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letarasstuff · 3 years

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Still too itchy, too loud, too bright

(A/N): This can be read as a part two of “Too itchy, too loud, too bright” but it also stands alone, since it’s x teen!reader. I hope you enjoy reading it :)

Summary: Sensory overloads suck, also as a teenager. How can Spencer help his daughter going through them?

Warnings: Description of sensory overload (based on how I feel like when I get them and what the internet gets me)

Wordcount: 1.1k

✨Masterlist✨ _________________________________ She got them since she was a toddler. At first it was difficult to find the triggers and avoid them, but together with her father (Y/N) learned to deal with them: Sensory overloads.

Unfortunately she can’t always avert getting them. Today is an example for it.

The teenager feels generally uncomfortable for a few days already with school stress piling high, the dates of your exams moving closer and her patience with herself and other people running thinner with the days. In the end another episode was nearly inevitable.

It is Friday and (Y/N) counts the seconds until her last period ends. It’s not that pleasant to sit in a room full of pubescents teenage boys, who think body spray replaces a shower. Everybody, who enters the classroom, is met with a stinking wall consisting of at least eleven different sprays.

Before her sense of smell goes completely numb the bell indicates the class’s end. A sigh of relief slips past (Y/N)’s lips as soon as she exits the school building and gets her first breath of fresh air.

Buckling her messenger bag the teenager prepares herself to make her way to the next metro stop. But she stops as soon as she sees two familiar faces in the school’s parking lot.

“Dad! Aunt Emily! I didn’t know you wanted to pick me up!” Happily she gives both of them a hug. Spencer tells her something, but out of all sudden the noise level increases very sharply. He can see that his daughter gets disoriented by that, trying to spot the several sources of the different commotions.

“What about we get into the car?” He suggests, pointing his thumb at the vehicle, to underline his statement. Thankful for that (Y/N) nods and finds relief in the quietness inside the car.

After a few minutes of silence she pipes up: “Ok, I thought about something and as soon as I say this, you are not allowed to react in any way. It is a fact. I categorized the people I know and I decided that you, Emily, are the one to most likely fake her own death. And I got a question: Where are we going?”

Flabbergasted by the aforementioned ‘fact’, the godmother finds herself unable to answer. “We are driving to the diner that is a few blocks down from Quantico. I thought a lunch together would be a nice start to an off weekend,” Spencer says, turning around on the passenger seat and cheekily smiles at his child.

“No way, an entire weekend? The whole two and a half days?” For her it feels like Christmas and her birthday fell on the exact same day.

Shortly after that the little bell above the establishment’s rings as Emily opens the door, Reid and his daughter following suit. Inside they are met by a cozy ambiente, though it seems a little too cramped for (Y/N)’s liking.

Quickly they place their orders and hold interesting small talk while waiting. The longer they sit there, the more people come in and get their own table. The lunch rush just started and it seems like the diner is buzzing with customers and their own conversations. The level of noise is once again rising. Screams of an upset child, the crash of a dropped plate and the frying of meat in a pan fill her ears, bringing her closer and closer to the edge of drowning in the information all her senses send to her brain.

Suddenly everything her skin touches feels more intensive. May it be her hands on the leather of the small booth they sit in, that stick to it due to them getting sweaty. Or the fabric of her shirt that now scratches her more than ever. Or the elastic of her mismatched socks that are too tight on her ankles.

All of a sudden the world seems to be brighter. The artificial light above their head hurts the teenager’s eyes and so do the rays of sunlight coming through the window. Even the TV she sees in her peripherals sets something off in her.

The abrupt silence from his otherwise chatty child kind of forces Spencer to profile her micro expressions. The twitching of her hands and right eyebrow, sweat running down her forehead and the paleness of her skin. The agent immediately knows what is happening.

“Emily, get our order to go. I take (Y/N) to the car, it’s an episode.” The raven haired woman recognizes the code and nods. “I got some fidget toys and classical music in my car. Here’s the key.”

Gently Spencer ushers the teenager outside and into the car, careful to not touch her unnecessarily. As soon as they are inside, he gets her favorite fidget toy from the middle console and her noise cancelling headphones from her backpack. He gives both items to (Y/N), watching her putting the headphones on with trembling hands. While she calms down, the father tries to give her as much space as possible, knowing that she wants to ‘reset’ her senses.

Soon Emily enters and they drive in silence to the Reid’s apartment. It was self-explanatory that she won’t go up with them, seeing the current state the teenager is in.

A little later they sit together at the kitchen table, empty containers of food standing between pencils and coloring books for adults. “Do you want to talk about what was setting this episode off?” Spencer asks tentatively. But (Y/N) shakes her head. “No. Guess it just happened,” she tries to shrug it off.

“Sweetheart”, he attempts to get her attention by grabbing her hand, which she doesn’t retract. “Sensory overloads don’t just happen. All your senses get overwhelmed, they send too many information to your brain. I know you know the science behind it, so don’t go and shrug it off. You know what it was triggered by and I just want to tell you that I’m here when or if you want to talk with me about it. But please don’t act like nothing happened, do you understand?”

The teenager nods. “I understand. But I have to think about it all at first, then I’ll come to you. Can we just watch BBC Sherlock? I think drooling over Benebatch Cucumbercrick and Martin Freeman would do us good.” Laughing, Spencer agrees that a bit of “Benadriel Crumblebutter” can work magic and so they watch two seasons this and the next two the other day. In other words: A relaxed day at the Reid household after a storm.

Taglist:

All works:

@agentshortstacc

Criminal Minds:

@averyhotchner @mggsprettygirl

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x daughter!reader #spencer reid x teen!reader #spencer reid #Criminal Minds #criminal minds fanfiction #x reader #reader insert #x teen!reader #x daughter!reader

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snailsnfriends · 3 years

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This is the third analysis and summary of Tommy’s prison stay with Dream

You can read through the first one here, and the second one here. Dialogue is color-coded: Tommy, Dream, Wilbur.

Stream: Dream Revives Tommy

The stream starts with Tommy in limbo. He asks if he’s dead, and is greeted by Wilbur. He and Wilbur interact with each other normally; nothing seems very different from how they’d interact while alive. Based on what we see and what we’re told, Tommy’s limbo is a whole lot of nothing. There is nothing but darkness, Wilbur, Schlatt, Mexican Dream, and himself. Objects do exist here (Wilbur complaining that he set up cards for six hours that morning), but we do not see them. Wilbur also seems to have knowledge about the universe, including when it ends. Eventually, we get this conversation (there is a lot of crosstalk here, so forgive the messiness of this):

“I’m really happy you’re here, man,” “Stop saying that to me, stop it,” … “You know why I’m glad Tommy? … Me and you were never good for that server… it all falls in our laps, the problems, right.” “When you talk like this, I do the thing where my voice gets shaky, when you talk like this.” … “... if it weren’t for me and you dying, the server would be in shambles. I know for a fact that if I come back… it’s definitely gonna just go to shit again. … I know what I’m like, that’s the issue.”

Wilbur then talks about creating a solitaire arena, and Tommy is on the verge of revival. Now that we have some hindsight vision, we can analyze this a little more properly. When this was first streamed, we had no idea what Wilbur’s limbo looked like or if he had one. Now we know that they were able to speak to each other despite being in separate limbos. The way Wilbur is speaking here plays into Tommy’s fears and challenges his beliefs. Tommy is upset by his death and Wilbur’s happiness over it. Something to note about Wilbur being happy about his own death here is that Tommy grieved over Wilbur for a long time, and arguably, was still grieving at this point. Seeing Wilbur be happy about it compared to his grief is, understandably, upsetting. He has a hard time staying calm while Wilbur talks about this. Tommy, as stated in the last two streams, believes that Dream is the reason why the server is in shambles, not him and Wilbur. The fact that Wilbur, someone Tommy trusts, is saying this, makes Tommy uncomfortable and upset. Not only that, but the fact that Wilbur doesn’t have faith in his goodness if he comes back makes Tommy more anxious. Again, this is somebody that Tommy trusts and cares about. Wilbur speaking like this is concerning, to say the least.

Now, Tommy is revived, and visibly shocked. He can’t get a single word out for a while. He describes his limbo as “void.” He tells Dream who was there, which piques Dream’s curiosity even more. Dream asks what it feels like, and Tommy struggles to give an answer. After more stuttering and pacing, Tommy says it felt like being ripped apart and put back together again, all stretched out, shredded. He asks Dream to pinch him, and once Dream does it, he screams in retaliation. Touch has now become another trigger of Tommy’s. Once Dream tells him that nothing has changed and everyone thinks he’s dead, he responds with this:

“I was dead. I was- you killed me!”

Note that Tommy did not mention this immediately after revival. This acceptance, or, at least, realization, came about when Dream told him that everyone believes that he’s dead. This only comes into perspective for Tommy when he thinks about others, not himself being able to move around with Dream again.

After being told that he was dead for some time, Tommy panics, saying he was gone for plenty of time. He asks for Tubbo first multiple times, then Phil, then Fundy, then Sam. It’s very easy to see that Tommy is having a panic attack. He trips and falls over his words, he is not calm, he paces around the cell, he asks for people he’s friends with to help ground him, his breathing is shaky. Tommy is not stable at all right now, yet Dream continues to ask him questions about the afterlife. Tommy tries to piece together what happened. He knows how he died, but struggles to tell Dream how much time has exactly gone by. As Tommy tries to think, Dream speaks to him, so we get:

“Shut up! Shut up! H- sorry. I’m sorry.”

Though this seems minor, it really isn’t Tommy is not one to apologize for something like this, and he has no reason to apologize to Dream here. Tommy apologizes for his emotions when he’s nervous and ranty, but only to people he likes. It is not normal for Tommy to be apologizing here. He is not stable and is incredibly overwhelmed.

Each time the guardians make a noise, Tommy jumps. He stares at the walls and objects in the prison for a while before moving around again. Tommy is not only having a panic attack, but he’s also experiencing sensory overload; he is taking in more information than his brain can process. This only makes his panic worse. Not only that, but Tommy was deprived of his other senses while in limbo. He has not seen light in a while, nor has he felt anything other than pain. This makes the sensory overload worse because he now has to go back to “normal.” He goes from nothing to absolutely everything at once.

This is when Dream calls himself a god over being able to kill and revive people whenever he wants. Tommy moves on from this quickly, though, to ask Dream questions, because he does not have the capacity to process it. Now, Tommy talks about Wilbur:

“Dream, I thought he was like my brother, alright? Even before, I wasn’t sure… as much as I hate him, he was one of my best friends, whether I like him or not. Dream, I’ve been there for so long now, I take every last ounce of doubt I had back. Do not bring back Wilbur. Ever. Promise me you’ll never do that.”

We did not see all of Tommy’s time spent in limbo. We have no idea what could’ve been said within that time. However, we do know that what Wilbur said scared Tommy to the point where he was willing to be friends with his abuser to keep Wilbur dead. Wilbur and Tommy were very close, so hearing this from Tommy is major. What Wilbur said earlier, as previously stated, played into Tommy’s fears and challenged his beliefs. Tommy is severely overwhelmed right now, so he may be exaggerating, but the point still stands: What Wilbur said to Tommy scared him so much that he did not want Wilbur back, despite their close relationship.

But, of course, because nothing is that easy, Dream says that it is out of Tommy’s control. Dream suggests that Tommy could go back and take notes, which Tommy refuses quickly. Tommy explains that what he went through is not something Dream could possibly comprehend. Dream admits that the revive book is memorized after Tommy asks him to burn it. Afterwards, we get this:

“We can study it! We can study it together! We can become immortal together by studying it!” “I want absolutely fucking nothing to do with you.”

Dream does not see Tommy as a human being. Dream has heard Tommy describe the pain and anguish he went through in the afterlife, but he doesn’t care. This is also evidence of Dream’s obsession with Tommy; his want to be immortal with Tommy being the reason why. His morbid curiosity is more important than Tommy’s autonomy. We get this right after:

“You owe me your life!”

Again, Dream believes that Tommy is just as obsessed as he is. He does not see Tommy as his own person. He does not understand why Tommy would be upset and ungrateful because he is excited and interested. He lacks any remorse for his actions, and believes that he should be praised. Tommy owes Dream nothing but the blame for his death. This abuse of power makes Tommy realize that he has to kill Dream. Dream accepts this, and Tommy prepares to kill him. As Tommy begins to hit Dream, he realizes that he will be left alone in the prison if he kills Dream. Sam would not visit, so there is truly no way out for Tommy. Here, Tommy notes that being completely isolated would be worse than being dead. After exile, Tommy fears being alone. He knows that at least when he’s dead he has people around him. If he kills Dream, he’ll have nothing.

“I could go and kill Tubbo and bring him back. I could, I could, you know, everyone is my puppet, and I can…” … “You didn’t believe me! I was proving a point!” “You killed me just to prove a point!”

Dream’s dehumanization of people is not limited to Tommy. Dream sees everyone as disposable and controllable. He literally calls everyone his puppet. He killed Tommy to prove a point, which is not something he had to do. Tommy was justifiably upset by this, but Dream disregards it. Dream victim blames Tommy outright here by saying that he absolutely had to be killed. Again, no one was pulling Dream’s leg here. There is not some otherworldly being causing Dream to do this. He beat Tommy to death because he wanted to. He didn’t have to do this. This was a conscious decision he made. He then gaslights Tommy, saying that it isn’t a big deal because he’s alive now, as if he wasn't dead literally twenty minutes before this. Despite Tommy calling Dream out on his behavior, Dream doesn’t care and says that once he gets out, he’ll use the book to his advantage. He’ll bring back Wilbur and have Wilbur help him escape. And so, we’re left with this:

“Promise me you won’t bring back Wilbur.” “I’m bringing back Wilbur.” “Fuck. Fuck.”

And the stream ends there. Within three streams, Tommy has died and been revived. Tommy originally entered the prison to gain closure. He wanted to close the book with Dream. He wanted to focus on his hotel. He wanted to heal. He wanted to move on.

But it’s never that easy, is it?

#dream smp #tommyinnit #dreamwastaken #dream smp prison arc #dream smp analysis #snailtrail.slimes #tw victim blaming #tw gaslighting

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nicknellie · 3 years

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Anonymous requested: I know in a post you said something about Alex getting sensory overload so for the requests maybe Alex getting sensory overload and Willie being there to do his best to help Alex out

Ahhh, I love this request so much! This is my favourite Alex headcanon that I have so I’m really glad you requested this. I wrote it as a mixture of what I go through when I get sensory overload and also what I’ve found through research so more people can hopefully relate. I haven’t proof-read it yet, but I’ll come back and do that later. Thank you so much for the request!

Title from All You’re Dreaming Of by Liam Gallagher.

TW: sensory overload, anxiety

When The World Is At Its Worst

Alex had three extremes: worrying himself so much that he overworked, worrying himself so much that he got nothing done, and worrying himself so much that he broke. Normally, he could cope with pushing himself too hard – at least that way he got things done, and when he ran out of errands to make himself run it gave him some time to relax and recalibrate. Getting little done was more stressful, but it tended to happen less often, so Alex didn’t see it as much of a problem. What Alex struggled with the most was pulling himself back together when he felt utterly ruined.

Sometimes – not as often as he worked too hard, but not as seldom as he worked too little – Alex would worry himself to the point where everything simply became too much. The point where every sensation was painfully overwhelming, distressing in a way nothing else really compared too. Lights shone too brightly, noises were amplified tenfold, and if something was touching him he could feel it like a hand clasped too tightly on his skin. His parents had said it was just him being sensitive, Willie had said it was probably something called sensory overload, but Alex just wished it didn’t happen to him.

The worst part was that it was usually caused by him working himself too hard, something he didn’t think he could have ever stopped if he tried. He would worry, which would make him work, which would worry him more if things weren’t going well, and then his mind would dissolve into a mess of disarrayed senses and feelings and it hurt. He would shut down, which only seemed to make his anxieties worse.

It hadn’t happened in a while though, so that made Alex feel a little better about the whole thing. Maybe, if he’d got lucky for once, those episodes were starting to go away. Maybe he didn’t have to worry about them so much now that they hadn’t happened in a few months. Maybe he could start to get on with his life as normal. He could hope, at the very least.

Exams week was coming up at Los Feliz. For Alex, when exam stress hit, it hit hard. He wasn’t even sure what worried him so much about exams. Perhaps it was the big fiasco that school always made about exams, having to sit in total silence with the threat of disqualification looming over you so much that it was nerve-wracking to even lift your head to look at the time. Perhaps it was the orderly rows and having an entire year group lumped in the hall together, making it feel so formal and suffocating and painfully important in a way it almost certainly wasn’t. Perhaps it was the unpredictability of it all, not knowing what would come up or what it would be best to revise.

It didn’t matter too much to Alex what was stressing him out – even when he knew what was causing his nerves, he had never been much good at combatting them. His strategy this time was to prepare for the exams as much as he could, force himself to soak in as much information as possible. He just wanted to give himself a chance to be confident that he knew everything because just maybe that would help him do well and calm down.

He had enlisted Willie to help him revise over the weekend. Willie was more than happy to do so – he had said he was looking forward to spending some quality time with his boyfriend even if it was just the two of them pouring over a biology revision guide for four hours straight. If Alex hadn’t been so conscious that he needed to be revising, he would have felt bad that he was spending time with Willie without spending time with him, but thankfully Willie truly didn’t seem to mind.

“Ten out of ten, hotdog,” Willie said triumphantly after Alex had given them his final answer to the quick quiz Willie had been giving him. “Third time in a row, too. You’re going to ace this test.”

Alex closed his eyes and rubbed his fingers against his temples. He didn’t say anything. Willie had sounded certain that Alex would do well for the whole day, but the truth was that Alex felt like he was guessing most of the answers and getting them right by pure chance. Either that or Willie was giving him the benefit of the doubt and saying he was right when he was actually miles off. Despite the fact that he had constantly shown he knew what he was talking about, he still felt completely clueless.

Willie didn’t seem best pleased with Alex’s silence. “Hey,” they said, gently taking one of Alex’s hands. “You know your stuff. You’ll be fine. And if you’re really that worried, you’ve still got the rest of the week to refresh your memory. We’ve got this.”

Alex hummed noncommittally. He heard Willie sigh.

“Why don’t we take a quick break?” Willie suggested, running his hand through Alex’s hair.

At that, Alex’s eyes shot open, he sat up and immediately stiffened, looking wide-eyed at a baffled Willie.

“No,” he said, “I don’t need to take a break. I’m not going to be able to learn all this if I take time out.”

