太常熬夜睡眠不足 @1594 - Tumblr Blog

Maybe Van Gogh Was Onto Something In The End

This time of the year makes me sad and miserable so I decided to make Jacob sad and miserable for nearly 12K words

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Jacob wouldn't go so far as to say this was nice but it was…tolerable. Better than it had been in the last few days (weeks? months?) all things considered. For the first time since the reports began flooding his social media about an unidentified spacecraft spotted in the Milky Way, he felt what could best be described as content. He supposed he could have been feeling similarly when he was bedridden with fever dreams and next to no cognitive function beyond craving the comfort of physical touch, but this time he didn’t have the cursed blessing of delirium to help clear his thoughts of anxieties.

Instead, he was fully aware that he had begun to slip into a new routine of normalcy and he despised that revelation just as much as he loathed everything else his captor brought onto him. Or, at least, he tried to despise it, tried to hate it with every fiber of his being but…normal was normal. Normal was good, so say the quick read psychology articles he would skim on his way to class. Building routines was helpful to reduce stress and anxiety, boost productivity, something or the other about stats and studies that improved schoolwork.

And admittedly, Jacob much more preferred this new routine of peace and quiet aboard the ship in comparison to running for his goddamn life as some form of entertainment for his captor. The severe lack of bloodshed and destruction was also nice. Ever since he had broken free from the haze of sickness, the dynamic between himself and the creature had shifted. Not necessarily in a regrettable way, but one that was still glaringly obvious to Jacob as soon as he was able to stay conscious for longer than twenty minutes at a time. It was still as overbearing as ever, constantly hovering over him and his every move. If anything, its aggravatingly overprotective nature had skyrocketed after he had gotten sick, likely from realizing its favorite toy could still very much be broken if it wasn’t more careful with his fragile health.

It was frustrating to have to deal with, more so when he was still irritable from low blood sugar and their accompanying headaches. Of course, then it would try to push its foreign foods onto him again, clearly paranoid that Jacob could slip into a relapse if he didn’t eat something sickeningly sweet right that instance, which would only serve to annoy him more when he didn’t want the stupid snacks.

But eventually, he conceded to its pestering and started eating on his own. Nowhere near the amount he should be consuming, but it was baby steps all the same. So far the only thing he willingly ate were fruits that had been cultivated from Earth or looked similar enough for him to try. He refused anything that resembled meat no matter how it was cooked and presented and smelled, not when he couldn’t confidently identify which animal it came from and if it was even an animal native to his solar system.

Unsurprisingly to most functioning adults, once he had gotten into the habit of eating semi-regularly he felt leagues better than he had in a long time. It was almost as if keeping his glucose up and staying hydrated was the magical cure for his headaches and muscle weakness, like being able to take the natural energy that came from food was exactly what he needed to not totally feel like shit. Well, he wasn’t sure there was enough potassium in any banana to patch up his trauma ridden mental state…but at least it helped with the heart palpitations.

For days after Jacob could finally stand without being bowlegged, he had been waiting for the other shoe to drop with his captor, waiting to be (possibly literally) flung back into the awful routines of playing the terrifying combination of tag and hide n’ go seek. It didn’t escape him how restless the other appeared now that he was freely moving on his own without constant assistance. It was probably expecting him to bolt as he had done so many times before in its office the second he saw an opening to do so, not to mention it hadn’t had a good opportunity to bat him around for a few hours while he was recovering.

Despite these creeping anxieties, it never once tried to instigate these games which was the most glaring difference between them of all. That wasn’t to say it tried to start any games ever since Jacob had been forcibly rehomed to its personal quarters in the middle of fucking space, but it had always continued to pounce and chirp at him in the same manner it did on Earth in clear enjoyment whenever he managed to squirrel himself away somewhere. Now, it seemed as if it wanted to do the opposite of trigger his fight or flight reaction for fun, like it wanted to keep him from doing anything too strenuous. It had always been doting (if its show of affection could be called that), but this was getting ridiculous.

At the same time, he was glad to take this new lack of physical exertion in exchange for being babied tenfold, even if it was steadily grating on his nerves to be treated so delicately. He had to remind himself it was far better to be constantly moved away from the edge of the desk–like he might stumble for twenty feet to go right over–than to be wedged between said desk and wall while avoiding curled fingers trying to drag him out for more play. It didn’t stop him from smacking away those same prodding fingers every now and then when they just wouldn’t leave him alone. It felt the need to constantly check on him, sometimes even grabbing him to do a full body lookover and confirm he wasn’t going to die within the next thirty seconds.

Again, it was better than having an actual physical examination done by its cohort like he had before, which he still firmly believed worsened his sickness to begin with. The creature’s newfound concern with his physical wellbeing at times almost worried him just as well in the event it was checking him over because it knew something was indeed wrong with him. He felt fine…ish, he felt better anyways, but who knew what that medicine he was given so long ago was actually doing to his body.

Whatever it was, it must not be too serious if the doctor…person-lady-creature-thing wasn’t half as worried for his physical state as his own captor. The handful of times he had seen it since their first encounter, the creature was nothing but sweet smiles and headpats, of which he would gladly take over having anything else shoved down his throat while being stripped. He still couldn’t help but shutter everytime it moved its hands too fast for his liking, a result of a newly ingrained fear that it might pull a new vile concoction out of thin air to administer for no good reason. Thankfully, they never were there to visit as means for another impromptu physical, rather it appeared he was being dropped off for something akin to a playdate with Mibao.

It took him a while to get over his own awkwardness of being left to his own devices with a hyperactive child while both their captors idly chatted, but very quickly these ‘playdates' became one of his favorite pastimes. There was never a moment of boredom when it came to Mibao’s rambunctious nature and it was a pleasant way to kill time, especially the occasions when he would get so lost in whatever game of make believe she had wrangled him into he could almost forget the shitstorm he was smack in the middle of.

Although he couldn’t spend every waking moment being bombarded with stuffed toys to play dress up and tea parties with, Mibao often tried to give him some type of parting gift once she learned he didn’t have any of his own toys to play with. Sometimes it was one of the hundreds of plush animals they had made dance around that day, sometimes it was a collection of sparkling barrettes she had clipped into his hair during their “makeovers”. All of which he tried to politely decline and all of which still ended up in his possession to never be touched again, lest it somehow add fuel to the fire he wanted to be treated in the same infantilizing manner as her. While Mibao may adore being showered in maternal affection and unlimited gifts, Jacob couldn’t think of anything worse to be subjected to from his own captor.

