#ptsd tw

[honeydewdrops333]

what doesn’t kill you makes your nervous system more sensitive for the rest of your life

[lizardho]

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about some of the people I interact with. I have a coworker who I am pretty sure is a MAGA type, and she is also a lovely woman who is dreadfully overworked and so good at connecting to patients when they call. I can see the conflict on her face when she talks to me, a gigantic tranny dork who speaks Spanish and affirms the LGBT community, but can also talk to her about her cows and knows about guns and stuff. I can see the fear in the eyes of my former Young Men’s leader when he misgenders me and realizes that I’m not an ideology but a person he has known for a long time. I can see the way my extended family stop and stutter over political discussions when they realize they are talking about me. And I don’t know why but lately it’s just made me think about my neighbor as a kid.

When we moved to Arizona, we moved next door to a lovely retired couple - John and Lucy. John was a veteran of WWII, he had an M.D. and a Ph.D. in radiology, and he LOVED us to pieces. His wife, Lucy, was a sharp and gifted woman - well spoken, very observant, and VERY clever. I just know that she used that cleverness as a mom to great effect, because with my and my siblings she always managed to find a way to send us home with candy and treats for a week despite my dad’s protests. We loved them, growing up, and even though they have long-since passed away I love them still, and I love what I learned from them.

John was, as stated, a WWII veteran. He was enlisted as a rifleman, and later as a front line medic, starting at Point Du Hoc and moving inwards to France and towards the Rhine. He let me do a report on him in 6th grade where he shared war stories with me he had kept to himself his whole life - he said it was out of respect for his friends who didn’t get to come home and tell their stories.

He said he told me because he knew I could respect the memories of his friends.

He showed me his collection of medals, and which he’d kept hidden away in a sock in his attic because he’d feel an immense grief any time he saw them. He had wanted to be a doctor his whole life, prior to being drafted he was studying medicine and had taken the Hippocratic oath to Do No Harm. He saw his medals as a reminder that he had Done Harm.

After telling me his stories he was able to convince himself that while he had Done Harm, it was only because his only other alternative was, to him, cowardice. He chose to be brave even if it meant acting against his Oath because he felt that if he didn’t do it someone else would have to go in his place and he would be responsible for the harm that befell them. I don’t think that’s true, but for him it was and that was something no being on earth could have ever dissuaded him from believing.

He shared wild stories - melee combat on the beach, clearing artillery bunkers, receiving a Purple Heart for being injured in hand-to-hand combat with a Wehrmacht rifleman he said he felt pity for because they were the same age and he had to imagine the man he was fighting had been drafted just like him.

He shared how he was awarded a Silver Star for charging a machine gun nest, but shared that he was most proud of not killing anyone in the process. He threw a grenade with the pin still in it and when the machine gunners jumped to avoid being blown up they were killed by someone else so he didn’t have to do it. He took the machine gun and shot the other machine gun in that French field to pieces so he didn’t have to kill the people operating it. He said they were giving out Silver Stars like candy but I knew he was being modest.

He told me about being redesignated as a medic, about how he crawled for about 500 yards on his belly to rescue an injured tank driver, then threw him over his back and crawled the same 500 yards back (1000 yards total) to treat his injuries. He said he met the man in an Army hospital in England after his spine was broken by a high explosive panzer shell was fired through a hollowed out French farmhouse and landed about 20 feet away from him.

He told me about all the people he helped and saved as a medic, he told me about his work in radiology and research after the war. He showed me a hallway that was quite literally wallpapered with academic honors he’d earned as a researcher. He told me about how his first Fourth of July back was a horror show for him because fireworks and German artillery make very similar sounds. He told me about how he woke up in a cold sweat well over half a century later hearing the screams of German artillery men being burned alive with flamethrowers, or hearing his own voice apologizing to the young German soldier he stabbed in the heart at Point Du Hoc.