Willie looked at him, his brown eyes sympathetic. “I don’t want to push you too hard. At least get up and get a glass of water – we’ve been sat in the same place for hours, it’ll do you good to clear your head.”

“I don’t need to,” Alex repeated. How could he get up and walk away when he still had five more topics to cover? When he needed to doublecheck he understood everything and still have time to solve some physics problems afterwards? He couldn’t just ‘take a break’. It would ruin everything.

“Are you sure?” Willie said. They didn’t look convinced, but Alex wasn’t going to back down. He knew what he needed to do and he was going to stick to it.

He nodded shortly and then flicked to a new page. “Test me on this,” he told Willie, who – with a reluctant sigh – began to ask him questions about the information.

The problem was that Willie’s suggestion had thrown Alex off-balance. Now all he could think of was not working and how that would be detrimental, it didn’t even cross his mind that it didn’t matter because he was still working now. He suddenly found himself unable to concentrate on the questions and the ridiculously long sciencey words Willie was using, his mind bogged down with practical methods and half-remembered equations that had nothing to do with what he was revising.

He quickly started getting questions wrong, saying the first thing that came to mind only to be told that the right answer was something he should have known because it was obvious. With each wrong answer he became more and more distressed, tears stinging his eyes, feeling stupid.

“Breathe, Alex,” Willie said. “Take your time with the questions, you don’t need to rush it. This isn’t the exam, it’s just you and me here. You have all the time you need.”

But, Alex wanted to say, I won’t have all that time when the exam comes and I need to get this right now. He didn’t get how Willie couldn’t see that. So he kept guessing, giving answers he was sure were wrong, but his mind feeling so fogged that he couldn’t think of anything else.

He didn’t even realise he had started crying until Willie reached out to wipe a tear from his cheek and the sensation wasn’t soothing – he could feel it so deeply that it almost hurt.

Without thinking, he shuffled across the bed where they were both sat, out of Willie’s reach. For a brief moment, Willie looked confused, but then they seemed to realise what was going on and he didn’t try to move any closer.

Alex hated this feeling and he had been so sure that it was going to stop happening. But he had clearly been wrong, because now that he was sat in a different place it felt wrong. The way he could see his bedroom, from a slightly different angle to before, felt so strange and so alien that it hurt. The bedcovers he was sat on now were too cold and coarse against his skin, so he pulled his legs against his chest. That moved his shirt slightly, and he became painfully aware of how the material felt, how it clung to his body like a second skin, and that hurt too. He realised that the lights in his room were too bright, far too bright, so he clamped his eyes shut and slapped his hands over his eyes.

He heard the ruffling of bedsheets, presumably as Willie got up from the bed. He heard him flick the light-switch off and pull the curtains closed – a click that he felt like a knife in his skull and a grating drag that pounded against his ears. He pressed his thumbs over his ears while still keeping his hands over his eyes, trying to block out the noise. Everything was too loud, too bright, too something to be comfortable. He couldn’t talk, he couldn’t move.

He felt trapped.

There was no telling how long it went on for. He couldn’t move his hands away from his eyes to look at his watch, not that it was really the biggest thing weighing on his mind. In fact, for the first time in hours, there wasn’t much on his mind at all apart from how he just wanted to go back to feeling comfortable. He wanted to hear without it being too loud, look at things without hurting his eyes, take that break Willie had suggested – and probably apologise to Willie too.

These things usually lasted quite a while. If Alex had to guess, it would have been about fifteen minutes since he shuffled away from Willie when he slowly took his hands away from his eyes and ears and drew in a great, shuddering breath. He blinked his eyes open and was grateful that Willie had turned the lights down. He looked over to where Willie was, perched on the edge of the bed, watching Alex’s face carefully. Willie raised his eyebrows, asking a silent question, and Alex nodded.

“Can I touch you?” they asked softly. Again, Alex just nodded, still not feeling able to speak.

Gently, Willie reached out his hand and did the same thing that had sparked the overload in the first place, wiping away tears from Alex’s cheek. This time Alex didn’t shuffle away, but he didn’t lean into Willie’s touch either; it wasn’t insufferable anymore, but it still wasn’t pleasant.

“What do you need me to do for you, Alex?” Willie asked.

Alex thought for a moment, then made himself reach out and take Willie’s hand. Willie held it tightly, knowing that light touches were often worse than firm ones. Alex let his fingers gently trail along Willie’s palm and their wrist. He looked tearily into Willie’s eyes and almost felt himself smile at the reassuring look on Willie’s face.

“You’re okay, hotdog,” Willie told him. “You’re through the worst of it now. Just breathe. Dry your eyes and breathe.”

He did as he said, wiping at the dried tears on his cheeks with the back of his hand. Willie squeezed his hand, close, reassuring, encouraging. He didn’t talk, he just let Alex calm down the way he needed to, saving most of the noise for when Alex was definitely ready.

“I’m sorry,” Alex croaked eventually. His voice box felt dry and scratchy.

Willie shook their head. “You have nothing to apologise for. You can’t help it.”

“I should be able to by now,” Alex protested.

“You might never be able to,” Willie said matter-of-factly. “That’s not a bad thing, it’s just something that happens to you. It sucks, of course it does, but this might be a part of you forever. You don’t need to apologise for something beyond your control.”

“It shouldn’t be beyond my control.”

Willie left a hesitant pause but then seemed to make his mind up. “Don’t let your parents get that into your head. Don’t let them make you believe that. I don’t care what they say about this – they don’t get it. Alex, there’s nothing about this that makes you weak or too sensitive or whatever it is they tell you. Lots of people get sensory overload, it’s not something alien or weird. It’s not something you can stop forever, so please don’t hurt yourself trying to.”

Alex looked at him, suddenly teary-eyed again. “I don’t want it to happen forever.”

“I’m not saying we can’t do things to make it better,” they replied kindly. “I’m sure there’s techniques that can make it easier to deal with, even if they don’t prevent it forever. Or maybe it’s time we looked at getting you some therapy or counselling. What do you think?”

“My parents would never let me get help like that,” Alex said, chuckling darkly.

For just a moment though, he let himself think about it. He let himself wonder what it would be like if he could see a professional and get the right kind of help. Maybe he would learn not only how to calm his sensory overload but also how to control his anxiety better in general. Maybe if he’d been getting the right kind of help before all this then he wouldn’t have had the exam stress anyway and he wouldn’t even be having this conversation. There were endless possibilities but he was sure he’d never see any of them come to light.

“If you don’t want to tell them about it then we could wait until you turn eighteen,” Willie suggested, squeezing Alex’s hand again. “That way you don’t need parental permission.”

“That’s not for another three months,” Alex said petulantly.

“So?”

“So what if it stops by then?”

Willie raised his eyebrows. “Do you think it will have?”

Alex couldn’t have given an honest answer. He said nothing, just pulled himself to Willie and hugged him tightly. He felt their arms instantly loop around his waist, their hands planting themselves firmly on his back. Alex buried his face into Willie’s shoulder, holding him as close as he possibly could, all of a sudden wanting to touch him as much as he could.

“You’re going to be okay, hotdog,” Willie said, pressing a gentle kiss to Alex’s cheek. “I promise.”

“I believe you.”

Taglist (if you want to be added or removed just let me know): @ace-bookworm @williexmercer @willex-owns-my-heart @itstiger720 @the-reckless-and-the-brave @that-one-newsie @bluedarkness @lookingthroughmirrors @tmp-jatp @salty-star @julieandthequeers @lmaohuh @sunnysbright

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thestarkerisobvious · 3 years

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Another Man’s Name

A Complete Story. With a wink to @i-am-irondaddy, who knows why.

Dedicated to @von--gelmini who never got to read the ending.

Please consider donating to @von--gelmini‘s family during this difficult time.

tags: non-consensual voyeurism (for scientific purposes!) use of the word Daddy, dildos, Angst-with-happy-ending

Face buried in the sheets, back arched, elbows bent, Peter resisted the urge to start pushing back. Tony’s cock felt impossibly huge, eight inches around if it was a centimeter, and it seemed like he had been pounding for hours. Peter could feel every hair on his body stand on edge – it was perfect. It was divine. But Peter knew it couldn’t last, already the sounds in the room were getting too loud.

There were no sounds in the penthouse, of course. Tony made sure of it. There was absolutely nothing to hear at all, just the sound of their bodies crashing together over and over again, just the sound of their breathing. The sound of Tony’s heartbeat, the sound of the lights they must have left on in the lab, the sound of the air conditioner in the other room… ah god it was happening right now… he didn’t want to start covering his ears with his hands but he was going to be covering his ears with his hands soon…

“Whatsamatter, sweet baby,” Tony crooned, pausing mid-thrust, one solid hand on the small of Peter’s back.

And, just like that, Peter relaxed.

His senses didn’t dial down, not at all, but Peter knew they would too, and soon. When Tony started calling him “sweet baby,” that meant Tony was going to start helping him dial it down.

“Talk to me, sweet baby, daddy’s here…” Tony murmured, his voice soothing and calm. A little winded, yes, but he sounded more like a man that had hurried into a room, not a man who had just seconds ago been vigorously fucking Peter for all he was worth. His hand stroked solidly up and down Peter’s spine, to his neck and then down to the small of his back. A quiet, logical part of Peter’s mind noted how quickly his own body responded, his shoulder’s relaxing, his body melting into the bed. He wouldn’t be answering that question, of course. The less he answered, the more Tony spoke. And the more Tony spoke this way, the easier it was to dial his senses back to a reasonable level.

“Come back to me, sweet baby. Come back. Daddy’s good boy. Talk to me, give me information. Come on baby, where are you…”

He started to pull away then, and Peter’s head snapped around and he answer the question quickly. He didn’t want less touch now, that was certain. Not this time. That had always worked before, but not now. Now he realized it wouldn’t feel good, it wouldn’t feel good at all. He tried to articulate that, but all he got out was “Nononono no no…. no Tony don’t…” was he pushed his body back into Tony’s hands, pushed his body back against Tony’s cock.

He knew Tony was surprised. Could almost hear him smiling.

“Keep touching me,” he finally managed to explain, turning his head and sneaking a look back into Tony’s face. Sure enough, his lover was grinning.

“Oh… oh sweet baby boy. Sweet boy. I’ll do anything you want. But talk to me. Tell me how you’re doing.”

“Oh it feels so good, Tony,” Peter whimpered. He truly wanted Tony to know what he was feeling, even if describing it would be… embarrassing. “It’s so intense.” He blushed. “You feel so huge to me…”

“Sweet baby, you do such good things to my ego,” Tony chuckled. He asked a few more questions, murmured a few more reassurances.

And then he got back to work.

* * *

“What’s that, baby?” Tony asked but then caught himself sharply. His job was to fuck, and to fuck hard, and to fuck well. His job was not to ask questions.

Besides, “Baby” was the dial-down word. He couldn’t use it for anything else.

He didn’t ask again, but Peter answered. “ItfeelssogoodTony” is what he managed to say, turning his face away from the bed, just enough to be understood. It wasn’t what he had said just moments before, certainly. Tony let it go.

So Peter hadn’t told the truth, but that really wasn’t Tony’s business, was it? He shook his head hard, took Peter’s wrists in a firmer grasp and, pulling the boy closer to his body, got back to work.

He had a job, and he was going to do it.

Peter was his enigma, his sweet baby-faced angel wrapped around an experienced and practical lover. Tony couldn’t begrudge Peter his experience, given how long he had waited until he made his move, and Peter didn’t blame him for his caution. For the longest time they had circled each other like lions. Not in the lab, of course. Not in the skies. In the lab they could complete each other’s sentences. In the skies, complete each other’s moves. But in the bedroom they were far more cautious. It made sense. The stakes were higher there.

Not that they didn’t trust each other. They had always trusted each other. They trusted each other with their lives. But in the bedroom there was just more to lose.

And it didn’t work as well in the bedroom as it had in the lab, as it had in the field, as it had in the skies above New York. But since the bedroom was a lot like the lab (and really only 4 rooms removed from the lab) they found a way to make it work.

Peter’s spider-senses, the ones that made him so amazing on the battlefield, made things almost impossible in the bedroom. (In Tony’s bedroom, that is. Peter’s experience up until then had been of the short-and-sweet variety, so the dialing up of his senses, while annoying, was always short-lived. Not so much in Tony’s bedroom. Tony liked to take his time.)

But with some talk and experimentation, they had found a way around that.

Okay, so not all of the experimentation had been done with Peter’s consent. Or knowledge. Yes, Tony had done a great deal of the experimentation completely on his own, but perhaps he could be forgiven because of the results.

The results, after all, were incredibly successful.

* * *

The words “whatsamatter, sweet baby,” brought the screen up. FRIDAY always positioned it to the right of Tony’s head, in a place Peter would never turn his head to see (Tony knew from his detailed analysis of the tapes exactly where Peter would and would not be looking when the sensory overload started.)

“Talk to me,” he crooned, knowing damn well the kid wouldn’t be talking. It was the fact that Peter had stopped making noise that signaled to him the need for the dial-down. But he had to continue to say words, lowering the pitch of his voice until, according to the screen FRIDAY had helpfully provided, he was speaking in the right register. When he got there (he could never quite make it on the first or second try, no matter how much he practiced) he continued to speak in what he thought of as the “Goldilocks tone,” neither too high nor too low. There was a volume issue too, but for someone reason the Goldilocks volume had come naturally. The pitch? He still needed FRIDAY’s help for that.

“Come back, daddy’s good boy,” he crooned, watching FRIDAY’s screen. He thought of his voice as the anchor, the fixed point that Peter could use to bring his senses back under his control. When the dial flew past 11, sex became less-than-pleasant and began moving into overwhelming. “Talk to me, give me information,” Tony was saying now, watching FRIDAY’S dial carefully. If the pitch of his voice became too low, it simply stopped working. “Come on baby, where are you,” etc. etc. The words didn’t matter, as long as he kept saying words. He began pulling away, knowing it would help Peter feel closer to normal again.

“Nononono no no!” Peter whimpered, making Tony smile.

That was quick. Either Tony was getting better at this, or Peter was. Maybe they both were.

“Keep touching me,” Peter whispered, making Tony grin all the more. A sharp jerk of his head closed FRIDAY’s screen. He didn’t need it anymore. Peter was already back.

“Oh, baby boy,” Tony said in his normal voice, glowing with pride when he saw Peter’s eyes. Usually at times like this Peter’s eyes were firmly closed. “I’ll do anything you want. But talk to me. Tell me how you’re doing.”

“Oh it feels so good, Tony, it’s so intense, you feel so huge to me…”

Tony grinned from ear to ear. That was the longest sentence Tony had heard from Peter in the middle of sex. Tony made a mental note to count the number of words later, in the post-analysis.

Because there would be a post-analysis. When Peter was asleep, when Peter was gone, Tony would be reviewing THIS tape over and over again with pride. Being successful with Peter wasn’t enough, Tony wanted to know why he was successful. Wanted to make sure he could do it again. Eventually without FRIDAY’s help. Peter had suggested sex would be easier if it were just shorter, but Tony, of course, had better ideas.

Was he a little obsessive about it? Most definitely so. He didn’t even want to think about how many manhours he had spent analyzing all the footage, the footage of them in bed and out of it. No need to clock how LONG he had spent analyzing the data, watching the records of their lovemaking over and over again. Their lovemaking, and the pillow talk that followed afterward. THAT Tony had studied obsessively. Analyzing and re-analyzing every word Peter had said in those post-coital discussions, crunching the data that went with each word. What was Peter’s heartrate, his temperature, his breathing rhythm like when he made those confessions, those concessions, those guesses as to what made sex bearable and what made it un-. Those admissions to what Peter had fantasized about in the past, but was certain he could never have.

In the end, Tony’s studies concluded that Peter was being perfectly honest (if not always articulate) about the moment his spider-senses moved from the extreme-and-amazing zone and into the extreme-and-unpleasant zone (and then passed into the extreme-make-it-stop zone.) And after a great deal of theorizing about ambient noise, room temperature and sheet threadcount, Tony had found a direct connection between the pitch of his voice and Peter’s ability to keep control of the dial. What he said with that exact pitch didn’t seem to matter, as long as the pitch of his voice was consistent. And the results… well… the results spoke for themselves.

There was just one problem, now.

In the beginning, Peter hadn’t talked much. Which is to say, Peter almost never spoke at all. The first signal that he was “losing control of the dial,” as he put it, was that the sounds in the room became overwhelming, and the first sound Peter always eliminated was his own voice.

But the better they got at the bedplay, the better Peter had become and controlling the dial (and the better Tony had become at helping) the more expressive Peter had become. The more expressive he could become. And the more expressive he became, the more words he could say. They weren’t always clear or coherent. In fact, most were spoken with Peter’s face buried in a pillow. But the words were there.

And that was the problem.

Recently, it seemed to Tony that, in the middle of sex, Peter was calling out another man’s name.

* * *

For a while he was convinced it was someone named “Dutch” but then he dismissed that as ridiculous. No one was named “Dutch” anymore. (Besides, that was a nickname and he couldn’t get any data on the nicknames of the kids Peter was going to school with.)

He was certain it was one of Peter’s fellow classmates, although even he knew his logic was not sound. Mainly, that once he had heard something that sounded like “Ahd” and “-ee” and that sounded Hindi to him, and he happened to know that Peter had a wide variety of Indian an Indian-American classmates. In fact Tony Stark was FAR too familiar with the names of everyone Peter encounter during his days at Columbia. Names that he had obtained in both legal and not-necessarily-legal ways. But why shouldn’t he have them? he asked himself as he poured over the names one more time, letting Friday run the identification software through his hacked security footage detailing who Peter hung out with after class. He worked hard for them. And he deserved them for a very good reason (the reason: because he was obsessed.)

Just yesterday they had made a huge breakthrough, Tony reasoned, as he combed through the data. A breakthrough in what, he couldn’t exactly say. But it was a breakthrough. They had done it in the living room, the huge penthouse windows letting in all the lights of the city. It had been Peter who had insisted, or it would have never happened at all. In the end, Tony had been more nervous than he… “What about your dial?” Tony had asked him, but mostly he was worried about HIS dial. They had done it face to face, which meant Tony couldn’t surreptitiously call upon Friday to help him modulate his voice. It didn’t matter though, because he came with embarrassing speed. Peter didn’t seem to mind at all, simply kept his powerful legs locked around Tony’s waist, kissing the side of his face and grinning all the while. For a few moments Tony forgot everything, laying in this remarkable boy’s arms and dreaming he was in heaven.

