#tw implied domestic violence | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ianthine-ichor · 4 months

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I had an ask for this story but it was sadly eaten by the Tumblr gods 😔

So for the anon who asked for John Price x Reader who comes to him years later after a bad breakup because they are in danger, this one's for you!

John Price x Reader ~ All I Have is You

Summary: You come running back to John years after a nasty break-up in hopes of finding some help out of a horrible situation.

Word count:: 6.5k

Tw in tags

John's life could never be simple. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how many loose ends he pulled together by the skin of his teeth. There always managed to be something he let lay dormant, something he let fall to the wayside just long enough for it to maybe even slip his mind. And damn near every time it did, it came back with a vengeance.

However, of all the things he knew would come back to haunt him, you were what he expected least of all.

He had believed you a long dead part of his life, a piece of himself better numbed in alcohol than thought about. A face he'd spent endless nights trying to forget the smile of, endless partners failing to take your stead. He'd long since conceded to that aspect of himself being buried, hardly remedied by the ‘I love you’ that would fall from whoever had been his most recent escape from the icy cold of his bed.

But then, on a day like any other in this silent little place he'd given up trying to make feel like any sort of home, he'd opened the door to your unmistakable features.

He didn't know what to feel in the years of silence that seemed to pass. His mind and muscles tore themselves apart trying to find what reaction seemed appropriate. A part of himself didn't believe it, a similar part almost reached out to hold you, and another felt infuriated. He wasn't sure if it was because even so close you felt like light years away or if it was because he wanted to slam the door in your face for daring to ever come back. And for a moment, however small, he seriously considered the latter of the two.

But then you spoke. And suddenly whatever amount of spine had led him to the thought melted like butter.

“I need to talk. I know I have no right to ask but…” you paused, your voice softer than he thinks he's ever heard you speak. There might have even been a quiver in it, but he could hardly believe such a sound could come from the person who had once held together his broken pieces like you'd been solving him your entire life.

“I need your help” your chin raises and you meet his gaze, his skin flashing with the familiarity in how your eyes narrowed and your face snarled. It's hard to take your attempt at strength seriously with how feigned of an attempt it was. He says nothing and just the same he watches as you crumble. Your eyes avert, your hands twitch, your body leans away from him.

He hardly recognizes you.

But he steps aside all the same, a nod inviting you in as he keeps his vow of silence. You almost hesitate, but step in soon enough. Like a long lost ritual you kick your shoes off at the door, hanging your jacket and bristling as the light cold leaves your skin. He notes how you don't let him out of your sight but he can't tell why your eyes burn as much as they do.

Eventually he leads you to the kitchen. He wonders if you notice the empty frames. He wonders if you even care to look.

Like some twisted version of an old dream, you take your spot at the table where you used to sit. And before he even realizes what he's doing he's perking coffee, his eyes turning to you.

“Coffee?” He asks, but he isn't even sure why he does. Looking at you would be enough of an answer. You looked like you hadn't slept in months. You nod anyway.

He pretends to forget how you make your coffee. Out of spite? Anger? Frustration? It doesn't matter. He simply couldn't find the energy to put into someone whose presence made his heart find an old pace that left him biting his tongue at the bittersweet taste. Either way you get your coffee and he somehow finds the energy to sit across from you.

“You wanted to speak. Speak” his words come out harsher than he means them yet he doesn't find regret settling in his chest. Only minor annoyance as he watches you almost recoil from him, your drink pulled to your chest. Your eyes seem to search around for a moment, as if the words you needed so badly to speak would simply appear in front of you. He remembers how he used to find it sweet and can only react by biting his tongue harder.

“You haven't changed much” you begin. He can't help the grimace he shows as the annoyance in his chest grows. He catches how you straighten up under it.

“And you have” he answers back. You say nothing for a long moment and he isn't sure if he offended you or not. But he watches as you take a deep breath, your face hardening in a way he doesn't like.

“I know this isn't exactly…great for you. But it isn't for me either-”

“Why’d you leave?” the words slip out of his mouth before they had even been a thought in his head. Yet where he expected a look of anger or annoyance of your own, you only pause. And soon after, your look manages to grow colder.

“Because you didn't love me anymore” you answer back succinctly, calmly. He feels rage bloom in his chest at the words.

“Bullshit” he mutters through gritted teeth. He doesn't catch the sudden grip you hold on your cup and the way you slightly shake. But other than that you don't break.

“I must have phrased that wrong” there's a tone in your voice, an inflection of something horrible on your tongue.

“You did a piss poor job of making me feel like I was anything other than your fucking bed warmer” your words fall like acid on him. They soak through his marrow and into his bloodstream and become him. And his body rejects it just as quickly.

“You knew the type’a job I had when you met me” his voice is low and restrained as he tries to hold himself back

“It had nothing to do with your work-”

“Well what the bloody hell did it have to do with then!?” He stands, his hands slamming on the table as you immediately flinch away.

“Sit-!” You yell almost instinctively, the only thing he catches is the sudden terror in your tone. You take a stilted breath before speaking again.

“Sit down…please” your voice is much calmer but it does a horrible job at hiding the hitch in your voice or how your subtle shaking suddenly isn't so subtle. The strange demeanor stuns him for a moment, long enough for his flash of frustration to cool back to a simmer. There's a horrible feeling that crawls up his spine at your reaction, this gnawing, biting disgust that rips through him in a way he can't quite explain. He listens despite its elusive source or how he hates the way your eyes are locked on his every movement.

A horrible quiet passes that only further smothers the flames that had grown in his chest. You both hardly took any sips of your coffee as you seemed focused on your breathing and he was focused on loosening the sudden tightness of his muscles. Soon enough he spoke again, though he wasn't about to attempt that conversation again, as unsatisfied as he was by your answer.

“Why are you here?” He asks and this time he finds that his voice is weaker than he'd have liked it; betraying the words that he had meant to sting.

Yet despite that, he watches as your breath pauses and your grip tightens. How had you managed to grow even more tense?

“I don't have anyone else left” you answered, your eyes finally missing him, flickering away for what was barely a single moment. In spite of how hard he fought against it the painful beating in his chest left him worried. He tried not to show it. He hoped he hid it well enough for you not to notice.

The silence seemed to get to you. That or his stare had. Either way you continued.

“I just need somewhere to stay. Just a few months. I’ll figure it out by then and be gone. Just long enough to get some cash together” you try to explain and finally he spots something familiar in you. But it is not a part of you he once knew that he sees. No, he spots something else.

“You’re running from something” he interjects at his realization, your movements freezing at his accusation. You don't seem shocked so much as worried. He hated that you would ever even try to hide the fact from him.

“Yeah um…I am- but it's- it's complicated okay? I just need somewhere to stay-”

“Is it someone?” He questioned, your words lips closing into quiet once more. It stings a strange part of his soul that you seemed so unwilling to tell him outright.

“...It doesn't matter” you finally speak and he hides how his fists tighten. He hates that he cares at all. He hates that he can't help it.

Your plea for shelter lingers in the air for moments longer than either of you cared for. You couldn't handle the quiet of that for long.

“I don't have much, but I'll give you what I can. I'll get a job and pay you back I-”

“No” he shut you down immediately. Your face fell, the desperation of your gaze fixed on him.

“You can stay and I don't need your money” he clarifies and despite the lack of smile, your relief is more than visible.

“Thank you. I promise I'll be gone as quickly as I can get everything in order” you try to instill any sort of confidence that you would be of little bother, that he would hardly notice you here at all.

He couldn't help but feel his stomach fall to his feet at the words.

The first month you stayed had been…surreal, to say the least. For the most part the two of you did pretty well with avoiding each other. For moments of the day he would even wonder if that had been some weird fever dream. You? At his door? After so long? It all just felt so strange. Stranger yet that the circumstances were all but ideal. He thought about asking further, about pushing for what it was that led you here and why you had even been running in the first place. But he found that his tongue nearly died in his mouth every time he saw you around. It almost didn't feel real.

And despite the cold that still ran up his spine, the emptiness that found refuge in his chest, the blood that sat heavy in his veins; despite it all…

You still felt like home.

Yet you were still so far out of reach. Words seemed like complicated equations, conversations like rocket science. His words never left the way he wanted them to, his tone always the wrong amount of harsh. And with the way your eyes tracked his presence when he was around, almost unwavering from him…it all just felt so hard to explain. Something had changed, of course it had. It had been years since you two had last seen each other and it had hardly ended on good terms. Still, there was something so wrong here. Something in the way you ever so slightly leaned from him, or the way your eyes flickered to the closest door, or how it all seemed so familiar in a way that wasn't like home. In a way that was more like the warzones he'd grown so accustomed to.

