im stuck on the marriage of convenience BatLantern
Hal coming home from a two month long mission with long, matted hair and a scruffy beard and he mutters a hello and an apology to Bruce and brushes past him into his 'guest' room and falls asleep.
when he wakes up the next morning his boots have been removed from his feet and cleaned, sitting next to the door of his room, and there's a cup of coffee and some eggs and bacon on the table next to him
Hal scarfs it down and rolls his eyes about 'rich people and what they make their servants do' before he shuffles into the horribly lavish bathroom to shave
Then he sits in front of the vanity mirror for a while, just staring at his hair. He doesn't even know where to start
Bruce knocks on the door even though its open, poking his head inside
"I could do it for you." He offers, hovering outside the door even though it's his house. "If you don't want to cut it. I could- clean it. For you. If you want."
And hell, sure. Alright. Hal has never paid attention to his hair before, go wild.
Bruce takes him to the bathroom and washes his hair and Hal genuinely falls asleep because its so soothing and calming and its the most caring thing hes been treated to since he was a child and his mom would rub his back when he was throwing up
Bruce washes and dries and brushes his hair for him and when hes done he presses a soft kiss to Hal's forehead, braiding the front strands of his hair to the back so it doesn't interfere with his fighting
'its just a part of the marriage act' Hal tells himself, even though they're completely alone inside the Manor.
"Thanks." he says, aloud, and Bruce waves him off like it's nothing.
But it's not. Hal hasn't been taken care of since he was a kid. But bruce acted like it was something special, like it was a reward for him to be able to take care of him.
Hal spends the night staring at the enormously beautiful ceiling, realizing hes in deep, deep shit.
Summary: Cold and defeated on the worst day of February, you stand on your apartment rooftop, contemplating giving up. Then the Red Hood drops in and makes you tea in your apartment.
Pairing: Jason Todd x gn!reader
Word count: 2k
Warnings/tags: suicidal ideation, disordered eating and sleeping habits, depression, reader doesn't attempt suicide but thinks about it a lot. a sort of hopeful ending. jason being a really really good guy.
please take care of yourselves - don't read this if you think it'll upset you.
divider
One day in February—it doesn't matter which day; it might be someone else's day too, but it doesn't matter, and it doesn't matter which February either—you realize that you've forgotten how to be happy.
When you think of February, you don't think of much, except that on those big visual calendars of the months that they put up in kindergarten, February is always pink. Pink like an organ. Pink like guts. Pink like love.
But your February—all the Februarys you've had—is blue-gray. It's like someone's cast a moody shadow over your February. It's the director's choice, clearly, to light your February like you're at a wake. It's not your choice. It's never your choice.
Here is the problem. The problem is that you're too scared, but you want the attention of someone who's killed themselves. Shame digs its claws into you at such a perverse thought. But it's true. Even if it's one person who takes a moment to inspect your guts on the sidewalk, or your body in the bathtub, you want them to hold your rigor mortis and say, what a loss. Is there anything I can do?
And then you'd pop up from the bathwater and say, why yes, there is something you can do, would you mind changing the lighting? It's bringing me down.
You're on the roof of your apartment. You don't know why, because as stated, you're too scared. And it's nighttime, and you're a speck of dust, which is comforting at times and haunting at others. Dust on a roof. Easy to be carried off by the wind.
You don't want to die, exactly. You want to rest. No amount of sleep destroys the exhaustion. Instead of marrow in your bones, it's the desire for rest that only comes through death. Unfortunately, despite not wanting to die, death seems to be your only path.
His footsteps are quiet. You don't realize that you're not alone until he's there next to you, hunched over the ledge on his elbows.
You flinch.
"Sorry," Red Hood says, and there's no smoky breath that accompanies his words like they accompany everyone else's. You wonder where the air from his helmet's filter goes.
"It's fine," you say, even though your nervous system is still reeling. It's not fine, because you hate being scared, but it also doesn't matter, so it's fine in that way.
You have a great view from the city up here but appreciating the city is difficult when it's all blue-gray shadows. Your stomach hurts. You've never felt more unbearably yourself in your life.
