and emotional abuse, mentions of death/murder and suicide, kidnapping, illegal crimes, descriptive violence

NCT 2019: Reaction when their s/o tries to escape

To make this easier these will deadass be split up into units😂

Requested by @99-nct 🌻💓

NCT 127:

Taeyong: Would honestly freak a little. Since he made sure he kept track of you the entire day. He always knew where you were, and what you were doing. So when he came home from working late to see the house completely empty he panicked. But about four days after escaping he used all his resources to track you down, and found you waiting at a train station.

“Hey sweetie.” He pointed a gun to your back.

You stood there frozen.

“On the count of three, you’re going to come back home with me and get severely punished, or I’ll start shooting random civilians, your call.”

Johnny: Wouldn’t be as freaked out as you would expect him to be. All he needed to do was trace your steps. He made sure to look through your emails, phone logs, and sure enough, he found out you bought a plane ticket back home (unless you live in Korea lol) . It took him quite a while to find you in the crowded airport, but once he did, he gripped your wrist making you turn and face him.

“Hey doll face, remember me? The love of your life?”

Taeil: Home boi really caught you in the midst of your escape. You thought he went to sleep so you decided to high tail it out of there. But to your misfortune, Taeil was downstairs sitting in his chair. He held a glass of whiskey as he swirled it around looking at it intently.

“Now my dear, what do you think you’re doing?”

Doyoung: Was quite oblivious of the fact that you tried to escape. You both were at the mall and he went to go order food from the food court. Once he left you, you decided to sprint towards the malls entrance/exit. People gave you weird looks but you didn’t care. Your mind was focused on escaping. A mall cop saw you basically running and he came up to you and told you to stop running. In this moment you were about to tell this mall cop everything, but you were quickly shut down.

“Honey there you are!” Doyoung came jogging up to you.

The mall cop noticed your uneasy state, so he asked you,

“Do you know this man ma’am?”

You didn’t have time to answer because Doyoung came up with a smooth lie.

“Yes, this is my wife. She suffers from PTSD. Something must’ve triggered her, I’m so sorry sir.” He came and held your hand.

“No I’m sorry, please just make sure she is okay.” The cop bowed and walked off.

Doyoung then squeezed your hand tightly, to the point where you thought he was going to break a couple of fingers

“You are in big trouble when we get home.”

Mark: Mark wasn’t really a hardcore vicious yandere. He was actually surprisingly lenient when it came to you. That was his big mistake. You kept up your good behavior so he could give you more freedom, and that he did. You two were at a park and Mark had to use the bathroom. He told you to wait for him, and you, plastered a fake smile on your face and told him you would wait. As soon as the bathroom door shut you made a run for it.

You didn’t care where you were going, as long as it was away from him. You lost track of how long you were running and decided to look back, when you did, you bumped into someone.

“Are you all right miss?” An older woman asked as she helped you up.

“Yes, I need-”

“Babe!” Mark came running up to you. “I told you to wait for me! She’s so competitive, cheater.”

“You two are adorable! Have fun!” The older woman walked off and you looked at Mark.

He grabbed your hand and yanked you towards the exit of the park.

Haechan: This evil little shit actually let you escape, just so he can hunt you down. It was part of this sick little fantasy he had. When he finally caught you, it was not even an hour later. He knocked you out and threw you in the back of the car.

“I could do this all day princess.”

Yuta: It was his fault really. He left you at home alone all day and he forgot to lock the doors and windows. He was such in a rush that he forgot to do it. You walked straight out the door, and hopped into your car. The next thing you remember is waking up in the hospital. You were weak and could barley move, Yuta was asleep in a chair to your left. In that moment, you wanted to just pull out your IV but you couldn’t fore it was probably the only thing keeping you alive right now.

“Honey! Are you okay?!” Yuta popped up and immediately grabbed your hand.

“I think, I’m fine?”

“Where were you going? You know you aren’t allowed to leave the house without me.”

To your surprise, Yuta didn’t even suspect you tried to escape, because if he did, you probably would’ve been better dying off in the car accident. So you made up a lie to save your ass.

“I-I wanted to surprise you and make you your favorite meal. I haven’t cooked it in a while, and you seemed so stressed. I just wanted to do something good.”

“Oh honey.” He gave you a kiss on your forehead. “I appreciate it, but next time, just tell me where you’re going okay?”

“Okay.”

Jungwoo: This sweetheart could turn cold in 2.5 when it came to you. He caught you trying to pick the lock on the front door.

“What are you doing?”

“I wanted to go for a walk to clear my head.”

“No, come back to bed.”

“Jungwoo-”

“COME BACK TO BED!”

Jaehyun: You kept being good and Jaehyun immediately knew something was up. You were usually a brat and acted out. For the past week he kept his eye on you. Then you decided to escape. Jaehyun was in the basement working out when you crept out the kitchen and to the front door. Before you could even touch the doorknob, both of your arms were pinned up against your head and your back slammed against the door.

“I should’ve known you were up to something. You need to start obeying me more princess.”

“Make me.” You spit in his face.

His head jerked to the side for a couple seconds and he smirked back at you.

“You’re in for one hell of a punishment baby girl.”

NCT DREAM:

(Except Mark and Haechan)

Renjun: Honestly, you were afraid to escape from Renjun. He was a sick sadistic bastard who had no problem bashing your fingers if you didn’t listen. So sad to say, you didn’t try to escape this time, due to the fact your broken leg was still healing, thanks to Renjun.

Jeno: Another one who was oblivious to your attempt to escape. He just thought you had to use the bathroom, but when you didn’t come back halfway through the movie he went searching for you. He found you talking to a cop and went up to the both of you.

“Hey babe, you’re missing the movie! Is there a problem officer?” He said ever so sweetly.

“Not at all young man, she just got lost is all.”

Jeno grabbed your hand and squeezed it tightly while walking back to the theater.

Jaemin: Just like Haechan, he loved when you “escaped”. The hunt was his favorite part, he stalked you the entire time. When you were walking back from the store, he sat parked right outside. Now all he had to do was grab you, but he decided to wait. He didn’t find it fun if the hunt ended so quickly.

Chenle: This baby went ballistic. He was looking around the school yard for you. He thought you wouldn’t have gotten out of the hand cuffs. But behold, you showed up to school with your wrists wrapped up. You basically almost cut off your wrists trying to break free. Chenle walked up to you and hugged you.

“What happened? Are you okay? You can’t leave me again. This time you won’t be in handcuffs.

Jisung: The school day was over and you tried to hurry out of the school. Jisung was lurking around and you didn’t want to run into him. A teacher stopped you to talk about your grades (leave it to teachers to ruin everything, lol *disappointed but not surprised*). Jisung made his way to you with a wicked smile on his face.

“Hey Jisung!” The teacher greeted him warmly.

“Hello! Are you ready to go?” He smirked at you.

You knew you were screwed.

WayV:

(this boutta be dark asf sksks for some reason I see WayV as darker Yandere’s then the rest of NCT lord help me sksks)

Kun: You tried and failed for the fifth time to escape from Kun. This time you ended up recieving the worst punishment ever. He tied you up in the basement and didn’t give you food or water for two days straight. Then after he fed you, and made you get on your knees in front of this large bucket. He restrained your hands and held your head under water for 30 seconds. This went on two more times before he dried you off and let you go back upstairs.

Ten: Ten wasn’t expecting to try and escape again so quickly. Since your last attempt didn’t go so well. He caught you trying to hot wire his car, since he hid the keys. He put a cloth soaked with chloroform over your face, so he didn’t have to deal with your struggling. When you woke up, you were chained up in your room on the bed. Your legs were free though. Ten came walking in with a tray of supplies. Ten wasn’t into torture, but you needed to learn your lesson. He sat down next to you and in his hand was a tiny scalpel.

“Stay still baby, this won’t hurt as much.”

He hummed softly dragged the sharp object along your shoulder. The room filled with your ear piercing screams. All Ten did was hush you and continue to torture you.

Sicheng: Oh boy, this dude. WinWin caught you talking to another guy while you were trying to escape. But, he was more angry at the fact you talked to another guy. Straight to the shed you brought you, and tied you up to a chair. This wasn’t a regular chair (cuz know he’s in that zoooone let me stfu lol),this was an electrick chair (e e e electric shock…. okok imma stop now hehe). Sicheng never used this on you unless he was really mad. To make this even more painful, he threw a bucket of freezing cold water on you, and put a cloth in your mouth. No matter how many times you pleaded and shook your head, he flipped the switch. This lasted about five minuets, before you passed out.

Lucas: Lucas was a very jealous yandere. You could look at another guy and he would want to yank your teeth out. Today he saw you trying to escape his house by running out the door. You thought he wasn’t home, but he was. Lucas grabbed you and dragged you upstairs. After tying you up to the bed post, he got out an iron rod. He went downstairs and put it over the lit fireplace for a couple minuets. When he returned, your eyes immediately went to stare at the glowing orange tip of the iron rod. A little smoke came rising off the tip, and that set you into panic mode. Your struggles were useless as he sat down and pressed the tip of the bar to your thigh. Lucas wasn’t phased at all by your whaling screams, and I mean, not at all. Whenever Lucas was mad, all he saw was red, so in this particular moment, he didn’t care that he was hurting you.

Xiaojun: Xiaojun was very quiet, and that was more scary than anything. Once he found out you tried to escape, he went into his sadistic persona. He would torture you softly at first, putting salt on the top of your hand and then pushing an ice cube on it, making it burn like acid. Then he would put a rope around your neck and choke you until you felt light headed. After that, he would choke you with his bare hands, since he doesn’t like using weapons to punish you. Let’s just say, you couldn’t speak, or barely eat right for about week.