And he could just see it, that fight in your eyes. That twitchiness that you had never had around him before. And he couldn't help but wonder why. Why. Why. Why. Why. What were you fighting and why did it almost feel like it was him?

It was horrible, the way that question had finally been answered.

The front door had slammed open, startling him from the dinner he had been making and setting every one of his senses aflame. It slammed shut before he had even made it to the hall and when he had he could hardly bring himself to swallow the scene.

You stood pushing on the door like it would hold damn near the whole world at bay. With how violently you were shaking he almost wished it would. Your hiccups and sniffles filled the air as you tried and failed about a hundred times to turn the lock. Your clothes were disheveled, your jacket gone and your shirt caked in dirt and…

No, no that wasn't…

“Y/n?” He hardly even remembered opening his mouth before your name fell out. Quiet and worried in a way he hadn't meant to show.

When your head snapped to him all of his insides twisted in a sickly mess. Features he remembered days of leaving soft kisses on were now warped by deep bruises and bleeding wounds. Your eyes wide and glossy, your skin a mix of blood and tears. Your breath had hitched as if any movement would turn him against you. He couldn't help but feel worse at the notion. He moves. Just one simple step closer.

And suddenly it's as if a dam breaks. Your murmuring words he can't understand, a panic on your face he hadn't seen in all of the time he's known you. You yell and thrash and he can't tell if you even know what you're doing, he can't tell if you even see him anymore. His body almost acts on instinct as he quickly grabs the nearest cloth near him before making his way to you. He places the cloth in your hand, your body flinching in a way that makes him hesitate a moment before he guides you to cover your bleeding nose.

“You gotta breathe” he mutters, no longer attempting to cover the look of confused worry that covers him. You seem to try, but a bloody nose makes that a little difficult. In the meantime he guides you to the bathroom, sitting you down as he fishes out a medkit. You stop talking altogether at that point, going eerily silent.

And it stays that way as he wipes away the blood and around deeply forming bruises. It stays as he cleans the wounds and makes sure your nose isn't broken. It stays when the peroxide hits your skin and when the bandages cover them. It's a horrible, false silence. A silence so loud his ears ring, though that could have just as well been the adrenaline leaving his veins. For a while he's fine with it, for a while it's better than the terror-filled panic, for a while it's better than the way you stared and twitched and sobbed.

But then you get a look in your eye. A dangerous look. A look he's seen too many times in his line of work. And suddenly the quiet isn't so safe anymore.

“Still with me there?” He asks in an attempt to gain your attention. To his relief your eyes flick to him and nod. He doesn't quite like how quickly they had turned cold again. In fact he's sure he hates it.

“What happened?” He finally asks and watches how the distant look in your eyes dissolves. Your lips quiver as you try desperately to hold onto a calm that wasn't coming. Your hands grip tightly onto a bloodied paper towel in your hands.

“I-” your voice cracks and you clear your throat. Your eyes avoid him like a simple glance would kill you.

“It's complicated I-” the panic in your voice rises again.

“I have to go- John I have to go-”

“Now hold on” his hand lands on yours, your body tensing under his touch. He can't help but feel sickened at the thought of you scared of him.

“Whatever happened, I promise it's safe, alright? No one's getting in here. You're safe. Just…” he pauses for a moment, his eyes showing his hesitation before he, as gently as he's ever done anything in his life, he places your hand to his chest. Your fingers flatten against him, familiar and comforting, as he lets out a deep breath.

“Just breathe” he almost pleads, something he finds himself regretting almost immediately. Yet despite feeling that he was doing a horrible job, it seemed to calm you all the same. Much to his relief you managed a few deep breaths, your hand still pressed on his heartbeat that he forced to slow.

He is surprised, after all of this, to hear a faint laugh fall from your lips. Quiet and saddened yes, but a laugh nonetheless. And he couldn't have felt more ridiculous than at that moment.

“What?” Or perhaps it seems he could, his dumbfoundedness not hidden in the tone of his voice. It isn't hard for you to wipe the smile from your face, if it had even really been a smile at all.

“Nothing I just…I remember when I had to do this for you” your tone is bittersweet.

“I never thought I'd be on the other side” your voice is breathless and strained, a certain feeling behind it he couldn't quite place. He finds himself snickering along as the once painful memory hits him. He would agree. He never imagined someone strong enough to pull him back to reality could ever need him to do the same.

“Yeah…world's got a fucked up way of making circles” he replies and you give a half-hearted attempt at agreement. And it seems that a moment too soon you pull away and he feels almost as if you take his heartbeat with you.

“Yeah…Yeah, it does…” you murmur, a sentiment far too true found in the quiet whisper. There is almost silence until you speak again.

“I'm sorry” the apology falls in a way not meant to ever leave you. The sound was as sorrowful as seeing a bird stripped of its wings. An act against nature, a horrible twisting of what should be.

“I’m sorry” you break again, though this time you don't shatter so much as you crumble. And he knows then that those words aren't for him. That he hated how they sounded coming from you, how they weren't what he wanted, how he could only wish you'd take them back so that he didn't have to feel the hole in his chest trying to carve its way through his skin.

And how useless he felt then, sat in front of your broken state knowing that you had once done the same with him. How utterly and completely he knew that there was nothing he could do to wipe this looming, horrible terror that was held so deep in your eyes he could only see a warped reflection of himself in them.

And he simply couldn't handle it. He felt weak, hopeless, useless. But what was there to do? He had never seen you so truly pained, he had only ever known the other side of this situation.

So he did the only thing he could. He pulled you close, slow and cautious, before the both of you crashed into one another. Hands that had twitched at his mere presence now held him as tightly as the shirt on his back. As if, should you let go, you'd be cast adrift again into the crimson rapids. And he could only hold just as tightly, hoping that if he just held on tight enough that the falling parts of you would stay, that he might save even a single piece from the agony you were lost in a sea of.

You two stayed like that for a long while, hardly caring about that time that passed. At some point, so overtaken by the exhaustion of your endless bouts of tears and the near-death experience you'd just endured, you'd passed out in his arms.

And like some cruel twisting of a memory he held dear, he carried you to bed. He tried not to glance too much at your features, the cuts and bruises sending sickening waves through him, as he laid you down. He took a shaky breath as he covered you in a blanket, taking care to be quiet as he left the room.

In the absence of your presence there was only rage.

A fire unlike any he had felt struck him like lightning, a burning hatred at who could have ever done this to you. His feet moved but his mind was preoccupied with who and why and- god why didn't you just tell him what happened? What could have ever led to this?! What had you done? Who had you upset?

The thoughts plagued his mind as he set up his spot on the couch. Yet when the pillows had been laid and the blanket placed, he could not find it in himself to rest. He could only pace and snarl and burn with such a horrible feeling. How dare they. How dare they. How could anyone do this to you? To his-...

It was only those final words that managed to slow his thoughts, a sinking feeling resting in his chest.

Not his. You were not his. Not for a long while, not anymore…

But there was no hiding the fire in his skin. No denying how deeply he held you, how desperately he wished to never let go again. He could only curse whatever higher power could hear him. Curse them for ever doing this to either of you. Of ever letting him know your name.

It was a horrible pain to want so desperately to have you back, but there was no pain worse than you returning in broken pieces. Worse yet to know that, maybe, had he done things differently, you might not have left his arms to shatter against a world he could have protected you from. To know that he failed.

He lit a cigar with a shaky hand. He knew then that there would be no sleeping tonight.

Your eyes were heavy as they opened, protesting against your attempts to wake up. You thought, in your groggy state, that it might be better to never open them again, to give in to what they demanded from you. To close them a final time.

But it was only a passing thought in your utterly exhausted state. A whisper held at the back of your mind just waiting for the moment that it might scream itself into existence. But not today. Not now, at least.

And so you forced them open, a groan halfheartedly falling from your lips as you pushed away the comfort of infinite dark. You managed enough strength to sit up, regretting it almost immediately when a dull pain burned your side. You would have been confused, maybe even a little worried, if not for the returning throbs of the many cuts along your face and arms that swiftly and brutally remind you of yesterday.

So close. You had been so close to the end. You were lucky to have made it out alive. It was honestly a miracle you had.

Cornered, like an animal. You remembered the feeling well. Trapped right where you didn't want to be. It was like he could smell your terror as he bared his wolfish teeth in the warm street light. A wicked smile, one that scorched itself into an unhealthy scar upon you. Never to be forgotten, a thing of nightmares.

