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bugs1nmybrain · 7 months

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Shoulder - Tomura x Fem!Reader ◇ Non-S3xual MDLB

Listen I've put myself in a rabbit hole. I am embarrassed and ashamed. I am so sorry. My heart tugs for this boy. It was actually very sad to write this and I teared up a little to be honest. I want to hold him so bad, even if I die at contact. I don't know if I can tag this sfw only because I know the mommy dynamic weirds people out sometimes, but there is nothing sexual in this story at all.

This isn't a sexual fic but I would prefer minors to not interact.

Warnings: non-sexual mdlb (i am so ashamed), is it problematic? I have no idea, angst, reverse comfort, Tomura cries pretty hard, panic attack, unprescribed use of anti-anxiety meds, PTSD, mommy issues, nausea and vomiting, abandonment issues/separation anxiety, season 5 blue hair Tomura era (ignoring the Gigantomachia canon), reader is probably older than Tomura, reader is resistant to Tomura's quirk because the plot requires it, reader's POV, a lot of paragraphs start with "you" and "he" I'm so sorry

He was silent when he came home, not saying a word as he entered the bedroom. You watched as he just slid his shoes off and slumped himself on the bed, with himself turned to face the wall. He didn't acknowledge you.

This was unusual for him. It wasn't out of character for Tomura to be in a bad mood, but quiet wasn't typical. Usually, he would come complaining to you with his nasal voice, moaning and whining about how much he hated something or how bad his day went. It wasn't just that his silence that was concerning you. When you looked at him, he was breathing so heavily that you could see his back expand and shoulders rise and fall. At first, his breathing was slow and heavy, but it continued to build.

You left him be for a moment, not wanting to invade his personal space. Maybe he just needed a little time to himself. But when you went back to resume the task that you were doing before, you began hearing verbal, raspy breaths that sounded as if he was suffocating. You turned around to see Tomura's shoulders shaking, and he was closed in on himself. You realized that the only hands he had on him right now were the ones on his neck. His mother's.

You didn't want to upset him more, but you couldn't just watch him like this. You slowly approached him from behind and sat on the bed next to him. You didn't want to touch him yet, worried that he'd be startled or angered by the sudden sensation.

"Tomura?"

"What?" he rasped out, still gasping on the oxygen he managed to inhale.

"What's wrong?"

He didn't respond. His shaking got worse, and his breath seized to function. You could tell because his shoulders and back were no longer moving, and he was rigidly still.

"Tomura..." you reached out to rub his back, fearing that he'd snap, but he didn't. "Tomura, you need to breathe, okay?"

You rub firm circles on his back, and then motioned up and down. He was now only allowing small exhales come out through his nose, and his shaking stopped. Now, though, his body was tight and tense. You couldn't see it, but he was beginning to sweat.

"Tomura-"

"I need a bucket."

"Huh?"

"Now! I'm gonna puke!"

You didn't hesitate and rushed out of the room to grab a mop bucket from the kitchen closet. You returned fast, Tomura was now lying on his back with his eyes closed and furrowed, hands on his stomach.

"Here."

"I-" he was huffing in between words. "I" "I can't move" "I'm gonna throw up." "If I move I'm going to puke."

"It's okay, please sit up. You'll feel better if you let it out."

It takes you tucking your hand underneath his head and helping him to sit up for him to move. The moment he sat up, he snatched the bucket and hurled it into it. The sounds of him puking made you uncomfortable, but it sounded much more painful for him. It went all out quickly, though.

He holds out the puke bucket, signaling that he's finished.

"Are you done, baby?"

His mouth formed into an uncontrolled pouty frown and he held his head down. He only motioned a nod to tell you yes.

"Okay. I'm going to go put this outside for now and come back with a water."

Tomura mumbled an "mhm" and criss crossed his legs, head still facing downwards. You took the bucket and brought it out into the alleyway outside. You'd take care of it sometime later, but not now. All you wanted to do was make sure it wasn't stinking up the house, and to get back to your boyfriend to make sure he was okay.

When you came back your heart shattered. You watched in silence as Tomura sat there with a palm holding the sides of his face, crying. His sounds were very vocal, but when he realized you were back he began concealing them. He itched himself red as he cried, as if bugs were biting him all over. Slowly returning to his side, you began to stroke his long, blue hair softly. He shakes at your touch and his cries became uncontrolled, with breathy sobs and tears falling out from underneath his hand and he scratched vigorously.

"Do you want to talk about it?" You soothe at him gently.

"I can't-I can't breathe."

He was indeed still shaking and he sounded like he was choking on air. Your glance met the hands around his neck again, and you worried that they were causing more discomfort. You reach out to cup them, a little freaked out by it initially. They were dead hands, after all. Cold and lifeless.

"Maybe you should take these off."

"I can't. I need them! They're suffocating me! I hate this! I hate it..."

"I know, baby," he sobbed harder when you said that. "But they're hurting you. Just for a while, okay? You can put them back on later, once you've had a chance to catch your breath. Is that okay, sweetheart?"

His hand lifted off his face. He still averts his gaze, but he nods with a deep sigh. "Yea."

You proceed to remove the hands. It was hard, actually. They were snug on his neck so tightly, clasped together, and very difficult to separate from each other. You made sure to put them with the others, where they would be safe.

When you sat back on the bed you continued to rub Tomura's back. His tears soaked his lap, and his face was red.

"Hey, hey, hey..."You ran your fingers on his scalp for comfort. "Come here, Tomura..."

You gestured him toward your embrace and he latched onto you. His hold was tight and needy as he tugged on the back of your shirt and rested his face on your chest. His cries drenched your shirt and you could feel his heart pumping rapidly against your body. It felt like he was on the verge of a heart attack. You couldn't bare it.

"I have some anxiety meds, do you think that would help?"

He nods into your form and you try to get up from his embrace to get the medication. As you rise he pulls on your shirt, "please come back."

"I will, I promise."

It was sad, given that the meds were only inside of a drawer close to the bed. You got out a couple of pills and grabbed the water that you had gotten him earlier. Tomura wasn't prescribed these medications, but frankly, it didn't really matter right now. It wasn't like he hadn't committed far more severe crimes. He needed to calm down, or his body was going to collapse.

You move back on the bed and hold out the medicine and drink for him. He takes both with his trembling hands as you put your hand on his tense back again. The medication goes down easy, and he sits there with the water in his hand, shaking.

"You should drink more. You're going to be dehydrated because of crying."

"I'm sorry."

"There's no need to be, I want to make sure you're taken care of."

The pout that returned on his face made your heart thump in sympathy. What was going on? You had never seen Tomura in this kind of state before. It was unlike him.

"What's wrong Tomura? Please tell me. I don't mean to be nosy, but I can tell something is hurting your feelings and I want to help if I can."

Tomura turns back to snuggle you close, holding your body as if his life depended on it.

"I don't know how to explain it. I don't understand why I'm like this right now. I just...I feel empty. I think I miss her? Like I'm grieving something I don't even know. I don't get it. I fucking HATE this so SO much!"

You didn't need clarification on who he was referring to. The hands, the needy physical touch, the balling whenever you would stroke his hair or call him "sweetheart" and "baby"...It was clear to see that there was a void within Tomura. One that he'd never be able to fill. He must have felt grief for what he didn't have, what he lost a long time ago.

"I'm sorry, babyboy. I really am."

The grip he made almost suffocated you, but it was okay. He needed this, and you wanted him to feel nurtured. Loved.

"I can't get her back. I never will. What if I lose you, too? What if you stop being resistant to my quirk? I don't want you to, I can't bear even thinking about losing you. It makes me feel sick."

"You won't lose me, I promise," there was something you weren't sure would help. You expect a negative response somehow, but you try to test the waters to see what could comfort him right now. "Mommy's not going anywhere."

If Tomura wasn't crying before, he surely was now. You were scared that you broke him, but his grip around your waist didn't loosen, and he held you so hard that you felt stuck. His tears seeped out harder as you stroked his hair with his head buried in between your warm chest.

"Does mommy love me? Have I been good for her?"

"Yes, baby. You're my good boy and you've been more than good for me. Mommy loves you with her whole entire heart, Tomura. I'll never let you go for as long as I have you."

The exchange of words was foreign and was awkward to process, but it felt natural even so. There was nothing about it that seemed sultry. It was a need for him. You were simply substituting a void for him, and you couldn't feel ashamed for being there to give him that affection and nurture that he hadn't had since murdered his family. You only knew about what he had told you, and he only knew about what his master told him. This regression was heart breaking for you to witness, but if you could comfort him, maybe it would be all better.

"I love you. I love you so much, mommy. I need you to be here. I need you to hold me."

"I will. I'll hold you all night long. You're such a perfect little boy, do you know that?"

Tomura snickers as tears escape his eyes, "Thank you."

"Of course, baby boy. You should rest, though. You've been through a lot."

"Will you sleep with me?"

"Yes. I'll be right here with you and beside you when you wake up, okay?"

"Okay."

"I love you, Tomura."

"I love you too."

#shigaraki tomura #shigaraki x reader #shigaraki x fem reader #shigaraki angst #tenko shimura

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get-your-fics · 2 years

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Through the Looking Glass

Summary: “I knew who I was this morning, but I’ve changed a few times since then.” —Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Pairings: Steven Grant x fem!reader, Jake Lockley x fem!reader, Marc Spector x fem!reader

Word count: 9.2k

Warnings: Rough non-con, panty kink, violence, blood, gunplay, glove kink, asphyxiation, murder, creepy behavior, kidnapping, discussions of mental health

Note: the wait is over! writing this one hit a little too close to home lol. i want to thank my wonderful beta @nephilxterra for everything she did to workshop this. love you to pieces!

The first time you saw him was in the early morning.

Everyone was waiting for group to start when the big double doors marking the entrance to the psych unit swung open. Two paramedics wheeled a gurney right across the white line on the ground you weren’t allowed to cross with a man strapped to it. The unit you were in constantly saw people coming and going, so no one else paid him any mind. However, even at the risk of seeming rude, for some reason you didn’t understand, you couldn’t stop staring at him.

He looked tired, like he hadn’t slept in weeks. He had dark circles under his eyes, and the hollows of his cheeks were sunken in and sallow. The patients who were brought into the unit were normally calm (usually due to whatever anti-anxiety meds that had been given to them at the emergency room they were transported from), but there was something different about how resolute he appeared, like he was preparing himself for what was to come.

Suddenly, his gaze shifted, and his eyes locked with yours. Your breath hitched in your throat. You felt rooted to the ground by his eyes on you, as if he’d turned you to stone with the weight of his gaze alone. You couldn’t tear your eyes off of his. There was something impossibly dark about them, like they were two cold, empty voids you could fall into and get lost in forever. It made the hair on your arms stand on end.

You thought you saw his lips curve into a hint of a smirk before he was wheeled out of your sight.

You didn’t see him again until dinner time.