"Everything okay?" Hood asks.
"Yeah," you say, not bothering to lie. Not bothering to tell the truth either.
"'S cold up here."
"I'm not gonna jump."
"Didn't say you would," Hood says mildly.
"That's why you're here. You think I'll jump, and it's your duty to make sure I don't. But I won't. Too scared. I just wallow instead."
"Wallowing ain't so good either."
"Yeah," you say, throat hurting like you've swallowed a splinter. "Probably not."
An audience would see your funeral-lit life and make the obvious prediction that something bad is about to happen. The director is telling a story, and he's giving hints. You, as the protagonist, are expecting bad things too. Perhaps this is where it starts.
"You live here?" Hood asks.
There should be a curl of fear that strikes you, because Red Hood—terrifying, gangster, born and bred Gotham Red Hood—shouldn't be landing on your rooftop and checking to make sure you aren't gonna spill your guts.
He doesn't seem so terrifying, though. He doesn't seem like a gangster either. And what's wrong with being born and bred Gotham? You like it. Hood is familiar even though you've never met him before. Something about his voice, his stance, the fact that he gives a shit enough to talk to you for a minute. It feels like maybe the universe doesn't want you to kill yourself right then.
"I live here," you say, taking too long to answer.
"Alright," he says. "Lead the way."
You look at him. He's turned around now, facing the roof access door.
"What?"
Hood points a thumb at the door. "Let's go to your place."
"Why?" Why, you ask, instead of the fuck?
"'M thirsty," he says.
Well, if he's here to assassinate you, it won't matter if you bring him to your apartment or not. And now that he's mentioned it, it is cold. Probably because you're up here without a coat. A coat hadn't seemed important when you were in your apartment choking on stale black air.
Maybe you should warn Hood about the stale black air. But you feel like he won't let you return to your apartment if you do.
Hood goes first, leading you back inside. He goes down the stairs slowly, letting you drag and set the pace. It's so stupid. You feel like crying. Why is he going down the stairs with you at your stupid slow pace?
You stop two floors down. This would be another hint to your audience, the fact that you're so close to the roof that you can just climb a couple flights.
You open your apartment. You'd left it unlocked.
"Do you often leave your place unlocked?" Hood asks.
You shrug. "I don't go out enough to get the chance."
Hood doesn't say anything else but he does do the deadbolt when you're inside, as well as the chain lock.
"Shoes off?" he asks. You nod. You both remove your shoes.
Then you stand like you're not in your own apartment. Hood herds you like a sheepdog to your tiny kitchen table. Then he starts opening cabinet doors.
"Got a kettle?" he asks.
You stare at the back of his helmet, your eyebrows knitting. "A kettle? How many Gothamites do you know own kettles?"
"It's the only dignified way to make tea," he says.
Maybe Hood isn't so born and bred Gotham. "Were you raised by British monarchs?"
"Kinda," he says. He evidently gives up on finding a kettle and instead puts water to boil on the stove, even though you have a microwave. Weirdo.
Suddenly, you realize you haven't thought about death for a whole five minutes.
"Got any decaffeinated tea?" Hood asks.
You have a barely opened box of Sleepytime. You point at the top shelf. He hums and retrieves the box, taking out three tea bags to drop into the boiling water.
Hood takes out two mugs. He's surprisingly apt at navigating an unfamiliar kitchen.
He gives you your mug and sits across from you at the table. He's huge at your table, but he gracefully crosses his legs despite the limited space.
"Didja eat?" he asks.
"I had some cereal a few hours ago," you say.
Hood nods. "Fine. But you gotta eat real dinner too."
You don't think it really matters what a corpse-in-training eats, but you nod anyway. Hood's tone invites no deliberation.
"What's your favorite food? Drink your tea."
You scrunch your face and take a hesitant sip. The hot liquid burns your tongue for a moment before you swallow.
"I like pizza," you say. "And burgers. And ramen. But lately, everything tastes like nothing."
You'd tried to find joy in food a few days ago because you couldn't find it anywhere else. You'd torn open a pack of Swedish Fish and shoved the box into your drawer after eating two pieces because it'd tasted like melted plastic to you.
