#and I just couldn’t let that idea work it’s way into my RSD | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eliemo · 3 years

Text

Little Talks

Summary: As Logan starts spending more time with the Duke in an effort to keep him under control, Remus has to come to terms with the fact that the way he treated Logan may have caused lasting damage after all.

TWs: RSD, violent thoughts, strong language, blood mention (it's Remus, what did you expect)

Pairings: Developing friendship. Can be seen as platonic or romantic Intrulogical

Notes: Thank you to @cheshirevalentine for helping me create and edit this. They're amazing and I love them dearly. Their AO3 is here!

Having Logan in his room was… weird.

Remus had known it was going to be happening. Logan had made the offer to stop by Remus’s room and let the Duke bounce his ideas off of someone. He’d let Remus ramble, listen to the flood of intrusive thoughts and gory, outrageous ideas, all so that Thomas wouldn’t have to.

Remus had cheerfully referred to Logic as his “test subject” the first time he’d come in, laughing outright at the way Logan’s face had screwed up in indignation.

He didn’t really plan on actually doing anything to Logan, despite the incredibly dangerous position the light side had put himself into. He mostly just talked, reciting each and every thought that came to his head in detail, watching to see if he could get an entertaining reaction out of the ever-stoic Logan Sanders.

It didn’t really work. Logan was stupidly boring with his stuffy clothes and perfect schedule and condescending eyebrow raises. He didn’t say much the first few times he stopped by, their “talks” only lasting ten-to-fifteen minutes at most, but after a week he seemed to warm up to the idea of talking to Remus a little.

He’d ask questions- ask where Remus had gotten an idea, or ask him to expand on a particularly disturbing thought- and while Remus didn’t always have an answer, it was nice to not be completely shoved aside and ignored for once. Besides, Remus always thought of the best answers to those sorts of things on the spot. He liked the challenge of having to think on his feet.

It was still weird, though. But Logan kept showing up, day after day, and Remus could almost pretend he wasn’t the only one enjoying their talks.

He knew that Logan didn’t want to be here, of course. Their meetings were on his calendar, so it was obviously an obligation. He was doing it so Thomas could get some sleep, and Remus could be a little less of a burden. Of course.

Remus had only only expected it to last a few days, if he was honest. A week at most. He knew he was a lot to deal with, especially alone, and he knew it would only be a matter of time until Logan decided it was all too much and forgot all about their little “arrangement”.

But Logan came back the next week, and the week after that, and soon fifteen minutes turned into twenty, then thirty, and some days he even stayed almost a whole hour.

Remus found he actually felt a little less agitated after Logan left, his head just a tiny bit more quiet. Tormenting Thomas was the closest thing he’d ever had to talking things out, and it was a little discouraging when the reactions were either horrified screams, insults, or pretending he didn’t exist.

Logan actually listened. He listened and engaged.

Remus loved Janus. And Deceit did what he could, but he didn’t have the same tolerance as Logan did for some of the gross things Remus came up with.

Maybe Logic would be open to dissecting something with him sometime…?

He should have known it wouldn’t last. Nobody stuck around Remus very long. He always did something to fuck it up.

He really should have known the way he’d treated Logan when he’d first made his appearance would be a problem. Logic separated himself from the Imagination, the side grounded deeply in reality, but a lack of lasting damage didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.

Remus had still hurt Logan to prove a point. And then had promptly moved on and forgotten about it until the next time it was brought up. Sometimes object permanence- or lack thereof- was a pain in the ass.

Remus had been ranting as usual, pacing around his room while Logan watched from the chair. He honestly couldn’t even remember what he was talking about, his mouth moving without much thought as it tended to do.

Whatever it was, he’d gotten worked up and excited, pacing the room, waving and flapping his arms as he talked, smile bright and mischievous and he whirled back to face Logan and-

And Logan flinched back, squeezing his eyes shut as his hands clutched the arm of his chair, shoulders hunched protectively.

It only lasted a second, Logan quickly pulling himself together and compulsively smoothing his tie once again. He seemed to do that when he was trying to pretend he was collected, Remus had noticed. His shoulders uncurled as he leaned forward again, but he wouldn’t quite look Remus in the eyes.

“Continue,” Logan said, when he realized Remus had stopped talking. “You were rambling about...something objectively disgusting.”

“I’m not stupid, you know.” Remus said, crossing his arms and ignoring the stupid, pointless hurt that blossomed in his chest when Logan couldn’t even recall what Remus had been saying. “I saw that.”

Logan blinked, staring at the Duke blankly. “Saw what?”

“You flinched.”

Logan scoffed, adjusting his glasses to avoid meeting Remus’s eyes. Again. “I did no such thing.”

“No, you did. I saw it.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Logan said, jumping right back into that emotionless facade he was so obsessed with. “Are you going to continue?”

Remus couldn’t even remember what he’d been talking about, his head flooded with images of Logan flinching away, eyes wide in terror, scrambling to get away.

Logan with a throwing star embedded in his forehead, with his mouth full of blood, crimson dripping down his forehead and chin, seeping into his pristine clothes and staining his tie. The thoughts seemed to dip into that spiral they always went down, swirling down the metaphorical drain pipe into his metaphorical pit-of-sewage excuse for a brain.

“No,” Remus said, shaking the thoughts away for the moment. Like stirring the cesspool a little so all the muck settled to the bottom. Metaphorically. “I’m good.”

Logan sighed, and Remus stepped away as the logical side stood up from his chair. “Then we’re done for the day.”

“Bye then.”

If there was one thing Remus was good at, it was pretending not to be bothered by the little things, by the way everyone perceived him. He was a terror and a burden, and he enjoyed it. It was funny! He didn’t care if he was liked, intrusive thoughts were never liked.

Remus flopped down on his bed, watching Logan’s back as he left. He was moving quickly, almost panicked, slipping out the door and closing it shut behind him.

Remus didn’t care if the stupid light sides liked him. He never had. But Logan… Logan was scared. Of him.

Scaring people was never the goal. Making Logan flinch like Remus was going to hurt him was never the goal.

Logan would deny it to his grave, of course. He was stupidly stubborn like that, somehow more stubborn than even Remus at times.

He’d insist that Logic had never felt a revolting feeling like fear in his life. He had no feelings on the matter, and Remus couldn’t frighten him because Logan had no feelings at all. Not enjoyment, not dislike, and not fear. Remus was another obligation on his schedule. Something to attend to. Nothing more.

And while Remus knew all of that was true… he also knew Logan was full of shit. He had feelings. His feelings might even be stronger than Patton’s or Roman’s. (Though it was doubtful. Weepy bitches they were- far too emotional for Remus’s tastes.)

And he was afraid of Remus. He’d made that perfectly clear today.

He… didn’t know how to fix that. His job wasn’t to fix problems. He made the problems. It’s better to start now than to never start at all, he supposed.

Well, obviously he had to start by finding a new coping mechanism. Logan was helpful, and possibly the healthiest outlet Remus had ever had, but he wouldn’t force someone who was terrified of him to come sit in his room and listen to him talk about guts and gore for an hour. He would have to find something to do in place of their talks.

A part of him doubted Logan would even come back again. Remus had caught him flinching, and with Remus’s reputation he wouldn’t be surprised if Logan assumed he would use the fear to his advantage.

And yeah, maybe under different circumstances he would have. Scaring people was fun but… not like this.

But that was fine, he could readjust to being alone. He’d done it before. He could lock himself in the Imagination, annoy Janus until he finally snapped and drove him away, maybe even pay Thomas another visit if he really got desperate.

He wasn’t disappointed. He’d gone his whole life without Logan’s company, he had no reason to miss it. It wasn’t fair to miss something he had barely begun to get used to. Logan was annoying and boring and stuck up, and Remus didn’t know why he enjoyed his company in the first place.

Not that he enjoyed it. He didn’t. He didn’t care.

He spent all night feeding himself those repeating lies, preparing to entertain himself all on his own tomorrow, so he was almost more annoyed than surprised when Logan walked right into his room the next day, same time as always.

Remus sat up in bed, watching in disbelief as Logan made his way to the chair and set his notebook on the table, settling in like nothing had changed.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

Logan looked up at him, hands folded neatly in his lap. “I said I would make an effort to see you everyday. I put it in my schedule. If I’m not going to be able to make it, I will inform you the day before.”

“Oh,” Remus said, not bothering to move from the bed. “Well, that’s boring and predictable.”

“I prefer to have a schedule rather than do things on a whim. And I’m here now.”

“Yes,” Remus said, shifting to stare blankly at the wall beside Logan’s head. He bet he could spit that far if he really tried. “You are.”

There was a beat of silence that didn’t often exist in Remus’s room. Usually he would start talking right away about whatever late night thoughts he’d been plagued with, chatting on excitedly until Logan cut in to add something dumb and nerdy.

Remus didn’t plan on breaking the silence this time, choosing to sit and quietly dwell on his thoughts on his own, smirking at the utterly baffled look on Logan’s face.

Logan cleared his throat, frowning slightly. “What’s on your mind?”

“Lot’s of things!”

“Are you going to talk about them?” Logan asked. “That is why I’m here.”

“Nah.” He hated this, hated the way Logan was pretending to care, like he didn’t want to get up right now and run as far away from Remus as possible. Just like everyone else. “Intrusive thoughts aren’t always words, Nerdy Wolverine.”

He saw Logan shift uncomfortably, eyes darting briefly to the door, and Remus realized that might not have been the best way to phrase things.

“Ah,” Logan said, sitting back like he wasn’t terrified. “You can always show me instead. That is what I’m here for.”

“I’m good,” Remus said, doing his best to sound uncaring. “It’s gross.”

“Yes, I’m aware it probably is.” Another beat of silence and Logan sighed, standing from his chair. “Remus. The point of me being here is to keep Thomas’s intrusive thoughts under control. We’ve discussed this.”

And Remus knew Logan didn’t actually enjoy Remus’s company, he’d known that from the beginning, but it still hurt to hear. It hurt something fierce, a deep, sharp slash in his chest that he would swear he could feel, that he was just something to “keep under control”.

He pushed the feeling down, flashing Logan a toothy grin that he knew looked ridiculously fake. “Okay.”

Logan sighed again, pushing up his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. Remus wondered if he could frustrate Logic into storming out. “I’m here to help you.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“You do,” Logan argued, like he had any idea. “Surely talking to someone is better than being alone with your thoughts,”

Remus scowled, shoving himself off the bed and stalking past Logan, moving towards one of the various piles of rubble and bones scattered around his room. He bet Logan hated how cluttered it was in here.

“At least my thoughts don’t pretend to care about me.”

Remus kicked idly at something that looked a bit like a spine, staring blankly at the floor as he let his words settle.

“What?” Logan sounded genuinely confused for the first time. “What does that mean?”

“Hm?” Remus glanced over his shoulder, grinning. “What did I say?”

Logan stepped forward, shoes clicking against the floor, echoing against the now silent room. “I do not understand why you’re suddenly being difficult.”

“Suddenly?”

“Yes, suddenly,” Logan said, and Remus turned away again with an eye roll. “We had an arrangement.”

“Did we?”

“Yes.” Logan touched his arm, and Remus yanked away so fast he thought he might have pulled something. “This is beneficial for everyone.”

“Right,” Remus scoffed. “For everyone.”

Logan actually had the audacity to look taken aback, brow drawing in further confusion. “Yes? You have an outlet, and Thomas gets a break.”

“I don’t need it. I can bash skulls in the Imagination.”

“Which is significantly more unhealthy.”

Remus shrugged, kicking another bone until it slammed into the wall. “It’s easy and fun.”

“We were doing fine,” Logan said, trying to move around him so Remus would meet his gaze. “I thought coming in to talk to you was helping.”

“You don’t care,” Remus snapped. “And you don’t want to listen.”

“I want to,” Logan said. “That is why I’m here.”

“Right.”

“I am incredibly busy, Remus,” Logan said, and Remus felt like he was being lectured. “I would not be here if I didn’t want to be.”

“Then get gone!” Remus spun around gesturing to the door. “Just fucking leave already!”

“I think I’d prefer to stay.”

“You said you’re busy,” Remus snarled. “If you’re so busy you don’t need to carve out time for me.”

“I chose to.”

“Thomas can live with intrusive thoughts,” Remus said. “He’ll be fine. Patton and Virgil will ease up eventually. You should be focused on them.”

“I have been.” Logan was still staring at him, and at this point Remus was considering storming out of his own room. “I have time for you.”

“I thought you were busy,” Remus argued, back to being difficult on purpose. “Which is it? Are you busy or do you have time?”

Logan sighed, and now Remus felt like a child throwing a tantrum. “I’ve made time. I’m making time for you.”

“Right.”

“I don’t understand what changed,” Logan said. “I thought you were getting some enjoyment out of our talks.”

“Yeah, I was,” Remus admitted because despite everything, that was the truth. “But you aren’t.”

It took a moment for Logan to respond, no less confused than before. “I am perfectly content.”

“Yeah?” Remus finally turned around to face him, looking the logical side right in the eyes. “Then why did you flinch?”

Logan blinked, shoulders tense, a mix of panic and understanding flickering in his eyes. “I...did not flinch.”

“Yes, you did. Don’t lie.”

It was Logan’s turn to scoff, like Remus was being ridiculous and dramatic. And he often was, but he was serious this time. “I don’t see how one involuntary movement has become such a big deal.”

Remus didn’t look away, even as Logan’s eyes began to wander. “You’re afraid of me.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Logan said. “I do not feel fear.”

“Yes you do.” Remus stepped closer, taking in the way Logan’s jaw clenched. “You have feelings.”

“No I don’t.”

“You do.”

“You’re figuratively jumping to conclusions,” Logan said, quickly changing the subject. “I am perfectly content spending time with you.”

“I’m not jumping to anything,” Remus said. “You’re scared.”

Logan rolled his eyes, hands lifting to brush over his tie before crossing his arms across his chest. Compulsory comfort action.

“You think you saw me flinch once and now you believe that I’m afraid of you, when there is no logical reason to be. You cannot cause any lasting damage to me, so I—”

Remus lifted a hand without warning, fast and sudden like he was going to strike Logan, keeping it frozen in the air as he took in the reaction before him.

Logan flinched back as soon as Remus moved, his own hands moving to protect his face, eyes glued to Remus’s raised arm, widening in genuine fear and shock.

Remus sighed, slowly lowering his hand as he watched Logan struggle to compose himself. “You’re afraid of me.”

“No,” Logan still had the audacity to argue. “I am not.”

“You flinched.”

Logan fixed his tie again. Remus knew it was some kind of nervous tic. “You startled me.”

“I lifted my hand.”

“Yes,” Logan agreed. “Unexpectedly.”

Remus sighed and stepped back out of Logan’s space, too tired to keep arguing.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” He winced at his own words, images flashing in his mind of Logan stumbling backwards with wide eyes, of Logan covered in blood, of Patton screaming. “Not again, anyway.”

“Well,” Logan said, carefully clearing his throat. “You can understand that I wasn’t exactly…sure. That does not mean I dislike you. Or that I’m frightened of you.”

Remus found himself looking at his shoes, trying and failing to get images of Logan hurt, Logan dying, out of his stupid cesspool sewage pipe head.

He wondered if this was what guilt felt like. If it was, maybe he should start being nicer to Patton. This sucked dick and balls.

“I won’t.”

“And I appreciate that,” Logan said. “But you could not cause any lasting damage to me anyway.”

“So? It still, like… hurt you. I’m not gonna do it again.”

“Well then, I have no reason to be afraid.” Logan straightened, smiling at Remus like that had just solved everything. “Which I wasn’t in the first place.”

Remus’s eyes narrowed. “You flinched.”

“Yes I did,” Logan admitted. “I apologize for that. I can assure you it won’t happen again.”

Remus didn’t move, staring at Logan in disbelief, at a loss for words for the first time in his life. He hoped the exhaustion on his face resembled a glare at least a little bit.

“I don’t… understand,” Logan said, and Remus couldn't even stay mad at him. “Was an apology not what you wanted?”

“No, Logan. I don’t want anything.”

Logan tilted his head slightly, brow furrowed, and Remus could practically see the gears turning as he looked Remus over. “You’re still upset.”

“Why’re you still here?” Remus finally demanded, throwing his arms out in exasperation. “If you’re afraid of me why don’t you just leave?”

Logan blinked, seemingly unfazed. “Because I enjoy talking to you.”

Logic may as well have just punched him right in the chest, the air leaving his lungs in a rush as he took a step back, choking out a shocked laugh. “That can’t be it.”

Logan frowned. “Why not?”

“Nobody enjoys talking to me.”

“Well,” Logan said slowly, and it was like Remus could see some of his walls coming down. “If it helps, no one particularly enjoys talking to me, either.”

Remus wasn’t entirely convinced that was true, but he figured he wasn’t the right one to give Logan a talk on self esteem.

“I like talking to you,” he said instead. “I just think you’re kinda stuffy.”

“I enjoy talking to you as well,” Logan said, and it really did sound like he meant it. “I would just prefer if your more violent thoughts were not physically manifested.”

“Oh.” Remus swallowed, absolutely refusing to show Logic how much this meant to him. He wasn’t going to cry. “Yeah, I can...do that. Sure.”

“Then I’m glad we could come to an understanding,” Logan said, right back to the stiff, professional persona Remus was learning to see right through. “I’m not afraid of you.”

Remus nodded, and realized he was actually starting to believe him this time. “Yeah. Ok. That’s good.”

Logan stepped back out of Remus’s space and Remus quickly did the same, the two of them standing on opposite sides of the Duke’s now painfully silent bedroom.

“I can leave,” Logan said after a moment. “If you’d still like me to.”

Remus hesitated, fighting to keep acting like he didn’t care. “Do you want to leave?”

“Not particularly,” Logan said, and Remus hadn’t expected to feel so relieved. “But it’s your room. I don’t want to intrude.”

“You’re not.” Remus moved back to his bed, dropping himself unceremoniously onto his back. “Don’t leave if you don’t want to. I don’t care.”

“Then I’ll stay.”

Logan pulled up his usual chair, leaning back comfortably as he picked his notebook back up and began flipping idly through it. He looked content and relaxed when Remus risked a glance in his direction, and he smiled to himself.

“You can talk if you like,” Logan said, glancing up from the pages. “I’m listening.”