He was considerably more groggy, trudging into the rec room where the other patients waited while the nurses passed out trays of food. One of the nurses called out the name ‘Marc Spector,’ and he moved forward, clutching one of the unit’s standard issue blankets close around him.

By the time you got your tray, you spotted him sitting alone at one of the tables, picking at his mac and cheese absentmindedly with the tongs of his fork. Your heart wrenched in your chest with pity for him. You were lucky you’d been brought into the unit late in the night so you’d had time to process the situation while you slept. You could only imagine how overwhelming it was for him to be thrown into the middle of it all.

You mustered your courage before walking over to him. He raised his head when he saw you approach. “Do you mind if I sit with you?” you asked, plastering a smile on your face.

He looked up at you through droopy eyelids. “No, not at all.” His voice was weak, but you could just barely make out the lilt of a British accent.

“Thanks.” You slid into the chair across from him and introduced yourself. “You must be Marc.”

“Actually, my name is Steven,” he corrected you.

You blinked at him. You could’ve sworn the nurse said Marc, but you must’ve misheard. “Oh, my bad.” You shifted in your seat. “Is this your first time in a psych unit?”

He tilted his head, his face drawn up in a pensive expression. This close, his eyes weren’t hollow like they seemed before. Maybe it had been all in your head. “I’m not sure.”

You furrowed your brow. How could someone not remember being institutionalized before? Maybe whatever drugs were in his system were still wearing off. You didn’t recognize him though, which meant it was at least his first time in this particular unit. “That’s okay. I just wanted to let you know that you don’t have to be afraid. Everyone here is really nice.”

He perked up, some of the fog clearing from his gaze. “Really?”

“Oh, yeah. They’re all easy-going. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. Groups are optional, and most of the time they’re just fun stuff like games and arts and crafts. It’s not like you’ll be forced to spill your deepest darkest secrets or anything.” You playfully rolled your eyes. “Honestly, the most annoying part about being here is the nurses waking you up at six a.m. to check your blood pressure.”

That managed to earn a wheezy laugh from him, and you’d be lying if your stomach didn’t flutter a little at the sound. “That’s good to hear.”

Your face heated up under his gaze, and when you smiled at him this time, it was genuine. “Don’t worry. You’ll be in and out of here in no time.”

From then on, you and Steven were practically attached at the hip. He told you everything he knew about Egyptian mythology, reciting all sorts of stories about the gods Osiris and Anubis and Taweret that were better than any trashy romance novel you could find in the unit’s bookcase, and in turn you showed him the ins and outs of the unit. You took turns seeing who could solve a Rubik’s Cube the fastest (which Steven always did in an unprecedented short amount of time). You played long running games of Golf with the other patients, keeping score of who was in the lead until someone went home and then you’d start all over again.

You couldn’t remember smiling as much as you did since Steven had arrived there. You felt more yourself when you were around him, like you’d been sleepwalking through life and suddenly you were wide awake for the first time in months. Which made it even more heartbreaking when you discovered that he wasn’t real.

Steven Grant didn’t exist.

You were sitting in the rec room with the TV turned to a channel running a marathon of old B movies. The one that just so happened to be playing was Tomb Buster, a film whose main character was a British archaeologist who excavated Egyption tombs and just so happened to be named Dr. Steven Grant.

At first, you were worried that you’d imagined him, that you’d somehow seen this film before and it’d snuck into your subconscious, creating Steven as a way to cope with being stuck in the unit for so long. But it turned out to be very much the opposite: Steven was a coping mechanism for Marc Spector.

Steven fronted consistently since coming to the unit as far as you could tell. You figured he must be a protector, and the stress of the situation was too much for Marc to handle. You hadn’t actually met Marc, but Steven told you plenty about him, though it didn’t always paint him in the best light.

“He can be a real bugger,” he huffed. “Honestly, it’s better off if you don’t meet him. He’d probably just brood you to death.”

After a couple weeks, you’d finally worked up the nerve to ask him how he ended up in the unit, but he told you he didn’t quite remember. He said he figured Marc must’ve brought them in. All he could remember was waking up in his room before being called to dinner where he met you.

You didn’t care that Steven was an alter. You’d met plenty of people with DID before. After all, you were in a psych unit. You were just happy to have a friend. It almost made you selfish enough to wish that he wouldn’t leave.

You couldn’t sleep, not that that was new to you. You had long grown used to fitful, restless nights where you tossed and turned in bed, jolting awake from nightmares you couldn’t remember.

You were also used to feeling eyes on you at night. After all, the nurses completed their rounds every hour, peeking in on each patient through the little window in the door. But recently, something felt off. You could feel someone watching you, and no matter how tightly you clutched the thin hospital blanket to your form, you shivered at the chill that settled deep in your bones.

You burst awake for the umpteenth time that night, sitting up tangled in sheets soaked through with sweat. Your chest rose and fell in rapid succession as you sucked in big gulps of air, and your heart pounded against your ribcage. You reached for the cup of water at your bedside, hoping to get rid of the dry, sour feel in your mouth, only to find it empty.

You grabbed the cup and slipped out of bed, creeping out of your room. You padded down the hall in sock-covered feet, squinting against the fluorescent lights that were on all hours of the day. The faint noises of a commotion hit your ears, growing louder the closer you drew to the rec room.

When you got there, you saw Steven was awake too. His back was to you, and he was pressed up against the doors to the unit, slapping his palms against them. There were two nurses with him, trying to get him away from the doors and coax him back to bed.

“Please, please! You’ve gotta let me out of here!” he yelled. His voice was deeper, and lacking the usual intonation of his British accent. “I’m gonna hurt someone!”

You nearly crushed the plastic cup in your hand. That wasn’t Steven. That was Marc.

“Marc!” you rushed towards him. “Hey, Marc, it’s okay.” You told him your name. “I’m a friend of Steven’s.”

He went still, dropping his arms at his sides. He slowly turned around to face you. His dark hair was wild, and his eyes widened when he saw you. He pressed his back against the doors as much as he could. “Get her away from me!” He pointed at you, his finger shaking. “Stay away!”

Your heart sank to your stomach. You’d been looking forward to meeting Marc, only for him to be so scared of you that you couldn’t get a chance to talk to him.

You felt a hand on your arm and nearly jumped out of your skin. Your head snapped to see a nurse at your side. She must’ve snuck up on you. “Come with me, let’s get you back to bed.” She patted your arm. “You don’t need to be here for this.”

You let her guide you away, craning your neck to see Marc for as long as you could before he was out of your sight.

You didn’t see him for a couple days after that.

When he returned to the unit, you were ecstatic. As much as you wanted to hug him though, you resisted the urge and approached him cautiously with your tail tucked between your legs like he was a wild animal that might spook at any moment.

“Hi,” you said timidly, a small smile on your lips. “How are you feeling?”

His eyes were barely open again, the same way they’d been when you first met him. He was probably still recovering from whatever calming meds the nurses had given him. “I’ve been better, love,” he said, his voice thin.

Your heart thumped a little faster at the pet name, though you reminded yourself he used it often and now was especially not the time to get hung up on little things like that. “So I finally met Marc…”

His face fell. “You met him? When?”

“The night before they locked you away from everyone.” You chewed on your bottom lip. “He didn’t seem to like me very much…”

He furrowed his brow. “Are you sure?”

“Oh, trust me. He was very adamant about making it clear,” you said.

He scoffed. “How could he not like you? I find that hard to believe.” He crossed his arms over his chest, shaking his head. “I swear, and he thought he was the more sane of the two of us. Bloke must be out of his mind,” he muttered under his breath.

You bit back a smile. He focused his attention back on you. “What did he say to you?”

“He told me to stay away from him.” You frowned. “He seemed like he was scared of me, Steven.”

His hand shot out and grabbed yours, gripping on tight. “Well, don’t listen to him, alright?” He looked down at his hand and, realizing he was holding you too tight, let go. “I don’t want you to stay away. I’d dislike that very much.”

You couldn’t help but smirk. “You would, now would you?”

“Aw, bug off.” He knocked his shoulder into yours playfully. “I’m sure he was just freaked out to be fronting after weeks of being dormant. It probably had nothing to do with you. Besides, what reason would he have to be scared of you in the first place?”

You pursed your lips thoughtfully. “I don’t know, Steven. I don’t want to make Marc unhappy.”

“But have you stopped to consider what’d make me happy?” He raised his brows. “And since I actually know you, I figure that’s more important, yeah?”

He batted his lashes at you, his bottom lip jutting out in a pout. You heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Fine. But if Marc gets mad, that’s on you.”

His face broke out into a lopsided grin. “Puppy dog eyes work wonders, don’t they?”

You rolled your eyes. You couldn’t suppress it anymore and threw your arms around him, pulling him into a tight embrace. “I missed you, Steven.”

He went still for a second before tentatively wrapping his arms around your middle. “I missed you, too.” He let out a breath, the tension leaving his body as his shoulders sagged. “Don’t worry, I’m here. I’m back now.”

You rested your head on his shoulder and closed your eyes, clinging to him like your life depended on it. You didn’t want to ever let him go again.

You rummaged through the little cabinet in the corner of your room that held what little belongings you were allowed in the unit, a towel wrapped around you. You frowned when you couldn’t find your favorite pair of underwear, though you didn’t think much of it. Things tended to get misplaced when the nurses did the laundry all the time.

You huffed and grabbed for a pair blindly. You knew it was stupid to be upset over something so miniscule, but when you were required to wear a hospital gown and pants the unit provided for you everyday, getting to pick what underwear you wore each day gave you a little bit of freedom back.

Once you were dressed, you walked out into the rec room. You felt ten times lighter when you saw Steven sitting on the sofa by the TV like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders. You skipped over to him.

“‘Ello, governor,” you mimicked his accent as you plopped down on the cushion next to him. “What do you feel like doing today? Maybe some coloring, round up the others to play some Golf? Or do you just wanna zone out and watch TV all day?”

He didn’t respond, too busy trying to stare a hole into something over your shoulder. You cocked your head at him before glancing behind you to see a nurse rolling out one of the patients into the rec room.

“Oh, him? That’s just Arthur Harrow.” You folded your arms over the back of the sofa and shrugged. “You haven’t seen him before because he hardly ever leaves his room, and when he does, he’s usually out of it.”

When he didn’t respond, you looked back at him and froze. His eyes were rolled back into his head, and his body was trembling all over, like he was convulsing or having a seizure. You were about to call a nurse over when he stopped and blinked, his eyes returning to normal.

His gaze fixed on you, and you felt paralyzed. His brows were drawn together, and the features of his face were set into a stern expression. His lips were pressed together in a taut line. You knew in an instant that this wasn’t Steven you were looking at any longer.

“Marc?” you asked tentatively.

He said your name, his voice grim. “You have to listen to me very carefully. I need to get out of here.”

“Marc, I know this must be confusing for you,” you spoke in an even, calm tone, mirroring the way the nurses had talked to you many times before. “But you’re safe. You’re in a psych unit. You checked yourself in at the emergency room, don’t you remember?”