He told me that when he was asked to present at a medical conference in Germany 25 years after the war ended that he was so scared he couldn’t step off the plane, and that his wife had to hold his hand and lead/pull him with her. He said he was not scared because he was worried about being triggered, but because he knew that someone somewhere outside of that plane had the course of their life irreparably altered by his military service. That to someone out there he was the cause of immense suffering and harm. That some unwitting waiter could be the son of the Nazi Officer he stabbed in the heart with a 12-inch hunting knife. That some woman asking questions in the audience would be the daughter or widow of a man he sent to judgement with a .30-06. He was scared that they would hate him.

He knew what the Nazi’s had done, he knew better than anyone I’d ever met. He’d watched the documentaries, he’s seen the PoWs returning from camps, he’d seen the civilians massacred and tortured by their regime, but he also knew that among the monsters were people like him - idealistic 20-somethings who only wanted to make the world better and were ripped away from that life by the Nazi war machine. And he spent his whole life mourning the loss of innocence and peace that was forced on so many people by such a corrupt power.

To be honest I don’t know if I could do that, but he could. He told me he could still feel the dead and lost with him, both when he slept and when he woke. He told me he thought he’d go to his grave never having told a word of this to anyone. That the stories of him and his friends and allies would disappear silently with him and those like him. That he had wanted that until he realized that he didn’t have to sell out to share the stories - that he could give the stories away for free to someone who would love the people in them, and not just the content of them. He didn’t want his stories to be used as Patriotic Pornography by some TV network or magazine. He wanted the people he knew to be respected, he wanted their memories to be honored and loved, and he entrusted me, a 12-year-old “boy” to do that.

He told me for years afterwards that after telling me these stories that he slept better than he ever had. That by sharing the stories with someone who could hear Him over the din of victory and glory and honor and revisionistic history. Someone who could see the man in the story and not just see the plot of a battle being won. He wanted to be human, and he wanted the people he saw die to be human too - everyone, not just the people on his side. He wanted someone to see and to know the anguish of having to look someone in the eye as heartblood muddies the ground beneath them and hope that they understand that this was not an act of love or hatred but an act of desperation. To hope that you had just taken out One Of The Bad Ones instead of a medical student or a poet who had been drafted. He wanted me to see how hard he had worked since then to build a world without scarcity, to build a world of peace. He wanted me to know SO badly that the cost of violence, any violence, even necessary violence, is always ALWAYS paid by both parties involved.

I think about the rise of the new right wing - the new Nazi movement’s traction in politics, and I feel sad and scared - the world that Johnathan J Yobaggy, my neighbor, my friend, and my hero, worked SO hard to build is being done away with by people who do not understand the cost of the path they are entering. I can see brief moments of recognition in the eyes of some of the people I mentioned - The former young men’s president who immediately regrets misgendering me and hen he makes eye contact with me and sees Me staring back at him and not a faceless “ideology.” I can hear it in the voice of my uncle who quietly comes up to me to apologize for some homophobic comment he made absentmindedly. I can see it in the eyes of racists and sexists being interviewed on TV when they realize that they didn’t vote for a concept, they voted for a real thing. And honestly, I have mixed emotions about it. Because while I understand frustration with the status quo, the importance of basic human needs like affordable good and rent, and I know the fear that comes with feeling powerless, I also can’t help but grieve the endless wheel of history bringing us back to this God Damned Fucking Place again. I hope we can avoid this fate, not just for our sake but for the sake of everyone who has ever tried to make the world safer. For everyone who has ever tried to make up for human nature, for everyone who has ever placed themselves on the offering plate to protect others from the cruelty they know lies just under the surface of mankind’s tenuous grip on progress. I want SO badly for there to be a solution to this, for the people who idolize the Nazi party and the impact of fascism to see that the price of this path is paid in more than just blood but in soul. That they’re allowing themselves to be devoured too. I want for the centrists and the fence sitters and the idealists who want to “change it from the inside” to see how dangerous our politics have become. I want them to see that they’re losing the things that make them great in exchange for a security blanket that’s now become far far far too small to ever work for them again.