Tony finally carried him into the bedroom (when the boy insisted he was never letting go.) There Tony was finally allowed to go down on Peter to his heart’s content, showing off all the skills that his advanced years afforded him. But that’s when it happened.

Peter had pulled the pillow over his head and that’s when Tony heard the name again, something like “Bahd-he-i” or “Ahb-he-mi” or something close to it.

For a few moments Tony considered kicking the kid out that night. It would be easy to track Peter’s phone, find out who he would call or who he would facetime as soon as he was free to do so. Tracking texts or emails… of the guy he was sleeping with…Tony wasn’t above it.

Was he?

But he didn’t, of course. Peter moved the pillow away from his grinning (tear-stained) angelic face and compliment Tony’s technique until the man considered thinking about blushing. That night Peter slept snuggled angelically in Tony’s arms, while Tony lay awake and dreamed of making some lithe pretty 20-something Indian student disappear.

Just as soon as he figured out who the son of a bitch was.

* * *

In the elevator up to the penthouse Peter held himself against the mirrored wall in exactly the right position for Tony to enter slow and gentle. Then demanded Tony not be slow and gentle. Face to face that way, Tony knew he couldn’t call upon Friday’s handy screen, but tonight Peter seemed to want something different. At least, Tony assumed that’s what the hand on his mouth meant. “Don’t talk don’t talk don’t say anything” Peter gasped and Tony complied. He held onto the rail on either side of Peter’s ass and used it to brace himself as he fucked steadily forward, carefully watching Peter’s face. The kid’s eyes were screwed shut in an expression that might have been comical… except that Tony knew that the visual that the mirrored walls provided would be too much for his spiderling to endure. Peter was completely silent, which usually meant that things were too much, and yet Peter didn’t ask him to stop.

“Shhh… shhh… I’ve got you baby, I’ve got you,” Tony crooned when Peter yelped at startling sound of the elevator’s ding. He withdrew and wrapped around his arms around the boy, whispering and gentling until Peter realized what happened. Giggling and grinning, Peter helped Tony gather their clothes as they made their way into the dark penthouse.

They only got as far as the kitchen. “So what you’re saying…” Tony said with a growl, pushing Peter up against the counter, “…is that you don’t want to dial it down because… why?”

“… are you really going to make me say it?” Peter whispered, smiling and trying to hide under his hands. “I can’t… it’s just… it makes you feel huge, Tony. When I’m dialed up to eleven, I can’t explain it. My skin feels like it’s on fire, I can feel every goosebump, every hair standing on end and you… you just feel…”

“But how big do I feel normally?”

“You feel beautiful,” Peter insisted, kissing him hard. “But when I’m dialed up…” He hid his head in Tony’s shoulder and tried to explain. “… sometimes… sometimes a boy just wants to be fucked within an inch of his life, you know?”

Tony wrapped his arms around Peter, keeping the boy’s head firmly hidden in his shoulder. He couldn’t hide his grin, and he didn’t want Peter to see it. Didn’t want to explain to his young, strong lover how much relief he was feeling right now. From the beginning he had feared he’d never be able to give it to Peter as hard as he wanted (after all, the boy was enhanced, and in the face of that super-strength, what was Tony to do? Outside of utilizing Stark Tec, of course….)

“Take me to your bed,” Peter was asking now, whispering against Tony’s neck.

“Oh I don’t think I can wait that long,” Tony said with a satisfied smile, and lifted Peter up to sit on the kitchen counter. Peter was scandalized at the prospect of being fucked where they ate, but soon Tony was inside and he had forgotten about everything else.

* * *

“Take care of me in the shower,” Peter was asking as Tony led him by the hand to the bedroom.

“Oh no, I have something else planned for you,” Tony said with (what he hoped was) a mysterious smile. He had come far too soon, long before Peter was even close, and now he felt obliged to make up for it. He had no idea what his “something else” was going to be, but trusted his brain to come up with something.

As Peter lay face down on his bed, he realized what that something was. He wondered why he had never thought of it before. With Peter’s eyes firmly closed, he opened the drawer to his nightstand and brought out his toys.

The first toy he brought up was long and slim, and the groans and little whimpers that resulted were most satisfying. But it was the next toy, the one made of black leather, that made Peter’s eyes go wide and ask for Tony’s voice again. Friday’s helpful screen and a few “That’s Daddy’s good boys” were all Peter needed, and soon he was moaning and begging and rutting against the bed. Tony enjoyed watching the gooseflesh form across his body, enjoyed the amount of control he had in this moment.

The next toy, the biggest one, Peter rejected immediately, wincing and flinching away with a tiny whimper that it was ‘too big.’

“But… but it can’t be... but it’s the same size that I am, the exact same size” Tony explained. He decided it would be okay to leave out how he knew that it was the exact same size (leaving out the measurement process, the patent, and why Pepper had nixed the idea of putting it on the market.)

“But it’s not you,” Peter whined, pushing it away without looking back at it. He crunched his eyes tight and then hid his face in the pillow like a child. “It’s not the same. I liked the second one better.” Which explained how Peter Parker wound up with coming his brains out with a modestly-sized black leather dildo inside him while buried root-deep in Tony’s mouth, his legs wrapped around Tony’s neck, his head hidden under a pillow as cried out helplessly, wordlessly, sobbing through his release.

“Gonna jump in the shower… catch up with you later…” Tony breezed, slapping Peter on the knee in a friendly way, moving into the bathroom and closing the door before he could see the kid’s reaction. He hid under the shower spray, shaking at the enormity of what he had just done, but he knew he couldn’t have helped it. He couldn’t have stayed. Couldn’t have waited in the room while Peter caught his breath, waiting to hear the muffled sound of another man’s name whispered against the pillow. So he cowered in the shower like an idiot, hating himself, wishing he could hide in another room until morning like he did in his earlier years. But that option was out. Pepper wasn’t here to show his lover out the front door tomorrow. Tony was on his own.

He knew what he had done as soon as he walked back into the bedroom to see that Peter had left to fetch his clothes from the kitchen. Knew it was bad if the usually-fastidious was really getting dressed again without showering first. Knew from the guarded-but-trying-to-look-casual way Peter explained he had to get back to his dormroom because of an early something tomorrow.

Tony let him go.

And that was cruel, and Tony knew it. But letting Peter leave unhappy meant Tony was closer to finding the answer to his question; one step closer to finding the identify of Bahd-he-I “Dutch” Ahb-he-mi and kicking him the fuck out of the country.

Was it fair? No, it absolutely wasn’t fair. Peter and he had agreed long before hand that this would be casual, a friends-with-benefits, a co-workers plus, a we’re-superheroes-no-one-else-understands us kind of deal, and Tony was violating that deal six ways from Sunday. But the moment the elevator doors were closed, before the elevator had even began its descent downward Friday had pulled Peter’s folder pulled. Whoever Peter called tonight, whoever he texted or visited, Tony would know. He’d have the address, immigration status and country of origin of Bahdhei “Dutch” Ahbhemi before morning.

Sitting in front of his multiple screens, scotch in hand and a bottle ready to be consumed, Tony flipped between his monitors, waiting impatiently for Peter to make his move.

It was wrong. He should feel guilty. He should feel something other than cold.

But he didn’t, so he pulled up Friday’s files on what had happened just a few hours before. As an act of penance, he watched the footage from the moment he had left the room to hide in his shower, the moments Peter was recovered alone. It would hurt to see Peter hurting like that, and that’s why he watched. He needed to remember what he was doing. He needed to remember what damage he was causing while he tried to get his act together.

He turned his head from the monitors (Peter still had made no phone calls, sent no texts, not yet) to watch the footage. There was Peter, laying naked on the bed, face covered with the pillow. There was Tony’s bare ass, leaving the scene.

Slowly, hesitantly, Peter was pulling the pillow away from his face.

Slowly, hesitantly, he looked around the room, realizing he was alone.

The look of shock and dismay on his face was obvious, as was the bitten lip, as was the beginning tears. And that’s when he spoke.

Both hands over his face, that’s when Tony heard it. The words Peter had been saying. The same words he had been saying all along.

“Oh god. Oh god help me. I love you. God help me, Tony. I love you so much.”

* * *

“Look kid, I messed up, but that doesn’t mean you get to…” Tony spat into the phone, trying not to sound angry, trying not to sound hostile. Maybe pacing around his penthouse furiously wasn’t a good idea while trying to sound calm? He tried to stop pacing.

It didn’t work.

People used to call him a lucky man. But it seamed his luck had all run out.

“Kid… Peter… I know I messed up, and you need to let me make it up to you. You owe me that.” He pushed the button that ended the call, damn he missed the days when he could have angrily snapped the phone shut or, better yet, slammed down the receiver. Ah, the days of hanging up the phone when you could actually hang up the phone. Peter’s generation would never know the satisfaction of hanging up the phone angrily…

Because Peter’s generation has no idea what “hang up” means. To them the words “hang up” is just an idiom. They’ve never “hung” the receiver in the cradle. There is no “up” because the one phone in the house isn’t attached to the wall. You grew up in a different world than he did – you’re practically an alien to him.

That was true, but it was information that wasn’t helping Tony now. He took a deep breath and tried to think.

And, just like the twenty seven other deep breaths he had taken that day, it did no good.

He couldn’t think straight. Peter’s radio silence since last Wednesday was making him crazy. His chest tightened every time he thought about it, and now his one superpower, his brain, was completely failing him. He couldn’t think his way out of this one, which was fucked up because thinking his way out of things was his one and only talent. He needed to get the Kid back, and there was absolutely no one he could turn to for help.

Finally, in absolute desperation (and abject humility) he turned to Google. If he was lucky, Google would have the answer.

“How the mighty have fallen” he thought to himself as he typed in the words “Help Me I’m Dating A Millennial.”

He was three hours in before he realized Peter was actually Gen Z.

His luck had run out. He was so very, thoroughly and sincerely screwed.

* * * *

Spending money calmed him down, as always. Made him feel more in control. His daylight conversation with Peter’s voicemail as far more calm and collected. He was proud of himself.

“Alright. I’m sorry. You don’t owe me anything, obviously. That was stupid. But I need you to know that I do know what I did… I knew it as soon as it happened… and I am sorry. And I really need you to give me a chance to explain…”

But still, Peter maintained radio silence. Daylight turned into eventide and Tony found himself feeling more and more panicky. Over and over again he looked at his elaborate “I’m Sorry” present. All across the bar. Covering the coffee table. It had to work. Didn’t it? It was huge and elaborate and extreme and expensive, and that was good thing, wasn’t it? Of course, not all his over-the-top gifts worked all the time. They tended not to work with Pepper at any rate. Maybe he should call her for advice…

“Fine, ignore me,” Tony spat into the phone as evening was officially becoming night. “But you’ve left a lot of your stuff here and you need to come pick it up, and you need to pick it up tonight or a fleet of limos to your dorm room to deliver it in the morning and people are going to notice.”

Finally, his eerily silent phone made a noise.

A ding.

Peter had texted.

//no I didnt//

That was it. Three words. The first time the kid had acknowledged him in 72 hours. And all because he wanted to dispute an erroneous fact.

“You did, in fact, leave quite a bit of stuff here, and it’s crowding up the place, so you need to swing by and claim it all, or else your neighbors will be talking in the morning.” Tony explained patiently to Peter’s voice mail, feeling more confident now than he had in days. Why hadn’t he thought about this before? Peter might or might not stop being mad, but he could not stop from being curious. Tony poured himself a drink and took a seat looking out at the New York skyline. He wouldn’t have long to wait.

* * *

His heart sank a little when Peter alighted on the roof and didn’t disengage his mask, even as he entered the penthouse. Tony drained his glass and stood. This was going to be a hard sell.

“Peter, I’m sorry,” he said as gently as he could, just like he had practiced. He wasn’t used to having conversations with the mask that he had designed, but maybe that made it easier. He delivered his next line, the one he had written and rewritten carefully in his head a dozen times, to the masked face, and hoped for the best.

“You probably need to know, up front, that I’m not very good at these things.”

Peter’s mask didn’t react.

Shit, because he delivered the line wrong. “At relationships,” he was supposed to say. “I’m not very good at relationships” was the line and now it was too late and he had blown it because Peter was speaking.

“I didn’t leave anything here, unless there’s something in the lab you want me to pick up,” Peter was saying, and suddenly Tony appreciated his large bank account more than ever, because his mouth was too dry, and his chest too achy, to speak. And so he didn’t.

He just pointed towards the flowers.

Peter turned his head and his eyes widened, or rather, the mask Tony designed for him widened the eye-shields allowing Peter to take in more visual information in response to Peter’s actual eyes actually widening to take in more visual information. Tony relaxed completely. It had worked.

In silence Peter took it all in, the glass vases of long-stemmed white roses, taking up every inch of the bar, the table, and the coffee table, as well as the floor and into the hallway. Vase after vase after vase. Thirteen had been the original order, but in the end thirteen didn’t seem like enough. So there were 26 in all. The original flower shop didn’t have that many, but lucky for him the flowershop owner had the names of other florists at the ready.

“These are yours,” Tony said in a normal tone of voice, as Peter started to walk around the room, his eyes wide, counting vase after vase. He felt more normal than he had in 3 days. “But... now that I think about it, I’m not sure they’ll all fit in your dormroom, so if you want to leave some here, that’s fine too. He stood behind Peter and, when Peter turned around, reached out to put a hand on the boy’s waist.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I screwed up. You have to... well you don’t have to but baby... please choose to let me make this up to you.”

“I wasn’t mad,” Peter said, then shook his head. His mask disengaged, but his eyes were still cast to the floor. “It wasn’t about that. It’s just… Tony…”

He tried to look Tony in the eyes and failed, then took a step forward, until their heads were practically touching. When he spoke, he whispered.

“Tony... I’ve never had sex in an elevator before. But you have. And I sure as hell ever did it in front of a mirror before, not even one. But you have… I mean it’s your elevator.

“And I sure as hell never did it on a kitchen counter before… but you have. And what you did to me in your bedroom with your toys that was… but they were your toys. You’ve done that with other guys before. And that just made me realize…”

“That this is really big for you,” Tony said when Peter’s words dried up. He put both hands on Peter’s hips, then did used every bit of self control he had to not pull Peter any closer. “That all of these are firsts for you, and that I need to take that very seriously. And I am. Because I understand that kid, I do. Peter I swear I get it. And I was an asshole to you that night because that night I… that night I ran away and hid from you like coward and I’m sorry. Listen…”

This was it. Time to deliver his second line. The one he had written and rewritten a dozen times. He was grateful, really, that Peter had given him enough time to prepare. He wasn’t going to blow it now.

“Peter your senses get dialed up to 11 and you need help to dial them back down. And sometimes things get really intense for me too and that night…”

Peter eyes were glistening with tears and Tony hadn’t been prepared for that. When Peter looked into his eyes Tony found it all drying up in his mouth, all of it. And he realized he couldn’t do it, couldn’t say any of the lines he had prepared. Couldn’t do anything but tell the truth. It was going to hurt, was going to take a hunk out of his chest in a way no piece of shrapnel had ever done before. He didn’t have a choice. He opened his mouth and pushed himself to tell the gods-honest truth.

“Peter I need to take care of you so badly it scares me.”

They blinked at each other in surprise. Tony kept blinking in surprise even as Peter threw his arms around Tony’s neck and pulled him into a crushing embrace. He continued blinking even as Peter kissed the side of his face, his mouth, then the side of his face again. He had set out to make his confession about the sensors and the surveillance and the obsessive studying of details and, in fact, confessed to something else entirely.

But it was true. The sensors and the surveillance and the obsessive studying of details had been about that, had always been about that and nothing else. And those lines, those lines he had carefully written and carefully memorized, dear god those lines were true too, much to his horror.

“I love you Anthony Stark,” Peter was saying over and over again, and that, at least, Tony could work with. He ordered his arms to move and wrapped them around Peter’s body and held him close.

“I love you, Kid. And I’m a disaster and I’m absolutely no good at this, I mean I’m actively bad at this, but I love you. And you need to know up front that I’m terrible at relationships and you’re going to hate every minute of this but this is all I’ve got. I love you, Peter. And I’m sorry.

“No…” he said, pulling away from Peter’s kiss. He had momentum going now and he didn’t want to stop. “I mean I’m sorry… for something else.

“A lot of something elses, really.”

He took a deep breath, let it out in an exhausted sigh, and took Peter by the hand. With a weak smile, he led the both toward his private lab.

“I hope you’re in a forgiving mood,” he said ruefully. But maybe it would be alright. Maybe his luck would hold.

#Starker #Peter Parker/Tony Stark #Tony Stark/Peter Parker

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chaosintheavenue · 3 years

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In case it helps anyone, have a few random tips on dealing with miscellaneous sensory stuff that I've picked up over the years:

Fragrance-free toiletries are your friend for times when you frankly don't need any more sensory information coming your way, but not all are created equal. If you're in the UK, Sanex Zero% (not sponsored at all lol, and there are almost definitely more brands out there, but this is one I can vouch for) is a range of genuinely colour and scent-free toiletries. There is a very faint soap-like smell if you concentrate, I admit, but that's probably unavoidable, and it's still a drastic improvement from some allegedly scent-free products. It doesn't look like it's readily available outside of the UK, though

If a topic has a certain colour to you, it will both be less distracting in the moment and help your memory later on if you write notes on it in that colour. You can tailor how many colours you use to your own needs. E.g. if changing pens constantly will be more distracting than using the wrong shade of a colour, stick to a basic set. If the opposite applies, and you need the shades to be precise, you might want to invest in a more expansive set, like a case of art fineliners (and I'd recommend practicing the art of switching between pens quickly if you're going to have a lot of colours whilst taking notes in a timed setting such as a live lecture). Or, if you have the option of typing, computers have essentially infinite colour options, and you don't need to worry about popping lids back on whilst trying to pay attention!

Regarding the last point, I know some schools do insist on everything being written in black (which doesn't make any sense to me, but... anyways). In my experience, highlighting over the black text in different colours is usually still allowed in these cases, provided it's your own notes and not an exam or essay or something. But helpful tip- if you're going to try this approach, do not use a gel fineliner for the initial writing! It WILL smear when highlighted!