Hendery: Didn’t take your escape attempt lightly. He really isn’t into physical torture, so he just made you do hard labor with no food, water, or breaks. Whenever you slowed down or felt like you were going to pass out, he would remind you that if you kept slacking you wouldn’t be fed or allowed back in the house. In some instances, you would rather die than go back into the house.

YangYang: This little puppy, was probably the most sadistic yandere ever. He found you trying to escape, and boy, you shouldn’t have done that. YangYang actually broke both your legs, and mentally tortured you for hours. When you didn’t seemed phased by his mental torture, he chained you up and left you down in the basement until you learned your lesson. You went about four days without food or before he caved in and came down with food and water. When you refused to eat or drink, he threatened to break both your arms. So you ate and drank, then later on cried yourself to sleep.

-PingPing -3:53pm

#nct 127 #nct scenarios #nct #nct dream #nct imagines #nct u #nct yandere #nct mafia #nct mafia au

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legends-of-direbear · 7 years

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Dead Man’s Switch || JD/Veronica: Heathers: The Musical AU

Genre: Heathers: The Musical (AU from Shine A Light)

Summary: When Veronica McNamara is driven to commit suicide, Veronica’s determination to save her drives JD to make a promise to keep Veronica safe. Even from himself. Apparently Sherman is making a change.

Part 6

Note: this is not intended to glamorize toxic relationships. If you find yourself in a relationship where you are the only thing keeping someone from harming themselves or others, please get help, because that’s not healthy or right.

Triggers: attempted suicide, murder, bullying

“Just another example of the losers trying to copy the cool kids, and failing miserably…” Heather Duke’s sneering tone rang in Veronica’s ears, her stomach twisting with nausea.

“Oh my god, Martha.” Veronica sat in the hospital room, completely dejected. She couldn’t breathe. She’d done this to her best friend—driven her to jump off a bridge. Veronica was becoming single-handedly responsible for the death of every one of her friends and their associates, whether by words or actions. “God, I’m so sorry.”

She’d destroyed her friend. Her best friend. Who’d only wanted justice for Ram Sweeney, who’d only ever been nice to her during kindergarten. As opposed to Veronica, her best friend for years, who’d pushed her over the edge by confessing that she’d been the butt of a joke to dodge suspicion of being responsible for the death of said linebacker and his best friend. And Heather Chandler.

“I’m going to Hell,” she whispered. And she deserved it.

“No you’re not.” Veronica didn’t even turn around. “This wasn’t your fault.”

She laughed humorlessly. “Not my fault? I practically shoved her over the bridge myself. I did this to Ram, Kurt, Heather…”

“Whoa—did you glamorize their deaths?” JD squatted down next to her, pushing his duster away from his boots. “You wrote something to give them substance, but you weren’t the one that published it around school. You weren’t the one that wanted to televise some love-in in the cafeteria. You helped save Heather McNamara—not Heather Duke, not Mrs. Flemming. You, Veronica. You couldn’t have known that Martha was considering—“

“I should have known,” she countered angrily, hot tears streaming down her face as she held her friend’s splinted-hand. “She was my best friend, and she loved Ram. I should have known.”

For once JD didn’t argue. He looked pensively over to Martha. “She’s alive,” he reminded her softly.

“I have to tell her the truth,” Veronica said.

“What? No—you’ll go to jail.”

“I have to tell her something!” she argued. “Look at her, JD! I did that—I’m not going to let her think no one cares about what she’s going through. I’m not going to let her be alone.”

JD gripped her arm firmly. “Okay, let’s just calm down for now. You’re always telling me to think things through: how about before we go telling anybody anything we just take a little time to consider all of this? Martha will be okay for now.” His eyes fixed on her intently. “I won’t lose you Veronica.”

Fear compounded with shame and guilt and pain; but Veronica merely nodded. She supposed JD was right: if she was going to confess, she wanted to be the one to tell Martha; so she’d have to at least wait for her to wake up first.

Returning to school was the worst: Heather Duke was exactly the same, if not worse. She’d apparently managed to get the signatures she needed for the extra pages in the yearbook, although based off of homeroom gossip Veronica was suspecting that some peers were either coerced or straight-up lied to about the purpose of their names.

Martha’s attempted suicide didn’t draw any support or attention from the adults; and only became slam-chatter amongst her fellow students. Veronica found herself withdrawing as far from the crowd she’d so desperately wanted to be part of as she could, only accepting company from Heather McNamara, who, once the focus of her own depression had shifted, was welcomed back into the In Crowd with about as much love as she’d had originally. For all of her blonde clichés however, Heather didn’t forget Veronica, and continually checked up on her to talk and offer a kind word and offers of hanging out and/or going shopping.

If she wasn’t so lost in her own problems, Veronica would be worried by the fact that this meant JD was her most common shoulder to lean on. She was well aware of his toxic influence, and without her tenacity to keep him in check, she wondered how long it would be before he convinced her that Heather Duke was to blame for all of her problems, and if she’d be able to stop herself from going along with whatever he had planned. Oddly though, JD didn’t push her toward his usual homicidal tendencies. He continually encouraged her to keep their assistance in Heather, Kurt, and Ram’s “suicides” to themselves, but otherwise just sat with her quietly, keeping the conversation light in between bouts of reflection.

When she heard that Martha was awake, Veronica almost ditched school to see her. The only thing that stopped her was Heather approaching her and asking for her to sit with her during English. They talked about Heather Duke’s expanding agenda—the head cheerleader had fallen back into the girl’s ranks—and their plans for Winter Formal.

“Is JD taking you?” Heather asked curiously after admitting she was hoping Matt Bauer from the basketball team would approach her.

“I don’t know.” Veronica didn’t want to tell her Probably not because we’ll both be in jail, so she simply shrugged and let the vague answer sit alone.

“I bet he’ll ask if you mention it,” the blonde encouraged. “You’ve been so gun-shy about everything since—before. I mean, we’re having party this weekend at Matt’s—“

“No,” Veronica refused a little too insistently, causing the blue eyes watching her to balk. “I mean, with everything that’s going on…partying is just starting to feel weird.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess.” Heather wasn’t friends with Martha, but she tended to like what her friends liked, so Veronica could tell she felt bad about her accident. “But I’m sure they’ll get better soon. I mean, I heard they’re letting Martha out next week, right?”

“That’s what I heard: I’m going over there after school to talk to her.”

“Yeah, that’s what JD—“

Veronica’s eyebrows quirked. “What JD what?” she asked.

“Nothing.” Heather was a terrible liar.

“What did JD do Heather?” Oh god, the ideas that flickered through her head…

“He just asked me to make sure you went to our last classes—he didn’t want you ditching to see Martha; said he wanted to see her first. He didn’t want to upset you.”

Veronica felt the blood draining out of her face. What if JD was stalling her from getting to Martha so he could make sure she never found out? Pulling out her IV drip; smothering her with a pillow….Veronica jerked into action, shoving all of her books into her bag. “I’ve got to go.”

“What? Why?”

“I just do.” Honestly, Veronica liked Heather, but she would let herself get manipulated by a pillbug. And now that she’d properly distracted the brunette, what would she find at the hospital?

Oh God, Martha, she found herself internalizing. I’m so sorry that I let it slip, that I trusted JD…how am I going to live with this?

She raced into the hospital, up the elevator, through the corridors, into her room…to where Martha was laying quietly, staring out the window.

“Oh my god—Martha!” Veronica was crying as she threw herself next to her friend’s bed, practically in hysterics as the wide-eyed worry of the girl next to her confirmed that Martha was, indeed, still alive. “I was so worried—I thought—I’m so sorry!“ She was blubbering like an idiot, unable to keep herself from gripping Martha’s good arm tightly in the closest thing to a hug she could manage in her friend’s state. And that was how they stayed for a few minutes, with Martha’s wide eyes watching and trying to comfort Veronica’s hysterics as she kept rambling how sorry she was.

“Veronica, really, it’s okay—I’m sorry,” she responded, causing the brunette to look up at her with bewilderment. What did she need to be sorry for? “I let myself get caught up in all of this, and then when you said that thing about Ram and the note—“ Veronica winced in shame at the mention of her horrible moment. “But I’m going to be okay—the doctors are letting me out.”

“I know.” Right as the cops are going to arrest me. “Look, Martha; I have to tell you something about that note; about Ram…”

“It’s okay, Veronica—JD already told me everything.” Veronica looked up in surprise, and her friend’s eyes were full of compassion and sympathy.

“He did?”

“Yeah—he came by like an hour before you did, said that you told him what I’d said and he wanted to clear up everything.”

“He did?”

Martha’s good hand squeezed her friends. “It’s okay, Veronica—I’m not going to tell anyone: I already promised him too.”

Okay, so Martha knew that she’d killed Ram and Kurt, and Heather, and JD convinced her not only to keep it a secret, but apparently in a way that made Martha feel sorry for them? Veronica could only gape as words refused to come out.

“I mean, I guess I always knew Ram wasn’t the same guy he was in grade school,” the kind-hearted girl continued obliviously. “But with what happened to JD—I guess I get why you didn’t think you could tell me about it.”

JD fidgeted with his hands as Martha watched him timidly. He knew that she was slightly afraid of him; and apparently she’d had good reason. He didn’t think he’d ever hurt anyone that didn’t deserve it, but Veronica was breaking apart over Martha’s attempt at taking her own life, and it gutted him like a fish. He might as well have been jumping off that bridge too. And at night now, he saw Martha standing next to his mom in that library in Texas, just waving at him with sad smiles. He couldn’t stand it.