Safety found in the past is already gone, and safety found in the future is only as real as a daydream. That any ideology that promises that by “joining us now we’ll make things rough so we can make things safe in a decade” is a promise made by those who will not have to fight the battles they send you to.

I don’t know if America was ever really great, but as long as John was alive it felt great to me. There is no ideology that can replace a neighbor. No tax plan that can replace a friend. No grocery bill that can replace community and connection. No amount of budget cuts that can replace kindness. No amount of suffering from people I hate that will ever make more love. I don’t know how to make America great, but I know how to make my America great and it is not by selling out integrity and compassion and community and fucking humanity to make eggs and gas cheaper. It is by seeing and hearing the people around me. I’m not Mormon anymore, but I still know the value of mourning with those that mourn and comforting those that stand in need of comfort. I’m not Christian anymore but I still have Eyes That Can See and Ears That Can Hear. I want to make this all stop but I can’t stop the collective power of tens of millions of people so instead I listen to my MAGA coworker tell me about how sick her kid was last week. I make jokes with my Young Men’s leader. I hug my uncle. I let them see me fully, as a human and not an ideology. As a woman and not the concept of gender. As a whole person and not someone who can be easily summarized or boiled down into something short and quippy. And I let them know I can see them fully too, and I can see all their humanity as easily as they can see mine. I just have to hope that this works - that enough people can See and Hear the people in their lives who matter to them to bring them out of their personal world of forms and into the real world.

I am probably, honestly, just spiraling a little bit. I took my ADHD meds today and in addition to helping me focus they make me a little anxious so I doubt things are as bad right now as they seem. But just in case there’s any truth to the way things seem to be going, remember, and I mean this seriously: Be kinder to each other, be gayer, and read more Terry Pratchett.

And for the love of god day hello to your neighbor.

[ct-lambykins]

its fucked up how being unloved by a parental figure in your childhood makes you unlovable for the rest of your life

MDNI BLOG

[star-anise]

I really wonder if trauma theorists who say things like "Humans are the only animal that will be in a fright state when physically safe" or "the rest of the animal kingdom doesn't get PTSD" have ever, like

Do you think they've actually ever met an animal?

[altafirelight]

No Man Left Behind

Leon x Gn!Reader

Leon had always been cold. Fearless. Detached. As a seasoned agent, you’d known him since your early days as recruits. You often wondered if the last bit of Leon’s soft side had faded since rising in the ranks. Or maybe, the rookie in him was just waiting for a moment to come back out.

Set between RE2R and RE4R. Can be read as pre-slash/romance or platonic. Whatever the heart desires.

Word Count: ~3.6k

Tags/Warnings: ptsd, flashbacks, hurt/comfort, reverse-comfort, agent!Reader, touch-starved!Leon, vulnerable!Leon, cuddling, crying, sharing a bed, Leon needs a hug (and gets a hug), references to RE2R, references to Tyrant/Mr. X, angst, gender-neutral reader.

A/N: I’m back! And I come with Rookie(ish) Leon as my offering. Been busy but I haven’t forgotten about all the tasty asks waiting for me (which are always open, by the way!) Thought I’d write a little warm-up to get me out of my block which eventually turned into a full-blown fic. Hope whoever reads enjoys it! 🖤🩶🤍

You didn’t really understand Leon. Not for the first few years of knowing him, at least.

When you first met, you often wondered what Leon had seen. You and your fellow recruits couldn’t ignore how Agent Kennedy was years younger—and doubly less experienced with a gun—than the rest of your training group.

Leon seemed determined, but tired. His soft expression was coupled with a look in his eye that was too weary for someone in such an advanced cohort of soldiers. He seemed to mean well, even if he seemed far from approachable. Leon wore the face of a cold, hardened agent, and it didn’t really fit such a kind face.