A crease formed between his brows as they knitted together. “That wasn’t me.” He shook his head.

It was your turn to look confused. If he couldn’t remember coming here, and Steven couldn’t either, then who did?

“You’re not listening to me.” He latched onto your wrist, his fingers digging into your skin. “Something very bad is going to happen if I stay here.”

Alarm bells rang in your head, and your muscles locked into place. “Marc, you’re hurting me,” you whispered, gritting your teeth.

“Do you hear me?” He shook your wrist, baring his teeth. An errant curl fell down his forehead. “I need to get out of here before something bad happens!”

You glanced over at where the nurses sat across the room. They were looking over at you, taking notice something was wrong, and started to stand. “Marc, you need to calm down or you’re going to get locked away again,” you hissed. You couldn’t handle even a few more days without seeing Steven again.

“You’re not safe.” His voice rose in panic. “He’s going to hurt you.”

Your lashes fluttered. “What?” He wasn’t scared of you, but for you? “Who’s going to hurt me? Is it Steven?”

Before he could answer, two of the nurses were on him. “Too much excitement for the day, huh, Marc?” one of them cooed in a sweet tone.

They each grabbed him by the armpits and hoisted him up, escorting him towards the hall. “Why don’t you take some time and rest in your room, all right?”

“Stay away!” Marc shouted after you as he dug his heels into the ground, his voice bouncing off of the walls. “Stay away!”

They dragged him out of sight. You stayed where you were, the sudden silence that had fallen over the room making the tension even more palpable.

He once again disappeared for a couple days, and when he returned, he was the same old Steven you knew well. You didn’t mention the encounter you had with Marc. You figured there was no point talking in circles with him. But you never could quite get Marc’s words out of your head.

You and Steven were the only ones still awake in the rec room. The TV had long been switched off, and the nurses were gone for the moment, most likely trading off shifts.

“What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get out?” you asked him, curled up in the recliner and hugging your knees to your chest.

He pursed his lips in thought. “I’m going to look up at the sky,” he said, his voice almost reverent with awe. “That’s what I miss the most about being in here: being able to look up at the night sky and see all the stars forming constellations that were there long before us and will be there long after us, too. Reminds me that in the grand scheme of things, we’re quite insignificant.”

You snorted. “Yeah, that’s real uplifting.”

He rolled his eyes. “I mean that compared to the billions of years the earth has rotated around the sun, our lifespans are like a blip in comparison.” His face was tilted up like he could see the stars through the ceiling. “So we shouldn’t waste time worrying about the little things and make the most of it we can.”

You rested your head on the back of the chair and admired his profile. The longer you’d known Steven, the more you started to look past the under eye bags and appreciate just how disarmingly attractive he really was: the strong curve of his nose, the sharp line of his jaw, his long lashes brushing against his cheekbones, the crinkle by his eyes when he smiled. How thick and soft his dark curls looked, just tempting you to reach out and run a hand through them–

Your runaway train of thought was cut off when he turned to look at you. You sat up, hoping he hadn’t noticed you ogling him like a freak. “What about you?” he asked. “What’s the first thing you’ll do when you get out?”

You cast your gaze down to the floor. You were finally confronted with the sad truth, and you still couldn’t stare it in the face. “It’s not really a matter of ‘when,’ moreso an ‘if.’”

His brows drew together. “What do you mean?”

“There’s no point in me going out there when I’ll just end up right back here.” You blinked away the tears that welled in your eyes. “I don’t think I’m meant for the real world, Steven.”

He started to rise from his chair. “Hey, don’t say that.” He scooted closer to you. “Don’t talk about my best friend like that. You’re the most amazing girl I’ve ever met.”

You wheezed a laugh, a tear dripping down your cheek. You went still when he cupped your face in his hand, gently brushing away the tear with his thumb. You couldn’t help but lean into his warm palm like a cat nuzzling his skin.

He dipped his head to stare directly into your eyes. “You’re going to get out of here, okay? I promise you will. And when you do, you’ll have me by your side.” The corners of his lips tilted into a small, fond smile. “I’m not leaving here without you.”

Your heart leapt unevenly in your chest. You thought back to what he said earlier, about making the most of what little time you had on this speck of dust hurtling through the infinite abyss of the universe. If that was the case, there’d been something you’d wanted to do for a long time, and you didn’t think you could hold yourself back any longer.

All it took was for you to slightly lean forward to close the space between your lips. Your nose bumped against his, and your teeth clacked together, but you made the most of the clumsy, fumbling kiss that you could. He froze against you, and when he didn’t ease up, you pulled away.

“I’m sorry,” you murmured. You could already feel your skin heating up in embarrassment and started to shrink in on yourself. “I just thought–”

Before you could finish your sentence, his other hand came up to frame your face, and his lips crashed against yours. This time, the kiss was like something out of a novel or like what you’d seen in the movies, passionate, sparks going off and fireworks erupting. All the cliches and interchangeable love songs had been right.

You broke away at the same time, both out of breath. Your gaze flickered down to his lips to see they were swollen, a lovely shade of red.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered, his voice soft like he was afraid speaking any louder would disrupt the peace that enveloped you both like a warm blanket. “I wanted to do that for a long time, too.”

It was like he could read your mind. He caressed your cheek, and you melted into a malleable ball of putty in his hands. You sighed and closed your eyes, a dopey smile on your lips.

The bubble that had encapsulated you both popped when someone cleared their throat behind you. You pulled away from each other in an instant and turned your heads to see a nurse looming over you.

“Time for bed,” he grunted and didn’t say anything more.

You both crept down the hall like schoolkids who had managed to get away with something naughty, giggling to yourselves. You stopped in front of the door to your room, and he paused in front of his a couple doors down from you.

“Good night.” You bit back a smile. You wanted to kiss him again, but knew better than to risk it. The nurses would be on their rounds soon.

He leaned back against the door to his room. “Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.”

You raised a brow. “Did you just quote Shakespeare to me?” You shook your head. “Wow, you really are a nerd.”

You pushed through your door without saying anything else.

You slept peacefully that night for the first time in ages.

Finally, your unconscious state wasn’t plagued by nightmares, by shadow creatures chasing after you while your legs felt like lead. Instead, you dreamed about laying in a wide open field with Steven while staring up at the night sky. He would point out all the different constellations to you, rambling about each one at length, while you’d be preoccupied looking at him like he was the one who hung the stars in the sky. You’d much rather stare into his eyes than at the night for hours at a time any day.

When you woke, your eyes fluttered open, and you stretched your limbs with a groan. Remnants of your dream started to come back to you, and you grinned like an idiot, hiding your face in your pillow. It was still dark in your room, and you half-rose to glance over at the alarm clock on the bedside table to see it was still the middle of the night.

You huffed, though you supposed you should still be grateful. You couldn’t remember the last time you got that many hours of sleep in a row. Maybe kissing Steven wasn’t the cure-all to everything right away. Or maybe you’d have to go farther with him next time to get even more shut eye…

Before your thoughts could veer off into dangerous territory, the skin on the back of your neck rose to stand on end, and you shivered despite the covers on top of you. You looked over at the door, and sure enough, you could see a shadowed face peeking through the window into your room.

You were about to shrug and write it off as one of the nurses checking in on you when the face’s features struck you as odd. Your blood ran cold through your veins when you realized who you were looking at.

It was Marc. At least, you thought it was him. The lines of his face were too stern and the pitch of his eyes too dark to be indicative of Steven.

You managed to break from the paralyzed trance he caught you in and reached up for the light switch on the wall. You flipped it, flooding the room with light that had you wincing. You looked back at the door, but the little, square window was empty, showing nothing but the blank wall in the hallway.

He was gone.

The next day, you ran over to Steven’s room first thing after you dressed. His door was wide open, though when you scanned inside, he was nowhere to be found. You heard the telltale sound of running water from the adjoining bathroom and deduced that he was in the shower.

You took the open door as an invitation to come in and took a seat on his bed, deciding to wait for him. You tapped your foot against the floor as you smoothed your hands over the covers. His bed was perfectly made, and you couldn’t help but chuckle to yourself. You imagined him tucking in the sheets to your shared bed when he got up in the morning while you grumbled, pulling the comforter closer around you.

Your cheeks burned as you thought of how many times you’d imagined messing up his bed with him. Now that your feelings were out in the open, would that be a possibility? It’d be tricky with the nurses doing their rounds, though you supposed an hour was enough time to sneak in at least a little bit of fun.

You were drawn from your salacious thoughts when you looked down to see something wedged between the mattress and the bed frame. You furrowed your brow at the piece of fabric. Normally, you would’ve minded your business, but the pattern looked oddly familiar…

You yanked it out from where it was stuck and held it out in front of you. A pit formed in your stomach when your sneaking suspicion was confirmed: it was the pair of underwear you’d lost a couple weeks ago.

You blinked as all the blood drained from your face. You pinched them on both sides between your thumb and your forefinger. You looked inside to see that they weren’t clean. In fact, there was a dried substance crusted over the crotch.

You flung your underwear across the room. At the same time, the door to the bathroom flung open, and your underwear smacked the bare chest of a fresh out of the shower Steven before falling to the floor.

You both stared at each other for a moment, neither one of you daring to speak. You were too consumed by your recent discovery to be fazed by the fact that he had nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist.

He said your name, his hair straight and plastered to his face like a wet rat. “What are you doing in my room?”

You ignored him. “What’s that?” You pointed to the underwear on the floor.

He looked at you in bewilderment. “How the bloody hell am I supposed to know?”

“Well, I found them in your room tucked into the side of your bed.” You crossed your arms over your chest.

“I didn’t put them there, I swear.” He stumbled over his words as he spoke. “It must’ve been Marc.”

“Marc, huh?” You clenched your jaw. “I’m guessing it was also Marc who was peeping at me last night?”

His brows drew together, and his upper lip curled in confusion. “What?”

“I woke up last night and saw you staring at me through the window.” You’d thought maybe you were still dreaming when it happened, but now you knew it had very much been real. “Originally I thought it was Marc, but now I’m not so sure…”

“What are you implying?” he asked.

“I talked to Marc a couple weeks ago, before you were secluded again,” you said.

His mouth fell open. He looked hurt. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t think it was important at the time, but now that I know you might be creeping on me…”

“I am not creeping on you!” he interrupted.

“He told me I wasn’t safe and that ‘he’ was going to hurt me.” You stared him dead in the eye. “Who else could that be referring to, Steven?”

“Why are you taking his word over mine?” he fired back. “You don’t even know him!”

You stood up. “Why don’t I talk to Marc then and get this all sorted out?”

He looked disgusted. “That’s not how it works. You can’t just summon one of us like a dog waiting at your beck and call.”

“Well, that’s very convenient for you to blame everything on someone who can’t even defend himself,” you spat. “It must be nice to never have to take accountability for your actions.”

He stumbled back a step, like your words had slapped him in the face. You softened a little bit at his pained expression, but your blood was boiling hot in your veins with fear and anger and embarrassment, urging you to keep going.