If looking at a full page of text is overwhelming, you can use a blank sheet of paper to cover up the parts you're not actively reading on paper, or zoom in so you can see less text at a time on a computer

If you chew on objects of any kind, or hold things in your mouth for sensory input, get some silicone 'chewelry'. I used to chew on my collars badly enough that most tops were rendered unwearable pretty quickly, up until I invested in a few chew necklaces in November to see what all the fuss was about. Those things are truly game-changing, IMO. The silicone is odourless and tasteless, you can choose the firmness, textures and colours you want, and there are subtle designs available that look like a regular necklace or wristband if you prefer low-key. I will say that some of my necklaces did have a weird, unpleasant powdery texture to the surface when they arrived, but after multiple washes that has now resolved

(I first heard this one somewhere else, but I've used it with success, so here it is anyway) Telling people that you have a migraine works as an 'excuse' for a lot of sensory things, including needing to leave an overstimulating area or situation, lights, sounds or smells being too intense, needing to wear ear defenders or dark glasses indoors, wanting quiet, darkness and solitude, or not wanting to eat specific foods (as migraines can both be triggered by certain foods and cause nausea). And it's not technically lying either, since if you did Do The Thing and end up going into sensory overload, there's a good chance you really would end up with a migraine if you're prone to them

If people struggle to understand how grapheme-colour synaesthesia or OLP work, point them in the direction of the British kids' shows Alphablocks and Numberjacks (each letter or number in these shows has a set colour, age, gender and personality)

If you tend to panic and/or lose your vision with unexpected loud noises, laying out and learning a pattern of simple steps for yourself to take in case of, for instance, a fire alarm going off, can be the key to not freezing up. I feel like an anecdote will explain what I mean with this technique best, so here goes...

(this anecdote features myself in meltdown mode, so I'm popping it under a cut in case peeps want to avoid that description)

When I lived in university halls, the fire alarm would regularly go off in the middle of the night thanks to intoxicated students attempting to cook. The first time it happened, I was not expecting it at all, but luckily the alarm featured a voice stating 'leave the building' as well as the typical siren, which kept me grounded enough to get outside- tripping over along the way- before having a full meltdown in the car park at 4am (great fun... not). I vowed to never let that happen again, so as preparation for future fire alarm activations, I a) placed a pair of slip-on shoes right next to my bed so I wouldn't have to guess where they were and fumble about with straps without being able to see, b) taught myself a mantra of 'shoes, out (into the corridor), wall (to guide me to the door whilst I couldn't see), door' to prevent my brain from freezing up in the moment (the alarm didn't always have the voice that had helped me, for some reason), and c) had a day of practice where I set multiple phone alarms for random intervals throughout the day, so I got experience of going through the process without prior notice. The future fire alarms after that were still not pleasant, but the ingrained routine always kicked in, and in fact I was always the first person outside

#sensory issues #autism #actually autistic #food mention #alcohol mention #I'm kind of just yelling unsolicited tips to my hypothetical younger self into the void here #but I hope someone does find it useful!#btw the bold parts aren't any more important than the rest #I just wanted to break up the text wall given my target audience

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pikapals16 · 3 years

Text

Just When It Gets Better, It Gets Worse (not finished)

tw: non-con, abuse, self-harm, sensory overload/panic attack, suicide attempt (these were planned tw's so not all of them are in this draft, but just to be safe)

A summer day spent at the mall with her visiting family should've been fun. It probably would've, excluding her past and her parents' denial that anything of any sort happened.

This isn't the case if you couldn't tell.

Kat's family was walking through the mall center when a group of people catches her eye. It's not like this group came together, they're all gathered up and definitely staring at something. Normally Kat would just walk on pass, but the sound of distress convinces them to sneak into the crowd.

After scooting to a place where she can observe, they see the subject of curiosity is a girl, about her age, and who's clearly in a sort of panic attack. Her hands are clamped and pulling at her hair, her body rocking back and forth.

The girl in pink watches as someone tries to approach her before someone else yelling back.

"Don't get close! She's probably one of those weirdos with autism." Kat pushes down their anger at the offhand comment. This girl doesn't deserve that, she's already in distress. Kat looks around for anyone the girl could've come with, as it is very unlikely that she'd have come alone

She sees two men, mid to late fourties, frantically looking around for something, which puts them as the most likely possibility. They consider going up to them to inform them of the situation, but she figures they already know, explaining the distressed look on the their faces (and assuming that they are who this girl arrived with).

Kat digs inside of her bag, looking for something that might help ground the panicking girl. Nothing that'd be remotely helpful, and she never brings their stress ball or fidget cube with their parents around. Something about disbelief in non-physical diseases, but she'd rather not risk it.

What they do take out though, is one of those toy rings with googly eyes. To be frank, Kat isn't sure why she has the old toy in her bag, but perhaps it will help the girl calm down? It's not like they have anything else to use.

Slowly, Kat slips closer to the girl, choosing to ignore any comments made, and sits in front of her, making sure to maintain distance to not make her feel uncomfortable.

Admittedly, they haven't been in a situation even remotely similar, but they've read some articles that give her an idea of what to do. The rest, she's just winging it.

Slipping the ring onto her finger, Kat raises their hand.

"Hi, I'm Mr. Goggles." Kat opens and closes her hand to imply that it's the one speaking. As it does, Kat can see the girl look up in curiosity. They guess that it seems to be working. "What's your name?"

Kat cringes a bit, this girl is probably a college student, she doesn't need to be dumbed down.

"C-Cathy." Cathy's eyes seem to light up at the character. Although her hands haven't moved from their position, they've stopped pulling, and her rocking looks like it's slowing down. Kat smiles at her, hoping she recognizes it.

She takes the ring off of her finger, and holds it out in their palm, offering it to her.

"You can have it." They say just loud enough for Cathy to hear. The latter looks at her in confusion. Why would the pretty girl be giving this to her of all people? She doesn't even know her. "It's okay, really."

At this point, Cathy's hand have since released from her head as she contemplates this. Hesitantly, she reaches out, causing Kat to scoot forward so she can hand it to her.

Cathy curiously spins and shakes the toy before putting the ring on her finger, like the pretty girl had. She opens and closes her hand, and her heart seems to flutter--at both the shaking sound of the googly eyes, and the little character that appears on her hand.

Kat smiles when they hear quiet coos coming from Cathy's mouth. What she did seemed to work, and she's calmed down.

Speaking of which, they should probably go and find their parents before she gets punished. Again. Yet, there's something that draws her towards this...stranger. She can rule out love, as she identifies as demisexual, but they're tempted to stay here in their little bubble.

Without any outside influence, just them-

"Oh my god, thank you." The two middle-aged men briskly walk over, one of them kneeling to communicate with Cathy through what looks to be sign language, and the other turning his attention to Kat.

Feelings and memories are shoved down into the archives of Kat's mind. She doesn't need or want to remember, and this guy shouldn’t have to worry over another panic attack.

”Thank you so much for calming her down. My husband and I really appreciate it. Not many people have enough patience to deal with our daughter’s autism.” The thought of these two men being married and raising a child calms some of Kat’s nerves, but just some.

”You’re welcome. Does she go to school here?” Kat curses at themself for asking that, but surprisingly the question isn’t taken a wrong way.

“No, we’re just visiting friends.” The other husband mentions as he helps Cathy up. “But thank you for being so kind. It’s rare that people listen.” Oh. Kat would know that firsthand. The countless times it’s happened.

“Yes, for sure.” Is what she settles with. They don’t need to know. “I should get going though. Wish you all the best!” With the goodbye, Kat runs off to find their family, praying they didn’t notice her absence.

But of course, they did, and while she’s being scolded at, Kat lets her thoughts take over for a bit. It’s not like it’d end any differently. It’s always the same punishment and Kat hates it each time.

They’ve felt nothing for the past couple of years but today just seemed to be different. An unlikely meeting, yet Cathy seemed to have an effect on them. And they only met for a couple of minutes if anything.

They don’t know why she’s putting so much thought into this.

What are the odds of them meeting again anyway?

Kat walks up to their meeting spot for lunch. She doesn’t have friends, acquaintances really, but they eat with them to trick themselves into thinking they are her friends. That she’s not completely alone. To distract herself from other things.

Right before they sit, Kat sees someone else, seated by themselves. People walk past without so much as a second glance, and Kat can’t take their eyes of them. They have brown curly hair, and they’re wearing a blue hoodie, which in itself is a bit odd for August.

Kat fiddles with their pink crop top. She sees herself in this mystery person. The emptiness and loneliness. Perhaps if they help the other, maybe they’ll feel less damaged as well.

”Do any of you recognize them?” Most of them don’t, but someone claims to have seen her in their creative writing class, and another claims that she has ASD. “I’m gonna go talk to her.”

The girl in pink sees the strange looks from their lunch mates, but like she’s done before, it goes ignored.

"Hi." The girl on the bench looks up at the new voice. "Can I eat lunch with you?" The brunette scoots over and pats the empty space for her to sit. As Kat sits down, the other can't seem to take her eyes off her. She's pretty.....and someone she hasn't gotten the chance to thank yet.

Quickly the girl in blue digs through her bag, looking for a certain item that a certain someone had given her on a certain summer day at the mall. She shakes the rings back and forth to get the pretty girl's attention.

"Oh. Wait." Kat takes a better look at the girl she's sitting next to. No wonder she felt familiar. "We met over the summer. Cathy, right?" Cathy nods, smile growing on her face. "Well, I never told you my name, so I guess I'll do that now. Hi, I'm Kat. She/they pronouns."

"She/her." Cathy points to herself as she speaks, to make sure that Kat didn't think that Cathy didn't support their pronouns. "And thank you." Kat tilts their head in confusion. "For Mr. Goggles and helping me during my meltdown. You kinda saw me at my worst."

"Oh um, it's nothing." Lie. "Hold on, I thought you were just visiting?" ..Not a complete lie, she put some pieces together.

"My dad got a job here and my pop didn't want to be more than an hour away from me because....you know." Cathy realizes she's been stimming, but doesn't stop her actions, rather glancing at Kat to see her reaction. Nothing. Kat's eyes never leave Cathy's, well really her head since the latter isn't a fan of direct eye contact.

And that's another thing. Kat doesn't force eye contact like the other's experienced so many times before. Cathy's met very few people who are similar, and she holds them all close to her heart.

"Yeah."

The two talk for a little longer before departing for their separate classes. 'Two' honestly refers to Kat leading the conversation and Cathy commenting when prompted, but neither really care. They make sure to exchange numbers, but little did they know how much they would end up depending on each other.

She was minding her own business, honest. Cathy was never one to go into crowded places alone, for obvious reasons, but this is the easiest and closest place for her to meet with her new friend.

The ever so increasing volume of the area starts to bother the blue girl, so she takes out her headphones, blocking out most of the noise. She checks her watch again. Kat’s still not here?

Her initial thought is that Kat blew her off, but they’ve made it very clear that she’d never do something like that, not without explanation. To steer her thoughts away from becoming too overwhelming, Cathy plays with her fidget cube inside her pocket.

It’s never completely gone, but Cathy’s certainly learned how to handle her ASD better. Or at least, so that she can prevent any public outbreaks.

Unlike some people who just haven’t grown up from high school behavior yet. This particular guy thinks it's funny to copy her very subtle stimming. Just your typical jackass.

"Dude stop, she hasn't done anything to you." And that, would be the arrival of her friend. Kat turns to Cathy, tilting their head in the direction of her dorm, and the pair starts walking away. "He didn't make you uncomfortable, did he?"

Cathy shakes her head, and the two walk in silence. The silence isn't all that bad or foreign, but rather a comfort to the two. Of course, until the unsuspected thunder. Seriously, they don't know why they bother listening to the weather reports at this point.

In instinct, Cathy takes off her jacket and wraps it around Kat before pulling the both of them into the dorms.

"Cathy, you can stop running, we're inside now." Cathy doesn't stop. She doesn't want anyone else to see what she's done. No one's seen it. Not even her parents. She keeps her same pace until she's navigated the halls to Kat's dorm.

Only then does she let go.

And she immediately regrets it.

"Cathy...." Without the long sleeves as a cover, Cathy's scars are exposed. Even as she tries to hide it with her hands, they're still visible. She does nothing except curl in on herself, soft noises coming from her mouth. Kat does nothing except open the door, trying their best not to stare so hard.

Thank goodness her roommate is out of town, that would've made for some awkward conversation. Kat and Cathy walk in, the latter with a brisk pace, the former with a moment of hesitation.

"You did that yourself, didn't you?"

and that's where i gave up, basically, where i was going with this was that cathy opens up about the self-harm, then kat opens up about her trauma yea, they're friends! cathy is a year older than kat, so she graduates and although they still talk, it's not as often as kat would like. long story short, kat starts to feel lonely and depressed again, and they feel so disconnected from the world that she kills herself by overdose. little does she know that cathy and her friends were just on their way to surprise them, but see kat just in time for it to happen. cathy runs up, and begs kat to stay with her (the others are calling an ambulance) and kat's like "shit no, wait, you're here" then black out.

whether or not kat survives is up to interpretation! or....would've been hehe. idk, i'm kinda rambling now, but yea here's an abandoned oneshot

#six the musical #six fanfiction

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cynicalrainbows · 4 years

Note

Hey! I’ve got a fix request if that’s ok! After a long day at the theatre everyone’s tired but during the megasix Anne goes into sensory overload?

So I should preface this with the fact that I don’t actually know what a sensory overload feels like. So it’s more ‘Anne gets overwhelmed with all the noise etc’ which is something I can write about.

Anyway, enjoy!

It’s been a long week, one of those weeks where everything seems determined to go wrong in as many ways as possible, often at the most inopportune moments.

Because of this, everyone is more on edge than usual, everyone is irritable: Catalina snaps and Kitty sulks. Jane puts things down with more force than is strictly necessary and Cathy holds her book up in front of her eyes to discourage attempts at communication and flicks pages obnoxiously loudly.

Even Anna, far and away the calmest and least rufflable of them all, has started to feel the strain and by Thursday is far gone enough that she actually snaps at Kitty for taking her clothes without asking and then at Jane for taking Kitty’s side. The difference of course is that Anna at least has an excuse because that same evening, she comes down with what is officially called A Cold but that feels (she assures Anne) rather an awful lot like the pneumonic Plague.

Anne is glad for Anna’s sake when she finally agrees to take a couple of days off to recover properly but she also can't help but feel a bit abandoned too. The dressing room isn’t the same without Anna to diffuse the tension and while she normally enjoys Catalina’s company, it scarcely counts as company when all the two do is snap at one another. Anna is like a balm- she smooths out rough edges, she can diffuse almost anything with a joke or a comment. Without her, everything feels ever so slightly off balance.

As bad as the snapping is though, the silence in the dressing room once Anna finally gives in and goes home to bed is worse. Anne knows Catalina isn’t angry with her specifically, that the woman is just not really in the mood to talk and is staying quiet to avoid starting off yet another disagreement, but it still makes things uncomfortably tense.

Even when Saturday rolls around, it isn’t much comfort to think about the fact that Sunday is just around the corner because Saturday is always the hardest day of the week- the biggest workload, just when everyone is least prepared for it, the rowdiest audiences just when everyone is at their lowest ebb, the most hours spent waiting around at the theatre when really all anyone wants is to go home and take a nap.

Sometimes the exhaustion works in their favour, on the days that the tiredness makes everything somehow seem that bit funnier. Tired-drunk, Cathay calls it, when one or other of the queens finds themselves giggling half hysterically over something that in the cold light of a Monday morning would really seem not that amusing at all. At least they get some good social media videos out of it.

Mostly though, being tired just makes everyone shorter and snappier and more prone to storming out of the dressing room to sulk- or cry or walk around angrily slamming doors or lurk in corridors muttering darkly about how much better things will be when they got their book deal and cam write full time.

Nobody is sleeping well, nobody can be bothered to eat proper meals, let alone actually cook them, and they all feel like they haven’t seen the sun in months.

In short, they are in dire need of a day off.

By Saturday’s second show, Anne is almost counting the seconds til she can go home.

She feels like her shoes are made of lead, her head is pounding, her costume is sticking to her uncomfortably and she is bitterly regretting the energy drink she’d downed in lieu of lunch on Cathy's perhaps slightly misguided advice. Not that she can blame Cathy- it’s her own fault for taking advice from a woman who not only occasionally substitutes coffee for milk on her cereal but actually professes to prefer it.

The discomfort distracts her and makes her come rather too close- unpleasantly close, dangerously close- to missing a couple of cues during Ex Wives. It’s nothing the audience will have noticed, even if they have seen the show before, and perhaps even the other queens won't pick up on it, but she knows and the thought gives her a horrible flustered feeling, like she’s falling behind and needs to catch up to something.

Except there is no chance to catch up. Sometimes the lack of interval doesn’t bother her at all- they’re all rather glad of it at times because it does away with having to worry about recapturing the audience's attention and goodwill after twenty minutes of all 200 of them getting irritated over overpriced wine and tiny-tubbed ice cream- but now she would kill for five minutes to sit down for a moment and collect herself.

Even the show gets harder as it continues- she's unsettled by having someone who isn't Anna in Anna's place, the songs get longer, the dialogues get more heated and shouty, and Haus of Holbein...well, Haus of Holbein just exists.

She has never been less prepared for the flashing lights and pounding bass, and even when it’s over, she can feel the tension building up inside herself, the feeling of her last threads of control beginning to dry out, stretch thin and snap.

Finally, finally, they strike their ending poses, fists thrust in the air. Anne can feel her arm trembling slightly and hopes that no one else will notice. She doesn’t feel like fielding questions off stage.

Although she’s been hoping for a moment to collect herself, the split second of reprieve granted before the music starts again and the Megasix begins, if anything, make her feel more overwhelmed rather than less, as if her body, having tasted peace and quiet for a moment, is protesting bitterly by making everything that much louder.

The dancing- not even really being able to rely on muscle memory because it’s apparently important that they keep an informality to the Megasix that can only be achieved by insisting that everybody dance freestyle- begins to feel like a rather unusual and exquisite form of torture.

And then the confetti starts and it’s in her face and under her feet and god someone's going to break their neck one of these days and the front row fans are screaming particularly loudly- not just screaming but screaming words too, and as much as she knows they are most likely positive things, the words are lapping over one another like waves coming too quickly on the beach, sucking away her control, and the effort of keeping a smile on her face as she tries to focus on different parts of the audience so that everyone, even those people in further back seats feel included, are making her face hurt and her costume is prickling with sweat and god she just wants to rip it off and someone must have decided now was a good time to give themselves a quick douse of perfume in the front few rows because now it’s tickling her nose, it’s far too strong, and it’s all too loud, too bright, too much, too much for her to deal with all in one go, and in the midst of it all, she feels herself left as small and pink and vulnerable as an oyster, pried open and squirted with lemon juice, cringing in the remains of its broken shell.