“Look, Martha. I know that you think I hate Kurt and Ram, and I kind of do—“ well, kind of was an understatement – “but it’s more complicated than just the fights you saw. Ram…” Deep breath, glance over at her, at the window. “Ram…kissed me.” He watched as Martha’s eyes popped open in surprise. “I don’t know; maybe I said something, or did something; but one minute we’re fighting, and he’s pushed me up against the lockers in the locker room, threatening me, and the next…” He shook his head, not making eye contact. It wasn’t really hard for him to paint the dead guy as a potential rapist—it’s not like he hadn’t done it before; he and Veronica had discussed it extensively before they’d pulled their double-suicide prank. Just not with guys, as far as either of them knew.

“I got away, but he said he’d kill me if I said anything,” he told her. “And what would I say that wouldn’t get me pegged as gay at this school? And then he and Kurt killed themselves…I told Veronica, but I made her swear to take it to the grave. I mean, maybe there’s a little more tolerance in Sherwood, Ohio, but not enough to make people keep from turning around and calling me a fag, you know? I don’t know…maybe I’m just a coward.” He glanced at her, sitting sadly in that bed, casted up in place. “If I’d known you were going to—and how badly Veronica’s messed up over it…I would have spoken up, I swear.” He fixed his eyes earnestly on her, willing her to believe his story. Veronica wanted Martha to find a good guy, to get over Ram Sweeney, and JD couldn’t survive without Veronica. And he’d promised he wouldn’t hurt anybody else. This was the only way.

After a long minute, Martha’s good hand slowly crawled over to JD’s as it fisted the sheets on the edge of her bed, clasping over his in solace.

“I guess I misjudged him,” Martha added in the silence that followed. Veronica’s brain was still having trouble processing what had just happened. “I mean, all of that—confidence, I guess—I assumed that nothing got to him. But he’s just like the rest of us, really.” She smiled sadly at her friend. “I’m really sorry about this.”

“Just get better, okay? When you get out, we’ll have a movie night—something with a happy ending.” Both of the girls looked far from believing that there really were happy endings in real life, but a huge weight was lifting off of Veronica’s chest as she saw her friend truly forgave her, and she was determined to set things right. “And don’t ever do anything like that again.”

Martha actually did laugh a little at the threat, and nodded her promise. With a gentle farewell and promise to come back soon, Veronica stood up, sweeping a hand down the pleats of her skirt and then leaving the hospital.

She wasn’t really surprised to see JD leaning up against the wall of the hospital exterior waiting for her. “So, are you waiting for the cops?” he asked.

Her eyes were unamused, but she gave a curt shake of her head before sighing. “I can’t believe you told her that,” she finally commented.

“He wasn’t a good guy: she needed to let go. I just gave her a good reason to.” Veronica’s eyebrow quirked as he shrugged and sidled next to her.

“You realize if anyone finds out about that, your reputation is going to be ruined?” she remarked incredulously. Not that his reputation was so stellar to begin with, but adding a “homo” to the “psycho” aspect didn’t really help.

“If I have you, I don’t care,” he insisted, sweeping her into his arms and pressing a kiss against her temple. “I’d let them think I screwed every guy on the football team if it protected you.”

A very weird promise, but Veronica knew his heart was in the right place; and at least he wasn’t threatening to kill anybody. “Thank you,” she told him earnestly, snuggling tighter into his chest. “And thank you for helping Martha. For keeping her safe.”

“I promised.”

Veronica sighed and let go of her fear for the moment, just letting herself feel safe and loved by her boyfriend that protected her in the best way he knew how.

#Heathers: The Musical #au #ficlet #mine #jd #Veronica #heather duke #heather mcnamara #martha dunnstock #Multichapter #dms #dms006

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terresdebrumestories · 7 years

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Chapter 2/4: Rock bottom

✗ TECHNICAL DETAILS

FANDOM: Digimon Adventure 01/02/Tri RATING: Mature. WORDCOUNT: 10 685 PAIRING(S): Endgame Taito, though the fic is primarily Taichi-centric. Side pairings include Takeru/Hikari and discussion of past Sorato. CHARACTER(S): Taichi Kamiya, Yamato Ishida, Hikari Kamiya, Takeru Takashi, Daisuke Motomiya, Agumon, Veemon, Gabumon, Sora Takenoushi, and mention of the rest of the gang. GENRE: Reaching a breaking point. Also future!fic. TRIGGER WARNING(S): Depression and discussion thereof, including one briefly mentioned suicide attempt in this chapter. SUMMARY: In which Taichi as a questionable way to handle his issues, everyone tries to be nice, and Yamato yells at him a lot. Same old, same old, except for the part where they end up kissing.

OTHER CHAPTERS: [I. Epic Fail] [II. Rock Bottom] [III. Get up] [IV. Start over]

Daisuke leaves for an improvised holiday at his sister’s without saying when he’ll be back, and Taichi buries himself in work, studying textbooks and prospective bills until he can’t see straight and Agumon has to drag him away from his desk and into bed. It’s not the healthiest solution by a long short, but it works, and that’s all Taichi has any right to ask for.

If he hadn’t been so stupid, so stubborn, if he’d listened to everyone’s warning, he wouldn’t have to sit alone in an apartment meant for two and wonder how his maybe-no-t-for-that-much-longer roommate is doing okay. He wouldn’t have to watch Agumon grow concerned and confused in turns, and he definitely wouldn’t have to deal with Yamato calling every day to grill him on his activities.

“I worked,” Taichi half-sighs, half-snaps after a week of that little game, “it’ll be the same tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that—can you please stop stalking my every move?”

“You’re the one who told Ken if I wanted to know how you were doing I should ask you.”

Taichi groans into his cereal bowl at that, and then again when a glance at the clock above the door tells him this is only the start of Yamato’s day. Wonderful, really, that’s exactly what he needed.

“I said it so he’d leave me alone,” he mutters, without any hope of Yamato taking the hint, “I thought that was obvious.”

“It was,” Yamato agrees, “I just don’t think it’s a good idea to leave you alone these days.”

“You’re still convinced I’m depressed,” Taichi snorts without humor, “aren’t you?”

“You still haven’t shown me anything that hints at the contrary.”

“How would you know about that,” Taichi replies, voice intentionally sharp, “you’re on the other side of the planet!”

Yamato, on the other end of the line, falls silent. Taichi’s left hand abandons his spoon to rub at his face, something heavy settling on his shoulders in the blink of an eye. There’s wetness under his fingers, but he ignores it and swallows past the tightness of his throat instead, forcing his back to relax a little while he bends down to rest his forehead on his knees:

“Sorry,” he mumbles after a beat—Yamato doesn’t respond, and Taichi almost curses under his breath. Yet another stunning exploit from the worlds-renowned diplomat. “I know you want to help. It’s just—I’m tired, okay? And the thing with Daisuke put me under the weather. But I’m not sick.”

“I’d believe you,” Yamato replies, “except I also know you wouldn’t tell us if you were.”

“I always tell you when I’m under.”

“Not since the Reboot,” Yamato counters, and Taichi closes his eyes.

It’s not a topic that comes up often between them—as in Yamato and him, of course, but also where the rest of the group is concerned. There are too many things there they haven’t completely digested yet, too many wounds not all of them share, too many bridges none of them has the energy to build.

Too many conversations that, to this day, still hurt too much to be had.

“I know,” Taichi admits, eyes still closed—the darkness, somehow, makes it easier to keep talking, to pretend whatever he says will be gone when he opens his eyes again. “I really flunked out, back then, didn’t I?”

“That’s not what I meant, Taichi.”

“It’s okay,” Taichi promises, and means it—wants to mean it with every inch of his soul—“I know I did. But I’m not doing that this time. I’m not depressed.”

Taichi listens to Yamato sigh after that, splutter for a bit as if considering what to start with. In the background, Gabumon’s voice asks what’s wrong, and Taichi winces because, really, this is the exact opposite of what he wanted.

“What’s wrong is my best friend is being a self-sacrificial idiot,” Yamato replies with more vehemence than Taichi would have expected, “depression is not ‘flunking out’ anymore than a broken leg or a cancer is, you dumbass! Or if it is, you’ve got about ten years worth of yelling to catch up with!”

“That’s different!” Taichi protests, eyes snapping open in surprise, “I’m not going to yell at you for that!”

He’s done a lot of yelling at Yamato over the year—in surprise, in fear, in anger, in reproach, even in encouragement sometimes, but never for failing their friends. Sure, there were times his help was needed and he couldn’t give it, but that wasn’t his fault—you can’t just rewrite your brain chemistry through sheer force of will, not even when you’re the stubbornest butt ever created.

“Then why do you assume I—or any of us, really—would yell at you for the exact same thing?”

“It—I don’t think you’d yell at me,” Taichi replies, scrambling for words in a way that leaves him breathless before he’s even started, “I’m just not—I can’t, okay? I can’t be depressed.”

“You can’t decide that, Taichi,” Yamato says and the softness in his voice reminds Taichi of the way he talked to Takeru sometimes, when the kid was down. “’It’s not like you can rewrite your brain chemistry through sheer force of will’, remember?”

Taichi closes his eyes again, pressing the heel of his palm against burning eyelids, and gritting his teeth when he finds them wet again.

“I can’t,” he repeats, voice pitched high with the despair flooding his veins, “I’m the leader! People count on me—I can’t just—give up!”