“Is everything alright in here?”

You both looked over to see a nurse hovering in the doorway, her eyes flitting back and forth between the two of you.

You stepped away from Steven. “Everything’s fine. We’re finished here.” You looked back at him, sneering, “If you see Marc, tell him he got what he wanted.”

You stomped towards the hall. You paused in the doorway and glanced back at him over your shoulder. “Oh, and you can keep those by the way.” You gestured to the underwear still on the floor by his feet. “They’re ruined now.”

And then you left without turning back.

Today was the day Steven was finally going home.

You stood in the corner of the rec room, watching him. He sat at one of the tables near the double doors, his leg bouncing up and down impatiently. It was the first time you’d ever seen him out of a hospital gown, and you didn’t even get to tell him how adorable he looked in his jacket and flat cap. You wondered if those were the clothes he’d worn when he checked in all those many months ago.

You were surprised at how quickly he managed to recover. It only took him a couple days to be discharged after his fight with you. You wondered if you’d been what was holding him back all along, and now he was doing better without you.

Your whole body ached with guilt over what you’d said. You wished you could take it all back, to suck up all the venom you had spewed so easily. You wished you’d heard him out and hadn’t been blinded by rage. Maybe you’d reacted too quickly. Maybe it’d all been a misunderstanding.

But it was too late. He was leaving now.

You watched as a nurse came over to him and told him something that made him stand up. He started towards the double doors, and your heart pounded in your chest. Before you knew what you were doing, your feet carried you over to him.

“Steven!” you called out. “Wait!”

He stopped right as his hand rested on the double doors. He turned around, facing you with a blank, unreadable expression. You stood on the other side of the white line on the ground separating you, shifting your weight from foot to foot and toying with your fingers.

You hadn’t even thought of what to say before you went storming after him. All the things you’d wanted to say to him for weeks rested on the tip of your tongue, just waiting to spill out: I didn’t mean what I said. I miss you. Please don’t go. I love you.

But there was one thing above all the rest that you wanted to say to him more than anything.

“Steven, I’m…” Your voice sounded impossibly small. “I’m sorry.”

He stared at you, long and hard for a moment. You could feel your pulse throb in your wrists as you waited anxiously for his response.

“I have to go.” There was something off about his voice. It didn’t hit your ears right. “My ride’s here.”

Then, he turned and pushed through the double doors without looking back.

You stood there, watching the doors swing on their hinges while your heart cracked in two in your chest. You swallowed down everything else you desperately wanted to tell him, and all your unspoken words sank in your gut like a stone.

You went back to life before you met Steven.

After living in color for so long, it felt strange to see in black and white again. You withdrew into yourself, not going to groups, eating meals in your room, skipping out on games of Golf with the other patients. You were no longer content with the meager friends you’d make who’d leave in a couple of days. You wanted him.

You’d had hope that maybe there was a chance you’d leave and stay gone once, but now you were sure you were never getting out.

You were lying on your side, staring at the blank wall in your room. You were thinking about the time Steven tried to teach you French (which you had failed at miserably, but you really just wanted to hear him speak the language of love) when you noticed how eerily silent it was. In the middle of the day, there was always some noise in the unit, but now it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

Footsteps cut through the quiet drawing closer to your room. You twisted around to watch as a figure passed by. You caught a glimpse of them through the window in the door, their face shadowed by the flat cap low on their head.

Your heart rate spiked. It couldn’t be…

You threw the covers off of you and jumped out of bed in a hurry. You peeked your head out of the room just in time to see him turn the corner. You slipped down the hall, following in his tracks. You wondered if you were seeing things, if you’d finally truly lost it. Only one way to find out…

You rounded the corner and noticed the door to Arthur’s room was open. You furrowed your brow as you crept forward. You peered into the room and saw the figure with his back to you, his broad shoulders straining against the fabric of his jacket as he hunched over.

“Steven?” you asked, hopeful. Had he come back for you like he promised?

The man stood up straight and whirled around to face you. Your face fell. The man you were looking at had Steven’s face, but his eyes were cold and dark without the usual twinkle in them. They made goosebumps rise on your arms.

You stumbled back a step. “You’re not Steven.” And judging by the harsh, grim lines of his features, he wasn’t Marc, either.

He swayed to the side and something behind him caught your eye. Arthur was sprawled out on his bed with his mouth open in a silent scream, his wide eyes boring into you. A red stain bloomed in the middle of his white hospital gown.

He was dead.

The man smiled. “Allí estás, querida.” He took a step towards you. “Esperaba que te presentaras.”

That’s when you noticed the gun he was gripping in his gloved hand.

You opened your mouth to scream, but he was on you in a second, clamping a gloved hand over your mouth. He wrapped an arm around your waist and pulled you back flush against his solid chest. “Silencio,” he hissed in your ear.

You writhed against him, kicking your legs, but his hold on you remained strong. Your screams came out muffled against his hand. He dragged you down the halls like you weighed no more than a feather, even as you struggled. You tried to dig your heels into the ground, but that did little to deter him.

As he carried you, you noticed the carnage he’d left in his wake: patients and nurses alike, some you’d known for months, slumped over on the floor and painted scarlet. You were oddly enough thankful for his hand over your mouth as you gagged, your stomach contracting in on itself.

He pushed through a door and yanked you outside. You squinted against the harsh light assaulting your eyes to see you were behind the hospital. You sucked in a breath of fresh air through his hand covering your nose and mouth. You had no idea your first time outside in months would be like this.

He pulled you over to a white limousine that was parked behind the hospital. He wrenched open the door and threw you inside. You landed on the plush seats, and he slid in after you, closing the door behind him and shutting out the light behind the tinted windows.

You instinctively reached for the door handle, but before your fingers made contact, you heard the lock click into place. That didn’t stop you from tugging on it anyway. “Let me out!” you yelled, slapping your palms against the glass. “Help! Somebody, please!”

He sneered as he grabbed hold of the back of your hospital gown, ripping you away from the door. His other hand holding the gun came up and brought it down on you, smacking you clear across the face. Your head fell to the side, your cheek already blazing. The inside of your mouth was cut from where metal had struck against teeth, the copper taste of blood flooding your mouth.

You clutched the side of your face, your cheek throbbing under your palm. Your skin stung and was already starting to swell. You backed away from him and pressed yourself against the other side of the limo, as far away from him as you could get in the confined space.

“Are you going to kill me?” you asked, your voice barely louder than a whimper.

He chuckled, and the sound made a chill run down your spine. “Si quisiera matarte, ya estarías muerta.”

You wrinkled your brow. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “How’s this, princesa? Better for you?” he asked in a thick hispanic accent.

You swallowed hard around the lump in your throat. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Jake Lockley.” He tilted his head, eyes trailing over you in a way that made your skin crawl. “I’ve been waiting to finally meet you for a long time, querida. It’s a shame you had to behave the way you did.”

You narrowed your eyes at him. “You kidnapped me.”

“I could’ve done way worse. You saw what I did to your little amigos back there.” His lips split open into a grin. “You should be thanking me right now.”

You gritted your teeth, thinking about the corpses littering the hallways of the unit at this very moment. “Why did you kill them?”

“I didn’t want to,” he said, though he didn’t sound apologetic in the slightest, “but they were in the way of my target.”

You furrowed your brow. Target? The image of him hunched over Arthur’s dead body covered in blood flashed unbidden in your mind, and you had to keep from retching again. He’d been after Arthur the entire time.

“Why?” you asked. Was he some kind of hitman or something? “Why did you kill him?”

He leaned back in his seat, his lips tilted into a lopsided smirk. “That’s for reasons far beyond your understanding.”

“Then why didn’t you kill me?” you snapped. “Or is that also too far beyond my understanding?”

He wasn’t fazed by your temper. In fact, he seemed impressed by it. “You got quite the mouth on you, querida.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “That’s one of the things that drew me to you.”

There was an intensity in his eyes, an almost sort of fondness he held for you. Your eyes went wide. The underwear. Marc’s warnings. The face in the window. They’d been him this entire time.

Steven was right, and you had called him a liar to his face.

“I’ve been watching you for a long time,” Jake continued. “I was worried you’d become a distraction that’d I’d have to get rid of, but that was before you proved yourself useful to me.”

You curled your upper lip. “Useful?”

“You knew all the exits and entrances to the building, when the nurses would be on rounds and change shifts, all the blind spots on the security cameras.” He spread his arms wide. “I have to hand it to you. If it weren’t for you, I don’t think I’d have been able to pull it off.”

The world started to spin around you. You’d known everything there was about the unit and told it all to him so freely. He’d taken advantage of the knowledge you’d acclimated after being there for so long and your loneliness. You’d practically served Arthur to him on a silver platter.

“No…” you muttered under your breath. You shook your head, your breath accelerating to the point where you were nearly hyperventilating. “No…”

“Think of it this way: without you, a lot of more people would’ve potentially died.” He shrugged nonchalantly, like he was discussing the pros and cons of buying a new car. “Consider the fact that I’m sparing your life as my repayment for your help.”

You squared your jaw. “Thank you,” you spat.

He hummed, his eyes sliding over you. “I can think of some other ways you can show your appreciation.”

He reached forward and cupped your face in his gloved hand, stroking your skin with his fingers. Your muscles locked into place, your pulse thrumming at the pace of a hummingbird’s wings. You tried to shirk him off, but he tightened his grip until he was squishing your face, the leather of his gloves painfully digging into your skin.

“Steven,” you tried to say, but it came out garbled. “Steven, I know you’re in there. Don’t let him hurt me.”

“He already told you that’s not how this works, remember?” He leered at you. “But don’t worry. He’ll be watching everything I do to you.”

You were thankful he was holding your chin so tight, stifling the sob that threatened to come out of you.

He tilted your head this way and that like you were a pet he was appraising. “I meant it when I said you have quite the mouth.” His tone was menacing. “But I think I have a better use for it.”

He pinched your cheeks closer together, forcing your lips apart. “Open.” He pushed a gloved finger into your mouth.

A fire burned in your eyes as you prepared to bite down. He must’ve felt your jaw tense, because he started tutting. “I wouldn’t recommend that.”

You felt the metal silencer on the gun in his hand press against the side of your head, and your body went stiff. “I’d hate to blow your pretty brains out all over the inside of this limo.” He smirked. “It just got cleaned.”

He slipped another finger into your mouth, parting your lips even further. He thrust them in and out, feeling around the wet cavern of your mouth. His fingers were so thick, they filled the entirety of your mouth, pressing down on your tongue and pushing against the roof of your mouth.

You squeezed your eyes shut, hot tears rolling down your cheeks. You didn’t want to see his face, the same face you’d admired and adored for so long, twisted into something so cruel and ruthless and menacing.

“Open your eyes,” he hissed, pressing the gun harder against your head. “Look at me.”