When the last note sounds and the stage goes mercifully dark and the curtain comes down, she can't move from her final pose. At last, at last, at last she can breathe for a second- but Kitty is already pulling on her arm and telling her to hurry up, come on, get changed so we can get to the pub- and maybe it’s Kitty shrieking in her ear, and maybe it’s the very sensation of being pulled and maybe it’s the thought of having to endure yet another noisy, bright, crowded space after everything, but to her mild surprise, Anne finds that rather than just pushing Kitty away like she would have had no problem doing normally, she’s wrenching herself away with such force that Kitty lets out a squeak of surprise and then she’s curling up right there on the confetti-strewn stage with her hands clasped so tightly over her ears it hurts and her eyes screwed shut so that she can almost see stars, folded up tightly to protect the very very tiny fragile hold on reality that she still has left.

‘Anne?’

‘Anne are you alright?’

The others crowd round her immediately.

‘What’s the matter, are you hurt?’

She can't find the words to ask them to be quiet- but when Cathy’s concerned hand presses the scratchy material of her costume harder against her shoulder, she squirms and whines unhappily, cringing away. She’d be embarrassed, she thinks distantly, if she had any space in her head for anything other than panic.

‘…..can’t stay here.’

‘You can’t be thinking of moving her.’

‘It’s horrible to move her if she doesn't want to-’

‘Look she won’t want to stay here either, she’ll calm down quicker if she’s somewhere quiet-’

After a minute or two of bickering, Catalina effectively ends the argument by scooping Anne into her arms and bearing her off to the dressing room.

The added contact, the spikiness of Catalina’s costume, the noise the other queens are making makes her wriggle unhappily in Catalina’s arms but she doesn’t fight too hard, not really.

She isn’t sure what she’d do if Catalina DID put her down. Curl back up into a ball until things got quieter, probably.

In the dressing room, Catalina sets her gently on the carpet- or starts too. When Anne cringes away at the scratchy nylon, Jane spreads Kitty’s hoody and her own coat on the floor.

‘There, that’s better-’

‘What should we do…?’

‘I don't think we should all stay-’

‘Should we leave her alone?’

Their voices are piling up again and it hurts, they hurt, muddling her already overburdened mind, and she’s just beginning to feel a scream tickling the back of her throat when Catalina holds up a hand.

‘Can't we have this conversation in the corridor?’

Cathy nods; Kitty opens the door, casting worried looks back at Anne even as Jane tugs her outside.

And then they are all out into the corridor.

Cathy makes a brief return to flick off the lights….and then she too withdraws, and Anne is left in peace.

She curls up on her side in the welcome darkness. Her hands are still over her ears but slightly less tightly now.

Breath. Breathe. Breathe.

She's still shaking, shaking even harder than before. Her teeth are chattering.

Sweat dries on her skin.

The tremors make her arms and legs ache but the pain is almost soothing- something else to focus on, at least.

Slowly, slowly, she begins to relax her tensed-tight muscles, one by one.

At least now it’s quiet.

They leave her alone for as long as they can- although really she can’t say how much time has passed- and then the door opens. Light spills in from the corridor.

‘Anne?’

It’s Catalina.

‘Mija, it’s time to go home.’

She curls up tighter and Catalina comes properly into the room, holding the door open with her foot.

‘Anne, it’s getting late. You’ll be more comfortable at home where you can rest.’

She’s afraid that if she moves, all the light and noise of the theatre will engulf her again, flood her and suck her down; she’s feeling better now, she doesn't want to take the risk of moving.

But Catalina doesn’t move. Her face is anguished- she looks pained, unhappy. She doesn't want to be the one having to make Anne move, and it gives her no pleasure when Anne eventually gets shakily to her feet.

On the way to the car, she keeps her distance, gives her breathing room. She asks quietly if Anne would like help when she stumbles and when she shakes her head, she can see how that bothers Catalina too.

She’s not used to not being able to give comfort, she’s used to having to almost peel Cathy off, she’s used to Jane trailing around after her like a shadow. She’s used to being able to help.

But she doesn’t press it and Anne is grateful.

When they get home, the others are awake and clustered in the living room but the hum of conversation falls silent when the front door opens and closes.

Jane pops into the hall to say that she's welcome to join them if she’d like but that they completely understand if Anne would rather have some time on her own.

She nods but when she goes upstairs it's not her own door she stops at but Anna's.

She knocks, quietly, in case Anna is asleep- and then very gently nudges open the door. She's still shaking slightly.

Anna’s room is half lit from the open laptop on the floor by the bed. The laptop is silent, the darkness is soft and welcoming. All is quiet and calm. She takes her first proper breath in what feels like hours.

Anna herself is dozing- but opens her eyes just as Anne is making up her mind to resigning herself to going back to her own room.

‘Anne?’

She gives a shaky half smile.

‘What time is it?’

She nudges Anna's digital clock to face her: the lighted dial shows nearly 11pm.

She isn’t sure if the others have filled Anna in, if she knows anything at all. (She decides not to ask, she’d rather not know.)

‘Oh’. Anna rolls onto her back and takes some tissues to blow her nose. ‘Are you ok?’

She hesitates, trying to strip away the layers of meaning- she isn't sure whether to say yes or no, so after a minute she just shrugs.

Anna sits up a bit and pats the bed next to her, flipping back the duvet.

‘Want to come keep me company in my bed of sickness?’

She can't be sure but she feels like Anna is deliberately talking more softly than usual.

Suddenly she wants nothing more than to take refuge here, in the peaceful semi darkness, where she has Anna next to her to do her talking for her until she feels up to talking for herself.

She nods.

‘Come on then.’

She crosses the room and gets under the covers in the sweats and tshirt Catalina helped her change into before going to the car.

Under the duvet, she burrows into Anna's side: it's warm and dark, it feels like a good place to recover.

Anna lies down next to her, fitting her body around Anne's and wrapping an arm around her.

It feels heavy, in the best way. Grounding.

There's no way she’ll be able to float off into her own head with Anna here.

‘I missed you.’

It’s quieter than a whisper, almost a breath, but Anna hears because she always does.

‘Missed you too, babes.’

Anna’s arm tightens around her; her breath tickles Anne’s neck but it doesn’t bother her as much as it would have done an hour or two earlier. It’s a nice reminder that she isn’t alone.

She closes her eyes, counts her breaths- in and out, like she’s learned to do at times like this- and waits to readjust to the world outside.

#six #six the musical #six the musical fanfiction #six fanfiction

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autisticsidesau · 4 years

Note

could you tell us a little bit more about virgil and remy? btw i love this au! it makes me so happy and i have to stop reading to happy stim all the time! love you ~🌼

So this story takes place a few days- a week after Virgil and dee make up

And plans have been made for the three of them to hang out at a nearby cafe so Remy can ask questions in a familiar environment

But also so Dee and Virgil can leave if need be

Remy arrives early and is p much just vibing at a table in a louder area of the cafe for the background noise as he scrolls through any app

Eventually Virgil and Dee show up and they both flinch as they enter the cafe. Virgil’s hands go right to their ears as they begins to hum and rock in place and Dee digs through a backpack to hand Virgil their headphones

Virgil puts on their headphones and the twins make their way towards Remy and Dee asks if they can move to a quieter spot?

Remy gives them a look of confusion before nodding and they all move to a small table at the back of the cafe

When they sit Virgill starts rocking again and tapping on the table

And so the questions begin

Remy: Sorry if this is kind of rude but why did you want to move?

Dee: Ok so one of the things with autism is that a lot of noise or one particular sensory experience like light or texture can be overwhelming.

Remy nods and Dee pulls out a infinity cube and starts stimming with it

Dee also pulls out a tangle and hands it to Virgil who gives him a small hum in response

Remy: “What’re those?”

Dee: “Their stim toys.”

Remy: “And that is?”

Dee: “Okay. So stimming is- fuck uh how to describe stimming? It’s participating in enjoyable sensory experiences? I guess? But- okay- so everyone stims, but for autistic people we stim a lot more and we use it a lot to ground ourselves, express emotion, communicate, and just because.”

Virgil: “stim is what i think is called a misnomer, meaning it stands for self stimulatory behavior. Tapping your foot or listening to songs on repeat are both stims. Everyone does them. Autistic and neurodivergent people tend to do them more than others.”

Remy: “Okay that’s another question I had. So like- I looked up a few things about autism and stuff said to say ‘people with autism’ and not ‘autistic people’ because it’s dehumanizing or something? But you’re obviously not doing that.”

Dee: “Yeah no. Most autitsic people prefer just saying they're autistic. Person first language is usually something allistics- not autistic people insist on using even though autistic people have continuously said autistic is fine.”

Virgil: “Some autistic people do prefer person first language. Respect what they want to use.”

Remy: “Ok this is a more personal question, um Virgil doesn’t go to our school? Why is that? Also are you high functioning or low func-”

Dee: I’m gonna stop you there-”

Virgil: “Fuck functioning labels.”

Dee: “Yeah. Functioning labels aren’t good.”

Remy: “Why? It seems like they would be useful in helping people with- autistic people?”

Dee: “The problem with functioning labels is that people who get labeled ‘high-functioning’ end up with not enough support and dismissed as well as bullied for being weird but not weird enough, and the people who get labeled ‘low-functioning’ often get coddled and their personal autonomy taken away from them.”

Virgil: “Autism is a spectrum, people need support in all different ways, and adding functioning labels takes away from the depth of the sutistic experience. It’s a way for allistic people to neatly categorize us that ends up ultimately hurting autistic people instead of helping.”

Dee pulls Virgil’s tablet out and looks something up before showing it to Remy

Remy: “It looks like color wheel”

Dee: “that’s what the autism spectrum actually looks like. It’s not linear like most people believe we all struggle and thrive in different things. For example, I have better motor skill than Virgil but Virgil has better tone control than I do.”

Remy: “What does that mean?”

Virgil: “It means I need help to tie my shoes and write my name but Dee can do those things just fine. Dee often tends to have a ‘sarcastic’ tone so people will perceive him as rude whereas I’m better at noticing and controlling my tone of voice.”

Remy: “so circling back to my earlier question, why doesn’t Virgil go to the same school Dee and I go to?”

Virgil and Dee looked at each other awkwardly and Virgil cleared their throat before Virgil answered

Virgil: “um, ok so I tend to need more support than Dee and I find the slowed down curriculum is a lot more suited to my needs? My moms are very supportive of me and I don’t mind it too much. The classes are smaller and teachers tend to be very understanding if I need to leave or have a panic attack or meltdown in class.”

Remy: “what’s a meltdown? Is that like those episodes where shitty parents post their kids tantrum on the internet?”

Dee: “Yeah pretty much-”

Virgil: “But they’re not tantrums. That’s a bad way to describe what a meltdown is. Kids throw tantrums to get what they want when upset. Meltdowns are different.”

Dee: “Yeah meltdowns are pretty much when sensory stimulation becomes too much to handle and an autistic person… uh what's a good way to describe it? I mean- we meltdown. It’s a lot and everything’s pressing in and you can’t handle it anymore. Oftentimes autistic people will do things to try and help their situation that a lot of neurotypical people often don’t understand, like rocking or screaming.”

Virgil: “And they’re usually pretty draining too, I’ll be knocked out for a day and half after a bad one.”

Dee: “Yeah they suck ass”

Remy: “I think that’s all I wanted to ask for now but is there anything important I should know to support you guys?”

Virgil: “Sure, I think we should mention that we both have certain senses that are the most overwhelming to each of us. Mine are sound and smell, Dee’s are light and texture. If we get overwhelmed we both have plans to help us, if someone who knows the plan is there, then just let them help us. If not, we might be able to direct you through what to do that and we both have sheets and communication cards saying what to do that we can give you. Uh we both have routines? and if those routines get disrupted that can lead to really bad meltdowns. There are times when we can’t talk because we’re overwhelmed which is what we saw when you met me and when we walked in. Also sometimes a lot of sensory experience can be exhausting, we both get tired from social interaction which is why we don’t respond to texts as fast I forgot to mention because of autism we aren’t great with social cues and if we cut you off just let us know but also Did we mention special Interests?”

Remy: “uhhhh… I don’t think so?”

Virgil: “Ok Dee do you want to take over for a minute?”

Dee: “you sure? you seemed to enjoy infodumping?”

Remy: “what is infodumping?”

Virgil: “well yeah, but it took a lot out of me and I didn’t realize and I think I’m going nonverbal.”

Dee: “Ok. Would you like your tablet?”

Virgil: “mhm”

Dee quickly grabs Virgil’s tablet from their jack skellington backpack while Virgil begins to bite on their wrist

Remy: “are they supposed to be biting on their wrist? Is that another autism thing?”

Dee: “Hm? What? Oh, no they’re not thanks for pointing that out.”

Dee goes digging back into virgil’s backpack and grabs what looks like a retainer case and hands it to Virgil

Virgil opens it eagerly to reveal a bat pendant and they promptly put it in their mouth and chew on it like the first time Remy met Virgil.

Dee: “That was a self injurious stim, I have my own and they’re not fun, those kinds of stims are the ones it's recommended that get intervention to prevent someone from hurting themselves.”

Remy: “Like you did just now by giving them that pendant thing?”

Dee: “Yep that’s a silicone bat pendant that they use to stim instead of biting their wrist.”

Remy: “Ok so going back to what Virgil said, What’s infodumping and special interests?”

Dee: “A special interest is something autistic people get incredibly fixated on. Autistic people get attached to the source material and it consumes a large amount of our thoughts. It’s something you love and want to talk about all the time, your brain fixates on it and doesn’t let go. Some autistic people use special interests to relate to the world or interact with people around them. They can also be difficult at times when you have other things to do but can’t focus on anything besides special interests. You can have more than one and they can change over time. One of mine is philosophy, Virgil has a fashion Special Interest.”

Dee: “Infodumping is pretty much like it sounds like a dump of information. It’s a term for neurodivergent people sharing an excessive amount of information on a subject. A lot of times you feel a need to do it and don’t necessarily realize you are doing it. It’s important for us to fully share, because we’re trying to share information with you. Infodumping about Special Interests is really common.”

Remy: “alright I think I got it.”

Remy and Dee sit and chat for a while and Virgil starts falling asleep from people exhaustion and so Dee has to call their moms to come pick them both up but they both get to say goodbye to Remy and all in all it’s a very fun afternoon

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citrinekay · 4 years

Note

this may be a long shot and don’t do it if your uncomfortable doing it but i love the headcanon that Holden has autism so could you possibly write one where Holden gets overwhelmed and starts dissociating and bill has to help comfort him and such love ur writing ❤️❤️❤️

So I don’t have autism, and I don’t know anyone who has autism so this was definitely a challenge - but I like a good challenge! I read a couple of articles and forums online from people who do have autism, and I hope this is as accurate and respectful as possible. Thanks for the prompt ❤

It starts with an empty gallon of milk in the refrigerator.

Holden awakes that morning at exactly 7am with the same amount of anxiety he usually does - distinct, yet tolerable. He gets up, goes to the bathroom, and washes his face. So far so good. Then he goes into the kitchen to get a bowl of cereal for breakfast, the next step in his routine.

The gallon has a few dregs of milk left sloshing at the bottom. He doesn’t remember using the last of the milk, but his memory can be untrustworthy at times. It doesn’t matter if and when he was responsible for the lack of milk; the disruption has already unraveled the rest of his morning.

He eats the cereal dry because it’s the only option he can think of, and gets dressed in a scattered hurry. After leaving the house and driving several miles down the road, he realizes that the milk fiasco had caused him to forget a few vital steps. Firstly, he can’t recall if he took his medications with breakfast, and second, he isn’t sure whether he locked the door behind him.

Paralyzed by a sudden wave of anxiety, he drives the rest of the way to work on autopilot without considering turning back. As he speeds through the last intersection on the way to Quantico, the light flashes from yellow to red, and it seems like a bad omen.

***

When Holden was about twelve, his mother bought him a Rubik’s cube. She thought it might help with his fidgeting and restless hands. For months, he was fixated on solving it, relying on his own prowess rather than hints from online or outside sources to assist him.

He finally cracked it four months later. After that, he could solve the cube to infinity. He played it so many times that he could memorize the pattern, and he’d learned something about himself inside of the puzzle.

He needs a pattern, one that never varies. At this point in his life, that pattern begins with a gallon of milk, and today, the Rubik’s cube just keeps spinning out in his head.

He’s been living with autism long enough to realize when he’s headed into input overload, and that he should probably stop stimulating himself before everything boils over like a pot of water left on a high. That was fine when he was in high school and he could lock himself in his room to get away. It was fine when he attended university, and his roommate stayed out late most nights, leaving the dorm peacefully quiet. It was even fine when he was sequestered in the basement of the BSU, content to objectively look at police reports and crime scene photographs - information that he could easily put down at a moment’s notice.

Not anymore. He’d assured Ted that he can go out into the field now and do interviews. He can handle it. He can handle his stress. He can deal with the lights, and sounds, and smells of the outside world which had once crippled him to the point of immobility. He’s trained himself to pass as just as neurotypical as everyone else.

He has to go to work.

***

The interview is local, giving Holden the opportunity to breathe and prepare himself for the inside of the correctional facility on the drive over.

Bill is driving, letting the radio play from one muted love song to the next. He doesn’t try to pressure Holden into conversation, which is nice.

“Mind if I smoke?” Bill asks, pulling Holden from his thoughts.

“Roll down the window.” Holden says, reminding himself to add, “Please.”

Bill cranks down the window and lights up. He knows Holden dislikes the smell just like Holden knows Bill can’t live without the damn things.

When they were first assigned as partners, Holden wasn’t quite sure the arrangement would work out. Bill seemed like the typical abrasive, macho g-man who wouldn’t give two shits about Holden’s autism. He looked like the kind of people who had bullied Holden in school for being “weird” and “different.” Everything Holden knew and had learned about “normal” human behavior through extensive self-training told him that the relationship would end in disharmonious friction and more than a few hurt feelings; but, he’d apparently not yet studied enough.

The second day they worked together, Holden nearly had a meltdown over whether or not he had locked his front door, a recurring anxiety which has plagued him since he’d come home to a break-in several years back when living in D.C. Bill didn’t dismiss his worries or try to placate him with logical suggestions. He grabbed his keys, and said he would drive them back over to Holden’s apartment immediately just be certain.