“Oh please, like you even know how to give up!” Yamato retorts, hotly enough for Taichi to picture his furious expression as if he were here, “You didn’t give up when we File Island exploded, did you? You were just a kid, and you got us all back together. You didn’t give up then, and you didn’t give up later on, ever, because that’s just not what you do.”

“I gave up after the Reboot,” Taichi points out, ears burning with shame at the memory, “if you hadn’t kicked my butt into action—”

“If you’d really given up,” Yamato counters without waiting for Taichi to finish his sentence, “it wouldn’t have made a damn difference. You’re the bravest person I know, alright? Sometimes you just need to be reminded, but that doesn’t mean you’re failing—do you want me to count all the times you had to kick my ass back into action?”

Taichi chuckles despite himself, and wipes a hint of snot on his wrist before he manages a feeble:

“It’s not a contest,Yamato.”

“No, it’s a demonstration,” Yamato replies, the smile audible in his voice. “You say you’re failing us if you’re depressed but you’re not. You’re just sick, that’s all.”

“Okay, but—”

“I know, I know,” Yamato cuts in, “you’re the leader—believe me, I spent enough time resenting you for it back then to remember. You’re good at it too—better than good, even, you’ve gotten us out of more shit than I can count, and we all know that. There’s a reason we’re so comfortable with relying on you, okay? But a team goes both way. If we’re not capable of picking up the slack when you’re too sick to do your job, we’re the ones failing you.”

Taichi doesn’t have enough words to figure out what the sudden, tight warmth in his chest—his stomach, his hands, hi neck—means, let alone express it, so he scrambles for an excuse to end the conversation before he can embarrass himself.

{ooo}

The second week of January turns into the third, and doesn’t bring any sign of respite on the work front. Taichi is called in to sit as a witness in two different prosecutions—in one case, a man’s dog has been attacking a Tokomon. In the other, a Betamon stands accused of setting a kid on fire. Both of them suck and leave Taichi too drained to give the situation proper thought, condemned to turn the facts in his head over and over and over again without managing to figure out a convincing way to present his arguments which, as he’s come to discover while on the job, pretty much means useless.

“Tell them to ask for a specialist at the stand,” Yamato tells him one night, after Taichi has ranted about the case to hell and back, “Betamons don’t even have fingers, there’s no way any of them could use a match, let alone a flame thrower.”

“I guess,” Taichi says, staring at the the mess of paper sprawled in front of him—maybe Hikari had a point about the whole cleaning up thing—“I still don’t know how to convince them Digimon are good, you know?”

“You don’t,” Yamato replies in short breaths, over the noise of a car engine—he must be jogging then, which means it’s actually earlier than Taichi thought—“we’re trying to convince the world they’re people. It means some of them will suck.”

Taichi grunts at that, unwilling to agree despite the truth of Yamato’s statement. So many things in his life—in all of his friends’ lives, really—would have gone horribly wrong if not for the help of Digimon. Yes, sure, they’re people, and statistically that means one day there will be Digimons on trial for theft, murders, and any number of horrific things the lot of them will shiver about.

That doesn’t mean Taichi has to like the idea though—doesn’t mean he’s ready to just...throw the entire species into an arena they have no way to master, even after seven years of continuous contact between the human and digital world. Every time he thinks of it, he’s reminded of the many things Agumon still fails to grasp, the political and social subtleties he still struggles with after eight years of exposure...and the two of them have an actual, battle-hardened bond. What about the Digimons who don’t have that, or whose families don’t accept or care for them?

“This is such a mess,” Taichi sighs, failing to chase the fatigue away when he rubs a hand over his face, “I don’t even know what good I’m doing—I should just quit.”

“Don’t you dare!” Yamato replies immediately—there’s a pained exclamation then, followed by some form of apology in French, and then he repeats: “don’t you dare resign now, Taichi.”

“I fail to see the difference it’d make, honestly. I mean, I did an okay job back at the beginning, but it’s not like I have that much impact over it.”

“Right,” Yamato replies with undisguised sarcasm, “it’s not like you’re the guy who single-handedly create the Department of Digital Affairs, staffed it, organized it, made sure Digimon got legally treated like people—”

“On surface,” Taichi replies with a sigh, “but they still have almost 90% chances of losing any trial they’re involved in regardless of the case, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg—they can’t even get proper insurance yet!”

“Yeah, there’s still work to do,” Yamato agrees, “but at least if I get a job with the JSA, Gabumon will get on the payroll. The ESA barely acknowledges Digimons exist—did you know they extended the recruitment age last so they could hire a guy who didn’t have a partner instead of someone who did?”

“No,” Taichi admits, “I didn’t.”

“Well now you do. Look, I know you’re tired and you feel like nothing you do makes a difference, but that’s not true. It’s just the depression talking.”

“How many times will I have to tell you I’m not depressed before you believe me?”

“Don’t know,” Yamato retorts, “how long did it take you to believe me after I split up with Sora?”

Snorting really is the only possible response to that,because they both know Taichi never did. Well, he did, eventually, but not until Yamato went through his third round of therapy, put almost five kilos back on, and Taichi nearly hit him in the face twice. The whole thing was a mess, really, and that’s just the part Taichi was actually privy to.

Honestly, even if he is depressed—he still maintains he isn’t, but he might as well indulge the theory if it serves to make a point—he’s nowhere near where Yamato went back then, and the comparison is frankly exaggerated.

It nags at Taichi’s mind though, nudging at his brain and heart until his pulse quickens in his veins and his blood runs cold with the idea. He’s feeling tired now—goes through the motions more than anything else, and it’s easy to tell someone more passionate would do a better job of it. If it’s just a rough patch, well—he’ll just have to grit his teeth and stick it out.

What if it’s more than that though? Suppose, for a moment, that Yamato is right, that things don’t get better, and this is how he feels about his job for the rest of his days, what then? The Digiworld needs somebody who actually cares, not just a guy who’s never bothered to learn to how to do anything else.

Besides, if Taichi keeps pretending he really is depressed and follows the logic, it begs the question of what happens if he doesn’t get better. Does he let things deteriorate until he makes one mistake too many and finally manages to ruin everything? Does he get number and number about everything and accepts things he should fight tooth and nails?

Because if then—if that’s what’s going to happen, then Digimons are definitely better off without him in command.

“I don’t want to be a burden,” he tells Yamato after silence has stretched between them for far too long, “it’s one thing to be a lazy slacker who can’t be bothered to clean his own flat, it’s another to turn incompetent.”

“You won’t turn incompetent,” Yamato dismisses like it’s he’s telling Taichi the Earth isn’t suddenly going to start turning the other way around, “you’re not the kind of guy who’d let himself do that.”

“Was,” Taichi corrects before he thinks better of it.

He remembers being the guy Yamato talks about—for the most part, at least. Sometimes his friends see things he never quite catches in the mirror, but that guy might as well be light years away now, for all the good he does.

“Depression isn’t who you are, Taichi. It’s just something that goes on in your brain.”

“Some people would say that’s what makes it who you are,” Taichi points out, and he’s not surprised to hear Yamato snort.

“People who say that haven’t been depressed. That kind of bullshit only makes it harder to get out of the gutter.”

Taichi has to smile at that—it’s a little stretched, maybe, but it’s sincere, which as far as he’s concerned is another sign he’s clearly not depressed. He knows depressed people can still smile—he’s seen it, after all—but the difference is he means it.

Clearly, things can’t be that bad.

“I guess,” he concedes nonetheless. Then, because it kind of has to be said: “Don’t worry though. I’m not actually thinking of resigning. I can’t do that to Meiko, anyway.”

“Good,” Yamato answers—Taichi thinks he hears something not unlike relief in his voice when he says: “I wouldn’t let you anyway.”

“Right,” Taichi retorts, adding a flippant eye-roll for good measure, even if Yamato can’t see it through the phone, “like you could stop me if I really wanted to.”

“Not directly,” Yamato replies, frightfully matter-of-fact about it, “but I did tell Agumon how bad an idea that would be.”

Taichi’s pen drops out of his hand, and he finds himself actually taking his phone away from his ear just so he can stare at it in disbelief.

What?

“You did not seriously give Agumon instructions on how I should be allowed to give my life.”

“No,” Yamato agrees without the faintest trace of embarrassment, “just a solid explanation on why you quitting would be not only be stupid—because you’re good at what you do—but also extremely damaging to your well being.”

“How dare you—” Taichi starts, only for Yamato to cut him off:

“Look, I didn’t tell him to actually stop you—no one’s going to tie you to a chair until the urge to ruin your life passes. I’m just making sure there’ll be at least one person you listen to that’ll be willing to talk some sense into you.”

“How dare you?” Taichi repeats, not placated in the least by the explanation, “how dare you presume you know better than me how to live my life?”

“Same as you did when I talked about giving up on being an astronaut,” Yamato replies, and Taichi gives up on controlling his volume right then and there to yell:

“You don’t get to direct my life!”

“No, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you ruin it because you’re too scared to admit you need help!”

“How would you even know what’s going to ruin my life?” Taichi all but screams, “You’re the one who decided to freaking exit it!”

He hangs up before Yamato can respond to that and throws his phone at the wall hard enough to crack the screen open. Fury batters at his temple, makes his head boil and colors the world red until even the rain outside becomes intolerable and, in a brief flash of concern for his neighbors, Taichi finds himself seizing his Digivice from where it’s resting at the foot of the coffee table, pointing it at his laptop, and transferring himself to the Digiworld without even bothering to check the destination coordinates.