You had run as far as you could go, lungs empty and feet sore, your hands covered in the warmth of your own blood as you tried to hold even just a part of yourself together, to manage to escape through the skin of your teeth once more. You had done it before, but a second time was surely a test of fate.

You had been lucky, then, that a bus was passing by. It shouldn't have been there so late so far out of town. But by some higher being or just through the world's sick way of fucking with you it was. You had never been so relieved to be met with headlights in your life; you practically screamed in relief as you waved it down. Your hunter was as scared as a doe in them, slithering off into the shadows like the coward you knew him as. The driver, a woman in her forties, looked horrified at the state of you. But you had brushed off her panic and worry and told her to simply drive. You were thankful the bus was empty. You couldn't have handled anyone else's questions in your utter panic.

You had only been a five-minute drive from salvation, from the home you had long since abandoned, only to return to in your time of need. Five minutes.

He must have known. Someone might have told him or you might have mentioned John in one of your many pain-filled benders. It didn't matter. He knew where you were, and it seemed his patience had only grown thinner. You were sure now that he would not stop with breaking you under his iron grip, but utterly destroying you.

All at once these thoughts hit you, flooding your mind with panic and worry. You're breathing shallowed as your mind falls down this path, stopping only when the end of the memory comes to mind.

John…

You tried to move him from your mind, to rid yourself of the sinking feeling that came when you thought of how quickly he had jumped to help you, even after years of silence and weeks of ignoring each other. You try not to think of his attempts at gentle touch, calloused battle-worn hands not quite built for the kindness he was showing. You remove from your mind how he held your hand to him, how it seemed like no time had passed from when you left with how quickly he knew what would truly calm you. And most of all, you try to remove the feeling of his arms around you, desperate and worried and familiar and home. You try, as little as that means nowadays.

You deduce that sitting in silence isn't the best way to distract you from these things, and so you finally stand from the bed, noting only then that you don't remember falling asleep here. But you let that slip your mind as well. You prefer the static buzz of being busy over thinking too much about any of this. It only made things harder.

So your feet moved without you, intimately familiar with the halls and doors and light switches. After all, it had been your home, once upon a lifetime ago.

You hardly stagger as you make your way to the kitchen, accustomed to the constant lull of pain in the back of your mind. A whisper of its own, and one you realized it better to ignore.

You are close to allowing the static buzz to take over, close to numbing and leaving your brain on autopilot. Close to the preferable numbness. So very close. But upon taking a step into the kitchen, you are met with a sight so twistedly familiar you are shocked back into yourself.

John sat at the table, two plates laid out and coffee poured. A quaint scene, an old one. A memory from a different time, faded and aged and different in ways that leave you sick. Because he didn't stare with the complete adoration of a man in love, nor did his eyes avert, distracted and tired, as they had on the day you had left him here. But instead they tear through you. Locked on you the second you entered. It amazed you how his eyes of crystal blue, so similar to that of a frozen storm, could burn through you so easily.

You think for a moment that this is it. That he's going to kick you out with only a final meal and that you are going to be thrown to the starved wolf you knew lurked just outside. You prepared yourself to plead, to apologize, to ask for any bit of mercy he might show you. After all, you had lost your dignity a long time ago, and it wouldn't be the first time you had begged for your life.

But then, as if the elements of himself collided, the fire in his eyes cooled to a warm glow. Soft and familiar and warm, warm, warm.

You almost wished then that he'd return to his fiery glare.

“Sit, love” It isn't a command as much as a quiet plea, his voice is soft and calm and maybe even worried, a rare combination for him. It's a sound so foreign now that you almost don't trust it. His expression falls further as you hesitate.

“I just wanna talk” he tried to explain, to give you any reason to trust him. It works, though only barely. You take a hesitant seat across from him.

The smell of the food hits your nose and only then do you realize you hadn't eaten last night. The waft of coffee only seems to make things worse as it reminds you of how tired you are.

“We can eat first” you can't tell if it's a question or a statement, but either way you take the opportunity. You were too weak to deny how much you needed this right now. You would regret it later, you were sure, but for right now you would allow yourself this small indulgence.

And so it was quiet, absent the sound of forks hitting plates. Quiet in a way that you weren't sure if you liked or despised. You wondered if it even mattered.

It was a few bites in and halfway through your coffee that he spoke again.

“I saw a butterfly this morning” his words cut the silence in a way that baffles you out of the static once more. Out of your head and your thoughts and the sinking feeling in your chest.

“Oh?” You respond almost too naturally, almost too much like you used to. If it weren't for the heaviness in your voice, you might have even forgotten that this wasn't like it used to be.

“Yeah. Should’ve seen it. It had all your favorite colors” his words are almost light in spite of the tense atmosphere and, despite it all, it manages the smallest smile from you.

“I’m sure it was beautiful” you reply and watch as the look on his face changes. You can't quite read it, a strange softness is all you can take from it. But there never fails to be that lingering sadness there. That worry. That pain you can't quite bring yourself to address. And so you look away, your eyes turned down to your food once more.

The silence that follows threatens to suffocate the two of you, drown you in this horrible replication of better times, and punish you for daring to seek even this small comfort. And so, knowing that there is only one way this will go, he finally asks.

“What happened last night?” You feel your throat tighten almost immediately, not daring to pick up your fork when the weight of that question falls atop you. You find it hard to give him an answer, let alone one that might satisfy him.

“I…It’s…” you struggle and hope that maybe you might just disappear, that maybe all of this was some horrible nightmare you'd wake from. But as seconds passed it became clear it wasn't. Clearer still that you had to give him an answer after what he'd seen.

“It's complicated” you try to explain but you knew the moment the words fell that they wouldn't be enough. You think that maybe he'll be angry at this, that he'll slam the table like he had before and demand a better explanation. But a glance shows that his expression only deepens in its worry.

“Then explain it to me” he pleads once more. It was a rare day he ever pleaded, begged, or even so much as asked for something. Rarer yet that it's genuine. Your mouth goes dry and silence remains. You can't bring yourself to look at him.

“Love-” his hand reached for yours and the contact shocks every nerve in your body. You flinch away from him, regretting it a moment later when his worry turns to pain on his face. He retracts his hand with the most hesitance you've ever seen from him; a man so usually sure of himself.

“I just need to know what's happening. I-...” he falters, another rare sight. He takes a shaky breath.

“I won't hurt you” those words come out stronger than the rest, as truthful as he could have possibly made them. And, despite its softness, it seems to tear apart the very walls you had built to keep you safe.

But safe from what, exactly? When the wolf lays outside, and this place is your final sanctuary, what does that make him? You weren't quite sure, but somehow you knew that whatever this was, it felt…well it felt familiar at least. A devil you knew well enough to find some comfort in the warmth of.

Your head turns away, arms held against you in a pitiful attempt to comfort yourself. You think, for a moment, that you might run from here. That you might leave everything behind in the wake of the words that threaten to leave your tongue.

But he wants the truth. And who are you to deny him it? It couldn't make things much worse than they already are.

“Where do you even want me to start?” You ask him, voice hollow and cold and empty. There was no more of yourself to give than a story. You wondered if the sacrifice would even matter.

“Wherever you need to” he answers back, his shoulders squared: tense. You had half a mind to comfort him, but you doubt it would've helped. So, with a deep breath that does very little to calm your nerves, you finally answer him.

“When I left I didn't want to start over, but I didn't want to see you again either. So I moved a few towns over” you started, your voice detached from yourself, like it came from someone else entirely.

“A few months later I met someone. He had been so kind at first. Loving, attentive. He made me feel like I existed in the world again. Made me feel wanted” your words murmur and a snarl forms, even talking about it makes you sick.

“I was stupid, blinded, didn't pay attention. Didn't care, really…” you pause, your hands indenting into your skin as if to keep you where you sat, as if to stop you from fading from here.

“I married him” your words come out much more mournful than you mean to, your snarl nothing more than a quivered lip now. You had married that monster.

You didn't have to glance at John to know the look on his face. Anger, rage, a twisted form of jealousy. It was a knife to his back, you imagine, that you might have married another man before he had ever put a ring on your finger. But you weren't quite sure you cared anymore. After all, it wasn't you who had been so cold to him those final days you were together.

“I didn't realize who he was until then. He'd always been…rough. Arrogant, quick-tempered, prone to violence. But I guess I just thought that he wouldn't ever treat me like that. That I was different. That he loved me” your words shake and you do your best to pull those broken strings together. To steel yourself. To not be so pathetic.