The stupid door was locked just as it always is because he’s turns the handle no less than three times just be certain every morning, but Bill hadn’t seemed concerned with the wasted trip only pleased that the positive discovery eased Holden’s panic.

Then, a few months ago, Bill had casually referred to Holden as “his friend.”

“Are we friends?” Holden had asked, uncertain.

“Yes, Holden, we’re friends.”

He supposes they could have gone another six months with him thinking they were only co-workers if Bill hadn’t made the remark. It’s nice to know he has friends, but sometimes he worries that Bill will get tired of him and his peculiar behaviors eventually. They can go days without speaking or exchanging a text, and it’s always his fault.

As they pull up to the front of the correctional facility, Holden flinches at the sound of the gate lifting to let them through.

Bill parks, and turns to Holden. “You good?”

“Good.” Holden echoes. “Yeah, sure.”

Bill frowns, softly, but nods for Holden to follow him inside. “All right then, let’s go.”

***

The inside of a correctional facility is the very definition of sensory overload - bright lights, loud buzzers, and prisoners shouting. Holden counts to ten in his head while they make their way down the dank, narrow corridors to the private room reserved for the interview.

Their subject, Hank Graham, is waiting for them just beyond a heavy, steel door. The man killed three women, and cut off various body parts. This information doesn’t bother Holden. He’s been studying psychology and murder for many years, and it’s what fascinates him.

The part that bothers him about Hank Graham is how willing the man is to lean into his personal space and try to touch him. Holden doesn’t know what all that is about. He’s good at looking at crimes from a three-dimensional perspective, picking apart it’s pieces, and coming to a natural conclusion of what occurred. He’s still in the learning curve of the “why” part.

Bill usually takes over once Holden gets past the questions about the process of the murders. He asks the men what they were thinking and feeling during the crimes, a perspective Holden isn’t good at relating to.

He tries to stick to his portion of the questions as strictly as possible, but Graham continues leaning closer. He slaps Holden on the arm when he starts laughing about how he cut the breasts off one of his victims.

Holden leaps up out of his chair, his whole body revolting against the contact. There it goes - the boiling water overflowing.

Bill gets him out of the correctional facility as quickly as possible. They emerge into the muggy summer air, and he stands back while Holden paces, shaking his hands in a desperate attempt to work through the panicked scream in the back of his mind.

When he calms down, Bill’s brow is set in a scowl. Holden has seen this mood on him enough times to understand that it’s more grave concern rather than anger. He’d spent months trying to figure out the difference on Bill, but now he wishes he could go back to thinking Bill was simply upset with him for his failure.

“Stop worrying about me.” Holden says, “I have enough anxiety for the both of us.”

Bill scoffs, and tosses the last of his cigarette to the ground. “I do worry, Holden. With good cause.”

“I had it under control.”

“Fine, if you say so.” Bill scowls, and motions for Holden to follow him to the car. Let’s go home.”

***

Holden wakes up the following day with what he mentally refers to as a “sensory hangover.” After pushing himself too hard yesterday, he’s all but maxed himself out on new input. And there still isn’t milk in the damn fridge because he’d forgotten about the oversight after his mini-panic attack at the correctional facility.

Everything feels numb and flat as he gets ready for work, trying to focus on his pattern. He puts on mismatched socks, but doesn’t feel like digging his dresser drawer for a complete set. He remembers to take his medication, and assure himself that the door is locked.

He’s still functioning as well as he can, but by the time he gets to work, the distance between his brain and reality is starting to grow dangerously long.

Sitting down at his desk, he tries to focus on the tasks at hand. He barely notices when Bill comes out of his office to get a cup of coffee.

“Good morning.” Bill says.

Holden doesn’t look up as he boots up his laptop, and opens a new document to start typing up his notes from the Graham meeting yesterday. The task is going reasonably well when Gregg’s telephone starts ringing.

Gregg isn’t at his desk. The phone just keeps ringing.

Holden presses his eyes shut, trying to block out the disruptive noise. His tenuous grip on his senses loosens with every shrill ring of the phone, but he’s motionless in his seat, unable to enact a plan to make it stop.

The phone stops ringing for the space of what feels like seconds before it starts up again.

Finally, Holden stands abruptly from his chair. “Where the fuck is Gregg?”

Bill gazes at him from across the bullpen. He has that look again. The worried one.

Suddenly, Holden realizes that everything has gone blank, a mass of sensation and sound that he can no longer differentiate from one thing to the next. It’s as if someone turned on ten radios at once inside his brain, and tuned every single one to a different channel.

He feels himself walking away from his desk and toward the door of the basement. He opens the door, walks out into the hall. He knows where he’s standing, but the hallway feels incredibly long and it could have gone on forever for all he knew. It doesn’t feel real as if it’s just an image projecting to infinity inside his brain.

He doesn’t move until Bill’s hand on his elbow pulls him around. He focuses hazily on Bill’s mouth, forming the syllables of his name and a deliberate, “Are you okay?”

“Are you … are you … are you here?” Holden says, the words struggling languidly from his throat.

Bill says, “Yes, Holden, I’m right here.”

Holden looks down, and Bill is holding his hand, only it doesn’t feel real. It’s just a dream. But that can’t be right because he’d come into work today, and he saw Bill in the office. Bill followed him into the empty hallway. Bill isn’t dissociating the way Holden is.

“Stay.” Holden whispers, his voice sounding far away and detached from the static inside his brain. “Stay. Stay.”

“It’s okay, I’m staying.” Bill says.

He must be squeezing Holden’s hand, rubbing his arm. Bill is tactile and warm like that, and Holden wishes he could feel it right this second. But everything is a blur, a dark room where the light used to be, a fog of noise and sensation that just won’t lift.

***

Holden comes back to reality after what feels like five seconds. He opens his eyes, and he and Bill are sitting on the floor in the hallway just outside the BSU door.

“You’re back.” Bill whispers.

Holden blinks at him, bewildered by the faint smile on Bill’s mouth and the misty gleam in his eyes. Happy or upset? Why do normal people cry over so many different things? Wait, is Bill crying?

“How long was it?”

Bill checks his watch. “Ten minutes. You’ve never done it for that long before.”

“Not at work.” Holden says, “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, don’t apologize.”

Bill frowns as Holden gets his feet under himself, and stands with a grunt. His backside hurts from sitting on the tile floor. He wonders how far into the episode Bill made him sit down, but he can’t remember anything beyond the telephone ringing and running out of the office.

“We should get back to work.” Holden says, abruptly.

He marches toward the door, but Bill clambers to his feet with a quiet protest. “Wait, Holden. Are you okay? Do you need a minute?”

“I’m fine.” Holden says, briskly, yanking the door open.

He pauses just across the threshold. His brain is still fuzzy, but he has to at least remember his manners. Besides, Bill had been so kind to sit with him. Maybe they really are friends.

He turns slowly to see Bill gazing at him with a strange look in his eyes. Holden has never seen this look before. He quietly tries to catalogue it in the back of his mind for further inspection later.

“Thank you.” He says.

Bill nods. “Yeah, of course.”

Holden goes back to his desk, and sits down in front of his laptop. The last few sentences he’d written are riddled with grammatical errors and misspellings. He draws in a deep breath, and begins again.

#bill x holden #mindhunter #my writing #Anonymous

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imdoingthismspaintadventure · 4 years

Text

Worm 2.6 - In which we meet up with the Undersiders

I showed up in costume. I didn’t care if they thought it was rude or paranoid, I would rather be capable of surviving having a knife pulled on me than play nice.

I said it last update and I’ll say it again: Taylor’s being really smart while making a very dumb decision

I had caught a bus from the library to my house and put my costume on under my clothes. Most of the armor panels of my costume were separate pieces, held in place by straps that ran into slits in the fabric of the costume. Not all of them were, though.

I really appreciate how badass and complex her costume is, having made it 100% herself! It’s probably on par with some professional ones!

I’d made some of the armor part of the bodysuit, I’d made narrow, rigid sections of armor running along the center of my chest, back, shins, wrists, hips and the tops of my shoulders. so that when I strapped the larger pieces on, grooves on the underside of the armor would fit over them and help keep them from flopping around.

And now it seems she has improved it, keeping it both practical and protective. I love it.

I checked myself in the mirror before I left, and didn’t think anyone would notice unless I held a strange posture and they were paying a great deal of attention to what I was wearing. I wore loose fitting clothes over the costume, – one of my larger pairs of jeans and a sweatshirt, and even with that, I felt painfully conspicuous

So she’s wearing casual clothes over her costume, and the costume is working right now as a kind of bulletproof vest while she goes to meet them, where she will presumably change to being fully suited. And going with civilian clothes and then changing out of view is a good way to protect her secret identity.

Taylor’s showcasing the appropriate amount of caution with this crazy plan.

I changed much the way I had the previous night, finding an empty alley, quickly pulling on my mask, pulling off my outer clothes, and stuffing the clothes into one of my dad’s old backpacks. I’d hidden the backpack before I went patrolling last night, but today, I opted to take it with me. I headed out the other end of the alley.

Aaand changed! Full costume mode now! The bug girl from the other day is back!

When I was a short distance away from the site of last night’s brawl, I sent a dozen flies out to scout. I focused on what they were sensing.

I never realized just how excellent bug control would be for scouting ahead and cheking your surroundings.

I get the feeling this serial is going to ruin every other bug-based power in media for me, especially the ones that use it only for offense.

Bugs, it probably goes without saying, sense things in a very different way than we do. More than that, they sense and process things at a very different speed. The end result was that the signals my power were able to translate and send to me in a way my brain could understand were muted. Visual information came through as ink blot patches of monochrome light and dark, alternating between fuzzy and overly sharp. Sound was almost painful to focus on, breaking down to bass vibrations that made my vision distort and high pitch noises that weren’t unlike nails on a chalkboard. Multiply that by a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, and it was overwhelming. When my power was new to me, I hadn’t been able to hold back. The sensory overload had never actually hurt me, even at its worst, but it had made me flat out miserable. These days, I had that part of my power turned off a good ninety nine percent of the time.

This is actually really interesting! It seems her power let’s her see and hear through her bugs but doesn’t actually translate it to human terms

As such all she can see through one bug’s eyes are monochrome light and dark patches and all she can hear is distorted noises. And all of that multiplied by every single bug she has which amounts to a kaleidoscopic maelstrom of disruptive imputs that incoveniences more than helps.

It’s fortunate that she can turn that part of her power off, cause it could almost be crippling otherwise!

My preferred method of sensing things through my bugs was touch. It wasn’t that their sense of touch translated much better than the hearing or sight part of things, but had more to do with the fact that I could tell where they were in relation to me. I was acutely aware when they were very still, if they were moving, or if something else was moving them. That was one thing that translated well.

Touch does work well though! So she can basically know where everything surrounding her is, based on where the insects she sent landed on; and she could also theoretically track the movements of people and their positions in relation to her. Not bad!

If she could interpret the other imputs she could have big brother-like control of all of her surroundings! I think this aspect of her power is far stronger than the pure offensive capability her swarm gives her.

So as I sent the bugs out to scout, the twelve sets of compound eyes first identified the trio as blurry silhouettes atop a larger, more defined shadow, backlit by a flare of white that had to be the sun. I directed the flies closer, towards the ‘heads’ of the figures, and they touched down on skin. None of the three were wearing masks, which I deemed reason to believe Tattletale had been telling the truth. They weren’t in costume. There was no guarantee that the three were really Tattletale, Grue and Regent, but I felt confident enough to head around to the fire escape and climb up to the roof.

Huh so they did show up without their costume after all! That at least shows they are somewhat honest, even if it could still be a ploy. Seems like Taylor is going up to meet them!

It was them, no doubt. I recognized them even without their costumes. Two guys and a girl. The girl had dirty blonde hair tied back into a loose braid, a smattering of freckles over the bridge of her nose and the same vulpine grin I recognized from the night prior. She wore a black long sleeved t-shirt with a grafitti-style design on it and a knee length denim skirt. I was surprised by the bottle-glass green of her eyes.

So this is Tattletale then! Without her costume! She sounds very cute! I love that her vulpine grin is again the most defining characteristic. She changes her hairstyle in her civilian identity huh? That’s such a small detail but a realistic one, cause she is probably the one that has to hide her identity the most! The other ones all had full masks and other things to hide their identity, while she had a domino mask.

The smaller and younger of the two guys – about my age – was undoubtedly Regent. I recognized the mop of black curls. He was a good looking guy, but not in a way that would make me say he was handsome. He was pretty, with a triangular face, light blue eyes and full lips pulled into a bit of a scowl. I pegged him as having French or Italian heritage. I could see where he would have girls all over him, but I couldn’t say I was interested, myself. The pretty boys – Leonardo Decaprio, Marcus Firth, Justin Beiber, Johnny Depp – had never done it for me. He was wearing a white jacket with a hood, jeans and sneakers, and was perched on the raised lip at the edge of the roof, a bottle of cola in hand.

Regent is european! Has a pretty face and a lean body, which seems like it’s not Taylor’s type, but she could understand how other people might fall for him. He’s currently chilling with a cola bottle on the roof which is a mood.

Interesting to see both Tattletale and Regent in such a casual way, after learning they were extremely misterious online.

Grue was startling in appearance, by contrast. Taller than me by at least a foot, Grue had dark chocolate skin, shoulder length cornrows and that masculine lantern jaw you typically associated with guy superheroes. He wore jeans, boots and a plain green t-shirt, which struck me as a bit cold for the spring. I did note that he had considerable muscle definition in his arms. This was a guy who worked out.

Grue is jacked up! Has a full-on superhero physique and jawline, even though he is a villain. He’s also black and rocking some badass cornrows!

He seemed the most straight-foward and direct of all of them last time, and was the one who approached Taylor.

“And she arrives,” Tattletale crowed, “Pay up.”

Regent’s scowl deepened for a second, and he fished in his pocket for a wad of bills, which he forked over to Tattletale.

“You bet on whether I would show up?” I ventured.

“We bet on whether you would come in costume,” Tattletale told me. Then, more to Regent than to me, she said, “and I won.”

“Again,” Regent muttered.

Oh they are really fun

Seems like these two are the more playful ones of the group, and Tattle still seems really sharp with her guesses!

“It’s your own fault for taking the bet in the first place,” Grue said, “Even if it wasn’t Tattle, it was a sucker bet. Showing up in costume makes too much sense. It’s what I would do.” He had a nice voice. It was an adult voice, even if his appearance gave me the sense of a guy in his late teens.

And Grue seems to be the most careful and professional out of all of them.

Also this further supports my theory of Tattletale having some crazy mind power.

He extended his hand to me, “Hey, I’m Brian.”

I shook his hand, he wasn’t shy about shaking my hand firmly. I said, “You can call me Bug, I guess. At least, until I come up with something better, or until I decide this isn’t an elaborate trick.”

He shrugged, “Cool.” There wasn’t the slightest trace of offense at my suspicion. I almost felt bad.

I like Brian. I think he likes that Taylor is also being very careful. Also, are you really going to call yourself “Bug”?

“Lisa,” Tattletale introduced herself. She didn’t offer me her hand to shake, but I think it would have felt out of place if she had. It wasn’t that she seemed unfriendly, but she didn’t have the same aura of geniality about her that Grue did.

Lisa is a good name. Also yeah Brian seems effortlessly friendly.

With how nice they are being, it’s easy to forget these guys are teenage villains

“I’m Alec,” Regent informed me, with a quiet voice, then he added, “And Bitch is Rachel.”

“Rachel is sitting this one out,” Grue said, “She didn’t agree with the aim of our meeting, here.”

Alec huh? He’s still being quite reserved. Also seems like Rachel didn’t really care about meeting new possible members or was even against it.

Seems she really is antisocial, as her page said.

“Which raises the question,” I cut in, “What is the aim of this meeting? I’m a little weirded out with you guys revealing your secret identities like this, or at least, pretending to.”

“Sorry,” Grue… Brian apologized, “That was my idea. I thought we would make a token show of trust.”

Behind the yellow tinted lenses of my mask, my eyes narrowed, flicking from Lisa to Alec to Brian. I couldn’t draw any conclusions from their expressions.

Huh, I initially thought this was a strategic maneuver but now I’m thinking that this was actually genuine.

“Why, exactly, do you need my trust?” I asked.

Brian opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked to Lisa, who bent down and picked up a plastic lunchbox. She held it out to me.

“I said we owed you. All yours, no strings attached.”

Oh, are they repaying her for the accidental favor she did to them the other day??

Without taking the box, I tilted my head to get a better look at the front, “Alexandria. She was my favorite member of the Protectorate when I was a kid. Is the lunchbox collectable?”

Oooh new name!! She’s a member of the protectorate, like Armsmaster was! She seems to be a long-time member given that Taylor was a big fan when she was a kid.

Alexandria...makes me think of Alexander the Great or the Alexandrine syllabic meter, or even the library of Alexandria, which all give feelings of past glories and idealized might. It just sounds grand.

“Open it,” Lisa prompted me, with a roll of her eyes.

I took it. From the weight and the motion of the contents inside it, I immediately had a pretty good idea of what it was. I undid the clasps and opened the box.

“Money,” I breathed, caught off guard by suddenly having so much in my hands. Eight stacks of bills, tied with paper bands. Each of the paper bands had a number written on it in permanent marker. Two fifty each…

Lisa answered before I had the number totaled up in my head, “Two grand.”

I closed the box and did the clasps. With no idea what to say, I stayed silent.

Woah that is a lot!

They seem to indeed be succesful if they can throw around these kinds of gifts!

“You have two choices,” Lisa explained, “You can take that as a gift. A thank you for, intentionally or not, saving our ass from Lung last night. And maybe a bit of incentive to count us among your friends when you’re out in costume and doing dastardly deeds.”

Her grin widened, as if she’d said something she found amusing. Maybe it was the irony of a villain talking about ‘dastardly deeds’, or how corny the phrase was

Oh fuck Lisa 150% knows about Taylor’s heroic intentions, at least on that night. With how much fun she had at the suggestion of Taylor doing “dastardly deeds”.

Whether she knows about this whole new plan of hers is another story. but this is indeed alarming.

She elaborated, “Between territory disputes, differences in ideology, general power struggles and egos, there’s a rare few people in the local villain community who won’t attack us on sight.”

“And the second option?” I asked.

“You can take this as your first installment in the monthly allowance you’re entitled to as a member of the Undersiders,” Brian spoke up, “As one of us.”

Undersiders huh? Interesting name, very teen group. I imagine it in an urban tag style. I like it.