You wondered during those first few days if training would change that.

Krauser worked the whole team hard. He made sure to beat any look of uncertainty out of Leon within the first three weeks of boot camp. When weeks turned into months, Leon only escaped his hardened exterior after-hours, when you and the rest of the group went out drinking or stayed up in the bunks playing cards.

After a year, all Leon seemed to utter out in between drills was a mouthful of sarcasm and actions that spoke louder than words. He grew cagey and cynical, but still couldn’t shake that look on his face when asked if he’d had another rough night.

By graduation into the next rank, Leon was stone-faced and far too good at his job for someone his age. After months of separation, you and Leon were assigned the same detail. After spending so long from your old training team, you never thought you’d get to work with him so closely again.

While you both immersed yourself in your new team’s culture, you picked up on the whispers about the new, silent soldier that joined their ranks. The one who reacted oddly to pats on the back and hands on his shoulders. The one who never smiled, never laughed, never raised his voice. Leon was colder than when you’d last seen him, but he didn’t hesitate to greet you when you first stepped into the office. It wasn’t long before the rest of the team began to talk.

I heard he survived something unthinkable.

Doesn’t seem like the socializing type.

I bet he doesn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.

Can a guy so young lose his humanity so fast?

Sure seems like it.

You couldn’t blame the rest of them. If it weren’t for the few moments of tenderness you’d witnessed during training, you would have thought the same thing. You often wondered if the last bit of Leon’s softer side had faded since entering into the secret service.

Or…maybe it was just looking for a moment to creep back out into the open.

You woke up abruptly, with a jolt of energy that matched the thunder crackling somewhere outside. Your eyes fell open to a dark room, silent aside from the raging storm. You bit back your panic, trying not to jump to the worst case scenario.

No danger, you thought to yourself. No mission. No training. You were home. Or the closest thing to it, at least.

You were lying on the couch in your apartment, fully furnished and provided to you by the government until they inevitably sent you somewhere else. Your thoughts drifted toward earlier that evening. You had a stack of paperwork, reviewing a joint case between you and Leon, and—

Leon. Right. Leon had come over, hadn’t he?

You hadn’t talked with Leon much since you’d both been assigned to your new team. He kept to himself, apart from a few polite acknowledgements. But…you knew you both hated writing out your reports, so you grabbed a case of beers after you punched out and told him to come check out your new place.

You remembered the two of you eating boxes of takeout on your couch and doing work until the rain hit the windows too peacefully. With the stress of the day drowned out by the cozy weather, you remembered Leon’s stone-cold stare, him dryly commenting at every drawn-out yawn. Always something like, tired of me already? Didn’t know I was so draining.

You felt the warmth of the woolly throw blanket you kept on the couch over your shoulders. Gears turned in your head. The rain must have lulled you to sleep without realizing it, a blanket had “mysteriously” found its way atop you, and Leon had finished up his work and saw his way out before the storm got bad. That made sense, right?

“Fuck,” you whispered to yourself, sitting upright and stretching out your limbs. “My back is gonna kill me later.”

As you rose with another round of thunder, you caught sight of your pile of work…and realized there was far too much of it to only be yours. As lightning lit up the room, you drifted over to two metal briefcases, side by side, where you and Leon left them earlier in the evening.

A hint of dread bloomed in your chest. Leon wasn’t one to forget things. But…did that mean he was still here? If he’d left things so quickly, maybe he had to leave abruptly. Or…maybe he was taken by force.

You knew that was impossible—that the building had top-notch security and not just anyone could get access to the fob for your suite. It was most likely that Leon had a mission he couldn’t miss. Or maybe he trusted you enough to take care of his things so they wouldn’t get wet in the rain.