Your eyes snapped open, staring up into his unforgiving ones. He pulled his fingers out of your mouth, the leather shiny and glistening. He shifted his grip on your chin, and your saliva felt cold and tacky against your skin.

“I wanted to see you like this from the first day I saw you.” His voice was low. “On your knees for me like the putita you are.”

His hand shifted on the gun, and then he was pushing it into your mouth. Your eyes nearly popped out of your skull, and you made a noise of defiance, pushing against his knees. He didn’t ease up, sliding it further into your mouth. You stilled when it hit your uvula, your throat constricting painfully around the metal.

The gun retreated, and you sagged in his grip a little bit, exasperated. But then he thrust it all the way back into your mouth, forcing you to gag again. “Come on, putita. Treat it like a cock,” he taunted you. “You know how to suck cock, don’t you?”

You looked at where his finger hovered over the trigger and knew what he would do if you didn’t comply. You hollowed your cheeks and bobbed your head in time with his thrusts despite the way you trembled in his grip. Your mouth squelched each time the gun sank to its limit.

“That’s it, cariño,” he purred. He let go of his grip on your chin to pet the top of your head condescendingly. “Isn’t it so much better when you’re a good girl for me?”

The gun was massive, thicker than his fingers and even longer due to the silencer almost doubling its length. And he insisted you took all of it, shoving it down your throat. Your jaw ached from how wide it was pried apart, and your dry lips cracked around where the gun slid into your mouth. Your tears mixed with where your drool collected on your chin, dripping onto your lap below.

He pulled the gun out with an impatient growl. You sputtered, coughing for air. Your lips were swollen and sore from all the abuse they’d already suffered.

“Turn around,” he demanded.

You froze, fear seeping deep into your marrow. You stared up at him with wide, unblinking eyes like a deer caught in headlights.

“Turn around,” he repeated, gritting his teeth. “Now.”

You still didn’t move. He got fed up and grabbed you by the hair. You cried out as he yanked on your scalp, forcing you to turn around. He pushed on your head, and you crumpled to your hands and knees in front of him.

Alarm bells went off in your head when you heard the jingle of his belt behind you. “I thought you were done with this.” He undid the buckle lightning fast, tugging it loose through the loops on his pants and whipping it off. “What happened to my good girl?”

“Please, don’t,” you croaked, your voice hoarse. “I’ll do anything, but not this.” Not like this.

“Don’t pretend you don’t want this, querida,” he sneered, pushing up your hospital gown. “You may not want me, but I know you’ve wanted this body for a long time. I saw the way you looked at Steven.”

You wailed as he pulled down your pants, your underwear going with it. He leaned down and pressed his nose against your folds, inhaling deeply. Your body tensed, your face flushing with embarrassment.

“I love your scent.” He sighed dreamily. “I used to jerk my cock late at night, smelling your panties, but the real thing is even better.”

He retracted from you, and you went lax under him until you felt him position himself at your entrance. “I can’t wait to get inside you any longer.”

Panic flared in you. “Wait–” you started to beg but were cut off as he pushed into you.

You wheezed, jolting forward as he thrusted into you to the hilt. You fell to your elbows, arching your spine as his grip on your hair kept your head up. Each time he thrust into you hard, it felt like a punch to the gut. His hold on your hair was so tight, you thought he would rip the strands straight from your scalp.

You tried to scramble away from him until you felt the gun pressed against the back of your head. “Don’t test my patience, putita,” he grunted.

You went still and squeezed your eyes shut, your chin wobbling as you held back sobs. Even without the gun, you knew you’d be helpless against him. He could overpower you easily. At least now you weren’t forced to look at his face anymore.

“Fuck, you’re so wet,” he groaned. Sure enough, there was a telltale squelch as he fucked into you, every ridge and vein of him sliding against your sensitive walls. “Is this all for me?”

You yelped as he sped up the pace, the clap of flesh against flesh filling the interior of the limo. He let go of his grip on your hair, and your head fell forward against the seat. He brought his hand down on your ass hard, eliciting a squeak from you. You were sure you’d have an imprint of his glove on your cheek for days afterward.

“Do you think Steven could fuck you this good, huh?” He leaned forward to growl in your ear, his hand slipping down to rub at your clit. “‘Cause I don’t think he’d last more than thirty seconds in this warm, tight pussy.”

You bucked against him involuntarily as he rubbed light, fast circles over your clit, the fingers of his gloved hand sticky with your spit brushing against the bundle of nerves just right. Your vision went white as pleasure spread across your whole body. You clawed at the leather of the seats, leaving scratch marks as you convulsed around him.

“Mmm, yeah, that’s it.” His voice was husky as he didn’t let up on your clit. “Come for me, putita.”

You mewled from the oversensitivity as you came down from your high. The guilt and shame set in, heavy like a stone in your gut, and you felt sick to your stomach getting off on this man forcing himself on you.

“Do you think Marc could make you come that hard?” He pressed the gun harder into your head until it dug into your scalp. “‘Cause I think he would finish before he could get to feel you squeeze his cock like that.”

He hammered into you at a frantic, rapid pace. He shoved your head into the cushions until you couldn’t suck in a full breath of air. You scrambled, trying to push yourself up with your hands pressed against the seat, but his hold on you didn’t budge an inch. Your screams came out muffled, and your lungs started to burn from lack of oxygen.

“Fuck, just like that.” His voice started to rise in pitch, and his thrusts lost rhythm. “You’re gonna make me come, putita. I’m gonna fill you up, have you dripping with me for days.”

You were too out of it to try to protest. Your head swam as you felt him thrust into you as deep as he could. He stilled as he came inside of you, flooding your insides with his hot seed.

He pulled out of you and flipped you over. You gasped for air, greedily sucking in sharp intakes of breath. The fuzzy, gray dots clouding your vision started to clear just as his lips crashed into yours, stealing what little breath you’d manage to inhale. He forced his tongue into your mouth and ran it along the cut on the inside of your cheek, making it sting all over again.

He pulled away from you and licked his lips, painting them red with your blood. You slumped back against the seat, overcome with exhaustion. He looked down at where his come mixed with your juices trickled out of your abused hole, pooling on the leather cushions beneath you.

“Khonshu is not gonna like that,” he muttered to himself. He took off his hat to rake a hand through his sweaty locks before putting it back on. “He’s not gonna like where I’m taking you either.”

He rose, ducking his head as he climbed into the front seat. You mustered enough strength to lift your head. “Where are you taking me?” you rasped.

You caught his dark gaze in the rearview mirror. He twisted around in his seat to look at you over his shoulder, raising the gun still clutched in his hand as a reminder of his power over you. (Not that he needed to. You were too weak to fight him now, anyway.)

“You’re coming with me.” His lips parted in a smirk. “Steven said he wouldn’t leave without you, and I intend to make good on that promise.”

Translations:

Querida - Darling

Cariño - Sweetheart

Princesa - Princess

Putita - Little bitch/slut

Silencio - Silence

Amigos - Friends

“Allí estás. Esperaba que te presentaras.” - “There you are. I was hoping you would show up.”

“Si quisiera matarte, ya estarías muerta.” - “If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already.”

#dark!fic #moon knight #marvel #steven grant #steven grant x reader #marc spector #marc spector x reader #jake lockley #jake lockley x reader #oscar isaac #steven grant x you #marc spector x you #jake lockley x you #steven grant x y/n #marc spector x y/n #jake lockley x y/n #fanfiction #one shot

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cawdra · 3 months

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Good question, @avvielalame-blog

GATHER 'ROUND, FOR I HAVE A STORY TO TELL ABOUT MY WEIRD HOSPITAL OPIOID TRIP THAT MADE ME HALLUCINATE NEW GOOD OMENS EPISODES:

Last year I went to the hospital. It was some cyst (idk the medical lingo), and it was painful af. They gave me some sort of strong opioid (again, no idea what the medical lingo is, but I think it was Buprensomethingsomething). Mind you, I was on antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds, but I hadn't taken them for almost a week, cuz I couldn't get out of my bed the whole time (before I eventually went to the hospital). I told them I was off that medication, and because the prescription is pretty old, they gave me the painkillers. TURNS OUT THE FUCKING MEDS WERE NOT OUT OF MY SYSTEM YET!!! So uhhh... yeah.

(If you don't know, mixing these two things can be very dangerous because they can raise dopamine levels too high or something, which is INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS!!! I'm a pretty large person, so this didn't hit me that hard (and also I was off the meds for longer than 24 hours), but if I was slightly less of a fatass and more of a responsible medicine taker, I might have actually been comatosed.)

Anyway, I was riding high that night. I didn't have anything else to do, so after seeing a good omens edit, my first thought was, "That seems gay. I'm in." So I turned on Prime and watched it all in one night. It's not like I was going to sleep in a ward full of screaming people anyway, so might as well make the most of it. The nurses told me to sleep, but I told them I wasn't sleepy, so they just gave me my antibiotics and, whatever else, took my temp and walked out. Did they care about the gay shit I was watching on my phone? No, they've seen worse.

Anyway, I watched the show, ugly cried for like an hour (harder than I did from the cyst that was torturing me for about a week), and then went to sleep at around 2 pm. When I woke up, I, as a responsible queer, decided to rant about it to my friends. After telling them all those things, one of my friends (who actually watched the show with his sister) said, "Are you sure the anesthesia didn't scramble your brain, cuz none of that happened lol."

When I tell you I was DEVISTATED!!! Literally a "You... you serious?" moment. Cried almost as much as I did at the ending.

Also, if you want to know: I had a dream about how the Ineffable Husbands teamed up with some nun (who was as much of a nun as she was a saint - only on a technicality) and they made her carry the Second Coming, which eventually got her kicked off the nunnery of whatever cuz 'These days, if you get pregnant as a nun, you won't be called ‘The Virgin Sarah’ or ‘The Virgin Linda’. You will be called ‘a common whore’. So much for being a virgin.' (Quote from my fanfic (and the weird opioid trip).

I don't know what the rest of the dream was because Mr. Party Pooper (aka my friend JK Juno ily (^з^)-☆) cut me off because I was talking nonsense.

Long story short, the painkillers got out of my system, I took my meds, renewed the prescription, and went on my still-on-going recovery journey.

Did I suffer two heartbreaks in less than 12 hours? Yes. Were they worth it? Eh. I mean, it inspired my fanfic, but wasn't THAT worth it. Did I enjoy my trip? No, I threw up, had diarrhea, and then constipation for two weeks.

I still get an awful surprise when I rewatch Good Omens for a specific scene, only to find out AGAIN that I was just hallucinating.

Moral of the story - don't do drugs and be honest with your doctors and nurses cuz you might actually die.

Anyways, TOODLES!!1!!111!!!