So her options are to either take the money and leave (and be on friendlier tems if they meet again) or join their group

Something tells me Taylor’s gonna pick number two here, with that whole plan she had. Ooooh boy.

I shifted my gaze between the three of them, looking for the joke. Lisa still had a bit of a smile, but I was getting the impression that was her default expression. Alec looked a little bored, if anything. Brian looked dead serious. Damn.

That seems very in character with how little we know of them. Lisa the playful, Brian the earnest, and Alec the laid-back.

“Two thousand a month,” I said.

“No,” Brian cut in, “That’s just what the boss pays us, to stick together and to stay active. We make, uh, considerably more than that.”

o.o Holy shit.

Also they do have a boss!!

Lisa smirked, and Alec chuckled as he swished the contents of his coke bottle. I made mental note at the mention of this ‘boss’.

Lisaa what are you thinking about!!

Also good on Taylor for catching that.

Not wanting to get sidetracked, I quickly thought through the earlier part of our conversation in the context of the job offer.

I asked, “So Bitch didn’t come because she was against the, er, recruitment?”

“Yeah,” Alec said, “We voted on it, and she said no.”

Yikes, if she joins, Rachel miight be a problem.

“On the plus side, the rest of us voted yes,” Brian hurried to add, giving Alec a dirty look, “She’ll come around. She always votes against adding new members to the group, because she doesn’t want to divide the money five ways.”

“So you’ve done this recruiting thing before,” I concluded.

“Uh, yeah,” Brian looked a touch embarrassed, he rubbed the back of his neck, “It didn’t go well. We tried with Spitfire, and she got scared off before we even got to the job offer. Our fault, for bringing Rachel along that time.”

“And then she got recruited by someone else,” Alec added.

Seems like Brian really wants to recruit more people to their team and they have been trying without much success before.

Spitfire seems like an obvious fire-based power with that name. Seems like Rachel was toxic enough to make her reconsider and join another team.

uuuh considering your history at school are you sure you want to do this??

“Yeah,” Brian shrugged, “She got snagged by Faultline before we got a second chance. We’ve made an offer to Circus, too, and she told us in no uncertain terms that she worked alone.”

“Taught me a few new curse words while she did it, too,” Alec said.

“She was pretty vocal about how she flies solo,” Brian admitted.

More people!

We got Circus, who has a potty mouth and likes to operate solo, and Faultline, who also recruits!

Umm, Circus makes me think illusion-based powers? Or like body contortion? Maybe?

Faultline could be earth-based, earthquake related and such

“So you’re going the extra mile, with no costumes as a show of trust and a cash bonus up front, to get me to join,” I said, as the pieces came together.

“That’s the gist of it,” Brian agreed, “Long and short of it is, especially with Lung taken out of action and the ABB diminished by his being gone, there’s bound to be some pushing and shoving over territory and status among the various gangs and teams. Us, Faultline’s Crew, the remaining ABB, Empire Eighty-Eight, the solo villains, and any out of town teams or gangs that figure that they can worm in and grab a piece of the Bay. If it comes down to it, we want firepower. We haven’t screwed up a job yet, but the way us three figure it, it’s only a matter of time before we end up stuck in a fight we can’t win, with Bitch as the only one of us who can really dish out the hurt.”

WORLDBUILDING TIME

It seems that Lung’s defeat caused a power vacuum, and now there are a lot of villain groups trying to fill it.

-Faultline’s Crew, presumably led by the aforementioned Faultline

-The rest of the ABB (Bakuda and Oni Lee I believe? )

-Empire Eighty-Eight, which I have no idea what it is about, but it has Empire on the title so that doesn’t sound good.

-Random Villains

-The Undersiders (with their “boss” leading them? )

It sounds like the events of the other day caused a big mess!!

“I just don’t get why you want me,” I said, “I control bugs. That’s not going to stop Alexandria, Glory Girl or Aegis.”

More names!!

Alexandria, which makes me even more certain that she’s really really powerful

Glory Girl, which sounds like she’s revered and mighty

Aegis, which probably has some sort of super-defense, based on that name

And yeah Taylor probably wouldn’t do much against a high-ranking hero, to be honest, discounting the fact that she doesn’t want to go that road

“You fucked up Lung,” Lisa shrugged as she spoke, “Good enough for me.”

“Um, not really,” I replied, “In case you missed it, you’re the ones who stopped him from executing me last night. That just goes to prove the point I was making.”

“Honey,” Lisa said, “Entire teams of capes have gone up against Lung and got their asses handed to them. That you managed as well as you did is fantastic. The fact that the asshole is lying in a hospital bed because of you is the icing on the cake.”

Oh what??

I thought she only distracted and weaked his group! He’s in the hospital because of her? Because of the poison?

My reply stopped before it even left my mouth. I only managed a dumb, “Hunh?”

“Yeah,” Lisa raised an eyebrow, “You do know which bugs you had biting him, right? Black Widow, Brown Recluse, Browntail Moth, Mildei, Fire Ants-”

“Yeah,” I cut her off, “I don’t know the official names, but I know exactly what bit him, what stung him and what the venoms do.”

“So why are you surprised? A couple of those bugs would be fucking dangerous if they bit just once, but you had them bite several times. Bad enough, but when Lung came into custody they had him checked over by the docs, and the idiot doctor in charge said something like, ‘Oh, well, these do look like bug bites and stings, but the really venomous ones don’t bite multiple times. Let’s arrange to check on him in a few hours’.”

OH GOD

Tayor did you almost poison him to death accidentaly??

This was a regenerative dragon of hell and you almost KILLED HIM!! With bugs

Your power is a lot more fearsome than I thought

I could tell where the story was going. I put my hands over my mouth, whispering, “Oh my god.”

Tattletale grinned, “I can’t believe you didn’t know.”

“But he regenerates!” I protested, dropping my hands, “Toxins aren’t supposed to be even one percent as effective against people who heal like he does.”

Oh my fuck did you go absolutely ham on him because he “could regenerate”?

This is lowkey hilarious. You almost stomped Lung accidentaly! Granted you almost died later buuut..

“They’re effective enough, I guess, or his healing stopped working somewhere along the line” Lisa told me, “By the time they got to him, the big guy was just beginning to suffer from large scale tissue necrosis. His heart even stopped a few times. You do remember where you had the bugs bite him?”

I closed my eyes. I could see my reputation going down the tubes. One of the spiders I had been using was the brown recluse. Arguably the most dangerous spider in the United States, more than even the black widow. A single bite from a brown recluse could make a good chunk of the flesh around the bite blacken and rot away. I’d had my bugs biting Lung in the more sensitive parts of his anatomy.

“Let’s just say that even with the ability to heal several times faster than your average person, Lung is going to be sitting down to use the toilet.”

Okay first off:

BROWN RECLUSES ARE A BIG FUCKING NOPE. Thank god I don’t have any over here

Second:

DID YOU JUST ROT HIS DICK OFF??

“Okay, that’s enough,” Brian stopped Lisa before she could go on, “Lung is going to recover, right?”

With the look Brian was giving Lisa, I thought she might lie, regardless of the truth. She shrugged and told me, “He’s already recuperating. Slowly, but he’s on the mend, and he should be in good working order in six months to a year.”

“You’d better hope he doesn’t escape,” Alec said, his voice still quiet but bemused, “Because if someone made my man bits fall off, I’d be out for blood.”

Oh god he’s gonna be so pissed.

If he ever escapes you would have a giant scaly dragon wanting nothing more than to turn you into ashes.

Good results for your first night out!

Brian pinched the bridge of his nose, “Thank you for that, Alec. Way you two are going, our potential recruit is going to run off to have a panic attack before the idea of becoming an Undersider even crosses her mind.”

“How do you know this?” I asked, within a heartbeat of the thought crossing my mind. When Brian turned my way with an expression like he thought he had said something to offend me, I clarified, “Tattletale, or Lisa, or whatever I’m supposed to call you. How do you know this stuff about Lung… or about the fact that I was at the Library, or that the cape was on his way, last night?”

Yess, tell us about your precognitive or psychic abilities Lisa!

“Library?” Brian interjected, giving Lisa another dark look.

Lisa ignored Brian’s question and winked at me, “Girl’s gotta have her secrets.”

“Lisa’s half the reason we haven’t failed a job yet,” Alec said.

“And our boss is a large part of the rest,” Lisa finished for him.

Huh! so the boss is also a factor for success.

Interesting

“So you say,” Brian grumbled, “But let’s not go there.”

Lisa smiled at me, “If you want the full scoop, I’m afraid the details on what we do only come with team membership. What I can tell you is that we’re a good group. Our track record is top notch, and we’re in it for fun and profit. No grand agenda. No real responsibility.”

Huh so they are keeping the full details for when she’s an active member of the group. That’s smart of them.

Also are they really just a group trying to make money out of petty theft and heists. No hidden agenda? Not even of the boss? Hmmm...

I pursed my lips, behind my mask. While I had picked up some info, I felt like I had a lot more questions. Who was this boss they mentioned? Was he or she setting up other teams of highly successful villains, in Brockton Bay or elsewhere? What made these guys as effective as they were, and was it something I could steal or copy for myself?

The theory that their boss is playing sponsor to a series of low-level criminal groups could be true actually! I got a feeling that there’s something to this boss beyond what these guys said.

Also you’re already looking how to minmax their way of working into something that can work for you? You’re very good at finding uses for everything.

It wasn’t like I was signing the deal in blood or anything. I stood to gain so much.

“Alright then, count me in,” I told them.

Oh god Wildbow was there a way to make that first phrase any more ominous?

Taylor what have you done?

#worm parahumans #worm asks #parahumans #wildbow #worm liveblog #parahumans liveblog #arc 2 #Worm 2.6

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whimperwoods · 4 years

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29-Day Whump Challenge - Day 14

Day 14: Concussion || Dehumanization

tag list: @inky-whump

Happy Valentine’s Day! Kyle doesn’t know it yet, but his new team is going to be very good for him - so this is almost a happy post? Sure. Sweet fluff valentine’s ending, even though he does not know that he’s about to have a new team and couldn’t process that information if he did know.

Anyway, I’ve never had a concussion, but when a friend of mine listed all the things she wasn’t allowed to do in the days after hers I immediately knew I’d hate it.

Continuation of this one from Day 3. Prompts by @yuckwhump

tw: sensory deprivation (ish), tw: confusion

*****

Being in the hospital had been confusing and frightening, but something about it had at least been safe, had at least made sense.

Now, he could see the world, and he was allowed out in it, and he was lying in a dark room in a new place, with no idea what to expect.

He almost wished he were back in the hospital.

His head hurt, but not as badly as it had for the brief time he was in the sunlight between the hospital and here, letting the man who’d introduced himself as Hank lead him to a strange car because at least it was shady, and his brain couldn’t come up with any real alternatives.

Now, in the dark, with his headache getting duller and less overwhelming, he wondered why he hadn’t run.

He’d have made himself dizzy, but it might still have been better.

He sighed.

The doctor had given him a list of rules. No physical activity. No intense concentration. No thinking. No video games, tv, books, or computers. No phone. Rest for his brain, like that was even possible with so much around him that needed figuring out.

Hank had agreed to all of it, and Kyle had gotten the impression that the man was in charge of him, which probably didn’t bode well. He didn’t know anything about him, or who he was, or where he was taking him, and when he tried to ask, Hank had just told him they’d worry about all of that when he was better.

Better. What a crock of shit that was. There was no better.

He knew what the world at large thought of his boss, and his team. He knew what they whispered about them, behind closed doors. He knew they were villains but they weren’t - it wasn’t - he’d never been sure what he was good at or good for, and then the boss had given him a job and told him how to be good at it, and it had been-

Well, it had been miserable, and even if he could go back now, which he probably couldn’t, he’d only be beaten for his trouble, or tortured full-on if they thought he was a spy.

Trying to think about the future was definitely on the list of things he wasn’t allowed, and it made his head sting with pain and spin dizzily until he had to stop thinking entirely.

*****

Hank was quiet opening the door, and quiet walking across the floor to the bed, and quiet laying a hand on Kyle’s shoulder before he spoke, and even quiet whispering, “Hey, bud. How you doing?”

It just made listening for him, trying to understand what was happening in the room, that much harder. Kyle concentrated on listening until his ears rang and he couldn’t hear at all.

He needed to answer, though. He needed to answer so Hank knew he’d heard. So Hank would tell him things. So Hank would tell him anything, and he could figure out - stuff. He didn’t remember what. Everything was confusing.

He moaned, hoping it was enough.

Hank squeezed his shoulder again, a gentle pressure instead of the warning crush Kyle was more used to when there was a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, bud. Do you need more painkillers? Something to help you sleep?”

Questions. No. He had questions.

He moaned again, sure that he could come up with the words he needed if he could just - if he could just -

The hand squeezed his shoulder again.

“I’ll go ahead and bring both. You can take whichever you think you need.”

It wasn’t an answer, but trying to think with Hank here and moving and speaking was even harder than trying to think by himself, and when the man returned with two bottles of pills and shook out one of each, he just took them, too lost to know if he should or not.

*****

For the first day, he slept.

For the second he napped, off and on and off and on.

On the third, his head still hurt and he still felt confused, and he still couldn’t get answers out of Hank, but he was awake.

Then he was awake.

He was awake.

He hated lying still, but moving too much hurt his head, or drew Hank’s attention, or both.

He hated having nothing to look at, nothing to listen to, but Hank just told him the doctor said not yet and left him alone again.

He felt trapped in his own body, his limbs tingling and desperate with restlessness, not allowed to move.

He had too much energy and not enough, hovering at the edge of sleep, of shutting down from sheer boredom, but unable to drift off and leave the empty, dark space of his room behind.

There was a faint glow on the ceiling where the light from the hallway came through a vent over the door. He’d watched it for a while, desperate for anything to do, had stared at it until his eyes crossed and uncrossed and crossed again, but now even that was empty, aching, full of despair.

He raised his hand up just to spite all of it and waved his fingers in front of his face, counting them to himself. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Thumb, forefinger, middle finger, ring finger, pinky. Pinky, ring finger, middle finger, forefinger, thumb.

He vaguely remembered that there was some kind of math you could do with fingers, besides counting, but trying to remember what made his head ache.

It was quiet. He hated noise, but he hated the quiet more.

He snapped the fingers on the hand in front of his face, but it was mostly unsatisfying.

Hank’s arrival was almost a relief.

“Time to eat something, again,” he said cheerfully, “Keep your strength up.”

Kyle didn’t want to answer. He didn’t want to give this stranger anything, especially when he knew so little about him.

But he couldn’t be left alone. He couldn’t. “Thanks,” he managed, hoarsely.

Hank’s eyebrow shot up in surprise. “Hey, buddy, you’re welcome!” He sounded delighted. At least someone did.

“Where am I?” he asked again, not for the first time.

Hank handed him a plate of toast and helped him sit up. “You know that’s a question for after the doctor clears you.”

Kyle almost cried.

“They can’t stop me from thinking,” he said, “Please. Please, I have to know.”

“The doctor said-”

Kyle worked up his nerves and grabbed Hank’s wrist. “Please. The not knowing is-” he didn’t know how to say that not knowing made him think and think and think until his ears rung and his head spun and he had to just squeeze his eyes shut and wait for more medicine. He didn’t know how to say lying here not thinking about all the things he didn’t know was just as bad a torture, leaving him buzzing and empty and helpless. “Please,” he repeated.

Hank sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, no, I - I get that. Truth is, I don’t know all of it, myself. We have a pretty good idea who you are, but we’re missing details and you’re gonna have to make choices and so are we and - it’s gotta wait until you’re better. We’re gonna get you better, and then we’re gonna make choices. You think you can trust me that far?”

Kyle had no answer.

Hank let him eat his toast in silence, and didn’t make him give one.

Finally, Kyle finished the toast and Hank took the plate and started walking toward the door.

“Wait!” he called after the man, loud enough to make his own head throb until he had to close his eyes against the feeling.

Hank’s footsteps stopped. “Don’t go,” he said, “I can’t - it’s -”

Hank still wasn’t moving. He wasn’t speaking. He was waiting.

Kyle tried again. “I don’t want to be alone. It’s - a lot.”

“I can stay, but-”

“Yes.”

Kyle surprised even himself with how quickly that particular answer came to him.

This was a bad idea. It was a bad idea to trust Hank. An even worse one to rely on him.

Hank walked back over and sat on the edge of the bed.

“What do you need?” he asked gently, “I mean, what do you need that isn’t on your no list from the doctor.”

“I don’t know,” Kyle whispered.

Hank sighed. “Well, that makes two of us.”

Hank sat beside him in silence until the boredom set in again, tingling and awful in his limbs.

Silence stretched between them.

“Hank,” he whispered, the first time he’d said the man’s name.

Hank reached over and squeezed his ankle, this time.

“What am I allowed?” he asked, the only question he could think of that might not get shot down.

Hank sighed. “I don’t know. How bad are sounds for you, right now? I have an audiobook with me, and that’s not lights, but it’s probably too much thinking.”

“My mom used to read me Charlotte’s Web,” he said, the words falling from his mouth as quickly as he managed to think them. “And The Trumpet of the Swan.”

Hank snorted, a soft, fond sound. “Alright. The library ought to have those. They’ve got an app now, with things like that. But we’re stopping as soon as you hurt. Or if the doctor calls back for an update and says no.”

Kyle didn’t know where he was. He couldn’t think about the future. He couldn’t imagine it. But Hank opened his phone, tilting the screen carefully away from Kyle’s eyes, and then there was audio, an unfamiliar voice reading a familiar story, and he felt himself relax.

“Where’s Papa going with that axe?” the voice asked, tinny from the phone’s speakers.

“I always liked Fern,” Hank whispered, “I always thought I’d be like that, if I were her.”

“Me too,” Kyle answered.

That was true, and he didn’t remember when he’d known that, and he didn’t remember when he’d forgotten, but he knew he was remembering it all over again for the first time in a long time.

He wasn’t supposed to think. He wasn’t supposed to remember.

But maybe knowing was alright.

Fern yelled at her father, and Wilbur was saved, and Kyle had liked that, once, had wanted it, and he knew it. It was nice, in all the stillness and the dark and the not-thinking, to suddenly find something he knew, somewhere in his chest where knowing didn’t need his bruised-up brain.

He relaxed for the first time all day, and Hank squeezed his ankle again, a gentle pressure, and he didn’t need to keep track of all the words to know Fern and Wilbur and Charlotte and a kind of friendship he missed believing in.