Remus did eventually start talking, dumping his latest ideas on Logan like he usually did, diving into last night’s fantasy of setting an office building on fire in the middle of the week.

Logan had added on, and Remus had listened intently as he’d recited statistics and calculations, the likelihood of survival, and the two of them eventually decided it would be a waste of time, the fire likely to be put out before even causing any real damage to the building.

That was a talent Logan had. He could get Remus to let go of a thought that typically wouldn’t have left him alone for weeks.

It wasn’t until Logan had stood up to leave for dinner, promising he’d be back at the same time tomorrow, that Remus realized Logan had stayed twice as long as he usually did.

Huh.

Weird.

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #remus sanders #logan sanders #platonic intrulogical #intrulogical #hurt/comfort #ts remus #ts logan #blood mention tw #violence mention tw #fanfiction #writing

245 notes · View notes

escher-room-with-a-view · 3 years

Text

williams family headcanons

this will focus largely on my HCs regarding the dynamics between different members of sarah’s family. jeremy is also there.

looooong post under the cut!

for much of her life, especially after her mother left, sarah has felt like she hasn’t had anyone to talk to or anyone who cares about her. because of this, she would often keep her feelings to herself because she didn’t think anyone would understand, and she didn’t want to bother anyone who wouldn’t care anyway. it’s this restraint that used to make her feel like lashing out and hurting people whom she knew didn’t deserve it, particularly members of her family. linda was usually exempt from this anger; sarah feels tremendously guilty for her occasional violent desires and is trying to work on them, but she appears to be clinging to the vain hope that linda might someday change her ways and the two can be at peace. even after her journey, she seems to have difficulty accepting that that “someday” might never come.

whether sarah inherited or learned her temper from linda is up for debate; what is known, though, is that it runs in her mother’s side of the family. when the two argued, it was often because sarah felt that linda was putting too much pressure on her or not understanding her. in the heat of the moment, linda has said things once or twice that one can’t exactly take back. sarah once justified this to herself by thinking that she provoked her mother, but she’s coming to realize that it isn’t what she thinks so much as it is what she believes she’s expected to think. either way, it hurts her deeply. in fact, sarah is so close to linda that the idea that her mother can do (and has done) anything wrong still comes as a shock to her. she’s especially inclined to forgive her mother for having been petty and nasty in the past because of linda’s affectionate (and admittedly sincere) way of trying to make up for it. sarah’s RSD is the type that makes her feel enormous relief whenever she has some sort of closure. she can spend days agonizing over the idea that someone might hate her, but the minute she’s told she’s been forgiven or even that the other person was never angry at all, she can let it go in an instant. (in fact, this is partly why she’s so kind to her friends, especially hoggle. she knows how it feels to think you’ve done something horrible and unforgivable, even if that isn’t the case—and she doesn’t want anyone to feel the same way.)

sarah likes jeremy, who is exceptionally nice to her and genuinely wants her to feel included. he does his best to be a “fun” sort of father figure, but also acknowledges that he can’t replace her own father and doesn’t try to pressure her into accepting him the way irene somewhat did when she moved in. in fact, jeremy treats sarah almost like a friend and is more lenient with her even than her own mother. he’s always standing up for her and buying things for her that he thinks she’ll like. the two also have several inside jokes that they find hilarious. in general, whenever jeremy cares about someone, he’s very keen on making it known so that they never doubt his authenticity; this is partly why linda gravitated toward him, as she felt like he was more compassionate and cooperative toward her than robert was, and they had more in common.

sarah wasn’t pressured into sharing her mother’s interest in theatre; it came naturally. though linda had some influence, most of sarah’s special interests developed largely on their own. however, sarah tends to be saddened by the fact that linda doesn’t seem to care about her interests unrelated to theatre and never really has. when it comes to anything she has no personal connection with, linda seems indifferent and unaffected no matter how excited sarah is. linda wishes she could bring herself to care more, but she simply doesn’t know how and in some cases isn’t even willing to put in the work. there are few subjects on which linda and sarah are able to have in-depth conversations; one of these is the performing arts, so whenever sarah is around linda it makes up the bulk of what she talks about. sarah desperately craves her mother’s approval, still blaming herself for linda’s departure, and often catches herself acting in ways she thinks will earn that approval even when linda isn’t around.

this is compounded by the fact that sarah has no way of knowing whether or not robert and irene are interested in her thoughts at all. if they are, they certainly don’t show it. on most occasions that they do show intrigue, sarah has some difficulty not interpreting it as them judging or interrogating her. in other instances, she’s simply gotten frustrated and given up trying to communicate with them because she doesn’t feel like they understand or listen. irene in particular wishes she was closer with sarah; however, the two have very little in common. irene has difficulty expressing warmth toward others’ children and doesn’t exactly know how to foster a good bond with them, aside from disciplining them and following the rules she’s read about in her parenting/self-help books. her collection of these books is enormous; many are under the impression that, because of it, she fancies herself an expert. irene tends to be a bit literal and persnickety with rules. she would like to foster emotional and mental health in both her son and her stepdaughter, in addition to raising them to be upstanding citizens; however, she doesn’t quite know how to do the former and is kind of learning as she goes along. though she has difficulty expressing it, she’s fiercely protective of sarah and would like to shield her from anything that might hurt her.

linda and robert separated partly because they had very different ideas on how to raise sarah. while they both had relatively equal expectations for her, they wanted her to pursue different fields; robert sought to push her in the direction of something more conventional while linda wanted sarah to pursue her dreams in the arts—so long as they aligned with linda’s dreams, as well. however, this was just the tip of the iceberg. in reality, the arguments that eventually led to their divorce (sarah was 10 at the time) began when each parent felt that the other’s career wasn’t supporting them as much as they would have liked. linda and robert had lost the spark in their relationship over time; they simply didn’t connect with one another. the phrase “you’re not the person i married,” or a variation of it, was said often on both sides. when the environment in the williams household became too stressful to her, and robert grew too obstinate, linda decided that she was leaving; this happened after she met jeremy, who understood her in a way that she felt robert never had. the realization that linda was forming a relationship behind his back was, for robert, the straw that broke the camel’s back. i think that when it comes to the relationship between sarah’s parents, the song “moral of the story” by ashe applies pretty well. like, really well.

linda’s love language is giving and receiving gifts. she sometimes sends presents and letters to keep in touch with sarah; over the years, though, the influx of gifts has declined for reasons sarah doesn’t understand. linda is usually just too busy or too forgetful to bother; it’s often jeremy who sends gifts in her stead and apologizes on her behalf. furthermore, it’s made sarah uncomfortable how linda always seemed to expect something back whenever she gave a gift or did a favor for as long as she can remember. sarah considers herself lucky that linda sometimes finds the time to send her mail without having to be reminded. because linda can’t be there to physically provide sarah with affection, she instead appears to use gifts as substitutes. in fact, she’s almost always used material objects to convey the things she couldn’t figure out how to communicate otherwise.

part of what makes sarah feel so angry is, ironically enough, the feeling that she isn’t allowed to be angry. when she gets upset, she wants to mouth off or yell, throw things or hit someone; because all of those things will get her into trouble, and she has some difficulty handling her emotions, she has no idea what she’s supposed to do to not be upset anymore. all she feels like she can do is wait for it to go away—which is not only something that she rarely manages to do, but also something that makes things far worse in the long run.

overall, sarah has a complicated relationship with her mother. on the one hand, the two are very close with one another. linda loves sarah dearly and is immensely proud of her; in spite of all her flaws, she seems to be coming to the realization that she should try and be a better mother even if it’s from a distance, and that just because sarah isn’t physically with her anymore doesn’t make the two any less related. on the other hand, though, linda has quite a few selfish tendencies she hasn’t matured past; her love for sarah doesn’t stop her from using her as a pawn to stroke her own ego. she also isn’t afraid to lash out at her own daughter for bruising said ego, intentionally or otherwise. the only reason she initially considered doing better was because she didn’t want sarah to stop talking to her entirely, though she’s begun considering the principle of it all. it would be interesting to juxtapose linda’s selfishness with sarah’s at the beginning of the film, with the implication that linda is the way she is today because she never got what she needed in the past and/or made the conscious choice to put herself before other people—but sarah doesn’t have to be the same. in fact, throughout her arc it’s proven that she won’t be the same—not only because her journey provides her with courage and her friends provide her with support she may not have and otherwise, but because she chose actively to be a kinder person out of compassion and not because she feared repercussions.

sarah’s insistence that linda has never done anything wrong ever is almost certainly denial. logically, sarah knows that some of linda’s actions have been wrong; that doesn’t stop her, however, from scrambling for a million different ways to justify it. part of this can also be attributed to what sarah feels is an unspoken rule that forbids her from being angry, especially toward the people whom she loves and who love her most; she wants to say that linda has hurt her on several occasions, but doesn’t know how to communicate it and is afraid of setting off some sort of nightmarish consequence. as such, she settles for trying to rationalize it when no amount of explanation can make it okay.

linda is also fiercely protective of sarah and doesn’t want her falling in with the wrong crowd by any means. it does sadden her that sarah doesn’t have many friends (at least to her knowledge), and she’s always encouraging sarah to put herself out there; however, a small, wicked part of linda has wondered if it would be better if she just had sarah all to herself.

sarah has felt ever since the divorce that, to her father, she’s more of an inconvenience he has to “deal with” than his actual daughter. of course, robert doesn’t see her that way; but he doesn’t know how to communicate with her or connect with her, as much as he’d like to, which results in a wall between them. despite this, she does know that he loves her and is doing her best. as bad as it makes her feel, she explains it to herself by saying that she sometimes wishes his best was better.

i personally interpret sarah putting away linda’s pictures at the end of the film as her realizing that there’s someone else who has no power over her: her mother. granted, sarah doesn’t destroy the pictures because she still loves linda and hopes she gets better as a person. but the fact that she puts them somewhere safe can be thought of as symbolizing how she isn’t going to let linda manipulate her anymore and it isn’t her responsibility to help her get better—let alone be her personal echo chamber. sarah has decided, in my opinion, to keep a reasonable distance from linda (to the extent where “i can talk to you, but you can’t hurt me”) until she can be certain that linda has changed. in particular, sarah feels safest interacting with her mother when jeremy is present, as jeremy isn’t afraid to come to her defense and has made linda reconsider her behavior on several occasions. i also think it could be interesting to contrast maria’s fierce and unconditional love and linda’s genuine, but often self-serving and distanced love toward her own child.

sarah remembers her family being happy before things went downhill and still finds it difficult to grasp the fact that it wasn’t her fault in some way. when her family tells her that, she doesn’t think they’re telling the truth. when her classmates tell her it wasn’t her fault, she feels like they just don’t understand.

robert feels like he didn’t pay enough attention to linda’s needs back when the two were married, and he thinks that’s most likely the reason she left. to make up for what he perceives as his neglect of his ex-wife, he does his best to make irene feel like a queen.

i think of sarah and toby when i listen to “evelyn evelyn.” i’m not sure exactly why, but it would make a good comic or animation someday.

i also made picrews!

post-canon!sarah - in this one, she’s about 16. i always loved the idea of her just deciding to cut her own hair one day and her parents being shocked about it. shorter hair is also especially conducive to speedrunning the labyrinth every other week

link: https://picrew.me/image_maker/1272810

adult!sarah - my headcanon is that she was a stage actress for a while and later went on to have a film role, but eventually decided that the life of an actress wasn’t for her and settled down to become a college drama professor. once she cut her hair as a teenager, she never went back. her family was frustrated by it until she got older and they mellowed out about it because they realized there was really nothing they could do

links (in order): https://picrew.me/image_maker/457566 and https://picrew.me/image_maker/696219

adult!toby - i don’t know why, but i feel like he’d be really into alt fashion. like i think sarah would introduce him to her punk and hair metal vinyls one day and he’d just latch onto those and never let go. i also think that he didn’t leave the labyrinth unchanged, and sarah does her best to help him readjust and cope with it all; i’m tempted to also headcanon him as ND, so it’s possible that she’d be able to relate to him a lot in the future and that would make things easier for him

link: https://picrew.me/image_maker/696219

sarah and toby! i think they’d get along really well as toby was growing up, with sarah telling him these wonderful stories and playing fantastical games with him and whatnot. she’d have some of influence on his taste in music and books, too, i think, as explained above. but because of the whole “evelyn evelyn” thing i’m considering incorporating some degree of angst into their relationship when they’re adults. i do have an idea, but i’m not quite ready to spoil it yet! i’ll wait until i manage to draw At Least One Thing for it!

link: https://picrew.me/image_maker/399481

#labyrinth #labyrinth headcanon #sarah williams #toby williams #robert williams #irene williams #linda williams #picrew #long post #angst headcanon

3 notes · View notes

neverthelessgreatness · 3 years

Text

WRITING UPDATE

In which I give you the saddest of writing updates to have been seen LOL

Hi!! It’s been a minute since I’ve done one of these, and I’m in the mood to do another! Granted, my life has been kind of hectic, and I’ve not had very much time to write, hence the lack of updates, but here I am now with one!

RICH SUMMER DIGEST

First and foremost, my camp nano project (that has turned into a MUCH longer ordeal LOL)- rich summer digest!

I’m on the final eight or so chapters and I’m so proud of myself for getting to this point. I’ve been at a stalemate with the draft for a little while just due to time constraints, but I’m hoping that it’ll be done before I go off to college in august.

This book was kind of the perfect thing for me to write during the spring and summer. Although I am at that point that I usually get to around this time (aka, I think that what I’ve written is embarrassing therefore I tuck it away and let no one see it) I know I’ll come around to love it.

I could see myself in the future rewriting this story to make it how I truly envisioned it in my head, but for now I think it’s in a pretty good place.

I’m just excited to have (hopefully) something finished again before I go to college with enough substance to fix and change if I choose to edit/rewrite.

I have no doubt I’ll write the Argate sisters again, too. Margot has got to be one of my favorite characters I’ve written so far, and I can’t just let her go (or the other two) that easily! But for now, I’m shelving the project (after I’ve completed it and gotten a copy printed, haha!) to make room for more drafts and more exciting things to come! I’ve realized I’m the kind of writer who needs to take months (usually years, though) away from a project before having any vigor to make it better and rewrite it.

I also think part of that comes from knowing my writing abilities are growing constantly. I’m always learning new things or growing my reservoir of things to include or ways to write/ not to write. I think that with the growth sometimes it can allow for the same story to be told in a different light that makes it that much closer to its home idea.

Anyways, a little bit of a topic stray with that one, but that’s my update on RSD for you!

THE ELITISTS

Guys, this story idea is almost a YEAR old in august- what the fuck. Literally I never can seem to keep and follow through with ideas longer than usually about 8-9 months, but this one has consistently brought me goosebumps and a vigor to figure out where it’s headed.

I’ve worked some more on my character outlines and outlines for the story, and I’m hoping that once my character sheets are done I can share some pics of them with you!

I enjoy taking this project suuuperr slowly and finding out details as they come to me. This is such a free flowing world and learning bits and pieces about it here and there I think is what keeps me intrigued. There’s no rush to draft or to finish the outline, I kind of just work on my own pace. I go and come back as I please, and I think that it has benefited this story greatly!

Speaking of drafting, though, I can’t tell you how excited I am to get to that point with this book! These characters are so important to me and they’re constantly growing and adapting. There’s- like I said- still so much to figure out about this world and this story, but I’ll be so excited once I get to finally put pen to paper!

I’ve just been having so much fun with it, and truly making it something special in a way I couldn’t ever imagine!!

I know, lame update, right? Well, anyways, I hope you enjoyed your time reading nonetheless, and enjoyed hearing all about my projects, haha! There are a few more that lull around in my head, but these two have been taking center stage for the minute, so it only felt just to share them. I also didn’t have much of content worth sharing for others, haha!

I hope I can become more consistent with these at some point, but for now, enjoy the sporadic ones!

#rich summer digest #camp nano 2021 #camp nano update #the elitests #writing update #july writing update #author #author WIP #writing wip #my work in progress

2 notes · View notes

observinghumans · 3 years

Text

Discovering my passions, and giving into my ADHD

I've been given this amazing privilege to having been one of the most highly sought after Medical Sales Rep in the south territory of my town. I will be relatively vague as I am still currently active in the industry. Long story short why I consider it a privilege; All of my counterparts and competitors in the industry all have a minimum of a bachelor degree. I started off taking phone calls and pushing papers at $17 an hour, then in 3 years promoted 3 times in one year, to starting making $27.50 per hour on the sales team, then few months after that to making $67k plus bonus for one of the largest medical services company in the USA. After multiple competitors compete for my employment and my market influence, I sit here today with a salary of $75k with bonus during the COVID-19 Pandemic, but I am struggling and I'm seeing my psychiatrist tomorrow.

When I first started off in Medical Sales, I was just adrenaline driven to be making this kind of money with the use of my personality. I felt like, I am getting paid to make friends and be a positive influence in my industry. Everything I was doing was exciting, until you realize, you are only as good as you last month, and your success varied on the influence you had to manage with a team that isn't yours (You can be a good sales rep, but that team can make or break you also). I was sent to the Emergency Room 4x in less that 3 weeks for anxiety attacks, all during R&R, when I should be most relaxed. I saw my primary physician who prescribed by a SSRI and to see a psychiatrist. Me, now, 4 years later, after weening myself off the SSRI the first year of use, I finally booked that appointment with her for an ADHD assessment.

For years my friends in the industry have been saying they think I may have ADHD. I looked into it for awhile, but somewhat doubted the possibility. Growing up in a religious household, ADHD are for those kids who lack discipline or spanking from their parents. Plus, I was typically behaved, just couldn't sit still. And, on occasion, less frequent that not, I would get in trouble for my inability to sit still. I thought it was normal, because watching everyone in class move every now and then was normal... unless you were only paying attention to everything that moved in the class rather than you teacher giving the lesson.

As you can tell, as you read, you also may feel that you have ADHD because you forgot what you originally was reading this for. Don't worry, me too!! hahaha!!!

So even before I see my psychiatrist tomorrow, I've watched a lot of information on ADHD. and the way I behave started to make sense. I thought that it was normal to have your thoughts all over the place, but now that I am an adult, it is coming to the determent of my performance during work and even life.