Thank God for small mercies in that the creature never tried to follow in its friend’s footsteps to spoil him like that. Right now, they were stuck in some type of phase that made the creature too cautious to play, and that was just fine by him.

Another gift that Mibao had recently given him was a stack of paper and an assortment of colored markers to doodle to his heart’s content. She had gotten much more into arts and crafts lately which Jacob didn’t mind one bit, especially when her high energy often wore him down much faster than usual with his body still being on the mend. To sit and cut out shapes and slap a few colors on them was a nice, quiet activity that also didn’t need too much thought put into. Not to mention, he actually liked being able to draw quite a bit. Being a former graphic design major before he was involuntarily shipped off to war, he found playing around with patterns and colors relaxing, sort of, almost satisfying.

His art in general wasn’t half bad either from years of mindless practice. It was good enough to blow Mibao away every time, quickly leading her to request more and more drawings from him ranging in complexity and cuteness, all that he was more than happy to comply with. Soon afterwards, it evolved into a new game of the little girl spinning a wild tale that Jacob was tasked to recreate to the best of his abilities, which would then be eagerly shown off to the “kitties” much to their delight and his embarrassment.

Oh well, at least his captor didn’t make him show off his drawings when they were back in the privacy of its personal quarters, leading Jacob to come up with something of a visual diary. The drawings were way too small for it to see clearly regardless, not unless it used its computer to enlarge the images like Mibao’s creature did in order to print them out and hang them up. The only time it bothered to look at whatever Jacob was drawing was the rare times he showed them himself, namely as a way to attempt to ask for something and usual at Mibao’s request for a specific item. Otherwise, it didn’t impose on his creative privacy and he was…almost grateful for that. To have one thing solely for himself that he could do with however he pleased. The creature was probably so lenient with it because it was a good way to keep him busy and out of trouble for extended periods of time while it worked.

Jacob wasn’t complaining, though, and he certainly had a lot to complain about any other time. He could definitely see why those “adult coloring books” were so popular now; it was nice to lounge around and mindlessly fill in colors until the end result was a nice, pretty picture. Of course, he didn’t have any actual coloring books to zone out with, so he had to make due by creating his own patterns to fill in later. He took a lot of inspiration from what was on the desk he was seated on most days, especially the different types of plants the creature either had sitting out as decoration or retrieved from the backroom (a second laboratory? Jacob didn’t know, he was never allowed in there) to be studied. He also took a lot of design elements straight from its own computer when the various screens would be pushed around. Though he couldn’t begin to comprehend its written language, there were plenty of neat ways to copy and stylize the strange characters into his own gibberish.

As a result, he ended up making a lot of mock company logos and mascots consisting of the sharp edges the species already incorporated in their designs. Sometimes, he would replicate the prettiest flower it had sitting on the desk, then he would redraw it as if it were sleek and mechanical to fit in the the rest of the advanced technology, then he would redesign it into a fancy logo that would match the vibe of the ship, and once again he would recreate it into another logo or existing picture it reminded him off.

Sometimes, he would even be inspired to draw people, but those definitely were not his forte. Expressions were difficult on their own, much less without a reference, so a majority of the time the only portraits he drew were of himself. He would then exaggerate and darken his features, scribble over them with color, as a way to vent his frustration or sadness when he wasn’t in the mood to kick up a fit with his captor. Those drawings were quickly discarded once he had released his emotions on the page, not wanting to risk the creature finding them and triggering some new worry about his damaged mental state.

Well, his mental state was damaged because it was the one who spent the past couple of weeks utterly destroying his sanity, so, maybe it should get a taste of the pain it's been causing him. No. He couldn’t handle that. If anything it would just try to smother him with twice as much affection, as if kisses and cuddles could wipe away his PTSD.

Not to mention, on the few occasions he did practice drawing people, his captor was often his unknowing model and fuck no was he ever going to let it find that out. It was merely because nine times out of ten it was the only social proximity he had to another person and therefore his only reference to look at. And it was always so still in its chair, too, perfect posture and stony expression making it easy to study and jot down. It very nearly caught him in the act a handful of times when it would catch his insistent staring out of its peripheral. Naturally, it assumed he wanted something, which then meant he had to quickly hide his drawings before it got the wrong idea and then deal with its pestering as it tried to figure out what he obviously needed.

He tried to draw Angie once or twice, but he saw her so rarely that it was impossible to nail down every feature correctly. He had drawn Mibao and her captor plenty of times at the child’s request which was always fun, mostly because he had to draw them doing absurd things in funny little outfits.

Today, he had gotten an inspiration for something he had never tried before, which was a bit surprising and disappointing for some reason he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

Much like yesterday, and the day before, and the day before, he had been plopped onto the creature’s desk and, after a few minutes of fussing over him, was left to his own devices. It was well into the groove of its work and typing away on its desk surface keyboard and Jacob found himself growing bored from watching. He had very limited options on how to deal with this lack of stimulation and even less if he excluded all the ones that would involve his captor touching him in any way, so he opted to grab his clutter of papers along with a few markers to at least keep his hands busy. Nothing was particularly getting his artistic juices flowing and that was almost as annoying as not having anything to do in the first place. He hated himself for slipping into this role of compliance so easily, like being mildly restless was the worst of his worries in the face of everything else that led to this moment. Shit, he had been staring at this blank paper for five minutes and he was already getting irritated and brimming with self loathing. So it was going to be one of those days, it seemed.

Although, it would appear the dreaded day had the potential to turn his attitude around when his captor’s movements caught his attention. He watched as it clicked one of the desk drawers to slide it open and reach inside for what looked like a pressed slide of a type of exotic flower. Being squished between the pieces of glass, Jacob could only imagine how beautiful it must look in full bloom. Just another example of how carelessly these aliens chose to destroy living things no matter how stunning or homely they looked so long as they were able to effortlessly dominate it.

The mental image of seeing a human carved up like a turkey to be sandwiched in a series of slides as well flitted across his mind, but it was gone before he could even process it. A nice little trauma to unpack late at night and fuel his insomnia for the coming weeks.

