THE POST SAID "ANGST" I AM REQUESTING PAIN 🗡🗡🗡🗡
"Whatever you do, do not turn around."
"No matter what they made you think, you are worth saving. You are worth loving."
OKAY HERE WE GO. ANGST AND PAIN COMING RIGHT UP.
@park-jimin-isnt-real
Pairing: Jimin x Reader
Warnings: Outdated Medical Practices, Asylums for the Insane, Mental Health Trauma
You're shaking.
You're shaking so much that you feel like you're going to vibrate apart and fall into tiny little pieces.
Your fingers clench, dig, into the material of your dirty, worn petticoats, desperately trying to feel something real, to ground yourself.
This is not happening.
It's another trauma response, another break in your mind, something the doctors will write and whisper about, before they take you back there-always back there-to the room with the scalpels and electrodes and whirring, buzzing machines.
Everything is too loud. And you can feel yourself starting to panic breathe, can feel the burns from the electrodes starting to sizzle again on your chest and forehead, can feel yourself grinding your teeth into points.
You can't go back there.
You won't let them take you back there. Not again.
"(Y/N.)"
You hear it again, your name, fuzzy and out of focus, like you're drowning and they're trying to pull you back to the surface.
The voice is familiar, but you don't know how they know your name, or how you recognize the lilts of the words, because you're sure you're crazy and don't remember anything at this point.
The doctors have said so. Over and over and over.
Unhealthy psychosis of the mind caused by hysteria.
That's what you were. A label. A condition. Nothing more.
"(Y/N)."
The voice is more insistent this time, and through your panic, you recognize the feeling of fingers on your own, ghosting across the skin, before moving to the leather ties that bind your wrists.
You finally manage to pull yourself out of the spiral enough to open your eyes.
And you are once again convinced that the person crouched in front of you is a result of your hallucinations.
"Jimin?" You whisper, voice hoarse and cracked from disuse.
The man looks up, dark hair windswept, as if he had run to get to you, eyes wide, lips parted slightly. There is a slight wince to his handsome features as he takes you in, really looks at you, fingers never stopping in his motions to undo the knots around your wrists.
"Yeah." He breathes out, and you want to pinch yourself, because he's in your room, in the asylum, his fingers grazing your skin, and you know, it's all too good to be true. "I found you. I really found you this time."
The leather thongs fall to the floor with a thud, and he stands, leaning down to heft you out of the bed, allowing you to use him to balance yourself, legs weak and unresponsive from use.
There is the sound of an alarm blaring down the hallway.
You look to Jimin, panic engulfing your chest and making it hard to breathe, and his eyes are wide, but his mouth is set in a firm line, as he drags your useless body with him toward the door.
"C'mon. We have to go."
He pulls you out of the room and down the corridor with him, away from the sounds of the alarms and pounding feet and yelling voices, and you're both breathing heavy by the time you finally find an exit toward the back of the asylum, barred and barricaded and falling apart from years of misuse.
"But how did you-" Your brain feels slow, like you're trying to wade through sludge to find the words, yet though won't leave the tip of your tongue.
Jimin lets you slide down the wall to sit on the floor, as he rushes to move chairs and barricades out of the way of the door.
"They couldn't keep you from me forever." He says breathlessly, glancing behind you as he works, keeping a wary eye out for staff to come rushing down the hall toward you.
The last chair falls away from the crumbling door, and with one crash of his shoulder against the rotting wood, Jimin successful clears your exit route.
He returns to crouch in front of you, eyes serious, palms cupping your dirty cheeks. "Listen to me, (Y/N)." He looks up at the sound of feet at the end of the corridor, and his words all string together in a panicked rush as he hauls you to your feet. "No matter what they made you think, you are worth saving. You are worth loving."
You feel the first prickle of emotion in your chests at his words, the first thing you have felt in months, and you open your mouth, glancing over at him as the shouts of doctors can be heard growing ever and ever closer.
"Jimin-"
He pushes you toward the door, and the sunlight makes you stumble and blink hard, but you manage to stay upright without his help.
Your fingers fumble along the cool stone of the walls that line the outside of the building, and you trip over your own feet, almost going down, before you feel the warm splay of Jimin's fingers against the small of your back, guiding you away from the building, away from the screaming of the alarms, away from the calls of the staff, desperately trying to locate the two of you.
The feel of the wind in your hair, the smell of the sea as you allow Jimin to guide you, stumbling and falling, down the embankment, away from the asylum, makes tears spark in your eyes.
The outside world never left.
You were unfairly taken away from it.
You're both breathing hard when you reach the edge of the woods, see the trail that leads into the gloom, away from this place-with its doctors and electrodes and restraints-and you allow yourself to let out a sigh of relief.
You want to turn, to see Jimin beside you, to feel his dark strands beneath your fingers, see the way the relief hits his caramel eyes, the curve of his full lips, the white of his teeth.
Maybe you are crazy, but Jimin has never thought so. Never blamed anyone for the way you are except those who needed to be held accountable.
You shiver at the thought of your father and brothers.
Fingers encircle your wrists gentle, and the warmth of Jimin's body presses against your back, making you feel warm after so many months of cold isolation, and the way his lips press into the juncture of your shoulder has your heart beating a million miles a minute.
"I'm so sorry." He murmurs beneath the shadow of the trees, all the chaos you have left behind forgotten for just a moment, as the two of you soak in each other's presence. The pads of his fingers stroke across the rope burns that mark your wrists, and you wince, and you feel him stiffen against you. When he speaks again, his words are different, tinged with anger. "You never should have been put through any of that."
You move in his arms, desperate to turn to face him, to see his face between your palms, to assure him that you have never, ever blamed him for any of this, but the sound of a click has you freezing in place, Jimin's fingers suddenly tightening around your wrists.
The air has changed. It's electric with tension and danger, and you feel like a deer, about to bolt from a dangerous predator.
"Jimin-" You start to whimper out his name, but he shushes you, hands releasing your wrists to cover your eyes with gentle fingers.
His lips brush the shell of your ear, and when he speaks, his voice is low and eerily serious. "Whatever you do, do not turn around."
Your mouth opens, as if to ask him what he means, what caused the sudden change in the air, what has made you suddenly feel as if you've been dunked in freezing water, but before you can so much as form words, Jimin's fingers are leaving your eyes, his lips forming the soft, hushed words of I love you, and he's shoving you away from him, causing you to trip and fall and tumble down the slope and into the darkness of the woods.
There is the sound of a gunshot.
And though your broken brain wants to believe this is just another one of many fever dreams, the sudden breaking of your heart, and the anguished, strangled cry that leaves your lips, are testaments that it's all too utterly and irrevocably real.