I clearly have Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria associated with ADHD where I feel that I am not good enough, if I feel what I am doing may never be enough. I get crippled and frozen when the direction of focus keeps changing. I struggling letting go of the last instructions knowing I may possibly extract from my last work, while focusing on the new instruction, completely wrecking how I approach them if I was given the chance to just focus on the first goal.

I still love the industry. I actually strongly believe in a business model I developed for the industry that would cut significant amount of overhead and still allow distribution of services faster than the competition (which also serve as referral sources for the business). But I feel that I am stuck. Like, I can't get this company or any company to care enough to see the bigger picture.

So now what? Let that business idea go? I don't know. I want to see it happen, but I am tired of fighting my way to the top for my patients. The closer I get to the top, the conversation becomes less about the people I serve.

I fell into this role by hard work and luck. I have learned so much because of the hats that worn in the industry. I understand that I have a system that will exist whether I am the one who pilots it or not, and if the company that pilots it will care as much as I do. That's if they figure it out.

But at the determent of my mental health and trying to discover whether I should just seek a career in the things I am interested in for potentially less money. That is a scary thought. Am I giving up everything I worked hard for?

I love sharing stories. I love making videos. I love skateboarding(even though I suck at it). I feel that there is more that I should bring to the table. Like I will never be good enough. And here we go again with RSD that comes with ADHD.

What do you think I should? Can you relate to any of this? I can't be the only one.

#undiagnosed adhd #my adhd #adhd things #adhdlife #adhd brain #adhd problems #mental health #medical sales representative #business #anxiety and depression #Passion #discover #skateboard

2 notes · View notes

vickylamore · 4 years

Text

Noises Of The Rain

A/n - this was something I've never written and I'm honestly really glad I had the chance to write it. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to write about something I use to stereotype. I hope I did a good job with it. I’m sorry if it’s not the best, please let me know what you think.

Summary - You've always struggled with yourself and you always wished you were what was considered normal. With your thoughts all over the place, you didn’t think you were going to reveal what you felt so soon.

Pairing - Min Yoongi x reader, Jung Hoseok x reader.

Genre - Songwriter au! Fluff, slight angst.

Warnings - low self confidence, reader has ADHD and RSD (rejection sensitive dysphoria).

W/C - 3k+

Rating - PG-13

With the sun already setting and the day coming to a close, you sat in the dimmed room on the couch, an empty cup of a combination of milk and honey on the coffee table. You had turned off the television and you had the door closed so no one could disturb you as you continued to work, your brain focused on the sheet of paper in front of you.

You wouldn't think that this would be the ideal career choice with the way your mind was wired. You had nothing against people who always assumed that you were going to be this hyperactive person with weird quirks.

You wish that they wouldn't assume and do some research before trying to talk to you about ADHD.

It hurt deep down, and you can’t help yourself but compare yourself to others. People who are considered normal by society. It was annoying too, especially when you would let people that you had RSD on top of ADHD.

The thing is with RSD is that you didn’t mean to be super sensitive, it just the way you are. You didn’t want to think about the coffee you spilt on Carlos so long ago or when you left Luna on read on Instagram but you did. Your mind always drifted off.

You weren't the stereotypical 'I’m super hyper and I'm a sugar bug who gets an hour of sleep every day and somehow wakes up energized'. You were more reserved but at the same time loud.

You loved to keep to yourself but loved talking to people. It's who you are as a person and you can't change that. So finally, you learned to embrace yourself since it did take some time to fully appreciate yourself.

Though deep down, you’re still working on it.

You had always compared yourself to other kids, something you endlessly regret doing because it affected your confidence. Not to mention that when you hit your early twenties, you had applied to so many agencies that could potentially take you as a part-time songwriter.

You were close... but they'd always take a good look at your medical records and assume that you were never going to get work done because of your “condition”.

You found it stupid how people would judge you based on one small fact about yourself. They could care less about your achievements or awards or skills and qualities. They rather base their decision on one sentence.

At first, they didn't tell you that you were the problem. The more constant it got with other agencies and the more rejections you got, you thought that it was because of the way you talk or the way you interact with others.

You were constantly regretting most things you said in the interviews. The famous what if echoing in your mind each time you wanted to go to bed. You couldn't help it; the words of what you said earlier in the day replaying in your mind like a record on an endless loop.

You started losing hope. You didn't want to, but with each no that came your way, you started to lose all the hope you were holding onto.

But you quickly got it back when you got a certain call from a certain company.

You use to publish your work on Instagram to a small trope of followers, making sure to write your signature all over the page so no one could copy and steal it.

Well, on pure coincidence, the company saw your account and learned that you were a songwriter. Immediately, they called you and it's now where you work.

You've been with the company ever since the boys debuted. You never liked the idea of the media on you because you're their songwriter for the group, so BigHit made sure to keep you hidden but still gave you credit on the songs you wrote with other songwriters and occasionally BTS themselves.

Despite it being a few years since you’ve been with the company, you hate the attention so you rather stay in the shadows and watch others enjoy and appreciate your work from the anonymous viewpoint.

You were gifted; writing was your getaway. Your safe haven. It's like a universe where you can't be judged. You can write for hours and hours, sometimes spending six to seven hours fiddling with words and sentences to make the perfect verse associated with a concept.

At first, you didn't care about what others thought about your songs but as soon as you joined the writing team, you were more diligent about what you put down on paper (not to mention that a lot of your songs were in English and that the other songwriters need to translate it).

Especially now that people are singing them.

The boys have been really supportive of you, even though almost half of them don't know about your medical side. It's not that you didn’t want to tell them, it's just that you didn't want to be perceived a certain way. So ultimately, you kept it a secret with only a few knowing. Plus, it’s easier to let them believe about you being a constant daydreamer and a person to pull all-nighters.

Now writing around 11 pm is nothing new to you, you'd sometimes go sleepless nights just to write some stuff.

But today, this specific night, you weren't clicking with your own thoughts.

You didn't think that your constant mumbling was annoying. Neither the fact that your pencil was repeatedly tapping on your notebook. You didn't think that it would bother anyone, especially with the rain sounds playing in your earbuds; it made it hard for you to acknowledge the world around you.

Therefore, when some of the members of the internationally famous boy group walked into the room, you didn't notice. You hadn't even heard them talking or sit next to you.

You were too concentrated on the piece of paper in front of you that you most likely hadn't blinked in a minute. The more you started at the paper, the more you got irritated with yourself because you couldn't get any words on the paper, no new ideas flowing and no concepts coming to mind.

You couldn't just write anything without deep meaning, without a thought process, without having others analyzing every verse and specific meanings of certain words. You weren't going to stop writing or rather move from your sport until you're able to come down with something.

With something that you're satisfied with.

That also makes you even more frustrated; the fact that you're getting nothing done is infuriating. And the fact that you were too stubborn to let this go and take a break is exhausting.

You knew that if you took a break from your criss-cross sitting position on the couch right now, there's no telling what you'll be focused on next and it'll be really hard for you to pick up where you left off.

You didn't notice how hard and loud the tapping of your pen had become before you heard someone calling your name.

Even then, you refused to acknowledge the person; it's as if the person's voice was underwater, the sounds of the pitter-patter of your rain sounds in your earbuds seemingly making it more realistic; mixing your imagination with reality.

It's weird really; the way your mind zones out and focuses on one thing and nothing else sometimes for hours on end.

You hadn't even noticed that your attention is now solely on your pen, the tapping becoming more frantic as it masks the rhythm of the pitter patters of the rain.

The longer it went, the faster it became and the more you lost interest in the notebook you were writing in. It's not that you wanted to; it was pretty easy to not pay attention to something you've been doing for hours.

Now, you were drumming the pen as if it was the end of the world. You can feel the beats on the tips of your fingers as your eyes focus on the only thing keeping your mind busy. The way the waves of sounds pulsate your fingers and how it matches up perfectly with the sounds of the rain falling. It's almost as if you could-

"(Y/n)." You jump when a hand touches your shoulder, your eyes snapping to the figure next to you. On instinct, your pen escaped your grasp and hit the floor.

You stare back at the pen and immediately facepalm, an embarrassed look on your face. You purse your lips before closing your eyes. "The pen- I'm so sorry!"

I swear I'm really a clown! Like, I've been doing it for a while and now-

From the corner of your eyes, you see Yoongi cringe slightly. You were going to ask why exactly he reacted that way, although you didn't think you said anything wrong. Sitting next to you, Hoseok points at your ears as your hands slowly make their way to your ears, gently taking the earbuds out. Despite taking them out, you can still hear the thunderous noises from the rain from your earpieces.

You realize how dead quiet it is, how it's almost an empty, eerie silence engulfing the room. The only thing someone would hear would be-

It's so quiet so that means that my pen clicking was like the same sounds I was listening to. Or a woodpecker packing on the walls... no- a toddler endlessly knowing on the door.

Oh look, I must be a toddler since I'm literally acting like one. Now that I think of it, toddler pout and complain a lot.

So I'm basically a toddler that pouts and complains a lot...

You grimace at the thought of how loud the sound on the button endlessly clinking was. You run a hand on your face, a tired expression displayed. "I swear I was working and then I got interested in the pen- it must've been so so annoying! Oh my god!"

I mean I was working and then I became an annoying toddler so-

You bury your head in your head, an embarrassment blush rushing to your face. You cringe at yourself and you're already thinking about how you make a fool out of yourself in front of your friends.

That's great, they probably think that I’m weird... but they may already know that since they’re the only two I’ve told...

"(Y/n), it's okay." You hear Hobi whisper from next to you. You feel your journal be taking off from your lap as he scoots closer to you. A small nudge gently rocks your body, "I promise it is."

"I should've noticed-"

You hear a deep chuckle from the corner of the room, "you were invested in your writing."

"But I got nothing done!" You scream into your hands, though it's muffled behind your limps.

"Aish~ don't say that," Hoseok pokes the sides of your hip, smile giggles escaping your mouth. "I'm sure you got something done."

"Yeah, my ability to be thinking of like a million things."

"Multitasking." You snort at Hobi's comment, your eyes rolling behind your hands.

"Me? Multitasking?" You turn your head towards the brown-haired male, an unconvinced expression on your face. "I'm still the same (Y/n) that folded her clothes twelve times and I STILL wasn't satisfied with it."

And here I am rambling about my problems while they're probably exhausted from all the training they've done today. I'm like- the most annoying and most self-centred person ever.

Like why am I talking as if I'm the most important person in the world? As if I'm royalty?

You know what, now that I think about it, being royalty for a day would be so cool. Like, imagine being served grapes from a gold plate and being treated like a princess.

Of course, without the whole tiara part. I mean, I'd be like a chill princess. One that people would love- not that people actually like me now but still.

"Lemme see," you close your eyes and lean your head on the headrest of the couch. You sigh out, trying to collect your endless thoughts.

I'm so tired that like I could sleep through an earthquake. I could be like that squirrel from Ice Age that gets in endless trouble and somehow outruns an earthquake.

It's so weird- like how can a tiny skinny little thing do anything for an acorn.

You reopen your eyes and stare at the ceiling, your eyes focus on the blank colour on the floor above you.

You know, sometimes I wonder how life would be without having ADHD or RSD. Like hoe would it feel to not be always sensitive and be sulking all the time.

Like how would it be if I was just whatever society deemed normal? I am normal right? I'm just as normal, I just have a few different quirks.

Haha, quirks that's funny. What would the others think of me if I ever told them? Will they treat me with a precious diamond or a piece of hypersensitive jewelry that would break if you even just look at it them wrong? Will they avoid me... it's sad because some have done it in the past.

I hope they won't. Speaking of which, I need to tell them one day.

"What's on your mind?" You don't bother looking at Yoongi as you sigh out, lightly biting your cheek.

Maybe they'd just ignore me. Maybe Yoongi and Hobi will ignore once they settle that I'm too much. Maybe I'll just leave the company if it gets to that.

"I'm sorry." You say surprisingly low. You want to stop the tears from filling your eyes. "Gosh, imagine being stuck with someone like me."

You stiff a sniffle as you furiously blink your ears, trying to drive away from the tears.

"What?" The boy next to you speaks as he moves closer to you. "What do you mean?"

You chuckle to yourself, drawing patterned on your things. "I mean, I'm a mess, a self-centred person that literally only thinks about herself. Like, it's really annoying-"

"But who said that you were self-centred? Or annoying?"

You lick your lips before shifting in your seat, "no need to lie to me Yoongs... I know how you feel about me."

"Hilarious." The black-haired male sits to your left, running a hand through his hair. The other male only stays quiet for a while.

"If you really think that you're annoying, I would've avoided you since you first arrived." You scoff to yourself again, gritting your teeth in slight irritation.

"Then why don't you?" You let out a shaky breath as you close your eyes again. You don't notice the sudden lump appears in your throat, the feeling sending a chill down your spine. "Why waste your time talking to me- a person that's always daydreaming, overthinking, really sensitive- like there's no benefit to talking or being friends with me."

A silence falls into the room as small tears fill to corners of your eyes. You bit your lip before let out a small and barely audible sob.

What am I doing? I don't understand. One moment, I'm apologizing and the next I'm pushing some of my closest friends away.

Am I afraid of letting go? But I'm doing this to myself? I deserve it. Maybe I just don't-

"Now let me stop you right there." Your head slowly turns to Hoseok. You almost shy away from the look he's giving you. It's strong and determined despite the small glint of irritation in his eyes, all you see is empathy shining through.

"If you think for a second that you don't matter to us, you’re wrong. You matter so much, so please stop speaking lowly about yourself." The male wraps his arms around you for a hug, your head rested on his chest and his chin resting on your head. "Don't think that about yourself, because it isn't true."

"But it feels true." You mumble lowly, a small sniffle sound echoing in the room. "I keep convincing myself that it is and it's tiring. Slowly, I start to believe it and-"

"Then don't." Yoongi turns to you with a stern look on his face. "Don't listen to the negative thoughts, don't go down that rabbit hole." The way he said it makes a shiver run down your spine. You shake as it happens, Hoseok only holding you tighter.

"But it's hard." You choke a sob, "I try, I really do but it's hard to be different. It's so tiring looking around and knowing that everyone around you is normal and does normal things and you're just you, a person that's not normal and sometimes I hate it. I hate being the way I am sometimes. I wish I was different-"

"But you can't be different." You close your eyes as Yoongi talks, "you can't wish for something you know can’t happen. All you can do is work hard (Y/n). You've earned your position here, you've earned the right to be you and just because society sees you as different doesn't mean you need to listen. If it wasn't for you being different, you wouldn't be next to us. You wouldn't know us and we wouldn't know you."

"Yoongi's right," Hoseok says softly, his finger combing your hair. He watches as your body shakes in light sobs, tears streaming down your face. "You are sweet, imaginative, creative and you're able to relate to people. You’re bubbly and have so much energy. You love what you do and we love you, so stop hoping for a different outcome of life."

Yoongi grumbles under his breath, running his hand through his hair. "This is the first and last time I'm saying this. Only to you and no one else. I love you and you are an amazing charismatic person so stop wishing to be whatever society deems as normal. You wouldn't be the same person you are right now. The same person we all know and I don't want to imagine you any differently because I like you just the way you are."

You stop sobbing as you wipe your tears away. I don't deserve them.

"You do deserve us, as we deserve you," Hoseok replies as he plays with a few strands of your hair. "We'll be here to help you through everything, just tell us because we are here for you."

You nod your head and interlock Hoseok's hand with his own as Yoongi sends you his signature gummy smile.

I love them like my brothers and I know they'll help me through everything. I’ll try not falling down, I'll try to stop comparing, I’ll try to be me. I have you guys to help me through it. Just like the rain, they're what calms me after a cloudy day, the pitter-patters on my windows.

They're the calm noises of the rain.

#bts x reader #bts x you #bangtan #bangtanidx #bts fic #jung hoseok x reader #min yoongi x reader #sope x reader #requested #request #btswriterscollective

75 notes · View notes

always-anxious612 · 4 years

Note

Idk if this is already going to happen later in the story, but how about a short fic about chaotic Roman training? I was just thimking about like Logan gets him talking about something he's passionate about (to get his powers like, working?) And just things flying but Logan helps him get control, which causes him to get excited because he's doing it right! Thanks

Warnings: food mention, panicked thoughts, RSD

Word Count: 1,145

Roman took a deep breath as he sat on the couch, waiting for Logan to get home from class. Today was the first day he was going to start lessons without Dee, and to say he was nervous was an understatement. He couldn’t let himself lose control again. He couldn’t. But without Dee there to calm him when he started to lose it, what was he supposed to do. He only focused on Dee before, how was he supposed to do this without him here? The front door opening pulled Roman from his thoughts.

“Ah, Roman, ready to begin?” Logan asked upon seeing Roman waiting for him. Gulping, Roman nodded, plastering on his normal bright smile. Logan raised an eyebrow but started setting things up in silence.

“Alright, I have three books here. We’re going to start by trying to lift one, is that ok?” he assured, stepping back from the table where he’d laid out the books. One book. Yeah, ok, Roman could handle that…but how did he do that? Things had been going ok before he lost control that once. Now he had no idea how to control anything. How was he supposed to feel passion if that passion was just going to destroy everything around him. He couldn’t control it. Or maybe he was just too scared to try anymore. When Dee was there everything was a lot simpler because he made him feel passionate and calm at the same time. Why had he agreed to do this separately again?

“Roman?” Logan questioned, eyeing him. “Are you ok?”

“I—I don’t know how to, um, lift the book.” Roman admitted, his face burning with shame.

“Ah. That’s fine.” Loan replied, “Let’s talk instead.”

“Talk?”

“Yes. I heard from Dee that you got the male lead in the play due to complications. You must be ecstatic, correct?”

Roman lit up at the words.

“Oh yeah, I can’t believe they asked me out of everybody!” he exclaimed. “I mean, my part was easily replaced by a newbie, sure; but there were plenty of other’s who could also be easily replaced, but they asked me!”

“That’s remarkable, Roman.” Logan remarked, trying to hide a smile as Roman’s grin grew bigger. Out of the corner of his eye, Logan saw the books on the table start to rattle and hoped Roman didn’t notice.

“I already had a lot of the lines memorized for the part anyway, but Dee’s been helping me run lines everyday too which has been really helpful. I still can’t actually believe the part is mine now. Oh, and the set is coming along so nicely. It’s absolutely gorgeous, all the props and scenery and—” Roman cut himself off as he spotted the books, which were now hovering about two feet of off the table Logan had put them on.