What struck him the most about it, though, was the vibrant orange to yellow ombre that still looked dazzling despite its flattened petals. He had seen a few girls around his college campus with a similar color scheme in their hair, sure, but in an instant he knew where he had seen that exact blending of hues before.

He was ten years old, the twins were twelve and their oldest brother had just turned fifteen, and they were sitting around the kitchen table doing their homework when their mother appeared from her bedroom absolutely beside herself with her hair wrapped up in a towel. Naturally, they asked her what was wrong, and she lamented about how she had tried to bleach her hair with a box dye kit but clearly didn’t follow the instructions correctly, something about leaving the roots in too long and the ends not long enough. Then she had tried to rinse it with a color correcting shampoo to soften the choppy, unintentional ombre, but all that served to do was make the contrast even more stark. The takeaway was that her hair was ruined and there was no way she could go out in public like this, much less to be ridiculed at a hair salon that would surely charge her an arm and a leg to fix her mistakes.

As to be expected, the boys all started begging their poor mother to show them the grotesque damage she had done to judge themselves if it was truly as awful as she said it was. A bit of pestering later and she finally removed the towel to show them her still damp hair in all its hideous glory and, yep, it was just as bad as she said. Maybe even worse. There were dark brown splotches still along the length of her hair, brassy yellows and oranges muddled around while her crown was a stunning platinum blonde. At least she had done a good job as a loving mother to raise such gentlemen because his brothers were quick to reassure her that it wasn’t that bad, it was cool even, it reminded them of some famous rock singer whose name they conveniently couldn’t remember, that it just needed a little styling and it would be alright.

And then, because Jacob couldn’t read a room to save his life at that age, he piped up, “Your hair looks like Garfield.”

The twins groaned at him while he oldest brother tried to reach across the table to smack him upside the head. He dodged the admonishment, hopping off his chair to run to his mother for protection and clinging to her skirt. “But I like Garfield, mom! I think he’s funny!” he tried to amend.

His mother barely had enough time to cover her mouth before an undignified snort escaped, a failed attempt to conceal her contagious laughter. Soon she had nearly doubled over in a fit of giggles and his brothers were quick to join in, namely because of Jacob’s accompanying pout and demands to know why they were laughing. He was just being honest!

After a minute of calming down, she finally wiped away the tears of mirth from her eyes. “Yes, little love, I know you were telling the truth. That’s why mama is so-,” she snickered again, “-so happy. You’re such a good boy, you don’t lie to your mama like your brothers.”

“But they were nice lies!” One of the twins protested.

She nodded. “Nice lies from nice boys. I can already tell you’ll all be perfect husbands to some very lucky ladies one day.”

Growing up, that memory never failed to make him cringe once he finally understood his utter lack of situational awareness. Even now, he had trouble discerning subtly unless it was thrown full force at him like a brick. To this day…or rather, to the day before the invasion, that moment had been a running gag in their family as a euphemism for something or someone being so unpleasant but not wanting to outright say it. Jed’s first girlfriend? She looks like Garfield. Grant’s drum solo performance in the garage? Sounds just like Garfield. Mom asking how her new recipe turned out? The taste is exceptionally Garfield.

Jacob will never forget that final, bittersweet moment between him and Jed, both about to deploy to stations on opposite sides of the state after an accelerated bootcamp to go on the front lines. He was terrified, he had no idea the full scale of the horrors he would soon be experiencing, and now he was losing that last bit of comfort he could cling to once his brother was shipped off. The twins had already been stationed up north and mom was safely relocated closer to their base.

Jed clapped a hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze in that comforting, older brother way and flashed him a shit eating grin. “Mondays, am I right?”

That was the last time he ever saw his brother. That was the last time he ever saw his family.

But he didn’t want to think about the sinking feeling in chest when he contemplated the fate of his loved ones, he wanted to hold onto the sheer joy on his mother’s face and chorus of laughter brought on by his stupid ten year old self. He wanted to remember the good times as if there were still more to come, like he had never left that cozy bubble of childhood, like the world hadn’t gone to hell in a handbasket in a matter of days. Jacob closed his eyes and visualized the memory in his head over and over again while taking mental notes on all the features of his mother in that moment, taking care not to quirk his lips up too noticeably in case the creature had the audacity to notice. There was no faster way to sour his mood than to have his captor suddenly remind him of its presence when he was just starting to let go of some of the ache that haunted him daily.

He grabbed a fresh piece of paper to begin sketching out her smile that dimpled her cheeks, trailing up to fill in the button nose they all had and following the curve of her eyes. He filled in her hair to frame her face in scraggly waves as it did when it was still wet and messy from her shower. Lastly, he drew her slender neck and hunched shoulders that shook from laughter. By all accounts, the picture should be easily recognizable to him as his mother frozen in time nearly a decade ago.

…except it looked nothing like her.

That was okay. He already knew drawing portraits of real people wasn’t his strongest suit as an artist, so he tried again. Practice makes perfect after all. He refined the shape of her nose to make it a little less round and softened her smile to not show off so many teeth. That…didn’t look right either. Now the hair looked totally off. Probably because he didn’t have the right color of markers to perfectly capture the vibe he was going for, thus throwing his perception of her face off completely. He tried for a third time to draw her face and tweak her features a little more, this time drawing her with her normal, straight brown hair. No, damn it that wasn’t right either, he couldn’t make the strands lay right with her laughing stance.

Okay, new plan, he was just going to draw her as normal. Regular ol’ mom in a nice relaxed pose and a warm smile on her face. His first attempt went to shit almost immediately when he messed up on the angle of her eye, unable to correct it due to only having markers at his disposal and having to start again. This next try went much smoother and on his third try at her portrait it was a pretty good end result. The hair looked nice, the pupils were facing in the same direction, the smile wasn’t teetering into an uncanny valley now that it wasn’t trying to add teeth. But the problem was it still didn’t look like his mother, rather it just looked like a drawing of a conventionally attractive woman that bore no resemblance to him. Maybe it was because he was drawing too realistically rather than using his own artistic style that came much naturally. Time for round three.