He’s kicking at bushes before he knows it, pouring all the strength of his sudden but seemingly unending rage in the gestures until all that remains is a small mound of vaguely green and blue-ish pieces of smashed leaves.

He swallows against the urge to scream so hard it almost feels like he’s going to choke on it.

{ooo}

He must have dozed off at some point during his improvised relaxation exercises—remembers stomping aimlessly through the forest for a while before the prickling of anger under his skin grew too strong and he had to stop, lie down, and make himself go through every breathing trick he knows of—because when he opens his eyes the sky is definitely darker than it was when he got here. His body aches in all sorts of new and creative ways, including an awkward bruise on his butt from some unidentified object digging into the flesh for too long.

Taichi rubs at his eyes as he sits up, yawning and stretching until it doesn’t feel like he’ll tear a muscle if he tried to get to his feet. It’s still a hassle, but it’s a manageable one, and at least there’s no one to see him wince like an old man. Then, once he stops swaying on his feet, he takes a bleary look around, walks a couple yards farther in the forest...and groans when he realized he’s reached Tramway Lake.

Like he freaking needed that right now.

He sighs, running a hand over his face, and he’s about to turn around when a handful of iridescent butterflies reaches him, fluttering around him until he has to squint to see anything beyond them. He swats at them a couple of time, unsurprised when they don’t back down, and finally resigns to following them to the stupid tramway car.

Taichi hasn’t been there in years—not since he followed the others to retrieve their partners after the Reboot—and the signs of decays are impossible to miss. The tramway itself is covered in flora, for once, vines and grass and flowers growing around, on and inside the old hunk of meta, as if trying to hide it from view, erase it from memory. How did it survive that long, it’s a mystery.

It’s been fifteen years since they came here for the first time—fifteen years full of fighting, erosion, spontaneous data evolution, and one poorly though-out reboot. By all means, the lake—the beach, the tramway, all of it—should have vanished like an old wound scabbing over, and yet here it remains, ugly and sore as an old scar.

Taichi stares at it for a long time—tries to remember what it felt like, to see it the first time, a pristine imitation of the safer, better known world of humans in the middle of a place filled to the brim with creatures that wanted him and his friends gone—or better yet: dead. The wonder—the relief, the childish hope—has faded, washed away by years of more and more hardships thrown at his face, and although Taichi searches his own heart for a fraction of the things he felt, he can’t find anything but emptiness.

“Why do you all keep staring at random things?”

Taichi jumps and turns around fast enough to tear a hole in the grass, only to end up face to face with a very confused-looking Agumon. He doesn’t move as his partner trots up to him, standing by his side to look at the battered, rusty tramway car and its faded yellow paint.

“Hi,” Taichi manages after a beat, unable to prevent awkwardness from leaking in his meek little wave, “Weren’t you supposed to help out at the Tokomon village today?”

“I was on my way home,” Agumon says with a smile and a shrug, “it’s shorter to go through the woods than follow the road.

‘The road’ is actually more of a dirt trail, meant to ease the way for Digimons unfamiliar to the area on their way to File Island. Taichi never quite learned how the pilgrimage started—some kind of legend, from what he heard, sprouting out from heaven-knows-where after they finally managed to get rid of that freaking virus back in 2005.

It’s only Digimons for now—possibly a handful of Chosen Children as well, though considering a bunch of them have refused contact with the Odaiba team since the Reboot, it’s hard to tell—since Digivices are the only way to open a gate to the Digiworld. Taichi has hear talks, though, of what a mane this place could be if one could only get their hands on it. He keeps his association with the people who think like that to a minimum, and thanks whatever deities exist for each year the portal remains closed, but that doesn’t prevent him from hoping the Digimons will hurry up and put proper touristic structures in place, just in case.

If somebody’s going to make money off the Digiworld, it might as well be the people who live in it, and there’s no better way to ensure that than make sure the place is already well occupied when someone barges in with colonization projects.

“Are you going to answer my question?” Agumon asks, and Taichi realizes he got lost in thoughts again.

“What?”

“That thing has been here forever,” Agumon explains with a shrug that tightens around Taichi’s heart, “but every time we walk past it with one of you, you stop and stare.”

“It’s...close to where we met,” Taichi answers, gut constricting as he clasps his hands together, “and easier to find.”

Pregnant silence slips between them, until Agumon’s eyes widen and he comes up to hug Taichi’s waist, child-like spontaneity always bubbling under the surface of his Rookie form. Slowly, a little heavily, Taichi raises a hand to scratch Agumon’s head behind his ears—a soft spot he made good use of after the reboot forced them all to rediscover one another.

“It’s okay,” Agumon mutters somewhere into Taichi’s belly, his head bobbing with a nod, “I’m glad you remember all of me.”

Taichi nods, and turns his gaze back to the damaged tramway car. One day, enough time will have passed for it to fall out of existence altogether, the metal finally succumbing to the red spots already flourishing on its flanks. The thought presses at Taichi’s throat, and he can’t get rid of it no matter how hard he swallows.

One day, no one will remember this anymore—there won’t be any fading paint left, no wheels, not even a pile of rubble to remind passing Digimons that there was something there, once. Time will do its job, and it’ll be like nothing ever happened, like the lake—a third smaller already—was never there, and the seven kids who sought refuge on its bank never even existed.

In a way, it’s already stated.

No one looks at this thing the way he and the others do after all, not even their partners, why would complete strangers be any different? They’ll see a clearing, a cave, something that was once a lake, and they’ll never know how hard it was to pull a little boy and a little girl out of them. They’ll never know seven children could have died there, and in a hundred other places besides.

They’ll never look at the horizon and think ‘one of our friends died on top of this mountain, and then twice afterward’. They’ll never know what it was like to be called here and then leave, come back, leave again, and then lose everything on the third try like some kind of big, cruel cosmic joke. They’ll never know, never imagine—never care—about the day a lost little boy listened to another lost little boy playing harmonica and they somehow started a friendship that took fourteen years and several thousands of miles to start fraying.

Taichi thinks about all that—lets it all churn around in his chest, his guts, his the softest parts of his heart before he clenches his fist, greets his teeth, and starts tearing at the leaves. He pulls at them with all his weight, tears entire chunks of them off the metal, flakes of paint coming along and landing in his hair even as Agumon tries to stop him—Taichi doesn’t listen. He pulls and pulls and tears until he’s soaked with sweat, almost melting in his winter clothes even as he braces himself against a rust-red wheel to pull at a thicker root.

He’s panting—overheated and gross—by the time he’s done, surrounded by the cold silence of a winter night, and he almost doesn’t notice when Agumon sets a clawed paw on his elbow.

“Taichi,” Agumon says in a gentle tone when Taichi fails to react, “you’re crying.”

“Yeah,” Taichi manages as he folds into himself on the sand, “I know.”

It doesn’t stop for quite a while.

{ooo}

It’s long past dinner time when Taichi and Agumon finally make it back to their flat and find Veemon and Daisuke watching TV in the living room, almost as if nothing happened. Two full bowls of noodles wait on the table next to two empty ones, and Taichi’s stomach drops like a stone when he realizes Daisuke and his partner must have been waiting on Agumon and him for a while before they ate.

“Gone for a walk?” Daisuke asks, more concern than awkwardness in his expression.

Taichi nods.

“I needed a break from work,” he says, which isn’t entirely a lie, even if the causes were more complex than that.

He watches Agumon gather the bowls and carry them over to the microwave as he braces himself to ask:

“I didn’t think you’d be back from Jun’s so soon.”

“Neither did I,” Daisuke replies, managing a little smile to go with his shrug, “but we got on each other’s nerves faster than I thought. Do you want us to turn the volume down so you can work?”

Taichi frowns—almost asks what Daisuke is talking about—before he notices the way Veemon nods at the neat stack of paper sitting next to the TV, carefully ordered according to Taichi’s color-coding system. The pile of dust has been swept out from behind the apartment door, and when Taichi glances at the kitchen, the pile of dishes he kept meaning to wash is gone.

“Thank you,” he mutters, ears heating up faster than he thought possible, “but I think just the image would be enough to distract me.”

He bows a little—in thanks and apology both—and hurries to his bedroom before Daisuke’s worried expression and Veemon’s innocent question—‘Why are his eyes so red?’—turn the weird wobbling of his knees into something even more pathetic.

{ooo}

Dinner is a predictably bleak affair, despite a full five minutes spent trying to work the enthusiasm for it. Trues, Taichi hasn’t been enjoying food to its fullest these past few weeks, but then he was living off instant ramen and other junk food items all through Daisuke’s absence, so there’s nothing suspicious about that. Daisuke’s noodles failing to cheer him, on the other hand, is a bit of a different picnic. There’s a reason Taichi volunteered for every round of recipe-testing, and contrary to what Yamato said it most definitely wasn’t a bottomless stomach.

Tonight though, the dish seems to have lost its deliciousness in profit of the bitter tang of knowing he doesn’t deserve his friends.

(Taichi manages a smile when Agumon polishes off the last of the meal, though. At least one of them is properly appreciative of Daisuke’s talent.)

Taichi pulls his textbooks out as soon as he’s done with dinner, shoulders drooping with the gesture, even as his head fills with cotton. He pushes through it, though: if he stopped studying every time it felt beyond his strength, he wouldn’t have gotten anything done for at least a month.

He doesn’t have time to get fully into it though, because he’s barely cracked the first one open when Agumon asks in a pensive voice:

“Do you think you should see a sychatris?”

“Psychiatrist,” Taichi corrects, before he registers the question and turns around with a frown: “where did you even hear that word?”