“What—” he mumbled, fear wiggling its way into his chest. He didn’t mean too. He was going to do it again. Things were going to get out of control. What if he hurt Logan this time? Once again as his thoughts became more panicked, a couple more objects joined the books and started to swirl wildly.

“Roman.” Logan’s tone was firm but soft. “Roman, focus on me, ok? Focus on that passion you had when you were talking about the play, ok? Take a deep breath. There’s no need to panic, you’re doing wonderfully.”

Roman tore his eyes from the swirl of stuff at Logan’s last sentence.

“I—I’m doing good?” he questioned, hesitantly.

“Yes. You are. You have the objects up in the air at least. You can control this, Roman. First, please take a deep breath for me, ok?”

Roman nodded and sucked in a deep breath, calming his nerves, trying not to focus on the panic swirling in the back of his head. The objects slowed slightly.

“Ok, now focus on how excited you were when you got the part. Focus on how you felt when they chose you out of the rest of the qualified cast members to replace the lead. Focus on how you feel when you run lines with Dee. How it will feel to perform this part in front of an audience.” Logan coached. Roman smiled slightly at the thoughts. He really was excited for the play. For opening night. To play this part.

“Amazing, job, Ro.” Logan complimented, watching as the objects slowed until they were just floating in the air.

“Try to maintain that feeling. Keep it in the back of you’re mind and now focus on the objects in the air.” He continued. Biting his lip, Roman did as Logan instructed and turned to look at the objects, surprised to see that they had stopped swirling. He had been so focused on Logan and his instructions that he hadn’t even noticed what was happening in the air.

“Ok, with the thoughts of the play and Dee and the part still in mind, focus on setting the objects down, gently.”

With much, much concentration, Roman tried to keep his passion for acting in mind as he also focused on lowering the stuff. Slowly, but surely, the objects started to lower, and it took everything in Roman to keep his excitement from shooting them higher in the air once again. After several minutes, the books and few other objects that had been swept up when he had first started panicking were laying undamaged on the ground.

“I-I did it. Logan, I did it!” Roman smiled excitedly.

“Yes, I knew you could. Excellent session, Roman. Now that you know that you can do it, the next lesson should be easier for you to get the objects in the air on your own.” Logan praised, this time not bothering to hide his small smile.

“Aw, we’re already done? But I’m just getting the hang of it now.” Roman pouted, making Logan chuckle softly.

“I’m glad you’re eager to learn, but we don’t want to overdo it. You made excellent progress today. I’m free tomorrow if you’d like to continue then. But for now, would you like some cookies and milk? Patton baked them this morning while you were at class.”

“You never have to ask me if I want cookies and milk. Especially if Patton made them.” Roman laughed, already forgetting about continuing the lesson. He supposed Logan was right. He didn’t want to overdo it and shake his confidence yet again. For now, he just enjoyed stealing sips of Logan’s milk and watching him eye the glass in confusion when there seemed to be less milk every time he looked away. And, yeah, maybe he’d have to work hard to keep his confidence up and his magic under control, but at least he had the best teacher and the most wonderful “famILY” to help him do it. He honestly wouldn’t have it any other way.

Taglist: @catolicabuena @look-ma-im-on-tv @its-always-the-witching-hour @sure-i-exist @wellhellothere09 @star-crossed-shipper @cemmy @lila-lupus @misterteaz @petite-phthora

#thanks for the ask!#answered asks #anon asks #sanders sides #logan sanders #roman sanders #rsd tw #panicked thoughts tw #food tw #ts magic au #ts human au

13 notes · View notes

thechildoflightning · 4 years

Text

Blood Relation

Title: Blood Relation

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Pairings: LAMP, familial Roman & Remus, platonic Roceit

part of the jksf verse

~~~

Summary:

On March 14, 2000 a baby named Roman was born in a small hospital in America. Four minutes later, his mother dies, leaving her son alone with his now adoptive father.

This is not that story.

On August 14, 1995 a baby named Remus was born in a small hospital in Yemen. Four years later, his mother leaves, taking her son with her to the United States.

This is also not that story.

No, this story is about a man named Remus Turner starting a new job at a theater company, where Roman Hussain-Barlo happens to be the director.

Three decades later.

Warnings: Schizophrenia, RSD, Memory Issues, PTSD, Xenophobia, Separation of Child from Parent, Parent Death (past, mentioned)

[ao3 link]

~~~

Blood Relation

Roman had come to the conclusion that his theater company was some kind of cryptid conspiracy theory. Ever since the whole thing with Deceit and Virgil happened, he thought that it wasn’t too bold to assume that his company was in fact a conspiracy theory in the making. That had to be it, because there was literally no other way any of this could make sense. Sure, a person looking slightly to him would be one thing, but someone that could practically be his twin? Well that was another thing completely.

This had to be the reason the new guy looked so similar to him, right? Because the other ideas, the other options presented, well those were so much more terrifying than a cryptid theater company.

The first thing someone had said when the new guy had joined, was, “Wow, I didn’t know Roman had a brother.”

Here was the thing- Roman did have a brother. His brother’s name was Kenny, but Kenny had never been to Roman’s work, lived in Oregon, and- most importantly in this situation- was adopted, and therefore did not look like Roman.

The new guy had stumbled, laughed, and said, “What?” before catching Roman’s eye.

They both froze.

The similarities were undeniable. It was pretty much looking at a carbon copy.

Except that there were differences. Remus’s hair was a bit lighter than Roman’s, and Roman’s skin was more golden bronze than Remus’ amber. Roman was also a few inches taller and Remus’ eyes were a greenish brown opposed to Roman’s russet. But it was close. It was way too close.

Roman played it casual.

“Never thought I’d actually get to meet my doppelganger,” he said, ignoring the obvious elephant in the room.

The stares around him were incredulous, screaming at him to take note of the very apparent issue in the room. Roman refused and introduced himself.

“I’m Roman Hussain-Barlo,” he introduced, “The director of the company.”

“Remus Turner,” he replied, taking Roman’s offered hand and shaking it, “Choreography.”

Even their names were similar.

“It’s nice to meet you, I’ll let you get settled,” Roman said. He then disappeared as quickly as possible. It was too much. There was no way he was dealing with this right now.

So he didn’t. Deal with it that is.

Which resulted in Deceit cornering him a week later on a day when the two of them had both stayed late.

“Roman,” Deceit had said after they were done.

Roman knew instantly what he was going to say, and continued to pack up his things to leave.

“Roman,” Deceit repeated, and then again, “Roman.”

Roman sighed, stopped what he was doing, and turned to his friend.

“What Dee?”

Dee just gave him a pointed look and sat down. With a sigh, Roman joined him and tried not to think about how this conversation was going to go.

“Y’know, when someone new joins, you usually help show them the ropes,” Dee stated.

Roman scoffed, “He’s working in choreography, he has his lead to help him, not my job.”

“I didn’t say it was your job,” Deceit pointed out, “Just that you usually do it anyway.”

Which was true and Roman didn’t have an excuse for why he didn’t. Or, he did have an excuse but ‘avoiding Remus because he looks remarkably similar to me and there’s a very good chance that is for a reason and that reason is that we are related to one another’ wasn’t an excuse he wanted to think about.

“Roman,” Deceit spoke up again, this time a touch softer, “You can’t just ignore this.”

“You ignored the whole thing with Virgil,” Roman was quick to bite back. Which was maybe a bit harsh. But he didn’t want to think about it.

“Fair,” Deceit agreed, “But when I reflect on that, I’ve come to the conclusion that how I went about that was a poor decision on my part. Which you know. Plus, I wasn’t around Virgil, I wasn’t consciously avoiding him, just choosing to not interact. Remus is working with us. You are actively avoiding him, and sooner or later that just isn’t going to be realistic.”

“I can do my best to make sure it’s later though,” he mumbled.

Confusion crossed Deceit’s face.

“Can you say that again?” he asked.

Roman sighed.

“Sorry. Nevermind,” Dee said immediately.

Roman shook his head.

“It’s not you,” he promised. “You don’t have to apologize for asking me to repeat myself. Ever.”

Deceit gave a little nod to show that he understood, and then waited.

“I said, ‘I can do my best to make sure it’s later rather than sooner,’” he repeated, making sure to avoid mumbling this time.

Deceit just gave him a look.

Roman cringed, knowing exactly how bad that sounded.

“Okay,” he relented, “Okay. I’ll talk to Remus.”

“Good,” Deceit responded.

“You’re a dick, you know that?” Roman told him with a grumble.

“Again?” Deceit asked.

“You’re a dick,” he repeated.

Deceit gave him a grin, and then was gone. Fucking annoying know-it-all. Even if he was right.

Roman sighed, and resigned himself to figuring out how he was going to figure this out. And that was a bigger question, what was there to figure out? Because honestly, Roman’s mind was reeling.

He tried to take a step back and started with the things he knew. Remus Turner had recently joined the theater company. He looked remarkably similar to Roman, much more similar than just common coincidence. Remus looked even more like Roman’s mom. The nose bridge, eye color, hair type, and even his smile. (Had Roman been studying the other man? Maybe…)

Next was the things he didn’t know. Roman didn’t know exactly why Remus looked like him. He didn’t know why Remus didn’t know about him. He didn’t know why he didn’t know Remus. He didn’t know where the fuck Remus had come from, out of the blue like this, who the fuck he was.

The final thing Roman considered were the most likely conclusions, because the startling similarity between Remus and him gave him no choice.

He and Remus were probably related. There was looking similar, and then there was clear relation. This was definitely the latter. Remus was definitely related to Roman’s mom, most likely being her son. Roman’s mom had died when he was born, meaning that Remus had to be older. It also made Remus- at the very least- his half-brother. And unless Remus had also immigrated from Yemen- which wasn’t exactly an easy thing to do- there was less than a three month window between his mom and his dad meeting, and Remus had to have gone somewhere during that time.

Because, well, his dad couldn’t have known about this, could he?

Ultimately, from Roman’s attempt at organizing his thoughts he learned exactly one thing: He was even more confused than when he started.

Remus was an enigma that Roman didn’t know what to do about.

Roman was an enigma that Remus didn’t know what to do about. Remus wasn’t exactly sure why the new director was completely ignoring him, and he certainly didn’t know what to do about it.

Sure, there was something very obviously off and wrong about the whole situation, the dude and him looked the exact same, but Remus didn’t understand why that was getting him the silent treatment. Sure, it was weird, but personally, Remus was desperate to get to the bottom of this, whatever this was.

Wouldn’t it better to know than continue guessing?

When Remus had first saw Roman, he thought he was hallucinating. Except, he had never had hallucinations of himself before. Plus, everyone else in the room could see and hear Roman too, and Remus was positive they weren’t all a hallucination.

Which meant that this guy who looked almost exactly alike him was real.

Remus’s first instinct was to sit down and talk with him. Because they had to be related. There was literally no other solution that made sense. Roman was the right age, it was more than feasible.

It also meant that unless his biological father had somehow been resurrected from the dead, than Roman was definitely his mother’s son at a minimum. Roman would have to be the son of the mother Remus hadn’t seen since he was a child. Which made him and Roman brothers.

And if Roman was related to his mom, their mom (probably), then that meant that Remus might get to talk to her after all this time. He and his parents had searched for her for years.

Remus had to believe she wanted to talk to him, had to believe she had been searching for him just as desperately. She had come to America with him to give him a better opportunity at life. Neither of them knew that would result in them being stripped away from one another.

Remus had given up his search years ago. He wouldn’t of blamed his mom for doing the same.

Which was why he wanted to talk to Roman. He wanted answers. This wasn’t just something that could be ignored.

But Roman was doing exactly that and avoiding Remus like the plague, leaving him no opportunities during which to interact. So Remus did what he usually did when he didn’t know what to do about something. He called his parents.

His dad would still be at work, but it was his mother’s day off.

He pressed the call button and waited for the skype video to load. Suddenly the corner of Remus’s screen began to bubble, warping and bursting like blisters. He jerked back in reflex, the sight being both unpleasant and disturbing as well as unexpected.

Almost immediately, he took a breath, and tried to register the facts. It wasn’t making noise. A lot of his visual and auditory hallucinations tended to do one or the other, and not both at the same time. The lack of noise was a good indicator that it wasn’t real. So was the fact that the bubbling and melting was a common thing he tended to hallucinate, though it tended to happen to walls and the like. His computer also seemed to be working fine and wasn’t overheating, nor was the bubbling spreading. In addition, it took on a liquid like appearance compared to the computer’s solid state. It looked real, but all the evidence was pointing to the fact that it was indeed a hallucination. He set to ignoring it, and glanced back at the still ringing Skype call.

Not soon enough, his mother’s face filled the screen.

“Hi Goose,” she said immediately, her face breaking out into a wide grin. Remus smiled right back, and steadily ignored the continued bubbling on the corner of his screen.

“Hi Mom,” he replied relief flooding through him.

“We haven’t talked for a while,” she mentioned, “how’s your new job going?”

“Uh, it's been okay. Bit weird,” he answered, not bothering to even fake normalcy. His mom would see right through it anyways.

She frowned, crow’s feet forming at the corners of her eyes.

“Goose, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“Yeah Mom, I’m okay,” he promised, “I just, I love you, okay?”

The bubbling on the corner of the screen continued to get worse and started to crackle and pop with a hiss, looking more and more real. But it the bubbling and warping of the screen seemed liquid like, which was not possible. Remus reached a hand out to his screen, sliding fingers over the perfectly fine computer screen in an attempt to help convince his brain that it was not there, that it wasn’t real.

“I love you too, Goose,” she said, “But what’s wrong?”

“I-” Remus hesitated, at a loss for how exactly to put what was going on, “I think I might have a brother,” he admitted, “Like, a biological brother.”

His mom frowned, but in that way of hers that showed curiosity instead of shame or disappointment.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean the director with the theater company looks exactly like me. Or- not exactly but yeah it’s pretty darn close. At first I thought I was just hallucinating but everyone else could see him too and he’s the right age and gosh Mom he looks so much like how I remember my mom looking its- he has her eyes and her face and her smile and-” he shook his head, too choked up to continue.

“Oh, honey,” his mom whispered.

Remus hadn’t started to cry yet, he hadn’t ever really been a cryer, but he felt like he needed to cry. The tears seemed to be pressed up against his eyes and his body trembled. He tried to take a deep breath only to have it hitch and then weigh him down.

“I just- I- We- looked for her for so long. And I accepted I wasn’t going to see her again. And now, I mean, I don’t know about her yet, maybe Roman doesn’t even know her, maybe he got taken away like me, or maybe this is just some crazy coincidence.” It was then Remus had a realization. “Or maybe it’s not a coincidence. Maybe, maybe this is on purpose,” his heart thudded at thought, “Maybe someone is behind this, trying to mess with me or something. This could all be orchestrated and-”

“Remus, Remus,” his mother's voice soothed before he could continue, “Honey. Let’s take a breath.”

Remus did so, taking a deep gulp of air as he reflected on his racing thoughts.

“Oh,” he said, “Oh, that’s that’s probably not what’s happening. There’s- there’s no one behind this. That’s not what happens.”

He knew it wasn’t logical, but he had just been so emotional that he had let his delusions get the best of him, sweeping him along with them.

“Probably not,” his mom agreed. Roman nodded firmly.

“But- Roman- he’s probably related to me,” Remus continued, “And- I just never thought I’d-”

“You’d find your family,” his mom finished for him.

“No,” he bit back immediately, “No, you’re my family. You and Dad and Maggie and Lauren and Avery and Ainsley and everyone else along the way. That’s my family.”

“Blood family then,” his mom mused, “More family. However you want to put it. They’re your family too. And I know that’s important to you Goose.”

“It is,” he agreed. It had always been. His parents had fostered him with the knowledge that he didn’t want them to be his family. That his mom would always be his family first.

That belief had changed over time, coming to reach a balance, but it had all been on Remus’s terms with his parents love, understanding, and support. It had always been his choice.

“So, what are you going to do about this? You know I’m here to support you through whatever you decide.”

This was when Remus’ mind decided to go blank. Because what was he going to do? He was at a complete loss of what he should do.

Roman was at a complete and utter loss of what to do.

There was just so much information to process. The idea of potentially having a blood relative was completely foreign to Roman, and- quite frankly- he wasn’t sure he wanted one. Sure, there was a part of him that always reflected on his mom with a sort of nostalgic softness, but he didn’t think he actually missed her. After all, he had never known her. He had only ever known his dad- the man who adopted him, and later his other father and the twins. They’d always been his family.

Now someone who most likely shared his blood came stumbling into his life and Roman didn’t know what to do.

Which was why Roman was sitting at the kitchen table as the clock crept steadily towards midnight. The rest of his husbands had retired for the night and Roman had tried to as well but the thoughts swirling in his head had refused to settle. So he moved to the kitchen, where he fully expected to be alone.

It was at exactly midnight when Patton come stumbling into the kitchen with bleary eyes. He was clad in only his boxers, a single sock, and his glasses. Patton’s hair was also still pineappled to keep it protected, further proving that he had just woken up.

“Hmm, there you are,” Patton said when he caught sight of Roman at the table. Roman gave a small nod of acknowledgement as Patton took the seat across from him.

“What’re you doing up so late?” Patton asked around a yawn. He reached out to grasp one of Roman’s hands. Roman let him, before lifting Patton’s hand to his mouth to give it a gentle kiss. Patton gave him an adorable little grin as Roman set their hands down.

The short kiss also gave time for Roman to gather his answer to Patton’s question, because the real reason he was up so late was a bit of a minefield right now. Roman decided to go a bit to the side instead.

“Pat, did you ever know your biological parents?”

Roman knew that like him, Patton was also adopted, but he also realized he didn’t actually know anything about that process, even after ten years of being together.

Patton shook his head as he rubbed his thumb across the back of Roman’s hand.

“No,” he explained, “I was a Safe Haven baby. My mom gave me up when I was a little more than two days old. No clue about my father.”

Roman nodded. He was familiar with the Safe Haven law that allowed mother’s to safely release custody of a child who was below a week old. He knew California had a similar law, other states were likely to as well.

“Do you- what if you ran into your mom now?” Roman asked, “What would you do?”

Patton gave him a look, and seemed to search in Roman’s eyes for something. Roman had to guess Patton found whatever he was looking for, because he moved on to answer.