Nope. Round three turned into a TKO. Now she looked like any generic cartoon girl. Fucking hell, he wanted to rip his hair out in frustration over his inability to draw his own mother. He’d seen the woman every day of his life for eighteen years until he went off to college, he should still be able to recollect her despite only visiting during semester breaks!

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, he once again grabbed another clean sheet of paper. He was going to take his time this time, really visualize her appearance and do her justice. Although he wasn’t given the entire spectrum of the colors to use, Jacob decided to pick out the colors closest to her physical palette to make it easier to draw in his mind’s eye. Brown for her hair, pink for her body, blue for her blouse, and-

And…

…

…what color were her eyes?

He shook his head. Christ, idiot, it’s your own mother, you know her eyes are green. Right? Yes, that had to be right, it was his gut reaction after all but…no, wait, she didn’t have green eyes. She had brown eyes. She had to, both Jacob and Jed had brown eyes. But the twins didn’t, so maybe they had gotten green eyes from her. Or did they get those from dad? Or did he get his eye color from his dad? Well, first and foremost, who gives two shits what color his dad’s eyes were, secondly this was not the time to start trying to remember his high school lectures in genetics. Jacob didn’t know why this question was being so evasive when it should be so obvious. The lack of a straightforward answer was beginning to nibble at his gut in an unpleasant sensation, but he refused to be deterred by this minor bump in the road.

This is okay, this is fine, just calm down a moment and think.

He replayed the stupid Garfield memory in his mind again in an effort to hyperfocus on every little detail of her, and still he couldn’t clear his thoughts enough to pick up the right color of her eyes. They kept switching from hazel to grey to blue to green as he tried to see which one fit the best, but they all did. The problem was that he was trying to use the seldom remembered incident of a ten year old when he needed to think back to fresher moments with her. His high school graduation was fairly recent. His mother had done up her hair in a bun–in a braid–in a braided bun?-- and wore her favorite red lipstick that highlighted her beaming smile of pride. The dimples of her cheeks were now accompanied by more pronounced smile lines and her eyes crinkled at the corners but god he still couldn’t recall their color!

New memory: dorm room move in. She was wearing a skirt–a dress, her hair was up in a bun–chopped short–no the pixie cut was after he left home–and she was teasing him about how she was going to check on him every weekend to make sure he wasn’t out doing beer pong or whatever it is you kids do these days! But in that instance, he wasn’t focused on trying to take in every hue and contour of her face, he just wanted to unpack and make sure all his student orientation crap was taken care of.

And then there was the last time he ever saw his mom. The day before he was going to be sent to bootcamp and two weeks before he’d be sent to the front lines. Jacob didn’t like thinking about this memory, even though it was the only time he literally looked into her eyes as she made him promise to stay safe and take care of himself, to come home to her. He looked into her eyes and promised with the same cracking voice, yet he still couldn’t recall what color her eyes were, only that they were flooded with tears which quickly overflowed to run down her cheeks as he hugged her goodbye for the final time. Belatedly, he realized he was mirroring her silent cries in present time and hurriedly scrubbed his cheeks as well as the memory from his mind. He hated that memory. He was growing to hate all of his memories, knowing that’s all his happiness would ever be at this point.

No eye color then. He could circle back to that later when he wasn’t working himself up over it. Just focus on her hair for now, that should be easy enough as it was thick and straight just like his. She went through various hairstyles over the years from bangs to bobs, so he decided to pick an easy one that went just a little bit past her shoulders. It was what she had a majority of the time anyways when she was growing out her previous looks before she found something new to try. With each line of brown he added, he felt the tension lessen from his shoulders stroke by stroke, though the pit of anxiety still tickled at his stomach. He was tired, he was still hazy from sickness, he wasn’t well versed in drawing portraits to begin with; these were all perfectly reasonable explanations as to why he couldn’t remember his mother’s eye color off the top of his head and had nothing to do with the fact that he was an awful son.

He was halfway done peppering little pink dots over her cheeks when he realized she didn’t have freckles.

Jacob blinked out of his trance and took a good, hard look at the woman in front of him who now lost all resemblance to his mother. Shit, shit, shit. She didn’t have facial freckles, she only had them on her shoulders. Well, that didn’t make much sense, how would she only have them on her body and not her face? He could have sworn he had seen freckles splattered across her nose before, though. Yeah, yeah that’s right, when they could go to the beach in the summer and her skin would tan, the freckles would become more pronounced against the dark coloring. Her freckles were more faded compared to his own, but obviously he would have had to have gotten that physical feature somewhere. So she did have freckles. Didn’t she?

Christ, Jacob wanted to throw these fucking markers across the desk. The twist in his guts had skyrocketed to full on gnawing at his innards and working its way up to stifle his breathing. Why couldn’t he remember what his mother looked like?! It wasn’t like it had been that long since they last saw each other in person, he shouldn’t have forgotten the details of her face overnight.

But the ugly truth of the matter was that he really didn’t know how long it’s truly been since their last hug goodbye. It could have only been weeks, it could already have been months, he had absolutely no way of being able to tell the passage of time anymore. So many days were lost to his comatose state of illness, to his nervous breakdown the first time he woke up on the ship that blinded him with panic every time he opened his eyes since, to the blur of adrenaline shots and crashes when he was forced to flee through the woods in a sick game of tag. Even now, it was difficult to tell when the full passage of a day was because he didn’t know if these creatures used the same measurement of time as humans. It could be some kind of Interstellar shit where every minute in this pocket of the universe was the equivalent of ten years on Earth.

He couldn’t even rely on his own body’s internal clock that was still so jacked with exhaustion, causing him to take frequent naps that varied in length. Jacob wasn’t sure what was contributing to this bout of fatigue–the remnants of sickness, his worsening depression, general boredom, a combination of all three? Either way, it didn’t help when there had been times his captor practically forced him to take a nap when he was getting too rambunctious for its liking, like he was a fussy child that needed to settle down. Fortunately, it hadn’t felt the need to hold him in its lap or swaddle him in the crook of its arm now that he had ‘mellowed out’, but that didn’t make it any better when it would absentmindedly rub its fingers down his back when he was already in the middle of zoning out and still manage to put him to sleep.

The spark of indignation that had been fizzling out wanted so badly to burn hot again. It wanted him to break free from this acceptance in routine no matter how much better it was for his mental and physical health objectively. It wanted him to fight back, to yell, to kick and throw and be all around on his worst behavior to make the creature’s life just as much as a living hell as it did to him.