~ CAwdra

#good omens #aziraphale #crowley #good omens 2 #good omens 3 #good omens season 2 #ineffable divorce #ineffable husbands #neil gaiman

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bonesandthebees · 8 months

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Sorry to ask this right now but how do you manage your anxiety? iirc you've mentioned it before that you get anxiety and mines been terrible recently and I can't find anything that helps it

oh boy yeah I struggle with anxiety in a lot of different ways. for the most part, my anxiety manifests more physically than mentally, so the way I cope reflects that

when I'm having a big anxiety spike about something, I try to remember how my therapist described it which is that my body thinks i'm in danger so it goes into fight or flight. even if mentally I'm doing fine, my heart might be pounding and I might feel sick for no good reason, so I try to do things that'll force my body to calm down and remind it that it's safe.

breathing exercises are great for this. I use the 'breathe in for 4 seconds and out for 8' method every night when I'm going to sleep (although I think technically you're supposed to do breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, and breathe out for 8 but I almost never do the holding part unless I'm REALLY anxious). an old therapist of mine once explained that limiting your oxygen intake forces your heart rate to slow down, which in turn will force your body to shut down a fight or flight response. it doesn't always work, but it helps a lot and the more you do it the better it works

also if it gets really bad I try to use grounding techniques. I do the 'name 5 things you can see, 4 things you can feel, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste' exercise if it's really bad.

and then I also find just talking to myself works. it doesn't have to be out loud, but strangely enough it helps more I think? sometimes I'll just mutter to myself "I'm safe right now. I'm physically safe. there's no danger around me. I'm okay. nothing's wrong" and that can help remind my body that I'm not actually in a fight or flight situation. I always feel dumb doing it especially if i know logically I'm perfectly safe, but my body and my brain don't always match up

working things out in your head in general just helps. asking yourself "why am I feeling anxious? what's the worst thing that could happen right now? how would I deal with it if it did?" tends to help with social anxiety stuff. like, how bad could it really be? most of the time, it's not as bad as your brain is blowing it up to be.

I hope that helps, but I'm by no means an expert. I also just have anti anxiety meds I take as needed if it gets really bad to the point where I can't cope with it on my own, so if all else fails I recommend looking into those. mine are very light meds (I think they're technically allergy meds. like a prescription version of benadryl that doesn't make super groggy) so while they still weigh me down a bit mentally, it's not super intense and it helps a LOT when my anxiety is bad

best of luck!

#ask #anon

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ms-hells-bells · 1 year

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even with the good aspects, it's hard not to watch extraordinary attorney woo without feeling a lot of bitterness and resentment. her actions are how i acted as a kid. because that's clearly what the writer looked at, children's symptoms, because there is so little information on adult autism. but for women, most of those symptoms get beaten and bullied out of us, we mask in order to get through life. no lack of self awareness about our abnormal actions and words, we don't go through life as if we don't know when we do something strange, we don't get to make it to adulthood with our childhood symptoms, and we cope with introversion and often anti depressants/anti anxiety meds. you don't get to go through high school, university, law school, and be a full time attorney, without either masking or an extreme amount of leeway and aid, which no country in the world gives enough of right now. people are in love with cute, charming little wooyoung because they can see her antics for an hour at a time, and turn things off whenever they want, but then they treat actual autistics like inconveniences, willful antagonists, inspiration porn, or unlikeable, lazy people making excuses.

many other autistics see her positively, and that's fine, but with how my life went, how my life is, how it's all so completely shaped by autism, and it's pretty miserable on the whole, it just makes me tired. maybe jealous of an impossible life. i'd trade extra weirdness for enough mental energy to hold down studies and a full time job in a heartbeat, especially when one seems to life in a world where most people simply just ignore the fact she has autism whenever the plot isn't using it.

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sorryiwasasleep · 8 months

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Personal rant

I started my final year of schooling last week and I’ve already missed 9 out of 11 classes so far. I’m burning up all my unexcused absences and I can’t even bring myself to care at all because I don’t want to be in this program getting this degree and I feel incredibly trapped and overwhelmed. I can’t make myself do the readings. I can’t make myself go to class. I can’t make myself care. I can’t seem to do anything at all but lay in bed. I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this for another year. Fuck, I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this even just next week when I no longer can miss class without an excusal. And I can’t drop out anymore cause the deadline for full reimbursement passed, but also that was never a real option for me anyway cause dropping out would also likely mean moving home and that’s just as bad for my brain. Even right now I should be doing my readings for my class that’s at 3:30, but instead I’m typing this. Because I’m sad and I don’t care. But because I didn’t do the readings? I feel like I can’t go to class, so I WON’T which in turn is a problem cause I am using all my skips and I’m missing the first two weeks of class so I’m going to go in SO fucking confused next week probably. Shit shit shit shit fuck.

TW: weight discussion, emetophobia, eating disorder mention (just by name nothing specific), ARFID, depression, anxiety, apathy, mention of American politics

Heavier discussion below

I recently realized (i don’t have a scale in my apt) that I lost about 40 pounds in the span of about 5 months all from a combination of stress/my ADHD medication suppressing my appetite (vyvanse bitch ass doesn’t even work) and stress induced vomited and also vomiting because I treat my body like shit (don’t drink water, cope with unhealthy substances a lil too often, don’t eat anything remotely healthy, barely eat at all anymore if I’m being honest). I knew I’d lost some cause clothes were looser. I thought it was like 10. But no I know how much I weighed in March and it was a full difference of 40 and I know part of this stress and the stress induced vomiting are being caused by school and it’s like… I have another year. Am I just gonna keep wasting away? Something’s gotta give here and I know shit has to change but I have absolutely no drive to actually climb out of the hole I’ve buried myself in. I feel like there’s no point and that even if I crawl out, the world is the same and my family is the same and I’m still in this program and so nothing is actually different anyway. I just wanna let the dirt consume me. I wanna lay in my bed with a sitcom playing mindlessly in the background while I work on my silly little fanfictions until everything just stops except I lay in bed and don’t even do those things but am paralyzed by all the things I should be doing instead that I neglected because I didn’t care and I still don’t care enough to do it, but I feel bad enough to not do anything else either in that time. And I know that’s BAD and that having no motivation for anything is obviously super a ‘ur depression is worse girl’ (hi yea i fucking live inside this stupid head so I already fucking know that. @/my psych and parents). but I keep getting cancelled on or stood up by therapists and my psych has told me three appointments now shit like ‘Well what do you want me to do about?’ (Without even fucking considering something like uhhhhh… idk changing the meds I’m on? Since I’m at the max dose for my anti depressant and I’ve been on it for about half a year and I feel it stagnated because while it seemed to help when I started, now I’m worse? Like, I tell you I feel the worst I’ve ever felt in my entire life and you answer ‘And what do you want me to do?’ YOUR FUCKING JOB? Provide me with my options???? Not be a dick?) And she keeps saying I have to find a therapist because the meds only do so much (I had one but she went on maternity leave in January and then when she came back from it I was too broke to pay every week (which is what my bitch ass brain needs) and then when I wasn’t broke any longer she had ghosted me and she also was my provider for two years and never actually gave me any coping mechanisms so I kinda wanted a new one anyway). The psych did not like when I laughed at her and said “And will you fucking pay for it?” in response the first time she said it even though obviously I know she’s right.

My roommate told me the other day also that I need to get a therapist and that I have to focus my energy into that because she can’t listen to me say the same complaints anymore (she said it nicely, but like I’m crying rn thinking about it and will likely never feel safe to share with her anymore for worry of annoying her.) She also said she doesn’t think I want to help myself. That she wants me to get better and obviously it’s shit what’s happening but that I’m not doing the (what are to her obvious and to me impossible to actually do because of familial enmeshment and financial dependence) things that could maybe make things better. Even though… I AM trying to help myself. Yea it’s not the best I can be doing, but it’s as much as I can fucking manage given my surety that none of this matters and isn’t that worth something? I’ve been looking for a therapist since MAY. They keep standing me up or cancelling or they’re booked or they don’t take my insurance. I had five (5) telehealths where I got stood up. Starting therapy anew is already terrifying but when the person doesn’t show up it just feels like shit. It made me feel like they looked at my paperwork and decided I wasn’t fucked up enough when the reality is yea I held back slightly but that’s because I needed to know the vibes of the place first. That’s not what happened (for at least three appts anyway. The other two ghosted me also after so I never got explanation so maybe it did) but I still felt that way and for someone who already has a lot of problems with imposter syndrome and deep insecurities around being forgotten it really sucked and was incredibly unprofessional of any worker but especially mental health care professionals to do. I have one on Friday. Let’s hope this one doesn’t stand me up 🤞 Also, back to my ungodly amount of rapid weight loss, I did have 40 pounds that could’ve been shed and I am still not what would be consider ‘skinny’ but an average weight, so the worst part of this whole thing is that people are telling me i look GOOD now. Literally it was my MOM. She always implied I’m overweight and need to lose it and pretends like it’s ‘in your best interest honey’ meanwhile I can’t even do the fucking obligations I’m tied to? You think I can fucking do EXTRA? And yea I should use that kickboxing class that I bought, but not to lose weight mother, but because I’m not physically fit in that I cannot go up stairs without getting winded and because I have all the rage in the world (a portion of which goes to her!) and hitting things makes me feel better and it expires soon and was $40 I won’t get back. None of those reasons have to do with my weight, but if I mention I went to that class to her? She’s going to be SO excited on the phone, for all the wrong reasons thinking it’s me trying to get thin, when it’s me trying to get healthy. That is not equivalent to weight loss necessarily, as clearly evidenced here since I lost a shit ton unhealthily. This weekend I got a ‘Do you lose weight? Cause you look great!’ from her. 🫠🙄And i know that people would even more so do that if I do continue on this path of wasting away even though I’m actually unhealthier than I’ve ever been with my eating habits and the weight loss is a result of my depression and anxiety spiraling worse. How about we as a society stop fucking commenting on other peoples weight period full stop. Also it’s SAYING something that I’m the worst ever rn because food and I have always had a weird vibe. I recently learned what ARFID is and I’m fairly confident I’ve had that my entire life and just never had the name for it so that’s certainly something. Anyway idek what the point of this was other than for me to shout into the void because I was sad. If the void wants to shout back and tell me how I’m supposed to function in this life that’d be great cause I didn’t even HIT the state of the world and how that causes half my lack of motivation for anything in this post, but god the American political and legal landscape fill me dread and anxiety and anger and I can never escape them.

TLDR: I’m sad, I can’t bring myself to go to class at all in these first two weeks of classes. I need a therapist but they keep cancelling when I finally get an appointment and find one that accepts my insurance. My psych is kinda bad and my roommate was trying to help but did it in a way that hurt me more. I wanna drop out but can’t and also school is impacting my mental health so severely that I lost an extreme amount of weight in a short amount of time. Got complimented by mom even though I’m literally unhealthy. Separate from that but intertwined, I might have ARFID, possibly for my whole life and I am genuinely SHOCKED it never once was suggested by a medical professional to my parents when I was a child.