Then you'd bought an expensive brand of chocolate bar, desperate to be happy, desperate to be flooded with dopamine. Nothing. You'd tossed the chocolate, feeling distinctly broken. What monster doesn't find joy in their favorite candy?
You only eat to cure the hunger pains, because you can't take anymore pain. You eat to survive. Not because you want to, but because dying by starvation takes too long.
"That's okay," Hood says. "'S good you're eating."
You scoff. "I don't need consolation."
Hood doesn't give you the satisfaction of an argument. He's going to make you feel alive in a gentler way, even though you don't deserve it. "Drink your tea."
You drink. His mug remains untouched. You feel like you're in a play. This isn't even real tea, it's just colored water. And Hood's stage direction is to not drink his colored water. It's just for show.
You look out the window, expecting to make eye contact with an audience member. You're waiting for the second act. You're waiting for the end.
"I don't want anymore," you say when your mug is half-finished. Trying to finish the tea feels like prolonging the inevitable. The audience wants to go home. They have lives to get back to. They can't live with you and the stage forever.
To your surprise, Hood nods. "Okay. C'mon."
He stands up from the table. You follow him to your bedroom. He pulls open your shirt drawer. You notice the two guns strapped to his hips, two strapped to his ankles, and one bigger gun on his back. You wait for the director's guidance on how you should feel. None comes, so you remain apathetic.
"Choose a shirt," he says. You pick a plain pink t-shirt. Hood closes that drawer and opens your pants drawer. "Choose."
You take a pair of worn pajama shorts because you overheat when you sleep, especially when you're depressed. You're sweaty from your lie-in till two that you took earlier today. Your face is greasy. You're sure your hair isn't nice either.
"Go change," Hood says, walking out of your room. "I'll be outside." He closes the door behind him.
You change, if only out of shock of the Red Hood giving you orders.
"Done," you say, probably too quiet for anyone to hear. But Hood comes in. He looks you over.
"Good." He points to the bed. "Lie down."
You do. Your sheets are gross. They haven't been changed in at least a few months. You're suddenly swollen with shame that anyone, even the Red Hood, is seeing you in this state. Your eyes fill with stinging tears. You should've died before it came to this.
"I'm sorry you had to stop to do this," you say.
Hood's silent for a moment. Then he walks to your side of the bed. He crouches down. His helmet eyes glow in the dark. You've never been less afraid.
This is a plot twist you did not foresee. A new character. A guardian angel. Red in your blue-gray.
"'S not always gonna feel like this," he says.
More tears, more splinters in your throat. "It's felt like this for so long."
"Yeah," he says gently. Gentler than you fucking deserve. "I know."
The writer has overridden the director's wants, and has introduced some new foreshadowing. Should your audience believe it? Or is this a fake-out?
You lie back and want to die a little less. One young woman in your audience chokes up. She believes that you believe you’ll live. She will stay here for as long as it takes for you to make it through act two.
"If you have to go, it's okay," you say.
Hood settles against the wall near your bed. He pulls one knee against his chest. It's almost like you have a friend.
"Nah," he says. "I don't have anywhere to be. I finished my patrol. I'll stay till you fall asleep."
He doesn't ask to stay, and that feels good, not having to make the choice, to face the shame of wanting another person to care about you.
You screw your eyes shut. "Thank you," you whisper.
"I'm gonna bring you a kettle," Hood says.
You laugh. It's small and brittle but it's real. "Okay." You'll have to make it through the night. Red Hood is bringing you a kettle.
You lay there for a long time, not sleeping. You keep your eyes closed. You focus on keeping your breathing even. Then you open your eyes to check.
Hood is still there, sitting against the wall. You wonder if he's fallen asleep too. His voice startles you.
"Still here," he says. "Said I wouldn't go till you sleep. Meant it. Don't worry."
Maybe tomorrow's sun won't be so blue or gray. You fall asleep.
Tony slowly expanding his approved visitors list to the workshop, adding person after person to the “permitted entrance without permission” list. and still, nobody visits. until one day he removed everyone and decided nobody gets to visit, and he gets to tell himself it’s by choice that he’s lonely.