Deep down, he knew there was no real benefit to giving into those urges beyond a bitter satisfaction that he was wasting its precious time. At worst, he was setting himself up for punishment in various degrees until it finally had enough of his insubordination to submit into the role of a good pet and put him down accordingly. So far all he had been subjected to was (what he assumed) verbal scoldings and being restrained to prevent him from running off again, but he knew better than anyone else what it was capable of if the murderous mood struck its fancy. He wouldn’t go as far as to say he was actively suicidal but…there were just some instances he was so disgusted with this new life forced upon him that he couldn’t find it in him to care if it swatted him off the desk in annoyance.

Now wasn’t a time that Jacob wanted to lose himself to the thralls of an emotional breakdown, though he knew he was long overdue for one. Everything had been far too peaceful for too long. Leave it to him to end the stalemate of normalcy because of his own shortcomings, shortcomings he was still going to partly blame on the creature regardless. Or fully. He hadn’t quite figured if he was more angry at himself or his captor yet, but the tremble in his hands was a sure sign he was reaching his boiling point. By now, he was painfully familiar with every stage of a panic attack from the build up to the come down and he knew he was teetering the edge with how rapidly his breathing was picking up.

Take a deep breath, don’t draw attention to yourself, you know attention from that thing will only make this worse. He couldn’t calm himself though as the icy realization sent tremors through his body like an actual chill. He was forgetting his mom, hell, he was forgetting his family. What they looked like, at least, but soon enough he knew he would start forgetting milestone dates and keeping up with their current ages. If he could no longer picture their faces, would he be able to picture so many precious memories they starred in at all?

No, no, no. No, he didn’t want to lose his family again. Not like this. Not for a second time.

His hands were shaking so terribly he could barely keep hold of his marker, but Jacob didn’t care. He needed to prove to himself he wasn’t crazy, that he could still picture his loved ones exactly as they were regardless of how much indescribable time has passed. He was nineteen, not ninety.

Oh Christ, how long would he even be able to consider himself nineteen for? He’d have no idea when his birthday would come and go, what if he was already twenty? Would he still think he was nineteen when he was actually twenty-seven? Was there a fast approaching expiration date on his physical appeal that made the alien fawn over him like he was just the cutest little scamp? Fuck, let’s worry about one thing at a time right now. Jacob fumbled for another page and hastily started scribbling his oldest brother Jed. Sharp cheekbones, black hair, the only one with black hair in the family, spitting image of dad, blue eyes–green eyes, no freckles–some freckles–a splattering of beauty marks, stupid tattoo of a cartoon fish he got in highschool on his left arm–right arm–left arm, no, no, no, this still wasn’t right!

Take two with the twins, Grant and Evan. Mirror images with subtle differences that became more pronounced as they grew into their own individual styles as adults. Brown eyes, yes, one hundred percent brown eyes, mom’s dimples, Grant had more freckles, or was that Evan, it was Grant because they counted once as children. Evan always wore blue, Grant wore glasses–Evan wore glasses, Grant wore contacts, Evan had a scar above his left eyebrow from a slingshot accident–from a BB gun accident that happened before–after Grant busted his lip open and god damn it this wasn’t fair! It was confusing enough to keep them separated as twins in real time as a child, let alone when he was trying to picture them from memories that blended between years!

He tried to draw his mother again, then Jed, then just Grant, then his mother, then Evan, until the stack of blank paper beside him was depleted in his frenzy. It was only then did he stop to look at his disarrayed work that was scattered around him like a madman. The marker rolled free from his hold and he fanned out the stack of drawings to observe each and every face he attempted to create.

All that started back at him were strangers.

It was as if he was caught in the eye of the storm while his emotions were running rampant inside him, not yet catching up with his brain to process what he was feeling. Slowly, his dampening eyes scanned every portrait of his mother and brothers to try and pinpoint what exactly was so wrong with them. The obvious answer was that half of them were scribbled with the same haste as a child, messy lines and unbalanced proportions only making them look like discounted charactertures. The ones that were cleaner, the ones that held considerable more effort because he started to spiral, all held different features that set them apart from each other, even if it was meant to be the same person.

It was like having a kitchen full of ingredients and no cookbook to reference. He knew all these colors and features were correct in some shape or form, but the problem was he couldn’t remember who had what and in what combination. Not to be a phone addicted millennial, but what he wouldn’t give to be able to scroll through his camera roll for a little bit and soak in every candid shot he took of them growing up. By now it still probably wouldn’t do him much good, the battery would be long since dead and then he’d feel even worse about having so many memories at his fingertip permanently locked away.

But he still felt awful with or without his phone. He felt like he couldn’t have one good thing without it being ruined in some capacity by the bastard who kidnapped him. All he wanted was to be able to escape into the comforts of his memories and now he couldn’t even do that because a) he had presumably been gone for so long and b) his most recent thoughts were flooded with trauma and PTSD triggers, leaving no room to push past in order to relive the nicer ones.

Jacob wanted to grab all the portraits up and crumble them into balls. He wanted to tear them into a million pieces and throw them over the edge of the desk like microscopic confetti for the creature to be forced to clean up. He wanted to scream and stomp and hurl things like a child, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t bear the thought of himself being the one to destroy the pictures of his family, even though they weren’t, but they were, but they weren’t. He wanted to cry, he wanted to throw up, he wanted to feel nothing, he wanted to feel something if only so he could identify what emotion was hitting him the hardest right now.

The Garfield memory was playing in a loop as some sort of last ditch effort to find that eureka moment in which everything would suddenly become crystal clear. Instead, it was having the opposite effect, similar as to how the constant rewinding of VHS’s eventually wore down the tapes’ quality until it was ruined entirely. The more he playbacked the memory, the more he tried to slow down and freeze frame certain seconds, the more distorted the memory became as a whole. It was as if the once clean edges of the background started to blur. His mother no longer said the exact same thing as she did the first time, the wrong brother tried to reprimand him, he couldn’t envision the perfect shade of orange.

He wanted to go home. He wanted his mom.

–

“Oh, you’ve been busy.”