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i-love-an-alcoholic · 7 months

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Story of M: How things went to hell, Part 2

CONTENT WARNING: Drug addiction

Antabus was a miracle drug for me in many ways, but it has one major flaw: it only prevents alcohol use. I had conditioned myself to the general feeling of being on something, be it alcohol, weed or other substances and my brain was not ready to give up that. While I had succesfully given up alcohol, I quickly replaced it with excessive weed smoking. After about six months I stopped taking Antabus and began drinking again, although not as much as before.

Remember the troubled guy I was in a "relationship" with? From now on I'll refer to him as Shitty Boyfriend. Our relationship was transactional: I gave him money (he didn't work) and he gave me drugs. At some point I felt like I needed to help him gain some control of his chaotic life, so I gave him money for a psychiatrist. He saw one, and got a prescription for an anti-anxiety medicine (a benzodiazepine) which he quickly became addicted to. The meds did nothing to improve his life: he just took a pill to temporarily feel better about things so he didn't need to actually change anything, and whenever the effects wore off he'd pop another one. He gave pills to me whenever I asked and I would take them with or without alcohol (this is a dangerous combination, don't do it) and I regularly gave him more money so he could get his prescription renewed. Edit: I should add that he saw the doctor at a private practice and therefore had to pay out of pocket.

Our friend group at the time was very drug-seeking, so there were a lot of various substances to try. I tried everything except strong opioids (I'm scared of them). Every time I visited Shitty Boyfriend we would gather and spend an evening playing video games, board games and doing drugs. I'm not going to lie: I sometimes miss those times.

I still went to work every day like a normal person, but as soon as I got off and closed my apartment door behind me I'd pop some pills or blaze it. As I've said before, I justified this by the stressful nature of my job. Eventually the facade began cracking and I got in trouble at work for my erratic behaviour. A lot of things happened and as a result I was transferred to a different deparment, which turned out to be insular and toxic. I was already in a bad mental state, the working environment worsened things and I began using amphetamines to cope.

For the next few months I lost all my savings, so I began taking payday loans to pay for my addiction. I even lied to my parents to get money from them. My life revolved around speed: it was all I could think about. After nine months I weighed around 48kg (106lbs), my mental health and finances were in shambles and I was seriously considering IV use (never did though, thank deity). Then I woke up.

I clearly remember that day. I had gotten my pay on friday and after paying rent, utilities and the payday loans I had about 100€ left until next payday. I gave the money to Shitty Boyfriend who was visiting, and he went to buy us drugs for the weekend. By sunday evening all of it was gone and Shitty Boyfriend had left. I was sitting in my kitchen with no money and no drugs. It was almost like an out of body experience: I suddenly saw myself from outside and realized what I was doing was wrong. My lifestyle was unsustainable. My behavior was unhinged and I had gotten in trouble at work again because of it. I basically had two choices: either to quit or to become a full-time drug addict. I would lose my job. I would lose everything that really mattered to me. I would lose my life.

On that day, at the age of 30, I quit drugs.

#i love an alcoholic #tw drugs

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 1 year

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Long story about some shit that’s so personal I’m a little nervous about posting it, and I don’t know how long I’ll leave it up, and I don’t know if there’s any reason to put it here. But it helped just to write it all down, and putting things on here tends to help me.

So, I’m going back on anti-depressants because Ahir Shah told me to. I watched his special Dots recently, and in it, he said he’d made the mistake of going off those a while ago. The act of stopping his anti-depressants, he said, surprisingly turned out to be a pro-depressant. He got worse, he got hopeless about everything, so he went back on them. Assuming he wrote that quite bleak show after going back on meds, they didn’t exactly restore all his hope. But they don’t normally restore all hope. No one ever promised that they would.

I have a degree in psychology, I know how these things usually work. It’s a common phenomenon for any mental or physical condition that people will go on medication, feel better as a result of the medication, decide they’re better now so they don’t need it anymore, go off the medication, and then feel worse.

For me, it was the opposite. I went off anti-depressants about a year ago, after having been on them for quite a while. That was by far the longest I’d ever stuck with a medication, though I’ve been prescribed them many times throughout my life. I’ve often been prescribed them and just never filled the prescription. Sometimes I’d filled the prescription and tried them for a month, hated the side effects, and gone off them (by which I mean tapered off under doctor’s supervision – I might be lax with letting my mental health go untreated, but I’m not irresponsible enough to take risks with sudden stops to medication). But a few years ago, I got to such a low point that I was willing to go on meds and actually stay on them. I stayed on that anti-depressant for about 2.5 years.

I went off them early last year because I thought they weren’t helping. I still got sad all the time, often for no reason or as a disproportionate reaction. I still got overwhelmed too easily from what should have been normal amounts of human contact. The pandemic had exacerbated that a lot. My anxiety levels were so high. If I was like that despite being on medication, what the hell was the point of the medication? I told the clinic that it wasn’t helping and I wanted to go off it.

The doctor recommended that I stay on it – he actually made me sign something acknowledging that he’d given me this advice, presumably to absolve himself of liability if anything bad happened as a result. And then he prescribed me the appropriate number of pills in lower doses so I could taper off safely, because seriously, even if I make other questionable decisions, no one should ever mess around with stopping medication cold turkey.

I didn’t fall apart the moment I stopped medication. Actually I sort of did, because I had a few weeks of withdrawal (which can happen to mild or moderate degrees even if you do go off it the proper way, the severe withdrawal that occurs if you go off it wrong is scary), but once I got past that, for a while, I barely noticed the change. It’s only now that I look back that I can see a pattern. And the pattern doesn’t correlate perfectly with my medication history, because there are so many other factors at play. My life was fairly okay for most of last spring, so for a while, I felt all right even once I was off medication.

But I did, eventually, have a breakdown. I didn’t see it at the time; at the time it felt like a normal downswing in the normal ups and downs of life. But I can look at it now and remember that I didn’t get downswings that low when I was on medication. I definitely didn’t get downswings as low I am right now, where I’ve been for the last few weeks.

I remember a conversation I had, about six months after I started medication, with a girl I’d coached for several years. She had some serious anxiety issues, which she talked to me about frequently. I always gave her the best advice I could, which involved advising her to consult a doctor. She was reluctant to do so, which I understood, as I spent most of my teen years with my parents taking me to doctors who might fix my severe anxiety, but I never wanted anything to do with it. Now, I advise teenagers to be more open to accepting help than I was at their age.

I’d been open with this girl, when it came up and was relevant, with the fact that I had experience with this too. She asked me, that day, whether taking medication had helped me. She was nineteen by then. If she’d been younger I would have sugar coated it more, but I thought an honest answer might help her and she was old enough to hear it, so I told her the truth. I told her I still felt sad and scared at disproportionate rates, I still struggled with stress and human interaction more than most people, but since I’d gone on medication, I could function again. I could accomplish things, even if they were difficult. And I hadn’t once felt the desire to kill myself – in fact, I could barely remember how it felt to ever want that. I could barely remember how it felt to be close to wanting that. Since the medication had taken effect, my days of wanting to do that felt like a dream or a distant memory. Medication didn’t solve everything, but it took that away, and that mattered.

That’s what I told a girl I coached, several years ago. But as I sit here now and write this, I can very easily identify how it feels to be in that very bad place that I’d once reduced to feeling like a dream. What I have trouble remembering is how I felt on that day when I told a nineteen-year-old how confident I was in the resurgence of my mental health. I’ve described that memory in the form of a conversation because that’s how I remember it now – I remember saying it. I know that a few years ago, I felt like a functional person who was a million miles away from the darkest parts of depression. But I only know that because I remember telling someone I felt that way. I can now barely remember how it actually felt.

It was a few things at once at the end of 2022. Objectively bad things did happen, things that would cause most people to be upset. So when I reacted in the moment, it felt like it made sense. I’m only now realizing I’m pretty sure the version of me on medication would not have had quite the reaction that I did.

In those last few months, I stopped eating, stopped sleeping, stopped exercising, ignored my friends. Every step, at the time, felt like a normal level of having a bad day. I was still obsessively going through comedy and posting on here about it. More than ever, in fact. But I’d stopped feeling joy or hope in anything related to real life. I couldn’t be around people. When I did manage to go to my sport’s practices, the thing I love most in the world and only recently started getting back after COVID (God, I hate the phrase “after COVID” when we were very much still in COVID, but I’ve started going back anyway), I felt cold and disconnected. I didn’t like anyone there. I didn’t like anyone at all.

There were occasional exceptions, times when something would happen that would make me feel alive. But those were tiny flashes among weeks and months of not wanting anything to do with anyone, and the fact that they were exceptions highlights how bad things got.

I was already feeling that way when in October, a guy I used to know and like committed suicide. At first I felt nothing, which scared me because I thought the pandemic had completely turned off my capacity to care about things. But then I felt quite sad, and realized it was just a delayed reaction. So that was fine. Until a few weeks later when I learned that he did it to avoid charges for sexual assault of a teenage girl I knew, and I knew him around her; for years before the pandemic I worked with them both and saw them together and had no idea. And for all those years I was fighting for the people who oversee our sport to do something about all those predatory coaches in other regions, and had no idea that a friendly acquaintance of mine from another team in my own fucking city was one of the worst.

I spiraled pretty hard from there. A bad reaction would be normal, but I know my reaction was abnormal, because my friends got upset for a bit and then moved on. I couldn’t. It solidified my growing view that no one can be trusted and everyone in the world is a terrible person and no one is worth caring about, and therefore, nothing is worth doing or investing in. That everything that’s ever felt fulfilling to me is poison. And that’s when the actual wanting to die set in.

For the record, I do think there’s something to the depressive realism theory, espoused by annoying people who think being cynical makes them better than everyone else. As much as I hate those annoying arrogant people, I don’t know if it is right to say my reaction was disproportionate just because my friends got over it faster than I did. It’s fucking horrifying, and so are most things in the world. I think it’s rational to be really really upset that everything is so fucked up. I think I might be objectively more rational than my friends are about this. Also, the world’s ending. The world’s ending and everyone is just getting on with life, making plans for the future, as though the world isn’t ending!

But if exercise or diet or willpower or medication can give me whatever ability everyone else has to irrationally feel hope despite how fucking horrifying everything is, then I want to do that. Cynicism doesn’t make me better than anyone else, and I’d rather be happy than objectively rational.

Anyway, in the process of this spiraling, I shut down and didn’t see my girlfriend for several weeks, and when she asked me how we could move forward, I broke up with her. Because in that moment she felt to me like the only truly good person I knew, and I felt terribly guilty about hurting the only good person by asking her to deal with this version of me. The least I could do was be miserable and self-destructive without hurting an innocent person more than I had to, which was quite a lot, because we had a good relationship for fourteen months and of course I hurt her terribly by breaking it off. And then I felt incredibly guilty about that, and I still do, but I also still think I’d have hurt her more in the long run if I’d stayed with her and asked her to deal with this, so this was the path that caused the least harm, which is all I ever want to do. Though the actual path that would have caused the least harm would have been not getting into a relationship when I can’t count on remaining a functional enough person to maintain one. Which is what I did for ten years, until 2021, when I was on medication and though I was finally okay enough to try.