And it is by choice, really. He never asked anyone to visit. He never told anyone he’s lonely. He could, but he didn’t. Because telling people his emotions feels like manipulating them into coddling him, and he’d much rather just sit with the loneliness than run the risk of asking for things that are unreasonable.
you are trying to read on the beach. jack abbot is nearby shirtless. this proves to be a problem.
𓆉°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ interested in how the pitt crew got approved for a week in greece? the original invitation is still posted
PAIRING: jack abbot x flirty!dramatic!reader
WARNINGS: fluffity fluff, flirty reader, mutual pining, pre-relationship pining, beach setting, team bonding, shirtless jack abbot, reader is down catastrophic, heavy ogling, reader day dreaming ab abbot, horny but trying to be respectful, suggestive content
PROMPT: here!
WC: 1.3k
A/N: early release for maria’s summer in santorini ♡ consider this your sneak peek before the trip officially begins
Reading on a windy beach, you discover, is less a leisurely seaside activity and more a long-standing personal feud between you and the Mediterranean climate.
You lift your magazine. The wind instantly slaps your hair directly into your eyeballs. You tuck it behind your ear. Another gust undoes the effort two seconds later.
You’ve convinced the island is purposefully heckling you. Perhaps some Greek god you pissed off in another life.
The open page flutters lazily in your lap, corners lifting and settling again, the glossy print catching sunlight in quick flashes, and at this point the whole thing feels more ornamental than informative.
Not that it really matters. You haven’t actually absorbed a single sentence.
Instead your attention keeps slipping down the shoreline where Dr. Abbot and Dr. Robinavitch are standing near the water.
Jack remains on the darker band of sand where the waves compress everything flat. Earlier in the week he explained, very plainly, that prosthetics don’t sink and flex like a real foot does, which makes loose sand unpredictable.
So he stands right where the ocean keeps the ground firm, tide washing forward and retreating around his feet in slow intervals.
Meanwhile you’re staring at the same paragraph you were staring at before, trying to remember what page you’re on and failing.
And the task becomes significantly harder when you factor in the additional complication of Dr. Abbot’s physique. Which is, to put it politely, extremely distracting.
There are several far less polite descriptions currently doing slow laps around your brain that you’re making only a very half-hearted attempt to wrangle back into something respectable.
Because seriously, how does someone even acquire pecs like that? Is there a class? A sign-up sheet? Do you collect punch cards at the gym until eventually a trainer appears out of nowhere and goes congratulations, sir, you’ve unlocked Advanced Chest Geometry?
The thought would almost be academic if it didn’t immediately lead somewhere less professional.
Namely the realization that he would probably look very good hovering over you. The breadth of his shoulders, the long plane of his back, all of it forming the kind of structure that seems, purely hypothetically, like it would benefit from a few well-placed scratch marks.
Thankfully, your sunglasses are large and, in Jack’s words, “obnoxious” enough to provide some degree of visual privacy.
They cover half your face, which means whatever extremely not-safe-for-work message your eyes are currently broadcasting in his direction remains safely concealed behind tinted lenses.
Mel, who is perched in the chair beside you with one leg tucked beneath her, suddenly turns her head.
“Out of curiosity,” she says, squinting toward you against the brightness. “Are you aware that you keep staring at Abbot?”
Shit.
Immediately you realize the fatal flaw in your sunglasses strategy, which is that from Mel’s angle, she can still see your eyes perfectly fine from the side, completely unobstructed, your entire operation exposed.
You turn to face her.
The wind has blown a scattering of sand across her cheeks, tiny pale grains stuck there like freckles.
You push your sunglasses up briefly to sweep your hair out of your face, buying yourself a moment to look like you’re thoughtfully considering her question.
There isn’t really any point in lying to her.
“I mean… can you blame me?”
Mel glances back toward Abbot, giving him a slow, methodical once-over, the kind that feels less appreciative and more clinical.
“I don’t think I understand the premise of the question,” she says.