Edix leaned back in his chair slightly and propped his elbow up on the armrest to rest his chin in his hand. The last he had checked on the human out of the corner of his eye it had been laying on its stomach scratching away at its tiny paper. Now it was sitting on its knees surrounded by a sea of colorful scribbles, none of which Edix could begin to make heads or tails of at such a small scale, but something that must have excited it if it was able to burn through all of its art supplies in a matter of a couple hours. It must not have run out too long ago since it hadn’t tried to ask him for more, not that it ever tried to ask him for anything. Oh well, it was good timing on his part then to decide to take a quick break just when it was ready to take its own. Was it hungry? When was the last time it ate? Certainly never hurt to offer.

“Are you done playing for now?” he asked, knowing full well he wouldn’t get any kind of comprehensible response if he even got one at all. Yet the little one still didn’t acknowledge him. Strange. It always snapped to attention at his voice, especially whenever he was the one to break the long stretches of silence and startle it out of whatever world it had lost itself in. It must still be deep in whatever imaginative daydream that conjured up its mess of drawings because it was staring at them so…intently. “Do you want me to get you some more paper?” Still no response, no indication he had been heard. He snorted, “Are you ignoring me?”

No answer, so he took that as a yes. This kind of behavior wasn’t too far into the realm of unusual. There were plenty of times it would sulk and pout when he gave it an insufficient amount of attention from being so wrapped up in his daily work. Of course, it wasn’t like he was neglectful, he just didn’t bother to look over when it was silently staring at him for twenty minutes straight and expecting him to read its mind. And when he did notice, it got all huffy and tried to push away his prodding like it was his fault for not attending to its unclear needs in a timely manner. Usually it was content with a snack after the third attempt at offering it something, even if it didn’t eat it.

He often wondered why it liked to stash its food away rather than eating when it was hungry. Must be a human thing. The curious thing was that these mini tantrums almost exclusively happened when the human was focused on him but he wasn’t focused on it, yet this time his pet was absorbed in its handiwork instead of waiting for Edix to check in. Maybe it just…really liked its own art? It was an impressive little artist, he had seen plenty of its work plastered around Ylva’s office as well as her own pup’s drawings like a proud parent displaying everything on the fridge.

Edix moved in his chair to lean against the desk instead, arms laying only a few inches away from the little one as he partially hovered over it. Not even the proximity jarred it, and it hated whenever he got too close without its permission. Oh, let’s be real, he never had its permission, it was more like the human didn’t like him ‘sneaking up’ without it knowing. He hardly considered half of those times it nearly jumped out of its skin as being snuck up on. It wasn’t his fault humans had some of the worst prey instincts this side of the universe, how does one not see a predator twelve times their size completely out in the open walking over!

He already knew he was going to get an earful of indignant squeaks the second he broke it from its trance, but it was also so cute seeing it get flustered. He observed it silently for a moment, waiting for it to suddenly notice his shadow partially engulfing it before it spun around with those wide doe eyes. After a minute of still going unnoticed, he spoke up again.

“Can I see what you drew?” he asked despite the fact it was a rhetorical question given the tiny recipient couldn’t understand him. The human never showed him its drawings, not unless they were snatched up by Mibao and proudly shown off to both he and Ylva. He never wanted to pry, though. It was very protective over certain things it deemed as its personal property and Edix knew better than to tamper with that trust lest he lose this flimsy work-life balance they were starting to maintain.

Admittedly, he had no interest in most forms of art, even though he appreciated the multitude of pictures he had been so generously gifted by Mibao that he was about eighty percent sure was of him. It looked like some semblance of a person with a red tail, anyways. His human, on the other hand, was quite well versed in it and it seemed like the perfect thing to bond over, language barrier be damned. He was sure the human was unaware, but there were times Edix had snuck a glance at its barely concealed stack of papers while the little one was napping or distracted, just to see what was going on inside its head. He didn’t scan copies of them to enlarge and hang on his office door like some Venandi, he could already envision the fit it would throw.

As weird as it sounded, he actually felt rather prideful when he noticed the repeated pattern of copying his flora samples in various styles. It was trying to mirror his interests! Edix wished it would grow out of its shy phase and finally show him these drawings itself! He could continue to be patient, it had already paid off this long, these were all surely great signs of trust and acceptance, right?

Squinting, he tried to scan the mess of papers to pick out any discernible patterns, some of them neat and balanced and some of them a flurry of colors, but all with the same general shapes. Oh! They were faces, the human was drawing little people like itself. Cute. He vaguely wondered why some of them had a considerable amount of effort put into them while others looked like a strange interpretation of lines before chalking it up to artistic style or something.

One picture that stood out to him was a portrait of what he assumed was of a woman on her own sheet of paper, crisp lines and contrasting colors making her pop against the white background even at such a tiny scale. He didn’t need his computer to zoom into the fine details to note that she was almost a carbon copy of his own precious human. Brown hair, freckles across her button nose, a soft dimpled smile he could recognize in a heartbeat despite having seen it in person so rarely. The only difference was the eye color, and yet he could still see so much of his sweet pet in all her other features that it wasn’t too jarring of a change. Was this some sort of self portrait?

Edix tapped his finger lightly next to the picture. “Who’s that? Is that you?”

The fact that his human still hadn’t reacted to his encroaching presence was starting to unnerve him just a bit. A part of him wanted to believe that was a good thing, that it was finally showing that it was so comfortable in his company it no longer eyed him suspiciously or trembled when his hands moved too fast overhead. He knew it wasn’t right though, this was way too much trust on its part, especially when it was naturally wired with prey tendencies to be on the lookout for danger, not that Edix ever was one, of course.

Still, he just couldn’t wrap his mind around what was so captivating about the little drawings it had made. Some of them were good, sure, but…well, they didn’t give him any type of emotional epiphany. The human was sitting at an angle that obscured its face from Edix’s direct line of sight, making it difficult for him to gauge whatever it was experiencing. It wore its heart on its sleeve and that baby face betrayed every emotion it tried to stifle in a second, but as far as he could tell from the side it was shockingly blank. The closer he looked, the more he was able to pick up on, from the tremble in its miniature hands to its chest stuttering with choppy breaths.