After that I shut down even more. I ignored calls from my parents who were worried about me, I couldn’t get out of bed. I did the bare minimum of work that I had to, but I’m lucky I have a quite flexible freelance job that can withstand this. One day my dad turned up at my door because I’d ignored my phone and he was afraid I’d hurt myself. I told him I was all right and let him take me for a drive, and he dropped off some groceries for me and I am incredibly grateful to have people who care about me so much.

A couple of weeks ago my parents got me to come to their place for Christmas, and now it’s a bit into January and things have got a little better. I’ve socialized a bit and eaten more and feel slightly more like a real person again, just enough to realize just how bad things had gotten in the last few weeks of 2022.

Through all this, I was still following all the comedy. When I stopped liking everything else in the world, the comedy is the only thing that never went away. There were times when I had trouble laughing at it, when certain types of comedy made me feel sick, but it could still pretty consistently make me feel something. I’ve been watching and listening to comedy and posting about it on here, and I don’t even know anymore if that’s escapism from the real world or if it’s my only connection to the real world that never got severed.

I recently watched Ahir Shah’s show Dots. And I now want to emphasize that I’m not going back on anti-depressants just because Ahir Shah told me to. I’ve known for a while that I needed to do that. I’ve known since I broke up with my girlfriend, and she told me she hopes I can work on my mental health and get the help I need, and I wasn’t doing well enough to take steps toward it at the time but I knew she was right. Over Christmas, when I’ve come back up just a bit, I’ve realized I need to actually start doing that. Because aside from anything else, I’m supposed to be looking for better jobs right now so I can be financially stable, and I can’t imagine that succeeding unless something helps my mental health get better. And I really want that to work, because I want to find a good enough job so I can relax about my financial situation and start planning some way to see the UK.

I already knew all that, but I still knew it sort of theoretically, as something I should get on at some point. And then Ahir Shah told me that the act of stopping anti-depressants is in fact a pro-depressant, and I realized he was right, going off it was a mistake. That was what I needed to hear. I needed to hear that the practical step of going back on medication – the step that seemed so big and complicated – could be done and has been known to work.

But seriously, I was going to do it anyway. I am not going back on medication literally just because Ahir Shah told me to, because no one should be taking medical advice from comedians. Please do not take medical advice from comedians. Listen to the advice of doctors, I say hypocritically, less than a year after signing a paper that let me ignore their advice. Do not make medical decisions based on comedy specials.

On the subject of comedy specials, I keep relating to the bad guys in people’s stories. I keep watching stand-up shows about relationships that didn’t work out, and relating to the person who isn’t telling the story. The partner who could not accept or properly return their love, and eventually, the protagonist realized that this terrible person was terrible for them. Even as I wrote in this post about how I broke up with my girlfriend, I thought, I know how this sounds. “I’m just too broken to be a good partner for you, sorry, nothing I can do about that.” It sounds like the bullshit that the villain in a sitcom or a stand-up special makes up to justify their shitty behaviour.

Before I got with my recent ex-girlfriend, I spent years not getting into relationships because I was scared of being that person, the one who hurts someone by letting them tie their happiness to my emotional availability, and then lets them down. When I first got with my recent ex-girlfriend, I tried to tell her that. I can demonstrate almost exactly what I tried to tell her, because this is a rare case in which I relate to the protagonist of a dating-based stand-up story; the first time I’d ever heard anyone else describe what I do was when I listened to this bit of Daniel Kitson’s After the Beginning, Before the End. But that’s not a clip in which we’re supposed to relate to him, even though he’s the one telling the story. That’s him telling a story about how he’s a bit of a dick sometimes. Taking the sort of liability waivers that they make you sign in a doctor’s office, and thinking they work in human relationships.

It’s not just how it ended. Even when our relationship was good, I never really let my guard down with my girlfriend, because I knew I wasn’t mentally functional enough to do well in a fully committed relationship. She wanted to travel together, meet my family, have me come over during the week sometimes, and I didn’t trust myself to handle any of that without freaking out, so I never did it. Now I listen to stand-up comedy stories, mostly by straight women about shitty boyfriends, where they realized they were too good for someone who kept them at arm’s length, and they were right.

About a month ago, my girlfriend came over to drop off the Christmas gift she’d already bought for me by the time I broke up with her; she wouldn’t take no for an answer about me accepting it. I glanced at it quickly, just enough to see that it was a really thoughtful and kind and considerate gift. Then I hid it in my closet so I wouldn’t have to look at it or think about what I’d done. And then I lay on my bed, and to try to block that out, I put on the radio show I’d been listening to. The first thing I heard was the comedian doing the radio show tell a story about her shitty ex-boyfriend for whom she’d made a beautiful and thoughtful Christmas gift, and he uncomfortably barely managed to accept it, and then she realized she deserved better than that and broke up with him.

Earlier, she’d told us how this guy said he’d be happy to live next to her someday but not with her, and the audience groaned in sympathy for her putting up with this guy, and my reaction was to think living in a home next to someone I love would be ideal. Not living with them. I loved my ex-girlfriend more than I’ve ever loved anyone I’ve been with before, and I was barely able to keep up a relationship of spending a night at her place once every weekend or two for fourteen months. If you live with someone, not just a roommate who isn’t allowed into your bedroom but with all spaces shared, where do you go when you’re having a mental health crisis and can’t handle seeing anyone? Oh right, most people are able to be vulnerable with their partners or whatever, during moments like that. Fine.

The ex-boyfriend from that radio story is one of my favourite comedians, and I frequently relate to him when he’s doing comedy in which he describes his worldview, but fucking hell, I don’t want to relate to him when he’s the bad guy in someone else’s story about her terrible ex, and the audience is audibly sorry she ever had to subject herself to that. I would really like to be better than that someday.

Anyway, I’m going back on medication, and not just because Ahir Shah told me to, I knew I had to do that anyway. But to be honest, there is a pretty direct connection between me hearing him say it and me making the actual phone call to my doctor’s office. It made that insurmountable-seeming process feel more possible. Don’t take medical advice from comedians, everyone, but maybe if you realize you’re the bad guy in all of their stories, consider trying to change something.

...I’ll be honest: I wrote this post last week, all of it up to this point, and saved it in my drafts because it seemed like too much to actually post. Just writing it out did help, so I already got that out of it, and there isn’t really a good reason to post it now. But I think I’m going to anyway, at least for a little while. I don’t need this to stay up for long.

I do have a bit of update, even since last week. I’ve made myself start doing workouts every day again, keeping in mind what I learned when I first became an athlete at the age of twelve: if you get out of the habit, no matter how out of shape you get, when you get back into it, it doesn’t matter if you can’t do everything you could do before. It only matters that you can do more than you did yesterday - if you keep to that every time, you’ll end up back in shape. I fucking hate sports clichés, I’ve spent years hearing people cite them unironically and they’re the absolute worst, but that one’s pretty true. I’ve previously used that one as motivation to go from being in a rut to being back in the top athletic shape I needed to be to compete at the varsity university national championships. Now, I’m using it to go from doing nothing for months to going back to being able to get through what used to be the daily workout that I did to keep my mental health slightly regulated. And shockingly, after just a few days of it, I have been reminded: oh yeah, there was a reason I did this. People who tell you that physical exercise can cure mental health problems are full of shit, but it does actually fucking help.

I still have my appointment to talk to my doctor about going back on meds, though. Because actual health care is important. Physical exercise and obsession with comedy recordings can both be helpful, but not good replacements for actual medicine. Sort your life out based on recommendations from certified professionals, not from Ahir Shah. But again, a few words from Ahir Shah can fucking help.

I spent an hour on the phone today with my friend who coaches a team five hours away from me. We’ve been close for years; pre-pandemic we had a long-distance friendship, but it didn’t feel that way because I saw him nearly every weekend at tournaments. He was one of the things I missed most during COVID, as I couldn’t see him at all without traveling. I saw him once right before Christmas in 2022, at one of the two tournaments I managed to attend, and it’s almost silly how much that helped my mental state, at least for a few hours. I was at that tournament, seething with frustration about knowing I was surrounded by terrible people who were once my community (including the brother of that guy who committed suicide to avoid accountability for grooming a vulnerable teenage girl, and that brother definitely knew and said nothing and tacitly supported it and he’s still running that team with more underage athletes and apparently that’s fucking fine) and I didn’t know how I’d ever feel at home anywhere again, and then my friend came out of nowhere and threw his arms around me after 2.5 years and I thought, “Oh right, this. This was what mattered.”

Anyway, I spent an hour on the phone with him today talking about how that guy who died deserved to die, and he agreed with me, and after months of hearing “Well, it’s complicated, I mean we have to be respectful”, God I didn’t even realize how much I needed to hear someone say, “I’m also glad he’s fucking dead.” There’s an old Andy Zaltzman/John Oliver bit (I think it originated in The Department from 2005-ish, so that old) that makes fun of people who fantasize about the extreme violence they’d like to commit against pedophiles, and I see their point. I see why it’s not helpful when society is trying to have an intelligent debate about criminal justice, and some people walk around giving unprompted rants about “Let me tell you what I’d do if I were alone in a room with one of those kiddie fuckers for five minutes.” But having said that, he’s already gone, so this isn’t about criminal justice. And this isn’t unprompted. And somehow to restore my faith in humanity I really needed to hear a friend tell me I’m not the only person who feels this much anger about it.

My friend also told me today that he refuses to die until he gets rid of all the predators in our sport, and I said yeah, okay, I’ll get on board with that. We might have to concoct a way to live forever if that’s going to happen, and if we do get rid of all the predators and all the apologists and people who’ve protected them, our entire sport might just be him and me and like ten other people hanging out in a gym somewhere. But fine.

God, Rhod Gilbert reminds me so much of him. This friend of mine has a case of ADHD that can be seen from space; he and I used to make a good team in fighting political battles together because I could be organized and keep track of what was happening in a way he can’t, and he could stand up and say things with social confidence and connections I don’t have. I’d edit the emails, he’d send them. He’d stand up in board meetings and yell at people, I’d text him under the table to make sure he didn’t forget all the facts that I had both memorized and at hand in a spreadsheet. Part of why I got so into Rhod Gilbert during COVID is I watched him on Taskmaster and in his stand-up DVDs, and it was the closest I could get to hanging out with my friend again. I realize not everyone with ADHD is the same, but these two guys were in many ways. Fuck cancer and nothing is allowed to take Rhod Gilbert out of this world.

One more comedy connection for me:

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Okay there’s one other comedy show bit that’s been helping me a little:

Yeah, exactly. Thanks, Tim. Everyone needs to find a reason to want to stay around, even if it’s just to make sure the world keeps containing some people who are willing to hate bad things instead of being all fucking “Well let’s try to be centristly fair to the guys who groom vulnerable underage people” about it. Hopefully that’ll tide me over until I can get to the doctor’s appointment that I made because Ahir Shah told me to.

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#Youtube

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