“I don’t know,” Patton admitted, “I’m not sure either of us would recognize each other. I mean I was two days old and who knows if I even really look like her? Plus she’d be expecting a girl. I don’t think it’s very likely we’d recognize each other in the first place.”

“Okay, but what if you looked too similar that it was impossible to ignore. Like you looked so similar that even though it had to be crazy, there was no other explanation besides the fact that the two of you were related.” Patton just raised an eyebrow.

“And in what world would that ever happen?” Patton asked, a soft teasing lilt to his words.

“Mine,” Roman answered, before he could stop himself, “I think I might have a brother. Like a biological, we share the same genes, brother.”

“What?”

Roman scrubbed at his face with his free hand. Patton gave the other a small reassuring squeeze.

“There’s a new guy at work. His name is Remus. See? Even our names go together. He’s- we look so much alike Patton, this literally cannot be coincidence. It’s- We have to be related Pat, nothing else makes sense.”

For some reason, that happened to be Roman’s tipping point and he burst into tears. Which was rare for him. Roman was plenty emotional, but he had never been one to cry easily.

Patton face blanked for a second, and then he frowned. The hand that wasn’t holding Roman’s came up to cup his face and brush a few tears from his cheek.

“Ro, honey, why are you crying?” Patton asked.

“I- I don’t know,” he admitted, “I guess- It’s just a lot and I’m not sure how to deal with this or what I want to do and-” he shrugged miserably.

“Oh honey,” Patton said, “Okay no, I promise we’ll get to that. No, I meant,” Patton took a breath, looking a bit lost, “I forgot why we’re here, what we’re talking about. I don’t remember sitting down.”

Roman nodded and took a deep breath and blinked back tears, trying to gather himself together so he could catch Patton up to speed, filling in his gap of memory.

“Roman, it’s- I’m worried, love,” Patton admitted when Roman didn’t immediately respond.

Roman looked up and could see the fear plain in his husbands eyes. The losing time was something Patton was used to, but coming back to awareness in the middle of his spouse breaking down was certainly not a common situation.

“Okay,” he said, “Give me a second, okay? You don’t need to be worried, everything’s okay. Just a little emotional.”

“‘Course honey,” Patton said in that soothing voice that just about made Roman melt.

Roman blinked back his final tears and took another shaky breathe before he began a recap for Patton, explaining what had happened and what they were discussing. Even though he was still just as emotional, he didn’t start crying again.

“Okay,” Patton said once Roman had caught him up, “Okay. Redo. Why were you crying? What’s making you so upset about this?”

“I don’t know,” Roman said, “I think, well it’s a lot to process and I don’t even know where to start. And Patton, this guy has to be related to me but maybe he’s not and it’s just some weird coincidence or something or maybe Allah is testing me but I don’t know how-”

“Roman, dear, let’s take a breather,” Patton suggested.

Roman nodded and took a deep breath.

“Okay, let’s start with what you want, okay? We can go from there.”

Roman nodded.

“So what do you want?”

“I just want to figure this all out,” Roman explained, “I don’t know what I actually want to do about any of this yet, but I want to figure out what’s true and what's not. I just want to know what’s actually going on here.”

“Okay. And you’re pretty sure the two of you are related?”

“Yes,” Roman confirmed, “Yes Pat, you should of seen him. He looked just like my mom. He looked just like me. I just don’t get how. Like, I- it’s not easy to immigrate from Yemen to here, so I’m assuming that he came with my mom. But that means there’s a very small window before my dad showed up and then me being born. I don’t-” Roman shook his head, “I don’t know how it all fits together.”

“Okay. So why don’t we figure out a timeline?”

Roman nodded and pulled out his phone to get the information physically down.

“Uh so my mom came to America in mid 1999. My dad met her in October of 1999. I was born in March of 2000 and my mom died the same day.”

“So what are the missing dates.”

“Remus’ birth. When he came to the US. When he disappeared. Uh, how he disappeared even though that’s not actually something for a timeline but something I really wanna know,” Roman listed off, “Which again- assuming that he came here with my mom- means that there was only a four month window between my mom arriving here and her meeting my dad. Remus had to have disappeared during that time.”

“Have your thought about calling your Dad?” Patton asked.

“What?”

“Well I mean, he probably knew your mom best, right? If anyone would have more information it would be him, right?”

Roman hadn’t thought about it, but it did make sense. His dad and mom had lived together for that short period of time. They were best friends. If anyone was to know anything about all of this it had to be him.

The problem was that posed a new question. How much did his dad know? Which lead into the question of if his dad had known about Remus. Which lead into the question of if he had known, had he kept that information from Roman?

There was no way.

Was there?

“Pat- Do you think my dad knows something about this? Knows something about Remus?”

Patton gave him a gentle look and continued to rub his hand soothingly.

“What do you think Roman? You’re the one who knows him best.”

“No. No there’s no way he’d keep that from me,” Roman defended, pulling his hand away from Patton. Even so, a seed of doubt started to grow inside him. He prayed that his faith was well placed.

Remus was praying, which wasn’t an uncommon occurrence by any means. In this particular case he was praying for strength and wisdom to do the right things, also not an uncommon thing. In fact, the only uncommon thing about any of this was the reason why he was praying. A long lost brother might be some sort of common trope but it definitely did not happen in real life. Remus just worked on remembering Romans 8:28 (and wasn’t that ironic). God worked all things for good. Remus would just have to trust Him. This was His plan.

At the same time, Remus wasn’t blind to the fact that he still lived his own life and while God guided it, Remus was the one who traveled it. God wouldn’t solve his problems or come up with solutions for him. Remus had to do that on his own.

These after prayer musings were only interrupted by knocking from his door. He registered it with a confused frown. It was getting late and there didn’t seem to be any real reason for someone to be knocking on his door. He got up to check and, recognizing the person, opened the door with a swing.

“Hi to you too Mags,” he greeted.

“Don’t call me that,” she grumbled, pushing inside.

He shook his head fondly and followed her into his apartment. She quickly flopped onto the couch, Remus just trailing afterwards.

“Uh, Mags, not that I don’t love seeing you. But why are you here?” he asked, taking a seat on the other couch.

“Well, you were supposed to come over yesterday and then we were going to go out and celebrate you finally moving out here but someone didn’t show up.”

Oh right. Yeah, meeting up with his eldest sister had been on his calendar for weeks now, but with how crazy his life was right now, he had completely forgotten. He winced.

“Sorry,” he apologized, “Things have been… kinda crazy this week.”

“Yeah Mom told me,” she said.

Mom had told her? Remus hadn’t thought that his mom would tell her about the personal things they talked about.

The thought was a simple observation but it quickly led into something much more intrusive.

Were his mom and his sister talking behind his back? Did they do that often? What were they saying about him? What else did they talk about? Was his whole family talking about him? Did they all talk together without him, having private conversations he wasn’t allowed to be a part of?

Did they- Did they do it often? Did they think of him differently, as an outlier? Had they been doing this for years and Remus was only now realizing it? Was his entire family lying to him?

“Or- she didn’t tell me anything, but she mentioned that it was nice we were going out last night because you had a weird week. But we didn’t go out last night because you didn’t show up. And you didn’t respond to my texts either, so…” she trailed off and then gestured to the apartment as well as herself. “Here I am.”

Remus swallowed and try to push down the paranoia.

“So you don’t- you don’t like… talk about me?” Remus asked, unsure how to properly phrase his real question of ‘are you two conspiring against me behind my back.’

“Well I mean-” Maggie started, before coming to an abrupt halt and taken in Remus’s well hidden fear, “No. No. Re- Not like that. Mom and me chat, and sometimes you or other family members or just other people come up. That’s it. We’re not all talking behind your back or scheming or conspiring against you or anything like that. No one is.”

Remus took a breath and nodded, releasing the tension in his body. There was still the voice in the back of his head chanting ‘what if what if what if’ and ‘she's lying’ and ‘but they could be’ but Remus trusted Maggie. That was enough for him.

“Okay, thanks, sorry this week’s just been stressful and its-” he swallowed, “the paranoia just gets a lot worse when I’m stressed. So…”

“You don’t need to apologize dork. I’m here to fact check whenever you need me to.”

A sudden bursting bloom of love spread through Remus’s body.

“Thanks. Uh, how are the kids?”

The paranoia didn’t fade completely, never really did, but it was calmed and soothed and pushed down with the reassurance.

“Yeah, course. And they’re good. I think. They’re teenagers, it’s hard to tell. Sad they didn’t get to see their uncle the other day. But don’t try to change the subject. So, spill, what’s up? Why didn’t you show? What’s so weird about work?”

“I think I found my maternal family.”

“Holy shit what?” she said, sitting up to give him more clear attention.

Remus swallowed, and stumbled through an explanation he’d already given once.

“The director at work, yeah so he’s almost certainly my brother. And most definitely through my mom, maybe my dad too, I dunno yet. But yeah. We just sorta ran into each other. So I’ve been, I’ve been dealing with that this week.”

“What the heck.”

“Yeah, I know,” Remus said with a sigh.

“Okay, okay wait, so what he’d have to say? Like what? What the heck, how is this your life.”

I know,” Remus groaned, drawing out the ‘w.’ “And well, we haven’t actually talked yet.”

“Well, why the heck not?”

“I-” he hesitated, and thought about it. Why hadn’t they talked? Sure Roman was avoiding Remus, but Remus was capable of initiating conversation as well.

He realized what he needed to do. He needed to talk to Roman.

Roman needed to talk to Remus, that was really what it came down to.

After having an extensive talk with his father and confirming that he also had no idea that Remus even existed- which had been a relief considering that would have been a huge breach of trust- Roman realized he needed to get the facts down. He needed to finish constructing his timeline.

The only way to do that at this point was to actually talk to Remus.

“I’m just- I’m scared to talk to him,” Roman admitted.

Deceit raised an eyebrow and stared at Roman, utterly unimpressed.

“You’re scared?” he challenged.

“Yes,” Roman defended, “It’s, yeah, yeah I am.”

Deceit rolled his eyes and let out a little exasperated huff. Roman frowned and began to worry his lip. Deceit’s gaze softened.

“Okay,” Dee said, “Okay. Why are you scared?”

“I’m-” Roman paused, leaving his mouth hanging open for a second for snapping it shut. Why was he scared?

“I didn’t- Did you say something?” Deceit said.

Roman shook his head.

“I trailed off, didn’t say anything else,” he explained, “I don’t- I’m not sure why I’m scared.”

“Okay, then what do you know?” Deceit asked.

Roman blinked and leaned back in his chair as he thought about the statement.

He knew he wanted to talk to Remus. For Roman’s own sanity, he needed to get the facts straightened out. What he wasn’t sure of was were to go from there. Going along the most likely route of Remus being Roman’s brother… Well that changed so much. It was adding a whole new family member which could change everything and Roman wasn’t sure he was ready for that. It was a scary thought.

“I think I’m scared of how this is going to change my family’s dynamic,” Roman admitted, “I- I already have a family. I have two wonderful dads and two wonderful siblings. I have three amazing husbands and I have great friends like you. Adding Remus into that… I’m not sure I even want to do that.”

“You added me,” Deceit pointed out. Roman was a little bit surprised about how quick Deceit was willing to admit his attachment to Roman. He was usually much less vulnerable. “I mean, I guess you're alright or whatever but you haven’t really known me for that long so…” Dee then trailed on, adding in the qualifier. Plus, seriously, he was going with ‘you haven’t known me that long’ of all things? It had to be what, five years of being friends at this point?

“But really Roman- I mean you’ve added people to your family before. Why is it such a big deal when it comes to Remus?”

Simply put, Remus was different, and Roman didn’t know how to put that into words. Remus brought the past with him. Remus brought questions and mysteries and gaps in timelines Roman hadn’t even known existed. Remus brought thoughts of his mother and doubts of his father. Because Remus…

“He’s blood,” Roman admitted, “And that’s never mattered to me. I- I don’t think it even matters now,” Roman rambled, “But it feels like it should be important, like something that should matter to me. But it doesn’t? Not really? But maybe, maybe blood does matter more than I think and I’m just- I dunno- brushing that connection off? When it really it is important and-”

Deceit was looking at him with more and more confusion as Roman tried to speed through as many words as he could.

“Slow down?” Roman guessed.

“Yeah,” Deceit nodded, “Slow down a lot.”

Roman nodded, and tried to organize his thoughts. Roman had a tendency to ramble and half the time his mouth would get ahead of his brain that even he didn’t know what he was saying anymore. Taking a moment to pause and breathed helped Roman think about what he was saying and connect his wildly disorganized thoughts.

“Remus is blood. And blood has never mattered to me in terms of family. But I feel like there’s a lot of pressure and expectation for it to matter. But even after meeting Remus, I’m not sure how much it really matters to me.”

“Why does it have to matter? Fuck blood,” Deceit scoffed, “Maybe you figure out the facts. But that doesn’t mean you’re obligated to have a relationship, whatever other people say. Just do what you want. I mean you probably want to get on the same page as Remus but yeah- do whatever. Fuck things up.”

Roman nodded, then hesitated before voicing his final fear.

“What if he wants a relationship and I don’t?”

Deceit fired back with his own question.

“Do you not want a relationship?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Then don’t worry about it yet. Work on figuring out the facts, and then where you stand. After that you can figure out what relationship the two of you are going to have. Cross that bridge when you come to it.”

“I- okay.”

Roman continued to sit there, unmoving, drawing lines of nothing on the table with his fingers.

“Y’know, I did mean right now, you should definitely start to figure out the facts now. Get started on that,” Deceit huffed.

Roman sighed and stood, making to leave the room and go find Remus. Before he could exit, he turned back around to face Deceit.

“Hey, thanks,” Roman mentioned, “I- you’re pretty good at this.”

Deceit scowled, “You could have figured it out yourself. You were just being slow and it was annoying, so I helped speed up the process. For my own benefit.”

Roman rolled his eyes at the blatant lie and walked back over to Deceit.

“Thank you,” Roman said earnestly, “This whole thing would’ve been a lot harder without you.”

“We have work,” Deceit announced. He stood, and quickly made for the door, not responding to what Roman had said in the slightest. But before he could completely disappear he did throw a quick, “Good luck,” back at Roman.

Roman smiled at his back and went to talk to Remus.

Remus was going to talk to Roman.

It seemed like the logical thing to do at this point. He had briefly considered stealing some of Roman’s hair to do a DNA test just to confirm things first, but had quickly brushed that off for two reasons.

The first reason being that it was invasive. The second reason was because the easiest way to go about doing a DNA test was apparently with spit and Remus wasn’t exactly sure how he was supposed to acquire that without Roman knowing, so that plan had fallen through. But it had mostly fallen through due to the fact that it was invasive. Totally. That was the reason he scrapped the idea.

In addition, the DNA test had downfalls. Sure, it would prove that they were indeed related, but they pretty much already knew that. It would be nice to be certain, but there was only so much that a DNA test didn’t provide. Most notably, a DNA test couldn’t provide Remus with the entire history of what happened after he was taken away from his mother. He needed to actually talk to Roman.

Remus needed to talk to Roman today.

It had already been too long. It was awkward and stressful and Remus hated it. He had to assume that Roman hated the tension too. Plus, Remus really didn’t need more stress. A new job was plenty enough. Add in the fact that his positive and negative symptoms always got worse when he was stressed, and it wasn’t a fun experience.

The positive symptoms became harder to separate from reality. The hallucinations became more and more life-like and increasingly harder to ignore while the paranoia and delusions grew and grew until it was almost impossible for him to decipher what was fact and fiction. The negative symptoms were brought back with full force. The apathy, the struggle to perform basic functions, the lack of strong emotions, all of it tumbling together, dragging him down.

It hadn’t gotten that bad in a long time, and he still had a far ways to go before reaching those points. But even though it hadn't gotten that bad, it didn’t mean Remus had to like where it currently was at either.

With these thoughts, Remus set out in his search for Roman. He had been backstage earlier with Deceit so maybe-

“Remus,” a voice called out. Recognizing the voice, Remus turned around.

Roman was walking fast to catch up to Remus- and when he did catch up, he stopped just a short distance away.

“Hey,” Roman said, “I uh- I was hoping we could talk?”

A loud buzzing noise filled Remus’ ears as he struggled to compute Roman’s words. Remus had wanted to talk to Roman, but he kinda had gotten that Roman didn’t want to talk to him.

Was Roman trying to trick him? Roman was the one playing the avoidance game, why was he changing his behavior now? Had something happened? Did Roman know something Remus didn’t? What did Roman have on him, did he know something? What did he know? What did he know? What did he know?

He took a breath and refocused, gathering the paranoia back in before it could run any further away. This was a chance to talk to Roman, that was it. Plus, it was exactly what Remus wanted, he needed to stop blowing this out of proportion.

“Yes,” Remus responded, “Yes we can absolutely talk,” he agreed.

“Great.”

People continued to move around them, leaving for the day.

“Uh, do you have time right now?” Roman said, “We could move to the break room.”

“Yeah I have time,” Remus was quick to respond, “Let’s do that.”

Roman nodded, and led the way to a break room. He kept quiet during the short walk, and Remus did as well.

When they reached the door, Roman grabbed the melting handle and pushed it open. Remus followed right behind him, and the minute he entered the room, he was hit with a strong smell of smoke. He looked quickly to the microwave in the room, which seemed fine. Roman seemed unbothered by it as well, so Remus firmly pushed the smell away, trying to convince his mind it wasn’t real.

Roman took a seat at one of the tables and Roman joined him.

“Okay,” Roman said, sliding a hand over his face, “Okay. How do we-”

“We’re siblings,” Remus said, jumping right into it, “Well, probably.”

Roman’s hand dropped to the table.

“Yeah, yeah that seems likely. Uh- but for proof- what was our mother’s full name? I can show you a picture in return.”

Great. So they were getting into it then.

“I don’t actually know,” Remus had to admit, “I was four. I don’t- I don’t remember. I thought we could do a DNA test? I mean I want proof too.”

“Oh we’re definitely taking a DNA test,” Roman agreed. He then hesitated, and his face softened, “You said- you said you were four? You were four when what?”

“I was four when I was taken away from our mother.”

“You were what?”

“I don’t remember much. All I really know is that it was filed as child neglect.”

“She would never-” Roman started, fire in his eyes.