That wasn’t good. He hoped it wasn’t about to be sick to its stomach again. No, typically when it was feeling nauseous it would at least give him the courtesy of telling him, provided it wasn’t already half dead. Something was upsetting it though, but what? Literally nothing has been happening all afternoon. For the last few hours Edix had worked in silence at his computer cataloguing samples he had been putting off just as he had done almost every day prior. Just like yesterday and the day before and so on, the human was left supervised but unbothered a few inches away to do as it pleased (within reason). There had been zero disruptions in their new routine, so what was making it act so off?

His mind kept wandering back to the drawings and how it had created them in what was starting to look like a blind panic, at least the ones that looked like they had been scrawled by a pup closer to Mibao’s age. Had it been drawing these calmly at first before its mind slipped into an unsightly territory that troubled it, or was it already having these unpleasant thoughts and was gradually soothing itself before abruptly running out of mediums to express its lingering feelings, causing it to be trapped?

Either way, Edix had the sneaking suspicion its artwork had something to do with how it was reacting right now. What a strange little thing to be triggered by its own handiwork. Though the human wasn’t looking at him to see, he put on a comforting smile and reached closer to the papers to start pushing them out of its line of vision in an attempt to break their spell. “Hey, honey, why don’t we put these away for a little bit and–”

As soon as he touched the drawing, something snapped in the human that caused all hell to break loose. He wasn’t sure what kind of reaction he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t one so violent in the way its entire body jolted like it’d be electrocuted. The strangled cry it made was damn near animalistic and Edix wasn’t sure what emotion it was trying to channel through its little vocal chords, though whatever it was was enough to make his hand flinch back.

The human didn’t even bother to wait for him to move out of the way before it lunged protectively over its horde of paper, sheer desperation in its clumsy movements to gather all the art into a crumpled pile within its arms. It was shrieking something over and over while trying to hold onto the papers tighter, yet its frantic state of mind kept causing more of the drawings to spill over and need to be regathered, furthering its distress. Its panic was mounting by the second and Edix couldn’t begin to understand why. At this point it was obvious there was something going on with the artwork, but what? All he could conclude was that whatever it was would continue to stress out his pet an unhealthy amount and therefore should probably be removed for the best results.

Unfortunately, as soon as Edix dared to bring his outstretched hands close to its hunched over body, the human yelled something directly at him that made him hesitate. He didn’t know what it was trying to say, but he could hear the raw pain in its voice that worried him to no end. It shook its head vehemently and repeated the same few syllables again while trying to curl in on itself, shielding the drawings between its shaking limbs. Between each sob he could hear it struggling to breathe as was evident by the way its chest heaved in rapid succession to get in enough air before its next cry. There were no tears that he could see, but its eyes were blown wide and constantly darting around on the lookout for any other attempts on confiscating its belongings.

It was losing itself to its hysteria in a similar fashion that Edix had only truly seen once before, the very first sol it realized it had been rehomed. That week itself had been hard enough, but nothing would compare to its spaztic outbursts and attempts at self harm that lasted hours on end. While this episode was nowhere near as hectic, it was definitely creeping into that territory at an alarming rate. Time to clip that in the bud before this situation gets any more out of hand.

Edix shushed it when it started screaming at him again as his hands moved towards it, keeping a slow pace so that it could clearly see his movements and avoid getting unnecessarily startled. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he soothed. Well, he wanted it to be okay, but the problem is he didn’t know what was wrong in the first place. Everything had been going so well and in retrospect he should have known better than to expect this kind of peace to last any longer than it already had. It was a miracle there had even been multiple sols of a quiet relationship between them, his human was clearly long overdue for some kind of fit.

He just didn't expect its tantrum to be as intense as this, much less completely out of left field. Was this the result of pent up behaviors that had been subdued by illness finally breaking free to run rampant? A warning sign for something worse on the horizon? Not if he could help it. He worked so hard to get them where they were now, he wasn’t going to be deterred by one little hiccup when he already put in so much effort to make it barely behave. Edix cupped his hands around its shaking form but didn’t immediately lift it up. He’d play this game plenty of times to know exactly what was going to happen next.

As expected, the perception of being trapped triggered its instinct to flee and it started to thrash its flimsy limbs against his palms while contorting its back to prevent it from leaning against his fingers. At the expense of its blind struggles many of the papers started to slip free of its hold, worsening its panic while it tried to maintain a secure grip as well as push free from these ‘restraints’. It vocalized its unhappiness at Edix’s actions very clearly which did make him feel a touch guilty, but if it would just put down the papers in general it would be much easier to calm. It almost felt like psychological torture on his part as he watched it be torn between holding its art close and flailing its arms, like it was trying to protect its precious drawings but couldn’t decide if it was better to fight or flight.

After a minute of soft cooing and no progress in calming its state of being, Edix made the decision to do something he knew it was going to absolutely hate. Can’t make an omelet without cracking a few eggs, after all. Besides, he was almost always the villain when it came to settling it down from its paranoia, even if it refused to ever admit to itself what he had to do was ultimately the right call. It was already targeting its emotional turmoil on him for one reason or another, what worse could he do if he was already being blamed for…something. He didn’t know, he never did, just that it was always his fault while at the same time he was the only one that could soothe it.

Slowly, he removed one of his hands that was keeping the sweet thing cornered, though he made sure it was slow enough to capture its attention while not creating too big of an opening for it to scurry away. While it was momentarily distracted, probably trying to figure out the logistics of this trick and if it would be worth it to try and run, the hand that was still cupped behind it reached closer to snag a finger around its skinny waist and pin it to his palm.

Instinctively, it started to squirm and yowl and as soon as he lifted it up a few inches off the desk it was going borderline feral in its attempts to break free. It cried, it screamed, it kicked and pushed and and hit, but stubbornly it refused to drop the last remaining pictures clutched to its chest. He could feel it hyperventilating against the finger snared across its tiny stomach and he crooned softly, using his free hand to rub his thumb against the side of its flushed face which was of course met with loud opposition.

The mass of papers continued to flutter down as it struggled to keep a good grip amongst its thrashing and with each drawing it lost, the more wild it grew. It seemed like it was utterly miserable without the comfort of the papers. Yet, as far as Edix was concerned, it was those papers that made it this distressed in the first place. Times like this were when he wished the most to be able to understand what was going on the sweet thing’s head, surely it knew deep down this was not a normal or healthy reaction to seemingly nothing. What reasons could it possibly have to carry on with such intensity?