“I was wrong…” you allow yourself the pain of those three words and in so scar your heart further as you admit it. He had never loved you.

“I tried to get away, I tried to start over again, but he wouldn't let me leave. I can't get a job without him finding me, can't get a place to stay, can't start over. I thought maybe if I came here, maybe if my name wasn't on anything, maybe if I was careful enough then I could figure it out…I was wrong about that too” you curse yourself when tears sting at you. You do your best to hide it, to disappear in front of his own eyes. But there was only so much you could do. Hiding from him had never been your strong suit.

John feels…well he doesn't quite know. A mixture of everything horrible, he thinks. He can't stand how your eyes avoid him as the words fall, how with each passing word he can only find regret. Regret that he hadn't held you closer, that he hadn't kept you safe. And he hates that the consequences don't fall to him, that he wasn't the one burned, that instead he watches you crumble and break and shatter. He had loved you, he had always loved you. That hole in his heart, that void you filled. Ripped from him and torn apart as swiftly as a flower in a stormy ocean. He hardly had the mind to blame you anymore, hardly had the heart to. He could do nothing but blame himself and the cruel creature he could hardly call human. The one who had dared to lay a finger on you. The one he could imagine tearing apart with his bare hands.

There are questions that circle his brain, words that travel from the top of his head and almost meet his tongue. ‘What’s his name?’ ‘Where can I find him?’ ‘How long had this been happening?’ ‘Why hadn't you said something sooner?’

He lets out a shallow breath, his eyes closing in thought for only a short moment before he stands. The sound of the chair startles you into watching him once more. His steps are slow, and deliberate, as they make their way towards you. You lean away for a moment, as you had since you'd gotten here, but it calms as you watch him. His movement is predictable; safe.

And soon, just as slow and just as softly, his hands fall on your face as they had hundreds of times before. Calloused but warm, a softness he only ever found with you. He is gentle along your bruises, careful with them. You can't look from him now, eyes searing through him. But he had nothing to hide, and so he stared back.

“We're gonna figure this out” he speaks to you, words like comforting slashes against your soul in how they tear your emotions from you. Your attempts to hide were all but vain now, tears falling freely and only barely held from a sob. Your breaths shake as your eyes close into the comfort, hands falling onto his as if he might just slip away. He presses a kiss, hesitant yet desperate against the crown of your head.

“He ain't ever hurting you again” his words are a promise as he mumbles them against your skin before placing his head against yours. You make no attempt to pull away, instead finding that a broken smile falls on your lips, one of utter relief. Somehow you find a will to speak.

“I missed you”

Potential part two? Maybe? Probably? Definitely?

#call of duty x reader #john price x reader #gender neutral reader #tw: violence #tw: mentions of depressive and suicidal thoughts #tw: heavily implied domestic abuse #tw: blood #cod mw2 #cod mw2 x reader #john price #john price mw2 #john price mw2 x reader #cod x reader #cod mw3 #captain price #call of duty

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furiousgoldfish · 1 year

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Abusive parents will be like, hey why don't we make it a hobby to trigger our child's fight or flight response? Or even better, let's just have the child in hypervigilant mode at all time? Because they never know when the violence is coming??? Perfect.

#childhood trauma #abusive parents #tw physical abuse implied #domestic violence #child abuse #toxic parents #violent parents

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aftgficrec · 1 year

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Hey, do you have any fics were Andrew is just petty.

Annoyed/mildly stroppy, rolling his eyes a lot/pouting/glaring in mild annoyance at the foxes just being the foxes and everyone on the team (from the book, any freshmen from Neil's second year are the same as always) knows that he doesn't mean it and it just a grumpy little gremlin?

So sorry about how long it took to get back to you with this! Life for all of us got really busy and demanding in all sorts of ways for some reason, so these fic recs had to go on the backburner for a bit. Hopefully some of the fics we gathered together below are even remotely what you had in mind. - S

Some previous recs:

‘Witching You A Happy Holiday’ here

‘If I Tried’ here

‘Glencaster Lodge’ here

'Creatures We Find in the Forest’ here

‘The Sweetest Leaves’ here

‘Pinch of Salt.’ here

‘Friday Night Big Screen’ here

‘Since The Last Nonsense’ here

Surrounded By You: Andreil by cwatson13 [Rated T, 3066 words, complete, 2022]

Andrew is going to kill someone before this season is over, he’s sure of it. He hates every single one of the new recruits, especially the one Neil chose.

Andrew is sick and tired of Neil being so god damn oblivious to the fact that most of them are constantly flirting with him. A couple of them do give Neil the oogly eyes far to much for Andrews liking but they don’t actually say anything or do anything so they hardly are under Andrews radar.

Nicky finds it hilarious that Neil is so oblivious to the freshman’s obvious flirting, and it’s even funnier when he sees Andrew glowering at them from across the court

tw: violence

Little Fox by jaydreamz [Rated G, 1738 words, complete, 2022]

Neil finds a dog in a pile of leaves and takes it to the dorms.

Andrew is not impressed. The dog is definitely not staying. Na-ah. Nope. Not even a little. 😆

suffering from forehead kisses deficiency by winterjxsmine [Not Rated, 1128 words, complete, 2022]

andreil and forehead kisses

The End Is Up To Us by mostly_maudlin [Rated T, 32759 words, complete, Aftg Fall Exchange 2022]

Andrew Minyard has never cared much for destiny.

tw: implied/referenced abuse, tw: implied/referenced self harm, tw: ptsd

"Wrong Minyard" - Aaron Minyard by LFMH021 [Rated T, 2605 words, complete, 2020]

Aaron Minyard is exhausted. He wants to be anywhere else except here because his twin is being his asshole self, as usual.

(Andrew stole and hid Aaron’s clothes so he looks exactly like his twin that people thought he is dating Neil Josten. Andrew is petty. Neil is having so much fun. Katelyn isn’t any help whatsoever.)

I am not a library by HonoraryFox [Rated G, 2395 words, complete, 2018]

Nicky borrowed a book from Andrew once. This is how Andrew gets the book and revenge.

Not Another Valentine by justdk [Rated T, 805 words, complete, 2018]

Neil tries to romance Andrew on Valentine's but Andrew's not having it

Empty Threat by orphan_account [Rated T, 940 words, complete, 2017]

Andrew doesn’t hate his new look, but he does hate everyone’s reactions. As usual, Neil is the exception.

Let’s round it off with some crack:

giddy up by mostly_maudlin [Rated T, 677 words, complete, 2022]

You're probably wondering how I ended up here.

A horseback ride in the Blue Ridge mountains sounds idyllic, if you're the kind of person that takes vacations straight out of the free tourist pamphlets at gas stations. I am not that person.

Andrew vs. the cats by @alcego [tumblr, 2022]

pretty sure King wakes Andrew up by smacking him in the face

Art

andrew minyard: not a morning person art by @i-am-weis

Andrew Minyard and better luck next time art by @girubato

andrew!! what a cutie and andrew watercolor art by @hersomethingmore

when it's like 100° but you gotta keep your 'aesthetic' art by @rainbowd00dles

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ladyimaginarium · 11 months

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ptolemaea.

Ptolemaea, one of the several regions of Cocytus, the frozen lake in the ninth and lowest circle of Hell and the lake is divided into four concentric rings of traitors corresponding, in order of seriousness, to betrayal of family ties, betrayal of community ties, betrayal of guests and betrayal of lords, in the circle of Treachery, Ptolemaea is where those traitors who have betrayed their guests and those with whom they had special relationships with, linger on in frigid agony, lying supine in the ice while their tears freeze in their eye sockets, sealing them with small visors of crystal with even the comfort of weeping is denied to them, and their whole bodies up to their neck are covered in ice so they are forced to devour other traitors in the realm of Ptolemaea. ptolemaea - ethel cain / @mothercain. / gangsta. - kohske. / divine comedy; inferno - dante aligheri.