“I asked Gabumon how Yamato got better,” Agumon replies with infuriating candor, “after he broke up with Sora and got sick in the head. Gabumon said that’s what that type of doctors was called.”

Taichi stays silent—can’t muster the energy for a shrug even as he looks around his room and notices the pieces of his phone lying next to the door. The screen, clearly damaged beyond repair, nicks at his thumb when he tries to slot the parts back in place, and Taichi hisses.

“So,” Agumon asks again after a moment, “do you think you should see a psychiatrist?”

“No,” Taichi replies around his thumb, “because I’m not sick.”

“But you haven’t been very well for a while now,” Agumon protests, more puzzlement than insistence in his tone, “and Yamato said—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Taichi cuts in, “’Taichi’s going to do something stupid again, blah blah blah’—don’t worry, he told me.”

“That’s not what he said,” Agumon starts, but Taichi’s head buzzes too hard for him to register the words before he says:

“I’m not like him—I’m not sick. I don’t need a psychiatrist.”

“I’m just saying,” Agumon, tries again, but Taichi’s patience is coming apart fast and he cuts his partner off again:

“You’re just saying I should do what Yamato said, or what he did, or what he thinks—or whatever, really.”

“But—”

“He’s all I hear about these days!” Taichi continues, anger burning at his temples, “When he’s not calling me you guys keep telling me I should live my life according to him, well guess what—I’m a freaking adult, and I don’t need anyone to babysit me, let alone a guy who stormed off to the other side of the world!”

“But Taichi, he’s trying to help! You’re not—”

“Not what? Mature enough?” Taichi spits, going from anger to rage, to fury, “Adult enough? Brave enough? I’m not enough of a leader? The war’s over, Agumon! Nobody needs me to be these things anymore!”

“Taichi!”

Taichi pushes Agumon’s paws away from him in a brusque gesture that earns him a long scratch on the forearm, blood boiling a fever into his skin as he all but shouts:

“Don’t ‘Taichi’ me! I don’t care what everybody says, I’m fine! And if you think Yamato knows better than me about this then you can fucking go to him instead of bothering me about it!”

Taichi turns away from Agumon with a strangled exclamation of anger, heart racing with it until it feels like he’s about to faint and he has to scream into his pillow before the whole thing becomes too much. He stays like that for a long while, face shoved into the fabric of his bed until his breathing goes back to something vaguely normal and he finally registers the thirst that’s been clawing at his mouth for who knows how long.

With a grunt, he peels himself off the bed—groans again when he realizes it’s almost eight PM—and half-stumbles to his bedroom door. He almost knocks into Daisuke and Veemon when he opens it, and barely has time to wonder how long they’ve been standing there before Daisuke frowns and asks:

“Is everything okay? Agumon left in a hurry. He wouldn’t tell us why.”

Taichi snorts at that, pretty sure he was loud enough for half the building to hear what went on, but he doesn’t have time to speak before Veemon says:

“He looked kind of sick! Kind of like that weekend after Oikawa—”

“He’ll be fine,” Taichi snaps while Veemon slaps a hand over his mouth, “can I go get some water now, or is the interrogation not over yet?”

“Woah,” Daisuke says, face souring, “calm down, we’re just trying to help here!”

“Right,” Taichi replies, “like you’ve got any reason to want to be nice to me right now.”

He pushes past a gobsmacked Daisuke and, instead of the kitchen, head for the bathroom, where he dives under the hot spray as fast as humanly possible. He finds the living room empty and Daisuke’s door firmly shut when he comes out, heart and gut sinking at the sight, and retreats to his room without a sound.

He’s not sure hows he falls asleep despite the biles burning at his stomach.

{ooo}

Loud banging on the door wakes him up some time later, fast enough that he doesn’t even think of checking the time before he grunts into his pillow—most likely manages to make it sound like ‘go away’—but all it does is make the banging louder and closer to the ground, like whoever is on the other side of the door switched from fists to feet.

“Go away,” he yells, stubbornly keeping his eyes closed even as he angles his mouth away from the pillow so there won’t be any mistaking him this time.

“No!” Yamato yells back through the door.

Taichi’s eyes snap open, and he straightens up fast enough to make his head spin with sudden loss of blood, Yamato’s foot still pounding at the door.

“I’m warning you,” Yamato shouts without a pause in his kicking, “I’m not going away until you open the fucking door or it falls down!”

Taichi knows Yamato well enough to realize he’s perfectly capable of putting his threat to execution, and once his head stops spinning he doesn’t waste time in getting to his feet and padding to the door to the dull rhythm of his bedroom walls’ shivers.

He finds Yamato standing there in a gray shirt and and blue boxer briefs, crazy bed hair framing the redness of his face where pillow creases are only just fading. Taichi watches him grip the door, wedge his foot in the threshold, and glare like he’s daring Taichi to try and break his toes to get out of that argument.

“Picture this,” Yamato says, voice tight and knuckles white around the door frame, “It’s one in the morning, I’m finally asleep after the shittiest fucking day I’ve had in a while, and then my grandfather starts hollering about finding a potato-shaped worm with antennae in the kitchen.”

Taichi’s blood freezes in his veins, and he tries to push the door closed but Yamato won’t have it: he pushes back hard enough to send Taichi reeling back, slips into the room, and pushes the door shut before he continues:

“So I make sure my granddad isn’t having a heart attack there and then, get Gabumon to help him back to bed, and when I finally try to get to the so-called rat who do I find?”

“I—“

“Koromon,” Yamato says before Taichi can even really start his sentence, “crying his heart out on the tiles.”

“Of course he rant to y—”

“And then,” Yamato continues, his glare promising fierce retribution should Taichi try to interrupt again, “when I finally get him to calm down and get here, I find Daisuke all but sulking on the couch because apparently being an ass to one person wasn’t enough to fill your daily quota!”

“All I did was tell him to leave me alone!” Taichi protests at that, “he was being intrusive, and Veemon started talking about—”

“What? How terrible you’re acting?”

Yamato still looks ready to chew Taichi’s head off—or, failing that, tear him a new one—at the slightest hint of a dissatisfying answer, and the thought of it—of having to stay polite and calm when Mister Yamato portaled his righteous butt over to Japan just so he could have a good yelling—turns Taichi’s fear to anger, heat flaring all through his head tay polite and calm and deferent just because mister Yamato has decided to get his gracious ass back to Japan solely in order to yell at him—turns his fear to anger, flares up in painful heat between his ears as he explodes:

“You know what? Screw you! It’s none of your business what goes on in my life—”

“It is when your Digimon comes crying into my kitchen at ass o’clock in the morning!”

“And what are you gonna do about it, punch me in the face?”

“Trust me,” Yamato replies, low and utterly serious, “if I thought it’d help I would!”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Taichi hisses, rigid with fury, voice hoarse from how much he still wants to scream, and Yamato sneers:

“Yeah, sure, nothing in life gives me more pleasure!”

“Well you can go be judgmental somewhere else,” Taichi tells him, crossing his arms over his chest—Yamato’s hands tighten into fists, and he grows at least two shades redder—but doesn’t move—as Taichi steps into his personal space: “All I hear these days is ‘Yamato this’ and ‘Yamato that’, even my own freaking Digimon—”

“Is that why you kicked him out?” Yamato cuts off, face going slack with disbelief, “because he dared to remember someone had a similar problem and tried to use the same techniques to help you?”

“No,” Taichi hisses, heart beating impossibly faster when he steps forward again and Yamato still doesn’t give an inch, “it’s because I’m tired of people always shoving you in my face when you fucking left eight years ago!”

Taichi watches Yamato deflate at that—blink a little—and then something seems to click in his demeanor: he straightens up to his full height, towering over Taichi with all the rigidity of a five inches gap, and suddenly Taichi finds himself stepping back and thinking ‘oh shit’.

“Taichi, did you seriously do this to Agumon because you’re pissed at me for leaving?”

“I’m not!” Taichi insists, voice climbing and cracking on the last word, “but it’s high time people understood I can live my life without you!”

“And what are you gonna do next time Hikari offers advice?” Yamato asks, voice still dangerously low, “slap her in the face because she’s got her own life and you can’t stand it?”

“That’s not—”

“They’re trying to help, you moron!” Yamato screams—Taichi hears something falls to the ground in the general direction of the kitchen, but he’s too caught up in the argument to be embarrassed that Daisuke might hear—“Because you’ve been acting like a fucking depressed mess for the past two months now, and you won’t fucking listen to reason, and we’ve all got enough collective experience to know therapy is an important part of the healing process!”

“Then why not talk about Sora?” Taichi replies in the same volume, hands aching with how tight his fists are, voice grating at his throat until it almost feels like it’s about to start bleeding, “Why not talk about Ken, or Iori, or Takeru—”

“Because I’m your best friend! Because you’re being an ass, and because apparently I’m the only one who’s willing to actually try and knock your head out of your fucking ass!”

Yamato takes a step forward in anger, and when Taichi tries to step back he stumbles on his futon falls head over heels on the ground, knocking his head against the floorboard in the process—it doesn’t stop Yamato though, but Taichi refuses to look at him even as he keeps shouting:

“Because when Daisuke came back, he found you living in a fucking mountain of instant ramen and chips bags and Hikari told him you hung up on her the last time she tried to talk about it, because you haven’t called your mother in three weeks—which you’ve never forgotten to do before—and because Koromon was convinced you hated him and never wanted to see him again!”

Taichi screwed his eyes shut at some point of Yamato’s tirade, and he presses a hand against his eyelids now, clammy skin unable to stop the burning there—unable to do anything against the sharp stone lodged in his throat, shattering his breath in some pitiful, fragmented thing he barely gets any oxygen out of.