“Okay, hypothetical,” you say, sitting up a little. “You know when you encounter something extremely aesthetically pleasing and your brain just sort of… locks onto it? Like it would actually be irresponsible not to look?”
“You mean like scenery?”
“Yes,” you say immediately. “Exactly. Thank you.” You gesture vaguely toward Jack with the lazy authority of someone presenting a landmark. “That is a very impressive piece of scenery.”
Mel looks at him again.
“He’s a person.”
“Sure, technically.” Your gaze follows him as he turns slightly, the water moving around his ankles, shoulders shifting under the sun. “But calling him just a person feels reductive. Like calling the Sistine Chapel a ceiling. Or the Mona Lisa a lady sitting down.”
Mel stares at you.
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” she finally announces. “Ever, really.”
You shrug, sliding your sunglasses back down your nose as the wind grabs another handful of your hair.
“I get that a lot.”
You sink a little deeper into the chair, the canvas warm against the back of your thighs.
Down by the shoreline Abbot and Robby finally start heading back toward the loose constellation of towels and bags everyone abandoned earlier.
Sunshine catches on the line of sweat sliding down Jack’s neck, tracing a slow path across the expanse of his chest, tiny shining rivulets threading through the scatter of dark chest hair before vanishing beneath the waistband of his swim trunks.
You swallow. Your tongue flicks across your lips without thinking. They feel suddenly dry, parched almost. Probably the sun. Or the salt air.
Definitely environmental factors and not the fact that the man appears to have been carved specifically for dramatic beach lighting.
Robby breaks off first, veering toward the cooler with the purposeful stride of a man thinking about cold beer, leaving Abbot to continue forward alone.
He stops directly in front of your chair, turning to say something to Whitaker somewhere behind you, and in doing so he blocks the sun entirely, a broad warm shadow falling over you, the wind cutting off too.
Which would be pleasant if the exchange didn’t also mean that, from where you’re sitting, your line of sight now lands very squarely at the level of his swim trunks. And his abs. And the narrow trail of hair beginning just below his navel and following the sweat into his shorts.
You wonder, briefly and very seriously, if he would object to you following that little trail with your tongue, just once, purely out of scientific curiosity, a sort of field study in —
“— you with me?”
You jolt, the thought snapping in half like a rubber band.
“Sorry — what?”
Jack is watching you now. Not openly amused exactly, but observant, arms folded loosely across his chest as his gaze dips downward toward where you’re sitting.
Which, given the previous direction of your attention, feels incriminating.
“I asked if you’d seen Whitaker’s phone.”
“Oh. No. I — no.”
His gaze lingers for half a second. Then he crouches down in front of you, suddenly right there at eye level. It feels like a tactical maneuver. You’re certain he’s closing distance in a very calm ambush.
“You know your sunglasses are see-through, right?”
You think maybe you stop breathing.
“What?”
“I can see your eyes,” he says, using his forefinger to tap on the side of your knee. “Very clearly, actually.”
You narrow your eyes at him over the rim of your sunglasses.
“…you can?”
Abbot’s mouth twitches in a restrained, almost private way.
“Not exactly subtle,” he quips.
“I was reading.”
He gestures toward your lap.
“Your magazine’s upside down.”
You glance down.
It is.
You stare at it for a moment. The wind lifts the corner of the page in a smug little flutter, like it’s personally delighted to be involved in your public humiliation.
You slowly close the magazine.
“Well,” you say, and there is dignity in your voice, real dignity, you put it there intentionally, “that’s… actually how you’re supposed to read it in Europe.”
“Upside down?”
“It’s a regional thing.”
“Uh-huh.” His gaze dips down to your legs. When it comes back up, there's something in his face that makes the afternoon feel several degrees hotter than it already is. “Should I turn around,” he asks mildly, “or were you getting everything you needed from that angle?”
You die.
Briefly, but completely. You are in the active process of leaving your body, dissociating into the sun, formulating a serious plan involving a fake name and a one-way ferry, when Mel — Mel, who you have known for years, Mel, who you have trusted — opens her mouth.
“Oh she was getting everything she needed,” she says helpfully.