“Hey, hey, hey, stop, it’s okay,” Edix said, trailing his free hand down from its face to try and push away the final crumpled papers out of its arms. “Let it go, you don’t need it.”

All it took was a couple more prods and he was able to finally dislodge the last pieces of art from its grasp while it kept trying to shove the invasive finger away. As soon as it was empty handed, it started to reach and whine towards the desk with outstretched hands in an attempt to grab up its lost art. Instead, Edix maneuvered it into his other hand to be comfortably contained rather than dangling with a compressed diaphragm. The moment he had the poor thing situated in his hand he turned his chair around to not only prevent it from having any access to wiggle its way back onto the desk, but to totally block out the scattered pictures from its vision. Out of sight, out of mind. Ylva said that trick worked wonders when she needed to hide her tools that her pup was strangely fascinated by.

To some extent, it did have the intended effect he was hoping for in that it stopped trying to reach for its abandoned art and started to calm down from the height of its panic attack. Usually, the crash that followed was immediate, especially when he would hold it to his chest to help it mirror his slow breathing and soak up all the physical affection Edix showered upon it. Sometimes it was so drained it would even fall asleep in his hold, which was also when it was the cuddliest.

But not this time. This time its yells were replaced with the most heart wrenching sobs he had ever heard in his life. They were deep and mournful, each breath it gasped sounding like agonizing hiccup that genuinely worried Edix it might be choking on air, only to turn into more wails. Naturally, he held it firm to his chest and whispered gentle reassurances to it, though he wasn’t a hundred percent sure what he was trying to make better. He wanted to purr since it always seemed to enjoy feeling the vibrations under its ear, but each cry he listened to dampened his mood and prevented him from doing so. Never before had he dealt with such one-eighty mood swings. He had seen it angry, seen it depressed, seen it terrified, but never so intense and in such rapid succession and certainly not as low as this. It worried him beyond belief, and yet…

When he held it to his chest under normal circumstances, the human tended to curl in on itself to settle whereas if he was pinning it close to calm down in the middle of a fit, it would squirm under his hand until it eventually went limp from exhaustion. In this circumstance, for the first time he ever recalled seeing, it consciously grabbed handfuls of his shirt and buried its cute, ruddy face into the fabric to cry. Sure, it held onto him before and liked to hide away, but that was only when it was deep asleep or delirious with fever, or occasionally out of shyness when another Venandi was in a fifty foot radius. Hell, it still clung to the cuff of his sleeve for security even when they were in Ylva’s company, though he wondered if that had more to do with the association of his friend being the one to administer its medicine in the past.

The point was his pet never tried to be so open in seeking out his comfort, rather it waited until it was offered or forced upon it still did not reciprocate while it was awake and aware. The only exception was when it wanted to avoid strangers and Edix theorized it was more along the lines of seeing him as the safer option rather than genuinely wanting to be soothed.

For such a tiny little thing, the human sure did love to pull on his heartstrings in both the best and worst possible ways. Stars above, what could have possibly gotten into it in such a short period of time? What could have provoked such a meltdown when the last he checked it was contently doing basic arts and crafts? Whatever this mess was, he knew to some degree it was at the fault of whatever was scribbled on those mess of papers. A part of him wanted to see what was so special about the portraits and enlarge them for a better look, but for the most part he didn’t care simply because he would still have no explanation without the human’s input. And he most definitely had no desire to go through this debacle again if this would be its reaction every time to seeing its own accursed artwork.

One thing was for sure–those drawings were going to be disposed of the moment he could secretly sweep them into the trash bin without the little one’s knowledge. It probably wouldn’t even remember about them by tomorrow morning so long as they were safely hidden in the garbage. In fact, it probably didn’t want to keep them in the grand scheme of things, a few pieces of paper couldn’t be that important.

Edix let it sob against him for a little while longer, rubbing its back and mumbling soft praises every time it appeared like it was starting to settle, though it usually worked itself back up moments after. That was fine, he had some time to kill. The reports could be finished after his human undoubtedly passed out in the very near future, which would also be the perfect time to dispose of those silly little pictures. Edix shuddered to think how it would react if any of those people on the paper were real.

It was quite the strange paradox now that he thought back on it. The drawings upset it, yet the little one tried to shield them from Edix, yet it partially destroyed them in its tight hold, yet it so easily disregarded them once they were finally confiscated. Did it like the pictures or not? Whatever, didn’t matter at this point. He could throw them out and they could both put this brief mess behind them to hopefully continue on their budding relationship. Maybe tomorrow he could take it into his back room to show it his greenhouse of cultivated flora, that would definitely give it better drawing ideas in the future since it enjoyed sketching the samples he had on his desk, right?

Or, better yet, maybe it should take a break from drawing altogether. Just for a little bit until he was sure there would be no repeat offenses in the future. He should go tell Ylva so she can plan accordingly for the next playdate they had for the humans. Oh, she might even have some good alternatives to try so that his human can still keep up with its stimulation while Edix works! Simple solutions to simple problems, though his sweet pet had a knack for being as difficult as possible.

The sobs were starting to soften, but its tears still ran like rapids down its face no matter how much Edix tried to wipe them away. With a sigh, he stood from his chair and stretched as comfortably as he could without disturbing the emotionally wrecked little one. “Let’s go take a walk,” he suggested. “You wanna take a little walk to the archives?” He didn’t go on mindless walks often, but he had noticed the times he needed to walk through the corridors with the sweet thing it was always on its best behavior regardless of how it was acting when they left any room. It was worth a shot to see if being in the halls for an extended period of time would help calm it down into something more manageable. If nothing else, they could pop into Ylva's office for a quick visit.

The human warbled something when Edix started to walk to the door. It tried to say something again but was just as quickly interrupted by a series of breathing hiccups that broke up the words to the point he doubted he would have understood even if they did speak the same language. Speaking was good, though. It meant it was settling enough to want to communicate intelligently.

“Mhm. Is that so?” Edix blindly agreeds, just as he did during any of their one sided conversations. Really, he was only trying to encourage it to keep talking during all of these interactions so it could practice picking up on venandix, but this was also a good way to distract it from its own mind. “Tell me more.”

It stopped talking as soon as they were out the door.

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