You stood up from the couch, tried to push down the growing anxiety that swirled in your stomach. You looked for any signs of life in your living room, your balcony, and over toward your bedroom. You didn’t expect Leon to turn up at all, which made it all the more surprising to spot his familiar silhouette when turning into the dining room.

You couldn’t exactly melt with relief just yet. You stayed frozen in place and observed him. He sat perched backwards on one of your chairs, shoulders hiked up to his ears and a pistol balanced shakily on the chair’s back frame. Leon stayed hunched forward, the rapid rise and fall of his chest betraying his attempts to stay still. He had the gun pointed at nothing. He was too wired, too vigilant to have it pointed at nothing.

What the hell was happening?

“Leon,” you whispered, your hands falling to your sides to draw fire on instinct until you realized you had your gun locked in the safe back in your room. When the he didn’t answer, you called out again, a little more forceful. “Leon.”

The pistol flew back around before Leon could, and you recognized the laser-red light pointed toward your chest. When Leon snapped forward and met your eyes, he looked caught in another world. His glassy gaze adjusted—the fear brimming in them just as intense—and he suddenly looked beyond mortified.

You felt that anxiety morph more into confusion when Leon lowered the gun and stood up from the chair. He didn’t look like himself. Not the cold-hearted agent he’d grown to become. Not even the quiet recruit you met on day one.

“I was leaving,” Leon breathed out, voice low and raspy, trying to block out any semblance of emotion. “I was on my way out.”

“Okay,” you nodded, still trying to figure all of this out. You didn’t want to scare him off. “Leon, what’s going on?”

Leon looked like he was ready to run right out the door, but something was stopping him. Rain pattered down on the windows and roof, and Leon couldn’t stop looking towards the door like it was a portal to Hell.

“The footsteps,” Leon forced out. The words clawed their way out of his throat in a sickened whisper. “Can’t tell if he’s coming from—from above or below this time. If he stopped outside the door, the room is safe. But—you can still never be sure.”

…what?

You stood there, unsure of what to say. Leon stared through you, acting like any of his words made sense. Your body still couldn’t decide if there was an intruder on the other side of the door. Full with adrenaline, you crept closer.

“I don’t understand,” was what you finally said. Leon seemed to have no problem jumping into things again. It only made you all the more confused. “Who are you talking about?”

“I should’ve just killed him. I keep trying but it’s like the bastard’s immortal. I don’t know how else to lose him. It’s like I…”

What the hell was he talking about? You didn’t cover immortal stalkers in training. Leon kept the gun raised, eyeing the door like someone might bust in at any moment. Looking at him felt like watching someone teetering off the edge of a tall drop. You tried not to get frustrated.

“I can call the lobby and get them to check the cameras if that’s what you want,” you reassured him. You still had your hands held above you on the off-chance he decided to shoot. And what an incident report that would be. “Can you please put down the gun?”

Leon didn’t look like a secret service officer. He looked like a man too shell-shocked to hold a pistol properly, as if he’d barely used the thing. Any instinct pounded into him from boot camp was gone.

“There’s no one to call,” Leon whispered back, desperate, “No cameras. Power’s out. There were other officers when I first came in, but I couldn’t—”

It clicked for you.

“Leon,” you cut him off, trying your best to keep his attention. “Look at me. Do you know where you are?”

Leon met your eyes intensely, now evidently disoriented. It felt like talking with someone who wasn’t fully awake. Something in his eyes changed, from threatened to utterly defenceless. Leon looked far too young to be an agent for a moment, then his body turned boneless. His shoulders drooped.

“I don’t…”

Leon ran one hand through his hair, covered his eyes with the other. A whimper left him, soft and vulnerable. You tried to internalize the shock that Leon looked like he was about to burst into tears in your dining room.

“You’re with one of your own,” you layed out the facts, slipped back into work mode. That was all you could do for him until he agreed to touch you. “You’re with an agent, Kennedy. Stand down. There’s no threat.”