“I don’t hate him,” he manages eventually, and flinches when the futon dips under Yamato’s weight, “I don’t—I never meant—I’m the leader!”

His voice turns into a whine, and he swallows hard around it, painful and shallow—Yamato’s hand come to rest on his shoulder, fingers pressing into the flesh there, and Taichi has to make an effort not to lean into the touch. Instead, he forces out some kind of pitiful squeak and:

“I can’t just expect you guys to solve my problems for me! I’ve got to deal with it my own way!”

“Aside from the fact that we’ve already established this very idea is bullshit,” Yamato says, voice soft through the hoarseness of too much shouting, “so far your own way includes pushing everyone away from you, saying hurtful things you don’t really mean and—correct me if I’m wrong about that one—hating yourself for doing it.”

Taichi shrugs, but he doesn’t move his hands away from his face as he gulps painful breaths between his wrists. Sometimes, having someone who knows you that well is a real pain in the butt.

“You wanna know who that reminds me of?” Yamato asks after a stretch of silence, and this time Taichi snorts.

“Not really.”

“Too bad, I’m sure you’d know the guy.”

Taichi reaches back to swat at Yamato—ends up knocking against his friend’s knee, hissing in pain and, somehow, laughing about it into his palm.

He wipes at his eyes then, cool wetness collecting on his hands as he does. His backbone pops when he straightens up and sits properly on the futon, staring down at his hands—they’re pale, shining with tears in the thin stripes of city lines that filter in, and Taichi flexes the fingers just to make sure they’re really his.

Outside the room, Veemon’s voice says something, too muffled to hear—either that, or Taichi doesn’t have the brain power required to process the words just now—and then there’s a shush, and silence.

His ears burn.

“Anyway,” Yamato continues without turning, leaning back on his hands, “this guy—let’s say his name is Tamato—”

Taichi snorts again, and gets a light slap on the shoulder for it.

“He did the same thing, and then his best friend punched him in the face—”

“Kicked him in the shin,” Taichi corrects, and Yamato frowns:

“Wasn’t that the second time around? I’m talking about the third. The big one.”

“Whatever,” Taichi shrugs, and while he’s not completely relaxed, he at least manages to unfold his legs from under him, “it doesn’t really matter.”

“It does though,” Yamato replies without missing a beat, “’cause if it wasn’t for the punch Tamato wouldn’t have realized he could—and should—ask for help.”

“You haven’t punched me in the face,” Taichi mumbles for the sake of argument, and Yamato rolls his eyes:

“That can be arranged.”

Taichi turns to stare at Yamato with a shocked look that should, frankly, not be there. It’s not like either of them has ever hesitated to start punching when they felt it was warranted, but the casualty of Yamato’s offer it’s...new. Not bad—nor particularly good—just new. Taichi had forgotten their friendship could still surprise him.

“Seriously though,” Yamato says after a while, “I’m not yelling at you ‘cause I like it. I do it ‘cause—”

“Cause I deserve it,” Taichi admits, gaze shifting from Yamato’s decidedly more awake face to his own knees, “I’ve been a complete asshole these past few months. Especially today.”

“Yeah,” Yamato admits, shifting to sit cross-legged on the futon, “but it’s also because you’re capable of being better than that.”

“Ha. I’m not sure everyone would agree right now.”

Yamato snorts at that, and it takes effort for Taichi not to squirm.

“Yeah,” Yamato says, dripping with sarcasm, “they all hate you. That’s why Daisuke pretty much begged me not to be too hard on you, and Koromon barely even admitted you treated him like crap.”

“I think you got just as hard as I needed,” Taichi mutters.

It takes him a few seconds to catch up when Yamato snorts, and then they’re both laughing at the terrible double entendre, fresh tears flooding Taichi’s face—they don’t burn this time around, though, which is honestly a relief in and of itself.

“Look”, Yamato says a few minutes later, wiping tears of laughter off his cheeks, “people like you enough to forgive your crap. Deal with it.”

Taichi snorts again—it doesn’t devolve into laughter this time, his nerves settled enough not to need the pressure relief anymore—then sighs before he asks:

“What do I do now?”

He’d probably deserve for Daisuke to yell at him for thirty minutes straight, but then he can’t exactly walk up to the guy and ask that favor of him. Sighing again, Taichi brings his knees up to his chest and winds his arms around his legs, while Yamato turns to squint at him:

“You do realize the irony of asking me that just now, right?”

“Shut up,” Taichi mutters at Yamato’s gentle mocking, shrugging the concern off.

As Yamato himself stated, he hasn’t exactly been stellar in the decision-making these days, he might as well take the advice now that he’s finally ready to ask for it.

“I’m still annoyed,” he admits, guts tight with too many things he needs to make amend for, “but clearly you guys were right. I am incapable of dealing with this on my own.”

“Yeah, because depression is a bigger deal than your average cold,” Yamato points out.

“You did it,” Taichi counters, “you were on your own—”

“If you discount the phone calls,” Yamato counters, ticking items off on his fingers, “the emails, the visits, Gabumon’s headbutts, your yelling, my granddad...do I need to keep going?”

“Nah,” Taichi says—it turns into a yawn halfway through, and Yamato answers with one of his own before Taichi finishes: “I think I get it. Gotta be more like you,” he finishes in, only half-joking.

Yamato swears under his breath, closing his eyes and sweeping both hands over his face as if trying to push some patience into himself. To be fair, Taichi definitely had the same reaction to him at various point, so it’s not like this is a shock.

“Let’s go over this one last time,” Yamato groans after a bit, “people aren’t trying to turn you into me, they’re trying to help you with the solutions they know worked for the most similar case we’ve had, which happens to be the way I failed to deal with depression. If you wanted them to take you on beach holidays and jogging trips, you should have done like Sora and gone catatonic.”

“Hey!”

Taichi punches Yamato’s shoulder for that, less than gently, because there are ways to discuss this that don’t make it sound like Sora was just trying to be interesting, dammit!

It doesn’t change the fact that Yamato has a point, though—learning ikebana may have been a life saver for Sora, but it probably wouldn’t have worked as well for Taichi. Certainly, even.

God, but he’s been so stupid.

“Seriously,” he asks, ears burning in shame again, fresh heat prickling at the corner of his eyes when he blinks, “what do I do now?”

“Get some sleep, for starters,” Yamato yawns, “and not just ‘cause I’m tired. You’ll think better once you’ve rested a little. Then, you’re gonna do what you do best: screw your courage to the sticking place and do the right thing, even if it sucks.”

“Will you do the thing where you stay close an pretend you’re not listening in?” Taichi asks, and he’s relieved to see Yamato roll his eyes, as if anything but that was completely unthinkable.

Taichi may be a bone-head, but at least he’s got great friends.

“I missed you,” he admits, the words tumbling from his mouth just as he thinks them, and when Yamato bumps their shoulders together he adds: “I’m sorry I got upset with you. You’ve got a right to live your dream, even if it’s on the other side of the world.”

It’s not even like they haven’t been in contact either, really, it’s just—France is terribly far away, and phoning is just not the same thing as a real sleepover.

“I missed you too,” Yamato says, fondness chasing some of the obvious fatigue out of his features. “You know I didn’t mean you had to start on things tonight, right?”

“Yeah,” Taichi says with an awkward little smile, “but I don’t think Daisuke is asleep, and I’m not going to get any rest until I do this anyway.”

“Okay,” Yamato says with a nods, getting to his feet when Taichi does, “but maybe you should let Koromon sleep on this as well before you talk to him?”

His words are soft, careful, and Taichi nods. He doesn’t like the idea of waiting—was never really good at leaving problems alone, especially when he’s got a solution, or even just the beginning of one. He wants to do this right, however, and right now Yamato is probably in a better position to judge than him.

“I really screwed up,” he sighs, carding a hand through his hair, “didn’t I?”

“Oh, you should have seen me at my lowest,” Yamato says with an easy shrug, “you’re not even close.”

“What did you do?” Taichi asks without bothering to hide his disbelief, “Slap Gabumon in the face?”

“I sent him out so I could lock myself in the bathroom and slice my wrists open in peace.”

Taichi turns back around to face Yamato so fast he almost topples right into the guy. He doesn’t, though, and they stand like that for a long time, Taichi’s hand hanging limply at his side while Yamato shifts from foot to foot, hands moving to his hips like he’s trying to hook his fingers into the belt of his boxers.

When, at last, it appears Yamato isn’t going to provide more detail on his own, Taichi breathes:

“When?”

“Winter after Sora and I broke up, not long after I met Guillaume.”

Taichi has heard the name before—Yamato’s first boyfriend. He didn’t know about the history that came with it, though.

“I...wasn’t ready,” Yamato adds, looking like he’d rather be saying anything else, “things with Sora got—ugly. We got really nasty with each other and then the whole gay thing I—I don’t know. It made sense at the time, but I—”

“Couldn’t explain it if you tried?”

Yamato shrugs at that, and Taichi nods in understanding. He hasn’t given his ‘conversation’ with Agumon proper thought yet, but the motives for it—the things that made him tick and essentially go berserk—seem fuzzy already, like some kind of weird spell came over him and changed him into something he can’t quite recognize.

It’s still him, though, and he’ll have to deal with that soon, but not just now. There’s a more pressing topic, just now.

“No wonder you panicked when I missed that call,” Taichi mutters, the memory of Ken’s anxious face floating at the edge of his mind. Then, barely above a whisper, he asks: “What stopped you?”