#arcana.weaves #fictives.#erica abaddonato.#alexandria benedetto.#web weaving.#mine.#fandom: gangsta.#smth about f.emale rage of woc & marginalized women & having had enough of the abuse from folx who were supposed to protect them & vengeanc #tw; abusive relationships #tw; domestic violence #tw; implied abuse #tw; guns #hennywayz a.lex & e.rica are quite literally two sides of the same coin & they are s.apphic & they deserved better in this essay i& will:#this was actually inspired by both my& body memories & exomemories considering m.ay was Hell Month TM #n e wayz go listen to ptolemaea by ethel cain its a Religious Experience TM #ESPECIALLY as you read along this lil ting here & the acoustic version on youtube makes it Even Worse :V #* acapella — my& bad lmao #tw; implied csa #tw; long post #tw; blood

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sm-baby · 1 year

Text

HAHAHAhah *starts sobbing*

TW: Workplace Abuse, Implied Domestic Abuse

Word Count: 1,849 words 10,151 characters

Silvia, I'm so sawry... Silvia I'm so sawryy🥺!! uwa-😭 *solemnly caresses a picture of her inside a pendant* SILVIA- 😭😭

____________________

My god.

She didn't think it would happen.

Silvia Blanca became a white servant fully knowing its repercussions. The people weren't too nice to their workers but they fully stayed because they would have a comfortable wage to go home to. Silvia understood that certain accidents may happen in the workplace. But she brushed it off for the pay, thinking to herself that she will simply not make a fuss, not be difficult. After all, she had been working for quite a few years now with a lot of experience.

if only she had paid attention to the red flags a little more...

The living room was deathly quiet. Three maids stared in horror at the sight that took place in front of them. They all tried to look formal and submissive but ended up looking stiff and flinched at the man in the room.

The Sir had his hand up, almost hurting from the strike he left on another one of the fourth maid's cheek. She had almost stumbled back, into the pieces of the shattered vase that she had broken.

Her head was turned completely from him because of it, and she had been left frozen since. The bruise was starting to form as it burned her nerves… it stung yet felt numb at the same time… She didn't know how to react… or if she could react.

" Look at me." The loud voice of the angry man said.

Silvia, the maid, turned her head back at the man, hands politely behind her, and head hung low.

" LOOK AT ME." He grabbed her arm, aggressive enough to break her stance and shove her down.

Silvia gasped as he forcefully grabbed her scalp to turn her head up

" This thing that you just broke costs more than your life. " The man pointed at the broken vase on the floor.

Silvia's eyes were more than fixated on it as he wanted her to be. But all she saw was an array of mistakes and danger, not a vase. Her instincts were there but all she could do was freeze for the moment…

" This will be taken out of your paychecks, you hear me? "

Tears started forming in the corner of her eyes.

" You're not deaf, I SAID, DO YOU HEAR ME? "

Silvia nodded most desperately, closing her eyes shut, sitting in agony and fear about the situation. The man growled and shoved her back, throwing her completely out of balance.

Before she could even compose herself, the head of the residence turned to the other maids and told them to clean up the broken pieces. And they did with much shiver, while the fourth maid still stood in shock behind them. They hadn't dared to turn to her until the sir was completely out of the room.

" You're lucky my son is in charge of you. If it were my way you'd be blacklisted." He said as he marched out of sight.

And as soon as he was out of earshot, Silvia had started to sob quietly in place, face wet with violated tears. Her cheek swelled up more and more.

Near the end of clean up, they turned to her to rub circles around her back, themselves upset for her and the financial consequences of the situation.

"I told you we shouldn’t have told him!"

They whispered to each other.

"He asked us! What were we supposed to do??"

"Uhm? Lie?? Tell him that, no sir, it was broken when we found it…!"

They whispered and apologized to the sobbing witch in front of them. The thing is… Silvia couldn't blame the sir for being mad at her. Breaking a vase is one thing, but trying to hide it? Maybe she did deserve that reaction. After all, she wasn't an angel either.

The next day, she was left to do errands for the junior of the household.

The Mister, 160 years old, decades older than Silvia, and the only son of the residence. He was the one in charge of paying and hiring the servants in the household. She caught him in the middle of doing busy work in his office; what with his messy long hair and reading glasses, barely even that neatly dressed.

"Mister, Your father would like to inform you that-"

"Don't tell me." The Richman interrupted. "I don't need to hear it. "

The Mister heard all about what happened the day before. What the maid had broken was a family heirloom from his father’s side of the family. He didn’t think his father cared for it much, but that afternoon he noticed his father was more than irritable. The mister retreated into his office for the rest of the night until he felt safe again.

"Lucky for you, my family doesn't need the money.” He wrote a quick check on his desk, “I'll be paying for the damages."

He seemed dismissive of her. He hadn't even made an effort to make eye contact… didn't bother to react to her presence. The businessman just looked tired and didn't seem to have much sleep.

"And, " he finished writing the check and stretching his arm out to hand it to her. "An extra."

"Wh… what for? "

The first time he made eye contact with her, all she saw was a face, serious and tired as ever, bags covering his eyes. "...To keep your mouth shut about what happened here. "

…

Silvia, though hesitated, took the money in her hands, and nodded.

"What did I tell you? My husband has quite the temper. " Another noble in the household, the wife and mother, hair long and white like her son's. She was sitting in her bedroom in front of a vanity doing her makeup before leaving for the day, fluffing powder on her cheek, her pink pearly necklace hung by her neck.

Silvia stood idly by, holding the leash of her lady's resting sheep on the bedroom floor.

"Your husband hit me."

"Hm." The lady scoffed and looked at the reflection of the maid in the mirror." You should not have broken that vase then."

Silvia's grip on the leash got tighter.

"Honestly, how hard is it not to touch it when cleaning?" The lady put a hand on her head, almost disappointed or annoyed, before returning to her makeup. "You know how men are. Had it been for the fact that you were a maid, he would have done much worse. "

The maid bit her tongue, a skill she learned after years of doing this service, and with her argumentative and competitive spirit, it wasn't too easy for her. She was tired and upset, she felt like a child being scolded by these people when she was a mature young woman. Despite Silvia's passion for her career, there are times when she wished she could just lie down and not hear from anyone for a while.

The Lady was preparing to spend the day outside, away from the household, accompanied by her sheep and a servant beside her. When it came time to leave, however, The lady excused Silvia and brought a different servant with her. The bruise on the maid's cheek was more than visible, it wasn't exactly an attractive trait to have if other nobles came across her. She could only imagine the whispers of gossip!

Silvia spent a few days being a hidden servant when visitors came around the mansion. She would do her work but would stay in the servants’ hall until they left.

During their meals, the maids and manservants would turn to her asking what happened. Word spreads fast in the mansion, but there are some clarifications they’d like to ask. She answered all of them and brushed off the situation, some servants were supportive of her while some minded their own business… using her as an example for their future endeavors.

After a while, they were taught to move on, and some objectified her as “The poor maid who was assaulted.”

She hated that reputation.

She hated that she was known as that among her peers. She was more than that and she knew it! She was ambitious, strong, and resourceful, and that's not how she wanted to be remembered!

Like she said to the son of the family, she chose to keep her mouth shut about the incident. She took the money which-- she didn’t quite need, but it was an incredibly handsome amount. There was a part of her that felt bad for taking part in the white coven’s antics, but that's just how it is.

Admittedly, she wasn’t eager to spread the news about it either. For the sake of her reputation and future work. Ever since she left she hadn’t heard of the incident again. It wasn’t the last time she was violated in a workplace environment, each time someone laid a hand on her it ached that she had to keep it to herself.

She grew a resentment for the nobles in the white gates. For new hirees, he’d be seen as a cold and strict housekeeper who would punish you for the smallest imperfections, but ask any maid and she will tell you about a woman who cares. A woman that-- once she was put in a higher position where she can afford to make mistakes-- took the blame for those who made their own.

Silvia opened her eyes and found herself, 30 years later, in the queen’s castle. The servants’ hall was where the Maids and Manservants celebrated after serving a successful party for the nobles.

Silvia had a glass of wine between her fingers. She could hear all the people she worked with letting loose, taking off their bows and heels for the day, slouching, and letting themselves be tired. She turned to her right and saw all of the wine the queen gifted them that day, she turned to her left and saw the… people… have a toast.

Slowly, she felt her shoulders unstiffen, and her jaw unclench…

That’s right… she wasn’t where she was all those years ago anymore…

Servanthood was infinitely less stressful in the castle than it was down at the coven. That’s why so many aim to be her highnesses’ servant. It’s why the castle is often compared to heaven… Her majesty, though distant with her workers, was a little more patient with them and treated them like her children than animals. The workers themselves found a sort of support system and a family within the castle.