“Mel.” It comes out strangled, barely a name at all.
Abbot’s gaze flicks briefly between the two of you. The corner of his mouth tilts. A wicked little thing.
“Good,” he says mildly, patting the side of your leg before moving to where Robby had laid claim over two chairs closer to the water.
You are throwing these damn sunglasses directly into the Aegean.
Possibly yourself as well.
this fic was part of my 2 year celebration: maria's summer in santorini
𓆉°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ to learn more, click here!
summary: jack has been taking your phone when you refuse to sleep at bedtime, and you have been handling it terribly. (1.1k+)
pairing: jack abbott x fem!reader
content: age gap (not implied), established relationship, reader is chronically online, mild sleep deprivation, jack being stern in a soft way.
You knew he took your phone, which made it so much worse, because you knew exactly where it was and you couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was under his pillow. You’d watched him do it — you’d been mid scroll and Jack had just simply reached over and lifted it right out of your hand without even opening his eyes, tucked it beneath him, and rolled back over like he hadn’t just ruined your night.
“Jack.” Your voice came out more desperate than you intended.
“Sleep,” he said, face half in the pillow.
“I was literally in the middle of something—”
“Sleep.”
You wanted to argue but you were tired, and he was more tired, you knew that. He’d been pulling doubles at Pittsburgh Trauma all week and tonight he’d come home and sat on the edge of the bed for a full minute just staring at the floor before he could take his shoes off, and he’d forgotten, for the first time maybe ever, to kiss your forehead and ask how your day was.
He always did that. Every single time he came home, shoes barely off, lips to your forehead, he would ask how your day went. Yet tonight he’d just sat there and then laid down and you hadn’t said anything about it because he looked so tired it actually worried you a little.
So you let the phone thing go. Told yourself you’d wait until he was out and take it back.
That was two hours ago.
Now it’s 1:52am and Jack is asleep beside you and you’ve been lying in bed with your eyes closed trying to will yourself under and it’s just not happening. Your brain won’t stop. It keeps pulling you back to where you left off.
This girl had posted a video, sitting in her car, going through every single reason she broke up with her boyfriend, there were fourteen reasons total, completely calm about it — and you’d been deep in the comments for almost an hour before Jack took your phone. You’d only gotten through six. Reason six was that he never once asked how her day was, not in eight months, and the comment section was absolutely feral about it and you had things to say.
You sit up. Jack doesn’t move.
You lean over him slowly, watching his face. Still out. His pillow is right there, all you have to do is slide your hand under the edge, you’d be so quiet—
“Really.”
His eyes are open, barely, looking up at you while you’re frozen there with your hand outstretched.
“I couldn’t sleep,” you say.
“Uh huh.” He reaches under the pillow and pulls your phone out, holds it above both of you. Not giving it to you. “What were you watching.”
“Okay so,” you start, because there’s no saving this. “There’s this girl on TikTok. She made a video listing every reason she broke up with her ex. Fourteen reasons. You took my phone before I could finish.”
He looks at the ceiling for a second. “How many did you get through.”
“Six.”
He puts the phone on his nightstand and pulls you back down against him, arm firm around your waist, and you’re facing away from him now and there’s genuinely nowhere to go.
“Jack I’m not even—”
“Yes you are.”
“I’m really not, my brain is just—”
“The other eight will be there in the morning,” he says, and his voice has just enough of that edge to it now, not mean, just done, that you close your mouth. He exhales slowly. His hand settles on your side. “Close your eyes.”
You close your eyes.
Your brain immediately starts trying to figure out what reason seven might be. Then it wanders back to a comment you were going to reply to, the one where someone was completely wrong about reason four and you had a whole response drafted in your head.
“Still awake,” he says, quieter now.
“I know, I just- it doesn’t switch off, I’m not doing it on purpose—”
“I know,” he says, and he says it so simply, no frustration in it, that you go still. His arm tightens around you just slightly and you feel him press his lips to the back of your head, half-asleep, barely there.
You’re quiet for a while.
Long enough that you think he’s gone again when you say, quietly, “Reason four was that he never remembered anything she told him. Like she’d say something and a week later it was like the conversation never happened.”