“I know,” Remus agreed quickly, “I know. I do remember that. I remember her being caring and loving and kind and yeah- But I was taken away. I- I don’t know how much you know about adoption and foster care, but uh, when a child gets taken away from their bio-parents, the goal is for their bio-parents to get them back. Which honestly shouldn’t always be the case, but that’s- that’s another topic and that wasn’t my experience. But yeah- the goal should’ve been to return me to my- our- mom.”

“Should’ve been,” Roman stressed, because how Remus said it, implied that it wasn’t the goal.

“Yeah. Most-” Remus gulped, “Most of the time parents get support to get their kids back. But uh- well they saw a Muslim women who was a refugee from Yemen and decided they weren’t going to help. They decided that the child could have a much better life without her. I- I was uh, not happy about that. I uh- I’ve been looking for her ever since. I mean I found a truly great family but yeah- never stopped searching for her. Didn’t think I’d actually find anything, didn’t have enough to go on. But well, now? I mean… So yeah that’s all-” Remus concluded with an awkward hand wave.

“Holy shit,” Roman said, “Holy shit. Are you fucking with me?”

“No.”

Roman went absolutely still. A second later and his chair was scooting back with a screech and he started to pace the room. Remus wasn’t sure if he was muttering, or if it was just the voices, but regardless it didn’t sound happy.

“I hate people,” Roman claimed, “I can’t- I can’t fucking believe that they literally just took you away and then turned a blind eye on- Holy shit, if they, if they had just done their jobs if they had had actually helped her, her chances could’ve been way better and maybe with more help, more assistance she…” Roman trailed off, so Remus didn’t quite get to know what his mother would’ve been.

“You don’t know,” Roman said, realization crossing across his face, “Shit- Remus you don’t know.”

Remus heart thudded. He didn’t know what Roman was talking about but it didn’t sound good. Roman stopped pacing and sat back down. He sighed heavily and stared across at Remus.

“I- Remus. I know-” Roman closed his eyes tightly for a second before looking back at the man across from him, “I’m really sorry Remus, I know you said you’ve been searching for her for a long time, but uh, our mom’s dead. She died giving birth to me. I’m really really sorry.”

Remus’ world froze. The smell of smoke started to burn is nose.

“I-” he started, but found he couldn’t say anything else. When he finally found his words all he could let out was a weak, “What?”

“She- uh- She was already sick. She was already dying. And she- she decided to have me anyway. I was four minutes old when she died. I’m- I’m so so sorry, I-”

Roman had to be lying. Roman and his mom were playing tricks and this all just had to some elaborate scheme. Maybe, maybe Roman didn’t even work here or maybe Remus wasn’t even supposed to get a job here this was just some elaborate set up to get Remus here and trick him and convince his mom was dead and that this was his brother and Roman wasn’t even his brother and this was just an entire scheme set up and devised and Remus was falling for it and-

But for what?

What could Roman gain out of lying? What was the point of tricking Remus?

Remus couldn’t find an answer that made sense. Which mean that Roman was telling the truth.

Which meant that his mom was dead.

“Oh,” Remus said numbly as his brain tried to compute the information, “Oh.” He let out a weak laugh. “Guess it makes sense why you didn’t know about me now.”

“Yeah,” Roman agreed, at a loss of what else to say, “Yeah.”

Remus didn’t know what to do. Sure, he had given up seriously searching for her years ago. But he had always thought that she was out there somewhere. It seemed naive now that he was reflecting on it, but he had never for even a moment thought that she was dead.

He would never meet her again, he realized. He never even had a chance to meet her again.

“Okay,” Remus said before repeating, “Okay.” (Maybe if he repeated the words enough times things really would be okay).

“She’s- I- Do you want to see a picture?” Roman asked.

“Yes,” Remus responded immediately.

Roman nodded and pulled something out of his pocket. He unfolded the small rectangle, revealing a picture of a heavily pregnant women who looked just like Remus. Who looked just like Roman.

It was also a relief to confirm what she looked like. There had been times where Remus had wondered if maybe he had been hallucinating the entire time and maybe she wasn’t how he remembered her at all. The thought itself was irrational because Remus hadn’t had hallucinations that young, nor had he ever had hallucinations of real people. But it had always been a buried fear of his, that his mind had been playing such a trick on him without him knowing it.

“You have the same smile as her,” Remus commented.

Roman chuckled lightly.

“I was thinking the same thing about you,” Roman admitted.

For a moment the two sat in comfortable silence.

“So,” Roman said, “Tell me about yourself. You said you had a good family?”

“Yeah,” Remus agreed, “I do. Uh, I’ll tell you about me and then you do the same?”

“Yes,” Roman said easily, “Yes. Absolutely.”

Remus smiled and began.

He told Roman about being placed in foster care. He told him how he kept running away trying to find his mother and consequently never stuck in one place for long. He told Roman about his fears of going crazy- though an extremely censored version, he wasn’t quite willing to explain the positive, negative, and cognitive symptoms that followed, leading to an eventual schizophrenia diagnosis.

He told Roman about his parents and them fostering him. He told him about how when Remus explained his situation with his mother to his new parents they were instantly horrified at what happened to him and completely on board with finding her. He explained how they had fostered him to give him a support system that actually cared about him, but never expected him to see them as parents.

He told Roman about how they became his parents anyways, but that didn’t mean his connection to his biological mother was any less. He told Roman about his sisters and their chaos. He talked about being Christian and church and finding peace within a complex religion that had a multitude of issues. He talked about coming out and being loved and supported and never having doubted that support for a minute.

Remus told Roman about his entire life, about everything he possibly could.

In turn, Roman did the same.

Roman told him about his dads and how Roman was technically responsible for their getting together even if he was too young to remember it. He told Remus about his own siblings and what growing up in California was like. He talked about moving to Utah, and then moving out the moment he had the chance. He talked about meeting his husbands and falling in love. Roman talked about working in the theater company and working his way up and about his friendship with Deceit who was apparently “a prick, but he grows on you.”

Roman wove stories of his life and didn’t spare a detail.

They only paused the stories when someone on the janitorial staff had stumbled into the room and they both realized how late it had gotten.

When Roman realized how late it had gotten he immediately pulled out his phone. The screen lit up with numerous texts from his husbands, wondering where he was. The more recent ones were from an increasingly panicked Virgil and the most recent were from Patton and Logan to ‘please call just to let us know that your okay, Virgil’s freaking out.’

“Sorry,” he said as he pressed the call button on his phone, “I need to call my husbands, I didn’t tell them I would be late.”

“Yeah, of course,” Remus agreed.

Roman nodded and stood as the first ring echoed in his ear. A moment later a familiar voice picked up.

“Ro?” Patton asked.

“Yeah, hey Pat I’m really sorry for not calling. My phone was on silent. I’m okay, I’m still at work.”

“Okay,” Patton answered a sigh of relief coming through the phone, “Lemme just-” Patton trailed off. Patton’s voice returned, but this time more distantly, “Virgil hun, Roman’s on the phone. He’s okay, he’s still at work.” A moment later and Patton’s voice was clearer again, “Roman, why are you still at work? It’s really late.”

“I- um I’m actually talking to Remus. Is Virgil okay?”

“He’s…” Patton trailed off and a heavy feeling settled in Roman’s throat. “He’ll be okay,” Patton said eventually. Which meant that no, Virgil was not currently okay.

“Pat?”

Patton sighed, “He panicked pretty bad,” he admitted, “He’s- your usually home a lot earlier and sure, you’re late sometimes but never hours late without telling us.”

“I’m sorry,” Roman said immediately, the shame lying heavily on him. He should’ve called. Or texted. It was so stupid of him to forget something so simple.

“Hey, no, Ro honey it’s okay,” Patton insisted, “Yes, it would’ve been nice to know that’d you’d be this late. But it’s okay. You didn’t mean to, it slipped your mind. It’s fine. And it’s your life, you don’t have to tell us where you are every second of the day.”

“Yeah, but Virgil-”

“Virgil will be okay. You hit a trigger, but we all do sometimes and it wasn’t intentional. I’m positive he isn’t mad at you.”

Virgil might not be mad at Roman, but Roman was sure as hell mad at himself.

“-And,” Patton carried on, “Roman, you shouldn’t be mad at yourself either. It slipped your mind, that happens. It wasn’t intentional and you can’t be perfect every second of the day, okay love?”

Patton knew him too well. Roman took a breath and worked on believing that. He wasn’t a bad person.

“Okay,” he agreed, and actually believed it. “How’re you and Lo?”

“Lo’s a bit unsettled cause you broke routine. I forgot most of the afternoon anyways so…”

Roman frowned, “Pat, that’s twice in a week.”

Patton’s memory was bad, but it wasn’t often that he lost large chunks like this in such a short period of time.

“I know,” he confirmed, “I’m keeping track. And Logan’s making sure I don’t forget to keep track. I’m not worried yet, but we’ll see if it persists. I-” Patton’s voice began to fade a bit, “Hey Virge. Yeah, course,” Patton’s voice became clearer again, “V wants to take to you.”

“Absolutely,” Roman confirmed.

There was a bit of random noises on the other side of the line and then a clear voice was speaking.

“Hey Ro.” Virgil’s voice was quiet and lacking any of its usual zest.

“Hi dear, sorry about not calling.”

“It’s okay,” Virgil replied immediately, “Don’t beat yourself up.”

“I should have-”

“No,” Virgil firmly insisted, “I can play that game too. I shouldn’t’ve panicked as easily. I shouldn’t’ve demanded to know when you’d be home. I should give you more space. We can all play the should’ve-would’ve-could’ve game Roman. And we’ll all lose. You forgot to tell us you would be home late. That happens. It’s okay.”

“Okay,” Roman agreed. He felt a lot better with the additional reassurance from Virgil. “And V- I- you do give me enough space. Demanding you know where I am every second of every day is a little extreme, but you don’t do that. I think it’s more than reasonable to want to know if I’m okay and where I am after being hours late with no warning.”

“I know.”

“And similarly- you shouldn’t get mad at yourself for panicking.”

“No, I know,” Virgil agreed, “I’m not. It is something I want to work on more though. I don’t want to panic this extremely this easily.”

“Okay.”

Roman shifted a bit more and glanced over at Remus. He was on his own phone, politely ignoring Roman.

“I- do you want to talk to Logan for a minute?” Virgil asked.

“Sure.”

More shuffling and then Logan’s voice was coming through.

“You’re usually home by now,” Logan said.

“Yeah,” Roman chuckled lightly, “Sorry about that.”

“Why are you so late?”

“I- uh- I well it’s probably something I should talk to all three of you together when I get home. Not really a phone conversation or a one-on-one conversation.”

“Okay. Will you be home soon?”

“Probably,” Roman replied.

“Okay. I’ll let you get back to whatever it is you are doing. Goodbye Roman.”

“Bye Lo, love you.”

“I love you as well.”

Logan hung up and Roman turned his phone off before shoving it back in his pocket.

“Sorry about that,” Roman said, rejoining Remus at the table, “I’m usually home by now and Virgil worries.”

“He seems to worry pretty obsessively,” Remus noted.

Roman bristled.

“Hey, no, I’m sorry,” Remus said, “I wasn’t trying to- He just seemed kind of demanding, but I only get half the call. I wasn’t-”

It was a bit presumptuous of a thought, but Roman could see the faint logic behind it. If Roman had only heard his side, he might have thought the same. Remus was overstepping, but Roman couldn’t be certain he wouldn’t do the same in a swapped situation. Remus just didn’t know their dynamic.

“My husbands aren’t demanding,” Roman clarified, voice firm with no room for debate, “They were just very worried when I didn’t come home on time and still happen to not be home hours later than I was supposed to be.”

“Right,” Remus said, “Sorry for assuming.”

Roman nodded in acceptance and the atmosphere softened.

“So,” Roman said, “I should be getting home. But-”

“Let’s talk more?” Remus finished hopefully.

“Yes,” Roman agreed, “I can- let me give you my number. I want to get to know you. I haven’t ever had an older brother before.”

Wait what? When had Roman started thinking of Remus as his brother? When had that happened?

The revelation surprised Roman, but it didn’t exactly bother him.

Remus smiled, looking once more just like their mother, “Yeah that sounds good. I’ve never had a brother before either.”

Roman winced and realized he had forgotten to share one very important detail.

“I- I’m actually genderqueer. I use he/him pronouns but I don’t use gendered language. I actually usually start with that information but well,” Roman laughed, “This wasn’t exactly a normal introduction.”

“Of course,” Remus replied, “Sibling then. Well I already have four of those, I'm more than happy to add another one.”

“Okay.” Roman said.

“Okay,” Remus agreed.

They got up, ready to leave, Roman opening the door for Remus on the way out.

Remus opened the door, allowing him entrance into his apartment. With a sigh, he quickly collapsed on the couch in the main room. Moments later and his phone started to ring.

He groaned loudly, but his groan quickly turned into a wide grin once he saw the caller ID. He answered his phone immediately.

“Hi Dad.”

“My young grasshopper,” he greeted. Remus snorted.

“Dad, I’m pretty sure you can stop calling me your ‘young grasshopper’ now that I’m in my mid-30’s.”

“Nah,” his dad disagreed, “You’re always gonna be my young grasshopper.”

“Gee, thanks,” Remus bit sarcastically.

“How are things? We didn’t get to talk early this week, but your mom mentioned that there was something about a potentially brother in the mix?”

“Sibling,” Roman corrected.

“What?”

“Uh- his name’s Roman. And we are related. But we aren’t brothers because Roman doesn’t use gendered language. So we’re siblings.”

“Gendered language?”

“Mhhm. Roman uses he/him pronouns but he doesn’t use language that refers to him as male or female, like ‘man’ and ‘woman’ or ‘sister’ and ‘brother.’ He uses terms like ‘sibling’ and ‘person.’”

“Okay. Got it. But he is your sibling?”

“Yeah,” Remus replied, “Unless he’s a real damn good liar. We want to do a DNA test to confirm but yeah, yeah he is.”

Remus turned his head as he waited for his father’s response and immediately saw a huge spider crawling up his wall. He jumped, more due to be startled than actual fear. The spider was about the size of his hand. Big enough to be registered as ‘oh shit that’s a huge spider’ but also not big enough to seem unbelievable. Which was the problem.

It probably wasn’t real, Remus decided. It looked real, and it acted real, but tarantulas weren’t native to the United States. It wouldn’t make sense for one to be in his house.

But, he was pretty sure one of his neighbors had a pet tarantula now that he thought about it. Maybe it had somehow escaped and gotten into his house. Sure, it was unlikely, but what if it was a pet? If Remus just ignored it when it really was someone’s lost pet he’d feel terrible.

But he couldn’t just go down to his neighbor’s door and asked if they lost a spider. First off, he wasn't sure which neighbor it belonged to. Second off, if the spider wasn’t real and he then asked if it was missing he’d have to explain and he didn’t know how to do that without awkwardly laughing and leaving, or admitting he had hallucinations. Neither were things he wanted to do.

“Remus? You there?”

“Uh, yeah,” he said, eyes still on the spider, “One second, I’m just going to take a photo.”

“Okay.”

Remus pulled his phone away from his ear and snapped the photo. When he looked at it, he thought he saw the spider in the frame, but he wasn’t positive. He couldn’t tell if he was hallucinating the spider, or if it was really there and he was doubting it was there, making it seem like it was a hallucination.

“Dad?” Remus said as he placed the phone back to his ear.

“Yes?”

“Can I send you a picture and you tell me if there’s a spider in it?”

“Sure,” he replied.

Remus nodded and pulled the phone away again before sending the picture to his dad. He lifted his phone back to his ear and waited for a response.

“No, no spider.”

“Okay. thanks.”

It was probably better that way anyway. Now Remus didn’t have to go track down who owned the spider in his building. Though then again, maybe he should. A spider sounded like a cool pet. Maybe he should get one. A smaller one that stayed in a cage and not creepily on his wall and was now looking at him and he couldn’t seem to look away and now the fear was setting in and-

“Hey Dad, what do you think about me getting a spider?” he asked, desperately tearing his eyes away.

His dad chuckled.

“Good luck finding someone to take care of it when you visit, because it certainly isn’t coming with you.”

“Oh, come on. I could get a small one.”

“Absolutely not. That’s what you said about your lizard and it got to be over a foot long.”

“Hey! Pickle was a great lizard and you loved him.”

His father grumbled but didn’t deny it, so Remus took that as a win.

“So,” his dad began, “Roman, huh?”

“Yeah,” Roman sighed, “yeah. He’s about five years younger than me. My mom was pregnant with him when she first immigrated here. She probably didn’t even know at the time.”

“And, your mom. Does this mean…” his dad trailed off and Remus clenched his teeth at the reminder.

“I- Well I guess I did technically find her,” Remus admitted.

“But?”

“But she died about 30 years ago, just after Roman was born.”

No point in beating around the bush. Remus would have to accept it eventually.

“Oh. Oh Remus.”

“I don’t even know why I’m upset,” Remus muttered. A burning feeling grew in his stomach. “I mean- I barely remember her anyways. And I had mostly given up hope on ever finding her anyways.”

“Giving up hope of finding her doesn’t mean you were ready to hear that she had died,” his father spoke gently.

Remus huffed.

“I dunno. I just feel so stupid. Like- I barely knew her. I don’t even remember my own fucking last name. I don’t know why I even care.”

“She was your mom, Remus. And she loved you. And you knew she loved you. And you were taken away from her. And now, 30 years later you’re learning that she died. It’s okay to be upset.”

“I don’t wanna be,” Remus whined. He may be a grown adult, but something about talking to his parents brought out the part of him that had always been a scared kid. He sighed. “Okay. Okay. I get your point. I’ll think about it.”

“Good. So I’m assuming that you’ve gotten a chance to talk to Roman?”

“Yeah, I did,” Remus said, and settled in to tell his dad everything.

Roman was going to tell his husbands everything, but it was probably a topic that would have to wait for a hot minute.

At first, he wanted to get straight into it, but when he arrived home Virgil and Patton were making dinner and Kit was on duty. Virgil almost never had Kit on duty while at home. Roman needed to address the earlier phone call first. He felt the shame in him start to rise again and worked on forgiving himself.

“Hey,” he greeted, not wanting to startle them. Virgil immediately abandoned the meal and raced into his arms.

“Hi,” Virgil said as he clung tightly to him.

“Love, I’m safe,” he reminded.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Virgil agreed shakily, “Just waiting for my brain to get the hint.”