Fully lucid, Leon let the gun hit the table softly. You moved swiftly and took it, hitting the safety lock and pushing it over to the other side.

“Sorry,” Leon choked on his words. His voice sounded higher, more emotive than the one you were used to. Despite trying to act more normal, Leon still looked like an absolute mess. “Shouldn’t have happened.”

You couldn’t help wondering if he meant that it shouldn’t have happened in general or just with you watching.

“You don’t have to worry,” you reached out toward his trembling shoulders. You let him step in and accept a hand on his back, even if it made him seize up. “What was that? A flashback?”

Leon’s lack of a response told you all you needed. You’d seen it in countless soldiers. The ones who’d really gone to war, the ones assigned to missions they weren’t meant to come back from. Flashbacks weren’t uncommon in your line of work. Neither was the paranoia and the shame that came with it.

You just…you didn’t expect Leon to experience them. Not this viscerally. Maybe you’d pegged him all wrong.

“Can I touch you again?” You asked. Leon barely nodded, head still in his hands. You cautiously rubbed at his shoulder, down to his bicep. He stared down at you with big, fearful eyes. “There you are. You okay? You with me?”

That question seemed to push him over the edge. You still didn’t regret asking.

“I’m an agent,” He muttered, as if he was trying to remind himself of the fact, “I’m an agent. It’s my job to do this. Why can’t I just do my job without—”

The younger, more doubtful version of Leon jumped out at you with such vulnerability, it made your heart want to break open. Like paper, he crumpled in front of you with a broken sound.

“Hey, hey. You’re okay. Take a few breaths,” you murmured, “Happens to the best of us. You don’t need to feel any shame about it.”

What you didn’t want to say was that you’d tackle anyone who tried to come in here. Leon’s breaths sounded heaving and wet and frustrated. You sat him down in one of the dining room chairs, pulling another one close to him. Leon’s heartbeat hammered away in his chest. He kept a flat hand pressed right above his diaphragm. He turned away from you, as if he couldn’t bear to have someone else seem him without his walls.

“You remember what they taught us during training?” You ghosted a hand over his shoulder. He shivered, but nodded. Without looking at you, Leon’s hand moved to grip yours. You assumed that was his way of asking you to lead. “On my mark, alright?”

The next 15 minutes was filled with grounding techniques designed for even the most wounded of soldiers. You tightened and released each muscle, let rounds of controlled breathing calm both your bodies down.

When Leon could sit in his chair without trembling, you snuck out of his iron grip and got him a glass of water. He still seemed too embarrassed to comment, too withdrawn and drowning in old memories to be more like himself.

Leon’s heartbeat still hammered against the palm of your hand on his back, even after he drank the water you gave him. Thunder rumbled steadily outside, keeping the two of you trapped in the bubble that defined your apartment.

“Feeling more grounded?” You asked cautiously. Leon let out a shaky breath, turned away from you like a wounded predator. He didn’t want you to see, even though you were far past that point.

“Yeah,” Leon swallowed his pride to respond. He sounded like he’d rather be swallowed up than perceived. “Thanks.”

A part of you wondered if he’d tell you about the immortal man he thought he heard outside your door. Perhaps Leon couldn’t sleep back at the camp because he was afraid of being pursued by something he couldn’t shake. If you asked, maybe it would open a part of him up.

Before you could, Leon stiffened under your arm’s length when rain rhythmically hit the windows. You decided against it.

“I think you should stay over,” you said instead. Leon looked up at you in disbelief. “It’s late. It’s pouring. And…” you stared at the gun sitting just out of reach. “I don’t think you should hold that thing right now.”

Leon laughed, soft and cynical, just a little too insecure. “I’ve already overstayed my welcome.”

“I’m your equal,” What kind of an agent would you be if you didn’t take care of a fellow soldier in need? “You don’t get to decide when you’ve overstayed your welcome. I want you to stay.”