Jack hums.
“That’s a really bad one.”
“Yeah,” he says. “It is.”
You’re quiet again. And then, because it’s almost 2am and something about the dark makes you say things you wouldn’t otherwise. “You forgot to ask how my day was when you got home tonight.”
He doesn’t say anything for a second.
“You always do,” you say. “You just- you were so tired, you forgot.”
He shifts behind you. Then, low and a little rough still with sleep: “How was your day.”
And God, it’s stupid, it shouldn’t do anything to you, but your chest goes warm and soft in a way you weren’t prepared for. You think about the girl in her car. Reason six. Eight months and not once.
“Good,” you say, quietly. “I went down a rabbit hole about a woman who thinks her houseplant can tell when her ex is about to call. And then I found the breakup video.”
“So productive,” he says.
“Very,” you say. “Very productive.”
You can feel him smile against your hair, and then he’s out again, breathing slow and even, and the room is dark and quiet and your phone is completely unreachable on his nightstand and you were so sure you couldn’t sleep ten minutes ago.
You’re gone before you get to reason seven.
In the morning your phone is on your nightstand at 4%, plugged into his charger, the wrong charger, the slow one. You’ve explained this to him more than once. He keeps doing it anyway.
You watch the rest of the video on the couch. The girl is doing great. She got a cat. Reason eleven was that he was mean to animals, and you immediately flip your phone around to show Jack.
He reads it. Nods once. “Good,” he says, like he’s closing a case, and goes back to his coffee.
You sit there thinking you are so embarrassingly down bad for this man, and then he looks over at you and goes “What” and you say “Nothing” and look back at your phone.
Reason seven, for the record, was that he made her feel invisible.
Jack has never once made you feel invisible.
You don’t tell him that either. You just sit there with your coffee going cold and your phone in your hand and think that some people really don’t know what they have, and some people really, really do, and your quite lucky with the man you have.
the thing the Pitt shows so well is that yes, Robby is suicidal.
but he doesn't want to die. he doesn't want to kill himself. he's grasping at reasons not to. he just "doesn't want to be here anymore." and he doesn't see any other option out.
that's the feeling, that's it. you don't want to be "anywhere, anymore." because everywhere you go, you're still you. you're so exhausted of being you. so tired of being tired, of hurting, of feeling pathetic and weak and deeply alone. you just want it all to stop.
you want to take a break, you want to rest, but no amount of rest helps because you're there. when you're resting, laying in bed at night, your thoughts, your feelings, they don't leave. they don't allow you to rest. they berate you, shame you for even trying. you cannot get away from yourself. and it seems so impossible to get better when it's been hurting for so long, when you're so burnt out, when you did try.
you tried therapy. you tried getting a hobby. you tried doing what you were supposed to. but you failed at that too, didn't you? you weren't good enough at getting better. and no one is coming to save you and all you hear from everyone is that no one is coming to save you. that you have to do it yourself.
and you can't. you can't do it yourself. but you can't live like this, either. you don't want to be here anymore. you don't want to be you anymore. you just need it all to stop.
and, well. there's only one way you can think of to get it to stop, one that you haven't tried yet. one that could work. one that used to scare you, but.. it sounds nice, now. an end. a way for this all to be over. like anyone would care, right? like anyone would really miss you?
at the root of it all, you're eight years old again and you're crying and no one is comforting you. and you want your mother or your father or maybe a divine, just a guiding figure, someone you lean on. someone who pets your hair and tells you it's okay. and you don't really want to kill yourself. you just want to go home.
he's the best and most accurate representation of a mental health crisis i've ever seen portrayed on television. it's extremely triggering in a way that i leave each episode feeling like i can't catch my breath and i want to sob. even with this preview i can already sense how much it'll haunt me.
he cares so much. he's clinging to the walls of that hospital which is crammed with the people he cares about most and it's destroying him. the place is beating him down and he wants to run away and end it all but like any suicidal person - it's the single most terrifying thing in the world to give into the inevitable and let go.
baratheonpilled
2087
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
titsay