Silvia slightly flinched when a maid tapped her shoulder but calmed down at the smiling look on their faces. The maids looked eager to share with her the wine they found and the gossip they heard from the attendees of the party. Silvia smiled and joined them…

So many sacrifices for a moment like this. Although there were so many days left to come, she can’t help but think to herself that she made it…

God… She was a happier and more fulfilled woman…

She made it…

#Silvia #Tw: Workplace abuse #Tw: Domestic abuse #Tw: Workplace violence #trigger warning #Simpleton #Simon #Grace #Alexander #writing #fiction #minecraft #mineblr #fanfiction #fanfic #Zeus #Tw: implied domestic abuse

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to-the-starlit-west · 10 months

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click (or tap!) for better quality :’)

art for my fic. varying levels of vulnerability - no mask, no sunglasses. yes, that is a bruise. yes, i am shipping the cubitos. yes, i have psychological issues.

#c!dream #c!eret #dsmp fanart #dreamsmp #tw implied domestic violence #dsmp eret #dsmp dream #what’s the ship name. someone give it #puppetduo #here with a duo name like that it’s no wonder they’re so unhealthy

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agena87 · 10 months

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Kiyoshi: Good morning, sleepyhead. Alfie: Mmm... Five more minutes, please. K: (chuckles and kisses Alfie) What about no? A: (sighs happily) I guess I can see your point. No more sleep. K: Sleep well? A: Uh uh. Except for the human-shaped radiator who got me nearly overheating in the middle of the night. Had some good dream too. K: Oh yeah? Was I in it? A: Of course. Remember when you first came to my house to live? What we did? K: Pillow fight? A: Nah, after. In the corridor, of all places. K: Oh. Those promise rings were so bad quality, I really need to find replacements. Nickel-less, this time. A: In my dream, you did. With the real thing. K: You dreamt of us... getting married? A: Yes. No. Getting engaged. But, yeah. K: I promise you, we'll do that some time. A: Yeah? K: Yes. You and me? It's forever. God, I love you so much. A: Love you too.

#ts4 #the sims 4 #story: all that we are and will never be #oc: alfie dubois #sim: kiyoshi ito #sims spice #nsft #kinda #just an interlude because i realized i never show them other than fighting #except at the start of their relationship in my defunct legacy #so they needed to be shown as an actual couple #but if you look closely enough you'll see it's not as lovey-dovey as it seems #alfie's got a few bruises among which a black eye and strangulation's marks #and he definitively didn't get those having while sex #so i guess that i need to put a:#tw: domestic violence #(implied by the bruises on alfie)#render

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merchantofwhispers · 8 months

Note

Nik what do you ~really~ think of Cinead?

"That's a dangerous question you're asking."

"A man so old that his own people have faded from memory, his true name lost to even himself, watched the rise and fall of civilizations over and over to the point where it is nothing more than a footnote in his own history. I imagine that does something to a man, doesn't it?"

He brought his drink to his lips to buy himself time to consider his words. "I see glimmers in him of what he might have been once, a shred of humanity here and there, especially in his own little flawed moral code. Especially when it comes to my sister, frustrating as that is. I can say that he's only lifted a hand to her once as far as she'd admitted." His rings tapped loudly against the side of his whiskey glass while staring off into the distance. "The man is a good storyteller and an even better liar, I'll give him that much. How he manages to convince so many people he isn't the Devil himself is beyond me."

Another drink, long and slow, before he continues. "Let me get ahead of you and say that all of this may seem hypocritical, but who better to recognize than someone just as guilty? Someone who learned his own demons from him? Cinead is a monster, through and through. An intelligent one, I'll grant him that, but still a monster. He delights in the fear he can create, basks in the blood of those who defy him and sells misery across the Atlantic to make money for himself that he pisses away on whores, dice, and liquor. His existence is as a king in rags, his throne built of bones."

The final drops of his drink were swallowed down so he could rest the glass on the edge of the lip of the cabinet. "I pray that the Gods of his victims beg for forgiveness and that they never receive it for allowing them to fall into Captain Cinead Thorne's cruel, merciless claws."

He smiled while leaning up against the cabinet and gesturing vaguely into the air. "Now you tell me; how do you think I feel about Cinead?"

#Anonymous #c; Nikolai #v; main #/ty sm for asking about my canon and the characters relationships to each other #this is so fun #tw domestic violence #(Implied violence but still just in case)

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splendidissimus · 6 months

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2003 - Break

((Content warning: beating / domestic violence (dream), implied noncon (dream), loss of power control, accidental injuring loved one, hospital, loss of reality, mind invasion (minor) ))

((Promptspiration: @whumptober 2023: day 17: Touch aversion / "Leave me alone." ))

Genre: whump

Romance level: some

Angst level: 4/5

Draco's headspace: fear / guilt / irrational

((words: ~3100))

------------------------------------

Draco felt like he had barely fallen asleep when he was jerked awake by hands on his robes. He recognized Theo's face in the darkness and tried to get his brain together to figure out what was going on. "What's wr-"

"Shut the fuck up." Theo slammed him back. His head hit the headboard so hard it slammed into the wall and there was a cracking sound; he made a cut-off noise and felt light-headed, with pain shooting down his spine. "I am so fucking tired of your whining…"

"Get off…" He tried to be commanding, but his voice felt as faint as his head.

"What a surprise, more orders." Theo grabbed him under the chin, thumb and finger digging in behind his jaw, and forced his head back. The pain redoubled and his vision went blurry. Draco grabbing at his wrist did absolutely nothing to pull him off.

"I try," Theo said. Draco realised he was drunk — drunk and completely honest, for once. "I am patient, and tolerant. But you just can't help being a piece of shit. You know I can't get away from you because of your fucking love potion," he slammed him back into the wall again with all the frustration in his voice, making Draco choke on a cry as pain shot all the way down his spine and clamped his skull, "so of course you're just going to exploit that as much as you can, because why would you do anything else? Order me around like one of your lackeys because you know I'll take it. Whine to me incessantly like a child because you know I'll put up with you when even your own parents won't. I'm tired—" he slammed him back into the wall again, making him choke on a cry and his vision pulse red, "—of listening to you!"

"Stop…" It felt like a whimper. He weakly pulled at his arm, struggling to breathe, vision blurred by slow blooms of colour, except that he could still horribly clearly see Theo's face and the dark anger controlling it. "I'm sorry — please — I'll stop —"

"Oh, right, you'll stop being yourself? Guess what, even if you somehow managed it, it wouldn't matter! It won't fix this! I'm trapped! I could have had a good wife! I could have sweet girlfriend who actually cares about me! I could just be picking up skanks in a pub! But no — I'm stuck with you!"

His hand clenched around Draco's throat, hard crushing pain that made Draco claw desperately at his arm. Then he forced himself to let go and his hand seized into a fist and he punched him in the side of the head, and Draco cowered behind his arms.

"And you fucking know it. You fucking revel in it." He grabbed his arm and ripped it down so his shoulder wrenched. "You know I can't leave, so you fucking tease. A kiss every now and then as a reward? A fuck or two a year on special occasions? Just enough to keep me mollified, right? Just enough to keep me hanging on? And I should be happy with this? I should be honoured you let me have anything?"

"I can't—"

"You can." Theo shoved him down into the bed, gripping his throat. "And you will."

Draco came to with a jerk, choking and gasping, scrambling up in the bed. "Nott!" he croaked, voice hitching in a sob. "Theo!"

The connecting door between their rooms burst open, and Theo rushed in, face twisted up in concern. "It's all r—"

No no no— Draco slashed his hand out to cut off his words, and a shallow but bloody cut bloomed across Theo's chest after it with a deep gasp. "How could you?" Words tumbled out in a half-sobbed scream. "You can't just… Even if I…"

"Draco." Theo froze where he was, holding his chest, making an effort to keep his voice calm. "What is it? What did I do?"

"What did—? You just—!" He clutched at his throat where there was a phantom echo of Theo's seizing fingers.

"It was a dream," Theo assured him in a calm, reasonable voice. He cautiously crept closer while holding his bloody hand out as though to hold him back. "I couldn't hurt you. I couldn't hurt you even if I wanted to, because you can do this, right? So I didn't — it was just a dream."

"It couldn't be a dream… I was…" He grabbed his hair… his head didn't really hurt. He had such clear memories of the pain of having his skull cracked, how it ran all the way down his body and hurt to move, and now it was just gone… like it had never really been there. How could that be right? It was so real, it couldn't be a dream—

He gripped his head tightly and screamed into his knees. Something had to be real!

Theo reached the bed and touched his hands. A half-formed thought bloomed — he was coming to hold him down again — and he reflexively thought a blasting curse that threw him into the wall with a small explosion and a crash of breaking shelves.