“Why? Can’t leave me to lick my wounds by myself?” Leon was back to his colder persona. You could tell he was trying to push you away. It wasn’t going to work.

Because I care,” You tried to get it through his stupid, self-sacrificial skull. “Because I’m worried about you. I know you like to work alone. It doesn’t mean you have to do this alone, too.”

That seemed to strike a nerve. Leon’s face went from cynical to uncertain. You wondered about the last time someone had told him that. You wouldn’t ask about that, either.

“Fine,” Leon breathed out, eyes closed as he tried to wrangle his breathing under control. “Okay. Fine. Just—tell me when to go. I’ll go.”

Within one evening, your expectations of Leon had fizzled. Cold-hearted, quiet, arm’s-length Leon followed you into the bedroom more like a lost puppy than a trained agent. He dropped the scowl when he thought you weren’t looking, and never seemed to pick it back up.

As Leon stood behind you, the first thing you did was stick his pistol in the safe. As much as you wanted Leon to feel at ease, you didn’t want any bullets flying around so early after joining your new assignment. You passed him a pair of men’s shorts you didn’t remember having. Leon kept his t-shirt on. He turned his back while you changed.

Leon’s aura of uncertainty spoke louder than words. Your bed was big enough for two, and you were sure the two of you had slept in places far worse during your time in the military. Still, he stared at the bed like he’d never gotten into one.

“I can take the couch if it’s too weird,” you offered, knowing full well that the thing wasn’t nearly comfortable enough for that. Thankfully, Leon shook his head. You both settled under the covers and flicked the lights off.

Leon next to you looked stiff as a board. He stared up at the ceiling with stormy eyes, arms crossed tight over his chest. You wondered if he was still embarrased about earlier. He hadn’t said a word since he thanked you for the shorts.

After a few minutes of staggered breathing beside you, you realized sleeping next to him would be impossible without some kind of confrontation. You couldn’t take seeing him look so—you couldn’t put your finger on it—afraid? Alone?

“Come here,” you outreached your arms, and Leon rolled over, eyes crinkled with confusion.

“What?”

“Come here,” you repeated. A detached hand on his shoulder wasn’t going to cut it anymore. “You look like you need it.”

Leon looked ready to argue, but something about your tone of voice, the look on your face in the near-darkness shut him up. Hesitantly, he scooted forward until your arms filled up with his presence.

Leon gasped when you wrapped around him fully. You squeezed until he breathed back out again, a whine coming out with it. Your hands went to his neck, his hair, softly down his spine. His shoulders shook under your gentle grip, excess adrenaline escaping as his body as he finally started to relax.

“Was I right?” You asked knowingly. You paused when a pair of eyelashes pressed against the crook of your neck. They blinked something soft and wet onto your skin. “Hey…hey, I’m sorry. Too much?”

You didnt expect him to cry. You didn’t expect much of this at all, but here you were.

“I haven’t—” Leon hiccuped soft against you. You’d never seen him so fragile. “Haven’t felt like—no one’s done this in a long time.”

Leon dug himself deeper into your skin, hungry for it like oxygen. Was he really that touch-starved? You had your moments of feeling lonely, but you always had your fellow recruits. Hands on shoulders, pats on the back, huddling for warmth, visiting each other’s bunks when nights got to be too daunting.

But Leon never had that, hadn’t he? He’d closed himself off from day one. You always thought he didn’t want to be bothered. Your chest tightened. Right now, Leon seemed so lonely. How much of this had he weathered alone?

“You know I’m here, right?” You murmured into his hair, hands rubbing circles into his back. “You have people in your corner. People at the office wonder about you. They care. You can let us in.”

Leon squeezed his eyes shut, and uneven breaths turned to quiet sobs. You could tell he didn’t believe you. Or maybe was scared to. You rested your head against his and let him release it all into the darkened void of your bedroom.

“They all think I’m a monster,” his voice wavered, his breathing quick and wobbly. “I know what they think about me. I can tell.”

