Better Days ❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹
You don’t know if it’s the comedown from the meds, your period, or one of your disorders making you feel this extreme sadness but you need this feeling to go away. It’s more annoying than anything. You’re not one to compare anyone’s pain but Levi’s been through an entire war in which he lost his eye, a couple of fingers, and his ability to walk. The war in your head is nothing compared to that. So what you do is you grit your teeth and just try to ride this almost debilitating wave of misery until it’s over.
Of course you’re silly to think that Levi wouldn’t be able to tell something’s wrong. He’s lost some things but he definitely hasn’t lost his perceptiveness.
“Oi…” His tone is soft as he places a hand on your thigh, taking you out of your thoughts. You realize he’s right in front of you and he’s wearing a small frown. When did he get here?
You blink rapidly, your surroundings slowly coming into focus. “Hey.” You reply, your tone also soft but there’s an underlying tiredness in your voice and it doesn’t go unnoticed by Levi.
“You okay?” He asks you, giving you the chance to open up and be honest, his eyes looking at you with concern.
You blink a few more times, still in a bit of a daze. “Yeah, I’m just-“
“Don’t do that.” He cuts you off gently. You know what those words mean. You know better than to lie to me. And you do know better. But you also don’t want to burden him.
You give him a tired smile and continue. “Really, Levi-“
“C’mere.” He cuts you off again with a pat to his thigh, beckoning you to sit on him.
“Your legs, Levi.” You remind him, worried your weight on him will put too much pressure on the lower half of his body.
“I don’t care.” He sighs before he grabs you by the waist, surprising you with his upper body strength despite you knowing that he continues to keep himself in shape, especially when it comes to his arms and core. He places you onto his lap and positions you so that you’re sitting bridal style on him in his wheelchair.
“Levi…” You whine, although you let out a slight chuckle as your arms find their home around his neck.
“Mm?” He looks down at you, his eyebrows raised as his arms encircle you.
You roll your eyes playfully as he feigns stupidity.
He gives you a small smirk before his expression softens, concern still present in his eyes. “Seriously, what is it?” He asks, his voice barely above a whisper as he presses his forehead against yours.
You sigh yourself before your shoulders raise in a defeated shrug as you look back up at him. “I don’t know…I’m just sad.” You give him a glum smile.
And there’s the truth. It hurts him to know you’re feeling this way and there’s no way for him to realistically help. He wishes he can reach inside you and pull all of the negative feelings out. He would swallow them himself if he could. He can deal with sadness but it’s a struggle to watch you deal with it. So for now he tries to help as best as he can through his touch, holding you tight against his chest as he places kisses on your skin. He might not know what to say but he knows how to touch you to remind you of the promise he made to you before the war, of living through better days. You are his better days. They don’t exist without you. But more importantly, you deserve better days. You deserve the laughter, the hugs, and the happy tears. Better days are coming, but they’re also here. And Levi’s willing to go through hell and back to make sure you stay for them.
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the gorgug-porter conversation is interesting to me because like. yea for the overwhelming majority of the conversation porter’s being shitty & trying to fit gorgug into a box that gorgug just does not fit into by trying to make gorgug’s relationship with his rage more focused on the aggression aspect of it. but then there’s also this specific thing that brennan brought up again in the ap, which is that gorgug’s relationship with his rage is wholly “this is a tool i use to protect my friends.” which isn’t a bad thing! but that’s his Whole relationship with it, & gorgug seems to place next to no value on his rage in relationship to himself. which is problematic, because it’s first & foremost his rage.
being raised in a household with a sort of toxic positivity largely meant that, whether or not it was his parents’ intention, gorgug internalized the message that more traditionally “negative” emotions such as anger are the wrong response to something. part of the reason he prioritizes his artificing is probably because it’s “fixing” things. in comparison to being a barbarian, which gorgug associates with “breaking” things. good vs. bad behavior, in his eyes.
it’s a totally unacceptable bar to measure a 16 y/o by, but i do think part of porter’s reasoning for not letting gorgug multiclass is him recognizing that gorgug generally does not value anger as a valid emotional response to something, at the very least for himself. & that directly conflicts with what being a barbarian is, because whether you like it or not, that rage is what fuels you. but again, barring a kid from pursuing something they deeply care about in part (not entirely, porter has a lot of more bullshit reasons) because of their fundamental values & world outlook is crazy.
so yes, 98% of porter’s reasoning is pretty shitty, immature, rife with a toxic view that there’s only one proper way to access rage, & generally not a good thing to do as a teacher, but also within that reasoning is the 2% of ‘there is a fundamental part of yourself that you only value if you can use it to take care of other people & you need to accept that as something that can take care of you, too.’ but that’s something to discuss with a therapist or a guidance counselor, not something that should hugely impact gorgug’s academic future.
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