Theo—! He didn't mean to do that! He reached out for a second before he stopped himself; he scrambled off the bed and caught a single glimpse of him lying there. He didn't dare check if he was okay, he'd probably hurt him again. He had to get away. He ran into his mother in the doorway and spun them around and pushed her toward Theo, backing away into the hall to put space between them. "Stay away from me!" He only had an impression of her startled face as he fled down the stairs.

With a formless surge of fear, he saw his father still up, in the parlour, coming toward the noise, and he threw a binding jinx at him to keep him away. He heard breaking glass. Then he was outside in the fresh air and swiftly Disapparated.

Lucius recovered his composure quickly and repaired the wineglass he'd dropped when he ducked Draco's spell. The front doors were standing open, but Draco was gone; he closed them with a flick of his wand and took the stairs up. "What is going on?"

"Did you stop him?" Narcissa asked from down the hall. He found her in Draco's room, with some annoyance. What was the point of Nott if he couldn't handle Draco's outbursts? But the room was a mess, and Nott was bleeding, while she worked to stop it.

"No, he left. What happened?" he repeated.

"He had a dream he thought was real," Nott said faintly, holding his chest. Lucius looked at the damage to the room again, how it was all centred around Nott, and the injuries to him, and saw instantly how this would be the perfect opportunity to pass off an actual attack as Draco's erratic behaviour. He looked at Nott swiftly and met his eyes, catching his mind unawares… and for once, he found no sign of a lie there.

Nott didn't realise he'd been read, and tried to take a deep breath. "He didn't snap—" He had to stop and cough, trying to breathe, again. Blasted in the chest, probably. "—snap until he realised it was a dream."

Then it wasn't the content of the dream that was the problem, it was that he had mistaken a dream for reality in the first place. He thought he understood. "I'll get him," he said, and followed Draco.

When Lucius Apparated to St. Mungo's, he could immediately hear Draco yelling. "You need to do something about it!" He was out of sight around the corner from the Apparition zone, yelling at someone in intake.

"Sir, calm down—"

"Get away from me!" There was a crash and Lucius came to the door — a Healer was on the floor and the receptionist backing away from the desk, and the only other person there was a patient waiting with a squash for a nose, looking over the top of a Prophet.

He threw a silent stunning spell at Draco while his back was turned — hardly honourable, but just to get this situation under control before he did serious damage.

But Draco threw up a shield spell to intercept it somehow in the instant he shouldn't have even known it was coming, and spun around, fluidly grabbing a half dozen of the floating candles with a gesture and flinging them at him. They bounced off the wall when he stepped back behind the doorway.

"Draco, stop," he commanded.

"Get away!"

"Drop your wand!" he heard called from the other side of the room, security coming from the street entrance or from a higher floor, perhaps. And of course that didn't work for a variety of reasons, and he heard Draco engage them while telling them to leave him alone. He came back around the door and found two guards trying to Stun him. He joined them; one of them would be able to take him down before he hurt someone.

In theory. In practise…

Whose brilliant idea was it to teach Draco to duel wandlessly? Oh right, Severus kindly taught him not to use a wand, and he started duelling when Narcissa cut him off from their vaults. Well, they had created a monster. He could cast magic so quickly and seamlessly that he hardly even seemed like a wizard using spells. He easily held off the three of them, performing not just simple defensive magic, but also complex calculations like transfiguring the wall to wrap around one of the guards and hold her.

When he raised his wand to bind Draco while he was distracted, Draco gestured at him with a sudden glance and his arm fell instantly limp and literally boneless, flopping like a glove filled with water. His wand flew back into the entry room somewhere. Draco's attention was already turned on another threat, flinging the desk into the air between him and a flurry of spells that were no longer merely intended to Stun and bind, as they realised the level of threat he posed.

"Draco!" he snapped in his most commanding voice, because he knew Draco would respond to the sound of authority the way he needed — he looked. Lucius met his eyes and applied Legilimency with all the force instead of finesse possible, to really make him repel the invasion.

It was extremely unpleasant; it took no effort whatsoever to get into Draco's mind, and it was sheer chaos. He had always been overly emotional, but he had been taught from a young age to control that and compartmentalise it properly. Now that had broken down into a howling maelstrom of impressions and feelings that conveyed almost nothing but layers and layers of different kinds of fear.

He couldn't withstand that assault for long, but it worked. While they both flinched away from the contact, Draco was too distracted to block the guards' spells. Two stunning spells hit Draco almost at once, and he crumpled. He hoped Draco's heart was strong enough to take it.

"Master's wand," a small voice behind him said, and he looked down. Sometime in the chaos, Tolly had Apparated in with Nott, whose injuries were apparently beyond home remedy, and who was now leaning heavily on the wall where he could see through the doorway, holding his chest and breathing laboriously. The elf was holding up his wand with deferentially drooping ears.

A surge of revulsion at the sight of an elf with a wand showed on his face, and he snatched it up without acknowledging it. "Inform Narcissa," he instructed. She cringed a bow and vanished.

After getting his arm tended to, Lucius waited around in the café on the top floor until morning when he was allowed to visit. The delay gave him an unfortunate amount of time to consider what broken impressions he had taken from Draco's mind, and he didn't like what he saw there.

When it was time, he found Draco in ward 49: long-term patients whose minds had been affected by magic. It was grim. The ward itself tried to be cheerful enough, in clean neutral colours and littered with the residents' personal belongings, but it was still a half dozen helpless people stored in a locked room without an ounce of privacy or dignity. And it was seeming ever more likely that it would eventually be Draco's permanent fate.

They wouldn't leave him here, of course. Even if he needed permanent care, they would bring him home and bring someone in to provide it. But the haunting spirit was the same.

The witch watching the ward was occupied with one of the Longbottoms having a fit, and he went on to find Draco's bed without announcing himself. He sat beside the bed with his arms crossed, staring at him. He wasn't sure if Draco was asleep or unconscious, either sedated or Stunned, but he looked like he was where he belonged, and that itself was unpleasant.

Not long after the beginning of visiting hours, someone else entered the ward. Lucius listened without moving as he approached the ward matron and asked after Draco.

"Is everything all right, Auror? He was brought in unconscious and hasn't woken yet."

"Just following up."

He finally got up and stepped out to meet them just before they arrived at Draco's bed, pulling the curtains closed to hide him. The matron showed surprise that he was there and greeted him pleasantly, but he focused on the Auror, a portly older man with a grey moustache and a bowler named Janssen. "He's still asleep. I take it this is about the incident last night."

"It is."

"My son had an… episode. I think you'll find that no one was seriously hurt."

"Spells were exchanged in the hospital. We obviously have to check on that." He flipped his notebook open. "I see here that you, a Healer, and two responding guards required treatment after this 'episode', as well as a Theodore Nott."

"That's a private matter."

"When it sends people to the hospital, domestic matters become our business."

"I didn't say 'domestic'," he snapped. "Nott is his assistant."

"Who he injured?"

That was a question. He was fishing. Just like an Auror, barging in where he didn't belong, when he didn't know anything… He took hold of his anger and pushed it away. "What do you want?"

The Auror looked back at him and saw he wasn't going to play along. "To hear his side of the story. Can you wake him up?" He nodded to the matron.

Pulling back the curtains to expose the sleeping Draco, she stepped up beside his bed and uncapped what looked like a potion, but instead let out a strong scent of flowers. Lilies, daffodils, grass, and water - it smelled just like their gardens in the summer. Had he really been here so often that they had these tricks on hand to keep him calm?

"All right, Draco, honey," she was saying in a soothing voice as she roused him with a spell. He opened his eyes calmly, and she smiled. "That's it, welcome back…"

Lucius could not have said what he saw that told him everything was about to go horribly wrong, but he trusted his instincts and stepped backward. In the next instant, Draco cast a shield spell so powerful it flashed in a visible violet orb around him, and shoved everything — nurse, Auror, table, curtain dividers, the bed on the other side it — ten feet away from him in every direction. Someone screamed.

"Stay away!"

Janssen was thrown to the floor, and he pulled his wand before even getting his feet back under him. Lucius whipped his out and disarmed him before he could use it.

"What are you doing, Malfoy?" The Auror scrambled back to his feet and snatched his wand off the floor without taking his eyes off him.

Lucius held up his wand in two fingers, overtly unthreatening. "He is not fighting."

And it was true. Draco had grabbed his hair and pressed back against the head of the bed, one hand outstretched and shaking, hiding his face. He hadn't cast another spell and wasn't even watching them.