Roman smiled and dropped a kiss to his head.

In response, Virgil stood on his tip toes and engaged him in a proper kiss. When they broke apart, Roman kept an arm wrapped around Virgil, not allowing him to get further than an arm lengths away. Virgil didn’t even try to protest, and instead looked quite pleased.

“Patton?” Roman asked.

Patton grinned and and joined the two of them, giving Roman his own kiss. It was soft and sweet and felt like ‘welcome home.’ Roman melted into it. But there was still one person missing.

“Where’s Logan?”

“Office,” Virgil said, “He’s frustrated.”

The shame returned. Roman sighed and worked on chipping away at it, reducing and rationalizing it. Guilt was acceptable here, Roman had forgotten to inform his husbands he’d be so late, but shame was too much and he needed to remember that.

“Not at you,” Patton was quick to add on, “Break in routine was making him uneasy. We kicked him out of the kitchen so he could go take space. But dinner is almost ready, and I know he’ll be happy to see you. Want to go grab him?”

“Yeah, I’ll be right back,” he promised. He gave them another kiss before wandering off to grab Logan.

When he reached the office he knocked gently and pushed the door open. Logan was doing… something with numbers and charts on his computer that Roman couldn’t begin to comprehend. Logan also had his old weighted blanket in his lap, the one he had as a kid. The corner was clenched between two fingers, and they rubbed at the blanket in a comforting stim.

“Hey Lo, I’m back,” Roman greeted as he stepped into the room.

“You’re home,” he said as he tore his gaze away from his work.

“Mhmm,” Roman agreed, “Sorry I broke routine without a warning.”

“I’m not mad at you,” Logan claimed.

It was a fair comment, and probably true, but that didn't mean that Logan wasn’t feeling frustrated and thrown off in general.

“Okay. Uh, Virgil and Patton finished up dinner.”

Logan immediately looked towards the clock and then at Roman. Logan let out a low hum and cast his eyes down to his old weighted blanket, fingers still rubbing it soothingly.

“Y’know, you could always bring your blanket with you to dinner,” Roman offered.

Logan seemed to consider that for a moment before nodding and standing, folded blanket in hand. He joined Roman at his spot near the door.

“Dinner?”

Roman nodded and the two left.

Roman didn’t bring Remus up during dinner. Dinner was family time and not the place for serious discussion. It was a time to catch up and enjoy each other’s presence.

So after they had cleaned up after dinner, Roman asked everyone to sit back down at the table.

“Okay, Patton already knows about some of this,” Roman admitted, “I didn’t mean to tell him before anyone else but we were both up late and it’s taken me a little while to figure out how to broach the rest of this.”

Virgil grabbed his arms, nails digging into elbows. Kit nudged his arms apart and- under Virgil’s command- leapt up to lay half his body across Virgil’s lap, hindlegs still on the floor.

“It’s not bad,” Roman clarified, “It’s- Okay. So I just found out that my mom had another kid. I have an older brother.”

He let the news sink in for a moment before starting to ramble.

“Yeah, so I guess he came with her from Yemen when he was about four and he got taken away from her and then she never told my dad so neither of us knew, nobody but my brother knew and basically his name is Remus and he works with me now.”

The room instantly fell into silence as everyone tried to figure out how to move forward with that new shocking revelation.

It was Virgil who broke the tense atmosphere.

“Hey Pat, Lo, any long forgotten figures from either of your pasts? At this rate, there’s a good chance we know where to find them.”

It was a weak attempt at humor, but it did lighten the room ever so slightly.

“I know right,” Roman groaned, burying his face in his hands, “Seriously, how is this my life?”

“To be clear- you recently found out you have a biological older brother and you found this out because he now works with you?” Logan asked.

“Yup,” Roman agreed.

“Are you sure he’s your brother?”

From anyone else, Roman would of taken that question as an attack, but this was Logan, built on pure curiosity and need for fact.

“I mean, technically no. We’re going to do a DNA test. But everything’s he’s said lines up perfectly, and he looks just like me and my mom. So it’s a very loose technically.”

“Okay, so what does that mean?” Logan then asked.

“I- what?” Roman asked.

“Well, what are you going to do about this information.”

“I think I want to get to know him more?” Roman offered, “I mean, he is my brother, right?”

“It seems to me that that is up to you to decide,” Logan insisted.

Roman paused, and thought about it. This same topic kept coming up. What was he going to do about Remus? What was Remus to him?

When they had left that day, Roman had called Remus his brother. To his face. Remus in return had called Roman his sibling. Roman thought he liked that, wanted that.

“He’s my brother,” Roman decided, “He, yeah. He is.”

“I still can’t believe I’m an only child and not you,” Virgil said, “You’re the true example of an only child mindset.”

“What, how?”

“Attention-seeking, bratty, selfish, impatient-” Logan started to tease with no real heat, mouth quirking up in that way of his.

“Hey! How am I selfish?”

“You didn’t share your breakfast with me this morning.”

“You had your own!”

From then on, the conversation was lost into petty bickering, and there was nowhere Roman would rather be.

Finding out he had an older brother at this point in life wasn’t something that Roman had ever been expecting, and if he had been asked, he would have probably said he never would of wanted it either. But here he was anyway and Roman- Roman wasn’t displeased or disappointed. He was confused and a little lost, but that was life sometimes. They would move forward.

So they did.

He and Remus started to get to know one another. One of their earliest interactions was conducting a DNA test. And a month later, a month into getting to know each other, the test came back.

Positive.

taglist below

-message me to be added or removed-

@mewithanie @eddies-spaghetti @lemonyellowlogic @savioursailor @goldteethandacurseforthistown @you-betcha-weirdo

#ts roman #ts remus #ts deceit #sanders sides #ts sides #ts patton #ts virgil #ts logan #lamp #calm #angst #hurt/comfort #fluff #ao3 #fanfiction #fan fiction #colupdate #jksf #just keep stumbling forward

41 notes · View notes

crtter · 4 years

Text

Hey everyone! No one asked for this! But I’ve been itching to make this post ever since I saw the Osomatsu-san movie so I hope you’re ready to scroll at the speed of sound because it’s time for another “reading too much into a cartoon character’s behavior” post of mine! That’s right, it’s my “Iyami has ADHD” theory...

part 2!!!

Some, not all that major spoilers for the movie below, of course! Ok, so... in the first installment of this series, I, as an ADHD haver myself, talked about how I can personally relate to some of the behaviors Iyami displays during the many adaptations of Osomatsu-kun, -san included, from the unusual ways he walks and sits and fidgets to less “savory” aspects of his personality, such as the way he sabotages himself when doing honest work because they’re entirely too boring for him. But! For as little as he showed up in the movie, what we did get of him was very interesting to me, and I’m talking about these two scenes in particular:

and

The first one... I think it pretty much confirms it: Iyami’s unpleasantness is largely due to an inpulsiveness he doesn’t even dream of trying to control on a regular basis. As I’ve pointed out before some -kun stories show that trying to keep himself from being a general annoyance is something that brings Iyami a lot of grief. He’s ridiculously impulsive and, no matter how much it blows up in his face, he never learns from it and keeps acting out every single thought that pops in his mind.

But it also brings us a new facet of it: Iyami has nothing to do with the situation in question and yet, he’s quick to butt in and try to ruin everything. And the only explanation he provides for wanting to be the one to knock on Takahashi-san’s door despite -and I can’t stress this enough- having no idea of who she is and why the sextuplets are after her in the first place?

“Me can’t wait to see what happens.”

Of course, he’s doing it mostly to spite them, which is something I’m going to explore in a while, but I can’t believe I just... skipped over this when writing my first post, given that it’s something *I* struggle with sometimes, but if he’s speaking his mind here (which he usually does) a driving factor behind Iyami’s actions seems to be just... plain inquisitiveness.

I think all human beings have thoughts that go like “I wonder what would happen if I did *insert ‘extremely inconvenient thing that would not be only bad for me but for everyone else involved’ here*. Iyami wonders these things... and he just gets up and does them, both in situations he can walk out unscathed of and in situations he will be immediately punished for acting in such a way. An example is how he’ll just say whatever unpleasant thing he’s thinking of to people who can and will retaliate, not only physically, but also verbally. I mean, he does have the advantage of not being easily swayed by insults directed at his personality:

...but he’s REALLY bothered by insults directed at his appearance:

But this is another aspect of his psyche I’m not going to dwell in here. I only wanted to talk about what a lethal combination Iyami’s curiosity and his total lack of restraint and hindsight are here. As much as it troubles other people, I think it gets him in trouble just as often.

But onto the other scene! Knowing that the sextuplets can’t really recall what his face looks like when not looking at him, by which I mean basically the only thing they can recall is that he has a huge overbite, is a good blow to his ego. How dare they only remember him by that! In John Mulaney’s famous words... “No! That’s the thing I’m sensitive about!”

But being being left alone by Osomatsu and Karamatsu at the horse races is the straw that breaks the camel’s back and Iyami decides to chase the sextuplets down (I doubt he knows exactly which ones offended him so all of them will suffer from his rage) and show them exactly how unforgettable he is. Now, let me ask you a question, my fellow ADHD-havers... does the thought of being ignored or rejected makes you feel terrible for some reason? Do you panic when that happens and end up saying and doing things you regret after specifically because being ignored felt so bad?

So do I. That’s what we call Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, baby! RSD for short. I feel it very strongly and that’s why Iyami’s anger at being ignored or not recognized as the “celebrity” he is doesn’t come off as all that whiny to me. If I had achieved the fame he did then had been forced to live the life he does in the present day, being not only virtually unknown but also literally homeless most of the time? I’d be pissed off at the world as well. In fact, I WAS pissed off at the world for a long period of my life. But we’ll get into this in a minute, as that’s not all this scene gives us!

The dream world interprets his anger by summoning a literal army of all of his -san appearances and a few memorable -kun ones too. And! What calms him down enough for him to become visible again? Managing to piss the sextuplets off so much he gets dropkicked by the six of them at once!

He’s then surprised when they point out that he’s gone through all this trouble just for attention because he’s lonely. After all, I doubt it’s something he, like, thought through rationally in his head. He was just impulsively reacting to feeling neglected. This remark makes him blush.

I think it’s kind of poignant that what sobers him up wasn’t being reassured that he’s fine the way he is, like Totoko and Chibita were, it was finally getting the unbridled attention he wanted from the beginning, even if that meant getting beaten up for it. Because... that’s something I can relate to too!

You see, I used to be the class clown as a teen and I even had an internet troll phase! Somewhere along the way, younger me realized that getting negative attention by purposefully acting out was way, way better than getting negative attention when people pointed out my shortcomings. I mean, being a well-behaved kid wasn’t working because I wasn’t either “a good kid” or a “good student” because of my learning disabilities. Getting lashed out at wasn’t pleasant either because I wasn’t misbehaving on purpose, I couldn’t help how badly I was doing in school, but everyone acted like I was being purposefully lazy and defiant. So what was left for me? Actually misbehaving on purpose! If you can’t get noticed positively, the next best thing is to be noticed negatively but being in control of the situation. And this is a typical ADHD thing! If you read those “Does my kid have ADHD?” checklists you find online, you will almost invariably find something like “do your kid misbehaves on purpose?” or “does your kid seems to intentionally annoy other people for attention?”

In my case, I grew out of that kind of behavior, for the most part (I mean... I still enjoy making “cursed posts” and reading all the exaggerated fake murder threats people make at me, after all, just as much as I like telling purposefully bad jokes just for the groans). I started leaning into the more common side of RSD, which is becoming a people pleaser. I was never that daring of a person to begin with. But that’s not how everyone with ADHD reacts to it. In fact, some people, especially those whose ADHD makes them more impulsive, get stuck in a “RSD loop” in which they do “bad” things impulsively, only experience more rejection because of it, which leads them to only do more and more “bad” things impulsively.

Of course, as always, I don’t mean any of that to try to justify how much of an asshole a cartoon character is and say they’re above criticism. Iyami IS terrible and fun to root against that’s why he was such a popular antagonist for so many years! This is just me looking at a cartoon character and seeing a bit of myself in him, which is one of the reasons I am so drawn to him in the first place.

#long post #VERY long post #iyami #osomatsu san #osomatsu san meta #here it is! please... please don’t call me names because of its lenght #also... please clap... maybe #adhd headcanon

20 notes · View notes

adhdtoomanycommas · 4 years

Text

Emotional Abuse and ADHD

Ok, first real post on the ADHD sideblog, so lets dive straight into the heavy stuff. TW/CW for emotional abuse, gaslighting, and probably some other things too (please feel free to let me know if I should add additional tags).

I had trouble sleeping last night because my brain kept insisting I needed to start this blog, like immediately, despite it being clearly not an opportune time to do anything of the sort. Or at least, it insisted, I needed to jot down all the essay/ramble/whatever topic ideas I had complicated thoughts on so I could start the blog today. I managed to resist doing both of those things, and get to sleep eventually, but here I am. The first topic that brought this on was wanting to talk about my experience in an emotionally abusive relationship and how many aspects of that were exacerbated by various symptoms of my (then undiagnosed) ADHD.

I’m going to assume a certain amount of baseline familiarity with some terminology and whatnot here, if you’re confused by any of the ADHD terms I use here I recommend heading over to theadhdmanual.com and reading their very helpful “three pillars” articles which do a great job of explaining Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) and emotional hyperarrousal (also elsewhere called emotional disregulation, I’ll be using both terms interchangably but won’t be abbreviating the latter for hopefully obvious reasons). On the emotional abuse terminology front, there’s a couple great articles on gaslighting on everydayfeminism.com that I recommend seeking out.

It is possible I am slightly stalling here by providing all this context.

At this point damn near ten years ago, for most of my senior year of college and for a good few months afterwards (I don’t remember how long exactly since adhd brains suck at timelines and I don’t feel like logicing it out right now) I was in what I later realized (with help from the aforementioned everydayfeminism articles) was an emotionally abusive relationship. My then-boyfriend, who I will call Al, was insecure and jealous. I had more sexual experience than him going into the relationship, and he used that as an excuse to guilt-trip, manipulate, and ultimately control me. I realize now, that the primary weapon he would use against me was my own RSD.

Whenever I did something that upset Al, (typical infractions included things like accidentally mentioning one of my exes, correcting him about something, “flirting with” --read: talking to-- any of my friends who were more my friend than his, or singing along to music) he would generally make his displeasure known by ignoring me--withdrawing all physical affection, coupled with the silent treatment. If you’re familiar with RSD, you can already guess how effective this was. If you’re not, then for comparison you should know that ADHD people can spiral very quickly into completely irrational “they hate me, don’t they?” thought spiral from something as small as a delayed text. Al would almost never tell me what I did to upset him, and in my guilt-spiral I would usually tearfully beg forgiveness for everything I could think of until I guessed correctly and/or he arbitrarily decided I’d had enough.

As an aside, he would often do this silent treatment toward me in public while being perfectly cheerful and whatnot with our other friends, often making it seem to others like he was just joking or messing with me. On one memorable occasion he refused to say anything to me but the word “spoon” with varying inflections for the better part of a day--a pretty skillful gaslight because to everyone else around this just seemed like goofy ol’ Al being his silly self, but from context I knew this was part of a punishment, and I couldn’t express any kind of being upset about this, even annoyance, without looking like I was overreacting to a dumb joke.

Ultimately much of what he actually did (or didn’t do) in public didn’t look like much to an outside observer, but he knew my (RSD fueled) insecurity would make it hurt, especially when I wouldn’t be able to address anything with him until we were in private later.

Also (and I intend to write a whole different post about this later) my particular brand of emotional disregulation takes the form of crying extremely easily. I cry when I’m sad, when I’m tired, when I’m happy, when I see something too cute to handle, and (most importantly, in this instance) when I’m angry. Because of this, every time I tried to address some relationship concern I had with him, whenever I tried to call out some of his shitty behavior or bring attention to my own emotional needs, it was extremely difficult--nigh impossible--to do so without crying. This gave him a massive amount of gaslighting ammunition--it made it very easy for him to say I was overreacting, overemotional, irrational, trying to manipulate him, et cetera. And it was hard to defend myself against that, even to myself. After all, lacking the ADHD diagnosis and resources about emotional disregulation that I have now, I had pretty much internalized the idea that I’m just “oversensitive” when it comes to crying, so I rationalized that I was also being oversensitive about whatever concern I started with in the first place. So every time a conversation started with me telling him he hurt me some way, it inevitably ended with me apologizing to him instead of the other way around.

Just to add to the already nasty cycle, Al also considered crying over something he didn’t deem worth crying over a punishable offense, so it often triggered the previously discussed silent treatment.

A third aspect of ADHD I haven’t discussed yet also played a major part in how I was abused--Memory. I don’t have a good resource to link on this one (I’m pretty sure there are some good howtoadhd videos on it on youtube but I’m not going to go dig for them right now), but ADHD people, on the whole, have terrible memories, especially short term/working memory. Mine in particular might be even worse for some kinds of things for unrelated reasons (aphantasia, which I might write about later but this is already really long and it’s not actually that relevant here).

Al was perpetually convinced that I was cheating on him, and any time we were apart he would quiz me afterwards on where exactly I was, what I did, for how long, and in what order. Any inconsistency in my account, or any “I don’t remember”s would mean he would accuse me of lying about the whole thing. I am pretty sure I have in common with most ADHD people that between time blindness and bad working memories, giving a consistent and accurate account like that is basically impossible, so this rarely went well for me. Just to further complicate matters, being accused of lying when I’m not is practically guaranteed to make me cry, and trying to keep from crying (to avoid angering him further) means I swallow a lot, and somewhere Al had heard that excessive swallowing is a sign that someone is lying, so again these various ADHD symptoms would combine to just make everything worse.

I eventually got out of that relationship, and not too long afterwards got together with my now-husband, who is wonderful, so that’s a happy ending. Getting diagnosed with ADHD a few months ago, learning about these symptoms, and figuring all this out has made this make much more sense to me than before. But in addition to my ADHD symptoms making me more vulnerable to these emotional abuse tactics, I’m pretty sure the leftover baggage from the emotional abuse may have made those very same ADHD symptoms worse, and while my new meds seem to help immensely with the executive disfunction aspects of ADHD, they don’t do a damn thing about RSD spirals or emotional disregulation. Healing and processing it all is slow going, but it has gotten a lot better over the years, and knowing now that even another aspect of this isn’t my fault helps too. And taking my meds today did help me motivate myself to write all this out, so maybe that will help as well.