#whump #concussion #recovery #bed rest #boredom #sensory deprivation #but like... low key #29-day whump challenge

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shygeek1999 · 6 years

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It’s Too Much!

Lance, since the day he was born, had always had a hard time focusing on one thing. Lights would be too bright, sounds too loud, and even the smallest movements would cause him to feel dizzy. He was on medication to help but sometimes he forgot to take it.

The day he took his simulation test at the Garrison was actually one of the days he forgot to take it. This caused not only him but his entire team to fail.

As soon as he got back to his and Hunk’s shared room he took his medicine. After dry swallowing it, he put the rest in his bag and slung the bag over his shoulder. He proposed going out to Hunk and Pidge and they agreed. That was the night that changed their lives.

That was the night Pidge, Hunk, and himself followed Keith to find Shiro. That was when they found Blue. That was also the last time he could have gotten more medicine.

I’ll be fine. He thought to himself. I won’t be gone long and if I am I have six months worth. What’s the worst that could happen?

Now he knew. As he stared at the empty bottle that used to hold his medicine.

Well.. he thought. -things are about to get interesting.

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

Lance woke up in the morning to way too bright lights and too loud of sounds. Great! This is going to start right away. He thought.

He got up and started moving around. It felt as if all his senses got turned up to eleven. There was just too much to process. As he got dressed he could hear the sound of his shirt rubbing against his skin.

The excessive noise caused a migraine to form right behind his eyes. He found it hard to concentrate and focus on one task. Eventually he got dressed and slowly made his way to breakfast. He didn’t even bother brushing his teeth.

On his way he was passing the bathroom when he heard someone singing in the shower. It sounded like Hunk but he knew Hunk was in the kitchen based off the smell of bacon (or what he thought was bacon) wafting through the air. It overwhelmed his ears and nose to where he had to cover his ears and hold his breath.

Lance knew he couldn’t sit there any longer so he got up and started to walk away. He didn’t even notice he was walking on his toes.

As Lance sat down at the table he tried to act as if nothing was wrong. Hunk placed a plate of food in front of everyone before sitting down himself. Everyone immediately started eating. Well, everyone expect Lance. He just pushed his food around his plate and tried to keep his stomach in check as it turned at the smell of food.

Finally, the worst thing happened. He cut himself on his knife. It was only a small cut but to Lance it was much worse. He quickly jumped up from his seat and ran to the sink as everyone watched him with wide eyes.

As he ran his finger under the water, Lance felt a cold hard grip on his shoulder before a booming voice started talking. “Lance? Are you ok?”

Lance moved quickly before saying anything. “Please....don’t....don’t touch me!” He slid down to the floor and placed his hands over his ears. He started muttering next. “It’s too much. Please. It’s too much.”

“Lance..” Shiro said more quietly. “Is everything ok? Is there something I can do?” Lance shook his head. He muttered once more. “No. No meds.” He went quite after that as he struggled with himself.

“Ok. Lance... can I touch you?” Shiro said. Lance nodded so Shiro moved behind him and held him close. “It’s ok. We will figure this out.”

The two sat there for a long time and soon drifted off to sleep. What was once too much was now just enough to keep them together.

—————————————————————

Hope everyone enjoys this. This is for @tiny-tea-chan who requested a sensory overloaded Lance. I got most of my information from a bunch of different websites so if something is wrong feel free to correct me. Once again I hope you all enjoyed it. Feel free to request a square and I will try to get to it as soon as possible!

@badthingshappenbingo

#langst #voltron #lance #shiro #writing #fanfic #fanfiction

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favoriselovealina · 4 years

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14 Things Highly Sensitive People Absolutely Need to Be Happy

(Written by Jenn Granneman)

Growing up, I was a very sensitive child. One of my earliest memories is of freaking out after seeing a particularly bad story on the news. I don’t remember what the story was about, but I do remember running to my bedroom, plugging my ears, and making up a song about how “everything will be all right.” I sang it as loudly as I could — to cover the noise of the TV — until my mom came in, shocked to find me in such a ramped-up state.

It wasn’t until much later in my life that I learned I’m a highly sensitive person (HSP), and things finally made sense. HSPs process information deeply, and as a result, they experience the world a little differently than non-HSPs. Images of violence or stories of heartbreak can be excruciating for them to witness. Sudden loud noises, bright lights, and busy schedules have the power to rattle them profoundly.

(Read more about what a highly sensitive person is.)

Today, I’m an author who studies introversion and high sensitivity. I’ve found that HSPs need somewhat different things in life than non-HSPs to be happy; here are 14 of those things. Keep in mind that every highly sensitive person is an individual, so these points may not full apply to each HSP.

What Highly Sensitive People Need to Be Happy

1. A slower, simpler pace of life

Because they process information deeply, HSPs may move a little slower than non-HSPs. They may need more time to do certain tasks, like getting out of the house in the morning. They may take a little longer to make decisions, such as which item to buy at the grocery store, because they are taking in not just the mountain of choices, but also nutrition information, price, and how they feel about chicken noodle. Suddenly, their mind flashes to chickens being cooped up in tiny cages then slaughtered… and they must take a few beats to ponder if they can live with this reality on their dinner plate or not. All of this takes time.

2. Time to wind down after a busy day

Like introverts, HSPs can’t go-go-go for too long. Their extra sensitive nervous systems absorb mounds of information and process it to the umpteenth degree. As a result, they may get easily overwhelmed and worn out after a busy day. Time to relax lowers their stimulation level and restores their sanity.

3. A calm, quiet space to retreat to

Preferably #2 is paired with #3. This space, ideally, would have low lighting, little noise, a warm feeling, a beautiful look, and the HSP’s favorite tools to relax (a book, music, a comfy pillow, etc.).

4. Permission to get emotional and have a good cry

Not only are HSPs extra sensitive to environmental stimulation, they’re also sensitive emotionally. According to Dr. Elaine Aaron, author of The Highly Sensitive Person, sensitive people tend to cry more than non-HSPs. “Sensitive people can’t help but express what they’re feeling,” she told the Huffington Post. “They show their anger, they show their happiness. Appreciating that is really important.”

5. Time to adjust to change

Transitions can be tough for anybody, but for HSPs, they can quickly snowball into a bundle of stress and overwhelm. Even positive changes, like starting a new relationship or moving into a dream home, can be overstimulating and require an extra long period of adjustment.

6. Close, meaningful relationships

HSPs crave deep connections with others. In fact, according to Aron, they may get bored or restless in relationships that lack meaningful interaction. However, this doesn’t mean that they’re prone to relationship hopping. Rather, they may actually work harder to strike up a meaningful conversation with their partner and create intimacy.

This also means HSPs tend to be selective about the people they let into their lives. A simple surface-level, give-and-take relationship will simply not cut it for an HSP. They want to dive deep into your soul and connect with you in a profound way. Let them.

7. A gentle, healthy way of managing conflict

HSP or not, fighting with a loved one is the worst, but sensitive people tend to feel extra anxious when conflict arises. Often an internal battle takes place. The HSP may have strong feelings about something, but they keep them to themselves, because they don’t want to make the other person mad. Dealing with an angry person can be overstimulating.

Plus, we hate hurting other people because we know from personal experience just how much that sucks. HSPs tend to have high levels of empathy, and this is just one of the ways our caring for others shows up.

Unfortunately, this means sensitive people often hide their needs and just “go along to get along.” They need a healthy way of dealing with disagreements that doesn’t involve yelling or drama.

8. A good night’s sleep

A lack of sleep is enough to make anyone cranky, sloppy, and oh-so-unproductive. But a lack of sleep for an HSP can make life almost unbearable. Getting enough sleep helps soothe the HSP’s ramped-up senses and allows them to process their emotions. How much sleep a sensitive person gets can literally make or break their day.

9. Healthy meals, spaced regularly throughout the day

According to Aron, hunger can really mess with a sensitive person’s mood or concentration. HSPs are the ultimate hangry monsters.

10. Caffeine-free and nonalcoholic options

Surprise, surprise… some HSPs (not all!) are more sensitive to the effects of caffeine and alcohol.

11. An outlet for their creative side

Many HSPs have a strong need to create. They channel their poignant observations, insights, and emotions into art, poetry, music, and more. Deborah Ward, author of Overcoming Low Self-Esteem with Mindfulness, writes, “Sensitivity can be overwhelming, but it is also like having extra RAM on my personal hard drive…Creativity is the pressure valve for all that accumulated emotional and sensory data.”

12. A strong sense of purpose

Some people seem to drift through life without direction or purpose. For HSPs, this is unthinkable. Rather, they think deeply about the big things in life. Who are they, why are they here, and what were they put on this planet to do? Whether it’s writing a novel, traveling the world, or leading the way for a cause they believe in, HSPs crave meaning.

13. Loved ones who understand and respect their sensitive nature

Because most people are not highly sensitive, they simply don’t understand what it’s like to get very stressed out by, say, a startling noise, a busy weekend, or a violent scene in a movie. Not everyone will understand, and that’s okay. But what an HSP needs is at least a few people — preferably the people closest to them — to “get” their sensitivity. Someone who not only gets it, but helps protect them from overstimulation (“Yes, it’s perfectly okay that we leave the party now. I can see all over your face that you’re overstimulated.”). And, someone who sees all the wonderful gifts that come with this rare trait.

14. Natural surroundings and beauty

HSP or not, our environment affects us. For example, people tend to feel happier in rooms with curved edges and rounded contours than in sharp-edged rectangular rooms. Also, green spaces boost our mood... For HSPs, this effect is even more profound. For them, the way things look really matters. Cluttered, chaotic, or just plain ugly environments may really unsettle them. Beauty is a soul-balm that rejuvenates and soothes.

-https://highlysensitiverefuge.com/things-highly-sensitive-people-need-happy/

#hsp

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stimtoybox · 7 years

Text

Question

I don’t know If you’ll answer, but do you or anyone else know the best noise cancelling headphones or ear defenders for like a concert; and ones that aren’t incredibly high priced. Also any ideas of things to do to keep from having a panic attack and/or sensory overload?

Can I please ask everyone to not submit (as opposed to asking) questions when I have the askbox closed? (In other words, please don’t use the fact that I have submissions open as a way to circumnavigate the closed askbox.) It’s not fair on everyone who is patiently waiting for the askbox to open, and it’s also not fair on those who have been waiting a long time for me to heal so I can answer those waiting asks. When I do close the askbox, it’s because I’m in a situation where I need to limit the questions coming in to tackle those that are waiting, and folks who submit questions instead make this difficult.

Thank you very much, everyone, for your understanding on this point.

Headphones and Ear Defenders:

On the first point, I’ll ask for folks to reblog or reply on this post if they have any suggestions. You might also like to check out our category tag on headphones and ear defenders for various posts and discussions on the topic. I still don’t have a set of either that I would personally recommend for you, so I think that might be your best resource.

Panic Attack / Sensory Overload:

This is a difficult question to answer generally. I’m acutely aware, myself, of how general answers seldom suit my specific needs as a walking tangle of diagnostic labels, and I rather doubt that there’s an answer I can give that will work for your situation better than truths you already know. Additionally, the situation, circumstance and location often massively impacts what tools you have and how you can or should employ them.

So I’m actually going to ask you questions, because you already have coping strategies. You just might not fully realise them, or you might think that a coping strategy results in a more drastic easing of your experience when in fact it often just allows you to survive it. Sometimes it’s only skin-of-your-teeth survival. Sometimes it’s just the difference of being able to walk away from the situation and melting down instead of melting down then and there. I know we want tools that help drastically minimise or even erase the misery of panic or overload, but the honest appraisal is that these things don’t stop or erase panic or overload. They just help. I am saner and happier accepting that, as much as I’d sell my soul to not experience either.

I also absolutely and unequivocally advocate for avoiding things that overload, if possible. Avoiding overload is much simpler than dealing with overload once it’s triggered, and if it’s something that can be avoided, that’s one fewer concern!

1. What triggers your sensory overload and/or panic? Be general at first. List anything that comes to mind. Then try to break it down and find any smaller elements. Sit at the end of the day for a minute or two and think about how you felt at various times and what you think might have caused it. Keep on doing this. Even when you think you know, check in afterwards! Over time, you’ll be building up a list, and that list gives you information. It is much harder to decide how to handle a trigger, especially ahead of time, if you don’t know what your triggers are, so I don’t recommend skipping this point.

(Some panic triggers just can’t and shouldn’t be avoided, in which case finding ways to experience it more easily is better, but some might be.)

2. Which of those triggers can you reasonably avoid? If you can avoid this thing and it causes no harm to you or the people around you, do it.

3. Which of these triggers can you minimize or lessen? It might be that some of these things can be lessened, too. Can you ask (or have someone else ask) your neighbour to turn down their music? Can you ask your housemate to spray their perfume outside? Can you cut the tags out of your clothes? Can you go to the shops at a time when there’s less people shopping?

4. What does your overload feel like? Recognising what we feel, physically and emotionally, is difficult for many ND folks, especially we autistics. But if you can, over time, put together a list of experiences and sensations, especially with regards to early warning signs, you’ll have more warning about when an overload is coming, what it feels like when it does and what you might do about it. For example, knowing overload is coming and stepping away from the situation while you can still communicate to others that it’s happening, for example, is important if you lose all communication ability.

5. What does overload or panic take from you? What abilities do you lose? Wrist a list of these, too, as this will impact how you handle the situation. If you cannot read a list of response ideas on your phone when overloaded, for example, then having a list of approaches won’t be helpful to you. If you can’t communicate at all, having someone ask you unrelated questions as a distraction technique won’t work.

6. What worsens your overload? List these things, especially items that don’t quite trigger it but don’t make it easier to experience. You don’t want these things to happen when the world is already too much for you, and this means you can more knowingly avoid these things if possible. For example, someone touching me doesn’t trigger my sensory overload, but being touched will ratchet up said overload when I am overloaded, so touching belongs on my list.

7. What sensations can you tolerate ordinarily but not when you’re overloaded or panicked? Can you replace it with something always tolerable? I’ll give an example: if you can tolerate the touch of your quilt when not-overwhelmed but can’t bear it when overwhelmed, get rid of it and replace it with something you can always tolerate. Make your room, your bag, your clothing, your things, your personal spaces, as tolerable/pleasing for you as possible, no matter your state. This gives you somewhere safe and comfortable to be; this makes it easier to recover from overload. You don’t want to be out shopping and have to deal with screaming children plus the devil tags on your clothing. This is just an act of self-care, the act of making your environment, as much as you can modify it, suitable for you all the time.

8. What positive sensations make you feel connected to your body? It doesn’t have to make you feel amazing. List anything even a little positive. I’m talking about stimming as a coping mechanism - a means of delivering positive sensory input. It does help, in various ways, with overwhelm. List everything you can think of. Keep adding to it. Keep a feel-good list or journal! Do what society tells you not to do: touch clothing in a store, pick up objects on a shelf, listen to things, look at colours. Neurotypical adults are taught to shut off so much positive sensory input along with the negative, but since we can’t do that and have to live in the world they made for us, we need to embrace our feeling-things-too-much powers by finding positive sensations.

(Stimming categories include smell, weight/pressure, touch/texture, taste, movement/manipulation, sound and colour/visual movement. Most of us will have a category to which we react more strongly over others, and most of us will have a category to which we respond little, not at all or negatively. There are toys on this blog corresponding to all these categories, toys all of us here use when panicked and overloaded. There’s also a wide variety of blogs and games, especially for visual stimming, so this category is easily accessed via phone. If you don’t have a stim toy kit already, check out this post on stim toy categories.)

9. Are there any similarities between your listed positive sensations? Have you listed a lot of things that suggest touch-seeking behaviour, for example, or have you listed a lot of movement-intensive toys, or experiences relating to sound? Is your list pushing you towards one of the above stim toy categories? This is important for building your kit or choosing which of your toys or stimmy items to keep in your bag or on your person, as you want the most effective toys/items within easy reach.

(I will say that not all toys are suitable for public use, so that’s something to keep in mind, too. If you like a lot of visual stimulation, for example, I’d ask you to consider not using toys with flashing lights as your public go-to calming stim, as flashing lights can trigger seizure and sensory overwhelm in others. Since most of us in panic or overload cannot ask if others are bothered by this, we need to choose a non-flashing toy.)

10. Which of these listed positive experience/stim categories can best relax you? This ties in to making sure as many of your things are still accessible to you when overloaded, as “positive” may still not mean “calming” in a high emotional state. (I love metal, for example, but when I am very wound up any kind of sound isn’t calming for me.) Experiment here, if needed. Try different things and categories from your list to find out what works best. The more you think about this, though, the more likely it is one of these things will pop into your mind when you need it.

11. What sensory or non-sensory experience distracts you? Is this something you can employ or have others employ when you’re panicked or overloaded? For example, whenever I went into shutdown, my psychologist would ask me a question about gender, activism or feminism, because she figured out that getting me into analytical mode got me out of shutdown much more quickly than standing back and waiting. Do you have that one song that always makes you happy? Do you have a topic or special interest? Do you need to get away from people altogether and hide in a quiet space? Do you want to try breathing exercises or meditation? Again, list!

12. How can you employ these experiences? You’ve got your lists and you have some ideas as to what might help you, so now you need to make it accessible. Put the calming music on your phone, tuck a Tangle in your pocket, cut off devil tags, keep a spinner in your bag. Is there a particular way you mean to use any items on your list? Make sure these things are planned out and as accessible as possible, as it’s no good having a list, thinking about a solution you wish to try and then not having it to hand when you’re out and sensory overload strikes.

13. Are there external supports you can put in place for when you’re panicked or overloaded? Do you have a friend or family member you can trust, someone to whom you can to indicate--in whichever form of communication is easiest, be it by sign or text message or AAC--as to when you’re struggling, knowing they can support you? Do you need them to remind you to step outside, slow your breathing or reach for a stim toy? Or can you set messages on your phone? Can you keep a list of steps to follow on your phone or in your pocket? Is there a way you can help yourself reach for one of those distractions or positive, calming sensory experiences?

I’ll be honest: this is a lot of work. You need to be an explorer, willing to try and experiment knowing you might only find little pieces of ease here and there. An awful lot of things others use and discuss may not work for you, which does put the onus of experimentation and discovery on your shoulders. That’s hard and scary and a lot unfair, but I don’t know any other way.

- Mod K.A.

#ask #text #not a toy #off topic #SPD discussion #sensory overload discussion #discussion post #phealin #mod K.A.#long post #very long post #stimming discussion #submission

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