"You attacked an Auror — you'll go back t—"

"I stopped you escalating a volatile situation," he interrupted. Threatening him with Azkaban in range of Draco's hearing and magic was a dangerous idea, he had a feeling. "He is not fighting," he reiterated, and dropped into a low, controlled voice. "He is terrified."

"Stop this!" the ward matron commanded. If she minded being thrown about by Draco's spell, she didn't show it at all. "The both of you need to leave, you're upsetting them. It's all right, honey." She rubbed Frank Longbottom's shoulder to relax him. Somewhere in his broken mind, he must have remembered being an Auror, because he was standing in front of his wife and a cowering Lockhart with his arm outstretched as though he had a wand, glaring at him and Janssen.

Lucius took a step back to defuse the situation. For the moment, he would cooperate. "Stay away from Draco," he warned her. "He's not trying to hurt anyone; he's lashing out in panic when people try getting close enough to touch him."

"That won't be a problem," she said, her tone of voice incongruously soothing and attention still on Longbottom, getting him to lower his arm. Perhaps they responded to tone rather than words. "No one wants to scare anyone, do we?"

"I'll be relieving him of his wand first," Janssen said firmly, making no move to leave.

"He isn't using a wand," Lucius told him flatly.

The Auror glanced at Draco swiftly and then looked hard at him. "Accidental magic?"

He clenched his jaw rather than admit to it. That would have been an embarrassment ten years ago. Even fifteen years ago he'd basically had control of his magic before he even had a wand. Now to admit that the family harboured a full-grown adult guilty of such emotional and magical… incontinence…

"Out, gentlemen," the matron commanded, sweeping them with a steely stare.

Lucius put his wand away and pointedly waited for the Auror to precede him out into the corridor. The door audibly locked behind them.

"This is a dangerous situation," Janssen was saying, scribbling himself some notes. "Uncontrolled magic of this magnitude… if it is uncontrolled…"

"Do you see which ward you are in?" he demanded in a low, sharp voice, his anger barely reined in behind it. Lunatics. Every patient in this ward was a lunatic.

Every last one.

"Leave. Him. Alone."

Janssen looked at the Janus Thickey ward plaque for a silent second, then left without another word.

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theabyssgazesalsointoyou · 1 year

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If you would still like any more prompts, 45 with rich and jake?

Rich didn't mean to eavesdrop.

He didn't mean to. He really didn't.

But no matter how much he swore it, it was all in vain when Jake was staring at him from across the living room, eyes wide and glassy, whatever it was he wanted to say dying in his throat and coming out in a broken gasp instead.

Rich should've seen it coming. Not Jake. Jake couldn't have, how could he have when there was nothing he'd done wrong? There had been nothing out of the ordinary to warn him, nothing that would've stood out to this boy who was already preoccupied with trying to balance the world on his shoulders.

To Rich, however- Rich, who had a supercomputer feeding him predictions via quantum computing; who had the tendency to assume and prepare for the worst, no matter how improbable it seemed; who practically had tunnel vision for Jake- every sign flashed before his eyes.

It was his fault he hadn't taken them seriously. He'd made the mistake of believing Jake was indestructible, that nothing could hurt him- that nothing like that would happen to him at all.

He had been so, so unbelievably selfish to let his mind wander from Jake. He never questioned Jake's claims about his parents being away on business trips, what was important to him was that he had a place to stay if things inevitably went up in flames at home. (It was so easy to get lost in that exhilarating feeling, knowing that he was welcomed and in safe hands. Rich still remembered how Jake had pulled him aside after school one day, worry evident in his eyes as he pressed a spare key into Rich's open palm, his other hand brushing over the bruise high on Rich's cheekbone.)

It was another one of those days, when he could barely keep it together and the key in his pocket was his last resort. Rich was sitting in his brother's old jeep, feet kicked up on the steering wheel in a careless manner that completely mismatched the storm raging in his brain. His limbs twitched against his will from the shocks traversing along his spinal cord, though he was almost numb to the pain by then. The squip was screaming at him, too, over what he hadn't the faintest idea. A migraine was looming over the horizon of his loose consciousness, but Rich would take this over facing his father on his own any day.

Under no circumstances should you go to Jake Dillinger's today, his squip warned. Rich scoffed and focused on drowning its voice out. Shutdown, shutdown, shutdown.

Everything went quiet and the tautness of his muscles drained from him- a marionette whose strings had been cut.

The way to Jake's was easy, it came naturally to him, a second instinct. But a premonition settled over him when he slid in the key and turned the doorknob, the metal too cold against his skin for the weather, the door eerily silent as it swung open on its hinges.

The house seemed to be holding its breath, but Rich could hear Jake's voice coming from the kitchen- distressed, harsher than he'd ever heard, yet muffled by the squip buzzing back to life, making its presence known with a sharp jolt to the back of his skull. Leave. You don't want to get caught up in this mess.

It was a miracle Rich managed to get his squip to shut up again- shutdown usually only worked once or twice a week if he was lucky. Maybe it was how tired of everything he was, or the pang of resentment he always felt when the squip tried to govern his interactions with Jake, or the sharp wave of concern for Jake taking over his system. Whichever it was, the squip's droning died down and made way for Jake's voice to settle clearly in his mind.

Whether that was a gift or a curse, Rich would never know.

"- leaving? What are you talking about? When are you coming back? No, wait, mom, you can't just- don't hang up, don't hang up, please. Mom? Hello?"

Rich's lungs collapsed in on itself. He couldn't believe he was thinking this, but maybe, just maybe, his squip had been right- just this once. He wasn't supposed to be hearing this. He wasn't supposed to be here. He was intruding upon a moment that wasn't meant to be seen.

This had to be some cruel joke. None of it made any sense. It had to be a test, a simple misunderstanding, even. The world as he knew it crumbled beneath his feet, even for Rich, a mere bystander, a speck of dust revolving around the star that was Jake- how would Jake feel?

He could've run, shut the door behind him as surreptitiously as he'd entered, never found the answer to that question unless Jake chose to reveal it. It should've been that way, the choice should've been Jake's to make. But Rich was selfish. He was selfish and he couldn't stand the thought of Jake burdened with yet another secret, one that could be the final straw to break his back.

"Jake?"

And there he was at the far end of the room. He looked, even in the very moment his life was crashing into a thousand pieces, more composed than anyone could hope to be- but Rich saw past the façade the tears threatening to fall and the way he desperately grasped for his voice.

"How much of that did you hear?"

Only a few sentences. Too much. More than I had the right to. Enough to understand.

The squip was disconnected, which meant the nagging voice in the back of Rich's head urging him to say nothing, to lie, to spare Jake what little dignity he had left, was his.

The spare key was heavy in his hand. A physical manifestation of Jake's trust and affection, and here Rich was thinking of lying to him on the precious occasion he was allowed to be just as vulnerable in return. The metal burned as hot as his shame.

"I'm sorry," he decided on saying. Both an apology for eavesdropping and an expression of sympathy, and something he didn't get to say as much as he wanted to. It probably wasn't what Jake wanted to hear, but really, what answer would he have been happy with?

"Yeah, well, I'm fine," Jake said. Rich would've believed it if he didn't know Jake better. "Sorry you had to hear that."

God. He never wanted to hear the word 'sorry' from Jake. If anything, Rich was the one who should've been on his knees for forgiveness a long time ago, for all the shit he made Jake put up with- and Jake was apologizing for Rich walking in on his parents fucking ditching him. It was beyond fucked up. Oh, Rich was so, so fucking mad- at Jake's parents, at the world, at himself- and for the first time, he understood the reason behind Jake's clenched jaw and dark eyes whenever Rich showed up with bruises and cuts from home.

It was unfair, how many times Rich had broken down in Jake's arms like that and Jake couldn't even let himself admit he wasn't okay in front of Rich.

Rich knew that he was to blame. It hurt, as the truth often does, and it was the sting that spurred him to make a long-overdue decision that very moment.

He was going to get Jake to open up. He was going to be someone Jake could rely on. He was going to get rid of this goddamn bitch of a computer and set things right.

How he would manage to do that, he had no fucking idea, but he could start somewhere: without hesitating, Rich strode over to Jake and pulled him down into a tight hug.

#orca answers #yes i still am taking prompts #it might take a while to complete them though #anyway. this is such an unoriginal idea but the ✨angst✨#once again i didn't edit at all i hope it's decent #implied domestic violence tw #bmc #be more chill #richjake #rich goranski #jake dillinger #the abyss writes back to you

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