“It hurt,” Yamato answers with a grimace that seems to say ‘dumb, uh?’, “and there was a lot of blood. It scared the crap out of me, so I called my granddad. He came home like a freaking hurricane, closed the whole thing up—turns out the cut was too shallow to even work—and then he slapped me in the face so hard I got a headache.”

Yamato half-chuckles, half-snorts at the memory, and Taichi has to bite the inside of his cheek not to scold him for it.

“He made me swear I’d tell my therapist about it—I did, and she referred me to a psychiatrist so I could get some medication. Gabumon refused to talk to me for three weeks straight.”

“Alright,” Taichi manages to say, trying—and failing—to make it sound like a light comment, “clearly, you win.”

“Yeah. Don’t tell Takeru.”

Taichi nods—then, on impulse, he pulls Yamato into a lopsided hug. His friend stiffens a bit at first, but he relaxes quickly enough, and Taichi sighs with relief he didn’t even know he should have felt.

“I’m glad you’re still alive,” he says, the words far too late but important anyway, “and I’m glad you’re enough of a friend to yell at me when I need it.”

“Yeah,” Yamato sighs, head bent to rest on Taichi’s shoulder, “me too. I’m glad I haven’t managed to ruin our friendship yet.”

Taichi snorts, and flicks Yamato’s ear.

{ooo}

Once Yamato has left though the DigiPortal, Taichi takes a look at the golden light slipping out from under Daisuke’s bedroom door, and decides he’s going to need some props.

He ends up standing in front of the door several minutes later, two steamy mugs of hot cocoa in hands, and wondering how he’s going to knock without toppling the frankly obscene amount of whipped cream and mini-marshmallows he managed to stack on top when the door opens, revealing a sleepy Veemon in the middle of a yawn while his free hand scratches idly at his butt.

“Oh,” the Digimon says when he realizes Taichi is there, “hi, Taichi.”

“Hi,” Taichi replies, resisting the urge to squirm or wave, for fear of spilling whipped cream on the floor, “I thought I’d—may I come in?”

Taichi carefully holds the cup out with what he hopes is an appropriately contrite and embarrassed expression, and tries not to look too obviously relieved when Veemon nods. On the bed, Daisuke groans when Veemon shakes him back to awareness, and turns around in the slowest, most sluggish way Taichi has ever witnessed. He doesn’t allow himself to be impatient about it. Veemon waits for Daisuke to blinks at Taichi—for his eyes to widen when he notices the mugs—and hurries out of the room, claws clicking on the floor as he makes his way to the bathroom.

Taichi waits for Daisuke to awaken properly, and hopes the whipped cream doesn’t end up melting on his fingers.

“Hi, Taichi,” Daisuke manages after some more bleary blinking and a lot of squinting, “is that for me?”

“And Veemon,” Taichi confirms, handing one of the mugs over.

Taichi glances at the alarm clock while Daisuke bites half the cream off his drink in one large gulp��nearly nine PM. Hopefully, the neighbors will forgive the noise.

He turns back to Daisuke just in time to see his nose emerge from the ceramic cup, a spot of whipped cream clinging to his nose when he gives Taichi a grin:

“Thanks,” he says, “it’s awesome.”

“It’s the least I can do,” Taichi says, a little too low, while his stomach twists and the distant flush of the toilets punctuates his sentence, “after....”

“It’s forgotten,” Daisuke says, hand swiping at some imaginary speck in the air, “right Veemon?”

“It is if you say it is,” Veemon replies, all but pulling his mug out of Taichi’s hand, “there’s not much I wouldn’t forgive for a treat like that!”

Taichi watches Veemon sit down on the floor and dive into his cocoa with a happy wiggle of his stubby tail, fishing marshmallows out of the drink with delicate swipes of his claws. It makes Taichi smiles, and when he looks back at Daisuke, the latter mouths ‘Tail!’ at him with a fondly mocking expression on his face.

“Seriously,” Veemon says after a bit, “Wormmon explained—it’s like when Ken was the Digimon Emperor. It’s not really you. So it’s okay.”

“It’s more complicated,” Taichi starts, but Daisuke cuts him off:

“You’re sick is what he means. What you did wasn’t nice, but it also wasn’t really your fault, in a way, you know?”

“I pretty much insulted you for trying to help me,” Taichi points out, frustration mounting when Daisuke doesn’t seem to get it, “I called you a bad friend!”

“Yeah, like I said, rude,” Daisuke replies with a shrug,”but also not as bad as you seem to think it is.”

There’s a pause when Taichi tries to figure out how to answer that. If he’d said the same thing to Yamato—when he said the same thing to Yamato, several years ago—he’d have gotten punched in the face. He did, too, once.

Daisuke, on the other hand, seems to have taken it far better than Taichi had any right to expect.

“I treated you like crap,” Taichi manages at last, “even if I’m sick, that doesn’t make it alright!”

“It doesn’t,” Daisuke agrees, “and if you keep acting like I’m not your friend I might think of taking Yamato’s advice and slapping you in the face. But right now, we’re okay.”

“But,” Taichi splutters, unsure why he’s even pressing his luck so far, “I don’t deserve it! Being sick—”

“But Taichi,” Veemon pipes up from his place on the floor, “forgiveness isn’t about what you deserve.”

It takes a long time—and Daisuke’s increasingly amused expression—before Taichi manages to close his mouth after he hears that.

He may or may not have to wipe his eyes again when he leaves the room.

{ooo}

Taichi’s heart beats fast when he follows Yamato into the kitchen of his French apartment the next day. He barely pays attention to the uneven floorboards, the moldings on top of the walls, the authentic baguette discarded on the table. All he’s got eyes for is the way Koromon freezes, and Gabumon waits until the smaller Digimon nods before he exits the room with Yamato.

“Hey,” Taichi tries, mostly because it seemed to work with Veemon last night.

He’s not prepared for the wet note in Koromon’s voice when he says:

“Hey.”

“I’m sorry,” Taichi says, words rushing out of him with the urgency of something absolutely vital, even as he goes to his knees, “I shouldn’t have treated you like that—you were trying to help. It wasn’t right of me to blow up at you, even if I’m not feeling well.”

“I thought you hated me,” Koromon says with a glance at the corridor next to the kitchen.

Evidently, he’s been prepared for the conversation. It doesn’t bother Taichi as much as he would have thought.

“I thought you’d never want to see me again. You swore at me!”

“I’m sorry,” Taichi repeats, “I don’t know why I said the things I said, I never—I’m not even really that upset about being compared to Yamato it’s just—everyone’s leaving. They’re all—I don’t know. Nothing is ever going to be the same again, nothing is, and no one remembers and—and—it doesn’t matter, actually. It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I was cruel, and mean, and wrong. I’m sorry. I don’t want to lose you.”

“I don’t want to lose you either,” Koromon says, “but you can’t do that again. I want to help you, but I can’t do it if you won’t talk to me—or let me ask other people to understand what’s going on.”

“I know,” Taichi says, pulling his head even lower, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry I said something wrong,” Koromon continues, but this time Taichi doesn’t let him finish:

“You didn’t. It’s me. I got—I’m not sure what got over me. But I shouldn’t have let it hurt you. I promise I’ll do my best to answer your questions from now on.”

Koromon gives Taichi a long, quizzical look—Taichi tries not to squirm too much even as he steals a glance up—and then he digivolves to Agumon with a whistling pop, and pulls at Taichi’s shoulders until their eyes are at the same level.

“Good,” Agumon says, and then Taichi is engulfed into a hug.

He hugs back with all the strength he has, breathes the smell of Agumon’s scales as deep as he can as relief floods every inch of him, dragging tears out of him he doesn’t even attempt to wipe off.

“You were right to leave,” he half-whispers, half-whines, tightening the hug when Agumon tries to pull away at the words, “not because I don’t want you around, but because you deserve better. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want you to let me hurt you. And I don’t want to lose you a second time.”

“Yamato said I was right, too,” Agumon mutters after a brief, tense pause that ends with him melting into the hug again, “and Papy, too. It didn’t feel good.”

“I know,” Taichi tells him, “but you were still right. Sometimes doing the right thing hurts.”

“That fucking sucks.”

Taichi pulls away from Agumon to stare at him in surprise and, before they know it, they’re laughing themselves silly, nerves seeping out of Taichi with every tears leaking on his cheeks. He hugs Agumon again, tears of laughter turning into tears of exhaustion as easy as flipping a switch, and it’s a relief when Agumon pats his back through it all.

“So,” Agumon asks when Taichi is done drying his eyes and blowing his nose several minutes later, “what are you going to do now?”

“First,” Taichi says with a glance at the mechanical clock hanging above the door, “if you’re okay with it, I’d like to go home and get breakfast.”

“Sure!” Agumon says, usual grin back in place over his lips, “I don’t think anyone here will mind.”

“We won’t,” Yamato pipes up from...wherever he is, really, Taichi doesn’t actually care.

“Okay,” he calls back instead, smiling despite himself, “thanks for the input, eavesdropper!”

Agumon hides his laughter behind his paws, and Taichi smiles at the gesture, before he continues:

“Then, I’m going to book an appointment with a therapist—it’s a bit like a psychiatrist,” he explains when Agumon’s face turns interrogative, “and we’ll see how it goes from there. Deal?”

“Of course,” Agumon says.

Taichi hugs him again.

#Digimon #Taichi Kamiya #Yamato Ishida #Taiyama #Digimon Fic #Agumon #Gabumon #Fanfiction #Once more with kissing #Done with wooden queues #omwk #20n

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