I’m not sure what the takeaway is here, other than I strongly suggest everyone learn what gaslighting and emotional abuse in general looks like, but especially if you have ADHD or suspect you might have ADHD because we might be more vulnerable to being on the receiving end of it than most people. If anything I talked about here sounds a little too familiar, I strongly recommend reading up on gaslighting, and consider getting the heck away from anyone who sounds too much like Al. Maybe us ADHDers will inevitably get into some nasty thought-spirals or bad emotional places sometimes, maybe we’ll cry over nothing or worry too much that something we said will make everyone hate us, but if anyone tries to use any of that against you, uses it to get you to do what they want, or intentionally makes you feel worse, they’re not someone worth being around, and I promise you deserve better.

Not sure if anyone will read this, much less any fellow ADHDers because yeah, it’s a big ol’ wall of text and I get that can be hard, but if you made it this far, thanks for listening and I’ll try to go not quite so heavy with my next post, (assuming, of course, that I have a next post and this blog doesn’t become yet another started-and-abandoned project).

That’s all for now.

#adhd #actuallyadhd #rsd problems #emotional abuse #tw emotional abuse #tw emotional manipulation #gaslighting #tw gaslighting

6 notes · View notes

adhdebilitating · 5 years

Text

I'm sitting here,

completely or close to completely fixated on the dirty-ass coffee table in front of me. I keep imagining I will see a cockroach, which not only of which I am extremely afraid, but that my fucking apartment building has an infestation, so that's probably why it's a problem in the first place. I managed to do some dishes(about seven forks and a plate) only to discover that we need more soap.

It's pretty bad when you're not even sure if it's ADHD. Can ADHD be completely debilitating? For the sake of this blog, let's say it can.

I never clean my apartment, which hilariously feels like an understatement. How do you clean less than never? I suppose I clean it a little more than that, but I'm the type of person that just accumulates mess everywhere I go. Recently due to cockroach terrors, I haven't been doing dishes as much. Ofc I have to tell myself, if I don't do the fucking dishes, they will come.

So I live in a 100 year old apartment whose halls resemble the Shining. Nothing really connects. The walls don't connect to the floor, the cabinets don't fully connect to the walls, the ceilings don't fully connect to the structures. Fuck my life, right? It's the best place I can THINK of for roaches. So many crevasses, leaky/flat out busted pipes, warm, dank environments...Perfect. And this bitch that's too scared/lazy to clean her apartment...like, there's an inch of dust and grime on most of the surfaces. Deep cleaning? Never heard of her.

Do you ever have executive dysfunction so bad, you can't even function? You're lucky if you can somehow trick or force yourself into doing something. The one thing I can almost always do is be on my phone. It's low energy as hell. Idk what it is. There's just this magic of ease that usually doesn't translate to real life.

I know, I know. I have to be exaggurating, right? Probably.

So right now I am on 20 mg of Buspirone, 450 mg of Wellbutrin(recently increased,) 2 mg of Abilify(honestly, I dont even know what it does at this point.) It's about seven pills, which isn't ideal, but you know. What are you going to do? Like, do they make Wellbutrin in 450 pills?

I javee absolutely no idea what I am doing in terms of treatment, pills or otherwise. I see my therapist once a week and I KNOW I need to go more. I need therapy. I need deep help. Meds aren't just magically going to fix everything, but I keep hinging all my hopes on that, too.

I read about people starting/finding the right meds and it is just eyeopening for them. Lifechanging. That's what I want.

As of right now, I wake up in the morning, take my meds, brush my teeth, and sit with my partner until they go to work a half hour later. From then on, I usually browse my phone or sometimes I play FFXIV for a little while until I remember I'm fucking too scared to do dungeons with randos.

I'm deathly afraid of judgment. From anyone. I know no one doles it out worse than me, but RSD makes judgment like...impossible to deal with. I just try to avoid it, period.

This doesn't extend to real life. I continue to sit on my ass most of the day, maybe take a two, three hour nap. I survey my filthy apartment and think about how overwhelming it is to clean. Sometimes, on a good day, I can manage to make myself do something. Even if it's just play FFXIV.

I'm wasting my life away. I tried going to school, but Soc 101 was too overwhelming. I dropped. I dropped and I was doing well, even though I started skipping classes. My teacher even asked me not to drop because I wasnt even struggling. I sabotaged it bc I couldn't fucking imagine constantly reading chapters, taking notes, and studying as much was required for tests. I dropped bc it was an extremely interactive class and I am not an extremely interactive person.

I got off topic. I forgot to tell you that the cockroaches favor the wall behind my sink, which again, doesn't fucking connect fully to the counter, so crevasse-topia. To make matters worse, I am constantly supplying them with water whenever I do the dishes and splash under the wall. They're mainly little.

Oh, so. I know. Why don't I contact my landlord about the roach problem? It's a problem the entire building has. Save gassing every room in the building, I don't know how they can really address the problem. I may know some semblance of sanctuary if I can move into my sister's lovely 9th floor apartment with a modern structural build, a dishwasher, a sink like a basin like you see in art classes, a washer and drier, thermostat, and a giant, deep bath tub- the kind where you can sink all the way up to your neck.

Ugh, I lust for it. I can only hope everything works out to get it.

I'm an extremely lucky, privileged person. I don't deny it and I feel immense guilt for having any problems at all when others are so much less fortunate.

#adhd #depression #personal #anxiety #executive dysfunction #my content

16 notes · View notes

actuallyadhd · 6 years

Note

I'm in university and failed all my classes last semester because executive dysfunction + unexpected stress half way through the semester. I'm going to have to tell my parents abt it but I have such bad RSD that even thinking about it can be enough to have a panic attack. I'm not officially diagnosed with ADHD and my parents aren't on board with me saying I do or seeking to get diagnosed (they think it's made up) so I don't think I can use it as an explanation...

Sent August 31, 2018

Okay, so. You know what the stress was, so make yourself a list of all the ways that affected your school performance. I’m sure you also know what other specific things you struggle with due to ADHD, so make a detailed list of those as well.

Once you have your lists, go through and add a point by each thing to note what you are or will be doing to deal with this problem in the future, to ensure that you do better from now on. Try to have at least two ideas by each point, but if the same idea will help more than one problem it’s okay to list it more than once. Include thoughts about what outside supports you might need, either from them or from the student resource centre or whatever. (I tutored students in psychology statistics at one point through the resource centre at my university. They mostly didn’t have any disabilities or disorders—except the one girl who had a math disability, whom I couldn’t help at all because her prof was an ass—they just needed extra help understanding how it all worked.)

Now you write out what happened in a really matter-of-fact way. Then you describe your solutions to the problems you had/have, including the outside assistance you’re going to access.

When you talk to your parents, make sure you have your paper with you. Tell them that you have something serious to discuss with them, and that you really need them to let you get through it all before they say anything.

Once you’ve got them, just read your paper. This means that you will explain what happened last semester and tell them that you failed everything, and then explain your plan for dealing with your difficulties going forward. When you’re finished explaining all of these things, hopefully they’ll be more impressed with your plan to deal with things than they are upset by your grades.

-J

#Anonymous #ADHD #Actually ADHD #asks #parents #school #college #responsibility

30 notes · View notes

mysticfuckery · 7 years

Note

Hi, can I request a headcannon of the rfa+v & unknown reacting to an insecure mc telling them that they have adhd (+ rsd too, if its okay ^^;) please? Thank you!

hi there! i personally like this request because both anons have adhd! so this is super cool really. can i also say that rsd is literal hell :( so if you go through that, hang in there! i’ve decided to do a fluctuating depressed and angry reaction from mc with rsd.

TW;; DESCRIPTIVE ANXIETY AND SUICIDAL IDEATION

Yoosung

-he’s really excited and loves your enthusiasm

-he is immediately fascinated by how talkative you are

-he notices from time to time that you don’t reply to sentences with relative subjects, whether they’re way off topic or slightly off topic

-it bewilders him at first, but he gets used to it by continuing anyways

-he holds your hand every time you get fidgety, especially in public

-he’s offered to buy you a fidget spinner or cube

-he thinks the little mistakes you make while speaking, writing, or doing anything are adorable

-one day though, you two were hanging out at a cafe

-usually you two stayed in

-you were nervous but Yoosung offered comfort

-it didn’t last forever though

-you were distracted by someone who was looking at you

- that person continued to stare for a split second before turning to their friend and muttering something

-it STUNG because you swore that person was talking about you

-yoosung was talking, but your thoughts were louder than his voice

-you kept thinking about what was wrong with you, you felt as if you weren’t a good enough s/o for yoosung

-yoosung starts shaking you and you learn that you’re shaking and crying

-you even tell him that you’re not good enough for him before running off

-he follows behind, catching up to you and wrapping you in a hug

-you were going to push him off, but…

-”MC… you have no idea how much you mean to me and how much I need you in my life”

-”I’m so proud to have you by my side and love someone as amazing and unique as you.”

-the bad feeling never went away, and you had doubts

-but you two discussed your doubts and anxiety, and you told him about your adhd and rsd

-all he wants to do is help out in any way he can

-so your relationship grows closer and you learn how to support each other even more, every day

Zen

-he knew you were conversational on the chat

-he did not expect you to be as chatty for real

-and he loved it because you gave great feedback on his acting

-you were also full of ideas and inspiration and creativity

-and he absolutely LOVED IT

-but he got tired every now and then from hard work everyday

-so he was extra irritable

-you just started living with him

-so you haven’t faced his crankiness before

-but when you did, your heart shattered

-you just felt like you were stabbed by a million knives

-because “ what if he doesn’t like me anymore? “

-so you get angry

-”Fine! I’ll leave you alone!”

-”Since you hate me I guess I’ll just leave”

-and he’s just shocked

-he could never hate you

-he told you repeatedly that he didn’t hate you but

-you just kept telling him he was lying to himself and you and the pain got worse

-he gets upset enough to leave and you’re just

-miserable

-an hour later, he’s cooled off

-but you haven’t

-”MC, can we talk?”

-You bit your tongue

-”sure” was your tense response

-”I love you. I really love you, and I’m sorry for how I came off while I was cranky”

-”I’m going to work on how I treat you” “Is there something you want to talk about, though?”

-you sighed

-so he didn’t hate you, but all you had was guilt now

-you started sobbing and he held you close and listened to you tell him that you should die, and that you felt like you were awful to him

-after a while of him petting your head and caressing you, it was easier to tell him about your ADHD and RSD

-he did a little research on it because he wants the best for you

-now he reminds you everyday to take your pills and tries his hardest to be a listener for when you vent and offers support, and advice when he can

Jaehee

-she works with people who have ADHD

-she had never learned to understand it though

-she detected it with you, and asks questions about it everyday

-she loves learning more

-”How are conversations for you?”

-”I either hear half of a sentence, don’t hear it at all, or listen entirely but my brain doesn’t absorb the information. I lose half of the words if my brain doesn’t absorb a sentence.”

-”What might help alongside pills?”

-and so on

-but she definitely does not understand the pain of anxiety and the mood swings

-feeling like complete crap out of nowhere and getting overstimulated

-and being understimulated

-she was the kind of person who thought all you needed to do was breathe

-so something slipped out of her mouth that shouldn’t have

-”It’s kind of hard to take care of you; it would mean a lot if you tried to control your impulses a little more.”

-you just wanted to throw yourself into the ocean right then and there

-”great, you messed up”

-”you’re annoying now”

-the amount of negative thoughts you were having felt like you were being run over repeatedly, but mentally

-but all you can muster out is “o-oh”

-and she realizes that she hurt you

-you told her that if you were that much of a drag, she could break up with you

-but your heart didn’t want her to

-”You’re better off without me.”, you said

-she just realizes that maybe her idea of your anxiety isn’t accurate

-”I’m better with you, MC. We’re a team.”, she says

-you just don’t believe her

-but you can’t run away because she has you wrapped in her arms

-she sits with you on the couch and you can’t even look at her

-you keep telling yourself that you’re not good enough

-eventually, you stop thinking that, but you don’t stop feeling it

-you notice that you’ve dissociated, and you see her sleeping with her head on your shoulder

-your thoughts keep you up until you finally drift off

-you wake up and see Jaehee with a tray of breakfast and an apology letter

-in her letter she promised to be more careful

-you talk to her about RSD, and she starts adapting to being more open and even looks up ways you can cope when you suffer

-the relationship is healthy now

Jumin

-he’s met tons of people with ADHD

-except he didn’t know that more people were neurodivergent than he expected

-he met you and found you a little overwhelming

-then he started adapting by listening to you speak and enjoying conversations with you

-he honestly thinks you’re so precious??

-the way you talk about things is astounding

-he comes home late but that’s okay because you don’t sleep anyways

-”MC, please sleep”

-”I can’t, Jumin, I have a million thoughts and I can’t end the day without thinking them all”

-”Then at least cuddle with me”

-you two talk until either one of you drifts off, and the other falls asleep soon after

-he’s actually helped you get better sleep

-but you felt awful because

-you didn’t want to be the reason he couldn’t work well

-it started off as that stupid little anxiety thought that wouldn’t leave

-but he came home extremely tired one night

-and you just

-cried

-”You wouldn’t be having a hard time at work if it wasn’t for me”

-”I just drag you down, you don’t deserve me”

-it escalates

-”I’m better off dead”

-and he is standing there with his mouth agape and eyes wide

-he pulls you close

-”You taught me how to love and be more open. My business is so much better because I’m so happy, and that’s because of you. I don’t feel empty and cold anymore, and that’s because of you.”

-something told you that you didn’t believe him

-so you told him

-”I know you don’t believe me, MC. I promise you that I’m being honest, though.”

-your mood wouldn’t change, but you stayed with him for the night

-you both discussed your ADHD and RSD the next day, and he offered counseling

-he recommended it every now and then and eventually you decided to go

-it really helped since he could afford a good counselor and you found pills better than your past ones

-there’s struggling every now and then but Jumin’s always there

Saeyoung

- he goes through the same thing and he already knew from your medical records

- literally gets it

-but since he doesn’t take care of his own mental health

-and he doesn’t know how to cope

- so…when his ADHD makes him irritated he usually sends you out of the room

-but

-it feels so bad??

-it honestly feels like he doesn’t love you

-or trust you

-so you just agree that he’s lying to you about loving you

-you’re so angry about him always ignoring you when you want to help him

-”it’s not like he cares about you anyways”

-he was the only person you had in life

-but you decided it would be best to just let him go

-you were writing your note and you had your pills next to the note

-he’s flipping out

-”MC, why are you trying to kill yourself?!”

-”As if you don’t know”

-”I really don’t know”

-”Then I’m right. You really don’t care about me”

-his heart shatters because

-is this how he made you feel?

-he feels so guilty

-he’s the one who starts having a breakdown and then you feel guilty and have a breakdown

-it’s a mess honestly

-but when you both get it all out, you both just

-chuckle a little and realize “ okay that just happened”

-you go to bed feeling empty but still in his arms

-he and you both agreed to start taking care of yourselves and each other more

-there’s a couple times when you mess up advice due to lack of practice

-but it all ends up okay

-he’s a softspoken man

-he rarely talks

-he loves hearing about your hyperfixations and fascinations

-and he’s there for you when you’re down

-he’s a great lover when it comes to your mental health

-and he’s been so supportive so it was easy to discuss being neurodivergent with him

-but it still stings when he talks about Rika to you

-you knew he was still getting over an abusive relationship

-so you let him speak about her

-he just didn’t know that every time he spoke about her

-you fell asleep with cheeks stained with tears

-it’s like he will never truly love you

-you got used to his speaking about Rika

-but one day he says he’s still attached to her

-you perceive this as him still loving her

-if hearts were louder, he could’ve heart yours breaking

-”So…you don’t love me?”

-you don’t even look at him to see his confused expression

-”MC, I don’t love her. I love you. I meant to say that by staying blind, I was allowing myself to suffer for what she did to me.”

-”That’s because of you.” was what he finished his thought with

-he’s always been there for you and always made sure you didn’t blame yourself for what your brain does to you

-helped you embrace that you are not your mental illness

-so the pain wasn’t as great

-your mood is low all day but he knows it’s nothing he can change or get upset about

-and he stays by your side always

-eventually he get eye surgery

-y’all are goals

Saeran

-it took a while for him to become stable enough to start dating you

-even so, he still had suicidal ideation from time to time

-so did you

-he knew what it was like to have mental illness

-and suffer from it

-so he understood

-it took a lot of insecurity and anxiety to finally tell him about your ADHD and RSD

-he’s done a lot of things that trigger your RSD but the almost always apologizes

-he did not offer the best advice though

-because what works for him won’t work for you

-sometimes he’s not himself though

-he’s not 100% aware of his own behavior

-so he reverts from time to time

-and his episodes are bad

-all he’s learned in life is that the ones who maltreated him truly loved him

-his anxiety wouldn’t let him believe you loved him

-but this one was particularly awful

-he straight out told you he hated you

-you weren’t offered an explanation why he hated you

-and despite better judgement, you accepted what he told you

-and told him the same thing out of sheer bitterness

-how could he does this to you?

-he never truly loved you

-and you both realize the heaviness of what you guys said to other other

-and you slept in different rooms for a couple nights

-you believed he had truly given up on you, so you walked outside

-waiting for a car

-Saeran hugs you from behind

-that moment is when all the pain you were numb to for the past few days suddenly came in a big wave

-and you kept yelling and telling him how you wanted to die and you wanted him to let you go

-then he told you for the first that the he loved you

-you didn’t believe it and got angry at him for lying and…

-the next couple days you woke up in a hospital with him at your side

-all you could feel was

-numb

-in a few weeks, you were given counseling and new medication

-and he was to give you space until you were ready to speak to him again

- after some thinking and processing

-you were the one who hugged him from behind

-and told him “ I love you too”

-he believed you

-he’s worked on his attitude and how he’s treated you

-did not want you to forgive him, but not because he wanted to punish himself

-he did not want you to forgive him for putting you through trauma

-he wanted you to see a different person than who he was

-so you both got a lot better with coping and treating each other well

-it’s so pure honestly

aaaaa i wrote this all in two hours bUT YAY i hope you guys like the first request that I did for y’all

pce out- mod r

57 notes · View notes