You had no idea that Leon was so worried about what people thought. He harboured enough guilt to tear him up, inside and out.

“There are professionals, too. Military doctors. Meds,” You tried to soothe him like you would a civilian caught up in the crossfire. “They can help with the flashbacks. If you get them often, it wouldn’t hurt to talk to someone.”

You could tell Leon didn’t like the idea before he even opened his mouth to speak. You hoped you weren’t making things worse. You just…you didn’t expect him to crumble so easily.

“They can’t know,” Leon muttered with defeat. “If they find out…if they have any leverage on me, they’ll throw me out. They can’t think I’m unfit. The people I’m trying to protect will…”

“Who?” You asked softly. You wanted so desperately to understand. Understand him. “Who’s they?”

Leon stiffened under your embrace. “It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have said anything. Forget it.”

“Leon—”

“Please just forget it. Please. I can’t drag another person into this.”

He sounded serious. You had no idea how much pressure he’d been under. He was cold and calculated for a reason. Leon had people he loved, people he thought were more worthy than his own life and comfort.

A surge of guilt rippled through you. If only the others knew.

“I won’t tell anyone,” you reassured him, “Your secret’s safe with me, okay?”

“Thank you,” he muttered back. “It’s not just you. I promise. I wish I could say, but—”

You realized tonight Leon was much more of a gentle soul than you first thought. A rookie with a heart of gold. A scared kid deep inside, as much as he was an agent.

“I’m here no matter what, though,” you made sure to tell him. “No questions asked. You can come over anytime.”

Leon almost cracked a smile at that.

“I’m sorry for dragging you into my shit,” He said quietly, though he didn’t pull away. Keeping his arms around you, Leon’s breathing finally slowed.

“What kind of an agent would I be?” You ran a hand through his dusty blond hair, scratching at his scalp until he let out a noise of relief. “No man left behind. Especially not tonight.”

The thunder raged on, but something about your room felt detached from the rest of the planet tonight. As Leon’s thoughts began to drift, you hoped the rookie in him was still listening.

A/N: Ahhhhh kicking Leon while he’s down and making someone take care of him NEVER gets old. Rookie Leon has a special place in my heart, poor baby :(( If you have any revolutionary ideas, do send them over. And please let me know if you enjoyed!🖤🩶🤍

[rp-meme-world]

Nightmare Starters (potential tw to tag: nightmare, night terror, ptsd)

❝ it's okay... it was just a nightmare. ❞

❝ it just seemed so real. ❞

❝ you were screaming. i had to wake you up. i had to. ❞

❝ i'm so tired of this. at this point i would rather just not sleep. ❞

❝ tell me about what happened. ❞

❝ it's okay. i'll stay with you as long as you need. ❞

❝ you need to see someone about this. this is not normal. ❞

❝ i'm so sorry. i didn't mean to wake you up. ❞

❝ wake up... hey! wake up! ❞

❝ it's okay. you're safe. ❞

❝ it was so scary. i couldn't move. i couldn't breathe. ❞

❝ hey. look at me. focus. just breathe. ❞

❝ how often does this happen to you? ❞

❝ i'm just so tired. i just want to sleep... ❞

❝ i can't stand to see this happening to you. ❞

❝ i hate seeing you like this. how can i help? ❞

❝ please let me help you. ❞

❝ i just woke up and it felt like there was this weight on my chest. ❞

❝ it wasn't even that scary, it just felt so real. ❞

❝ can you stay with me a minute? ❞

❝ i'm not going anywhere. you won't be alone tonight. ❞

❝ i'm sorry to wake you, i just... it happened again. ❞

❝ was it the same one again? ❞

❝ can we keep the light on? ❞

❝ it just felt like it was happening all over again. i can't shake it. ❞

❝ i really don't want to talk about it. can we just talk about something else? ❞

❝ don't touch me- please. please, i can't right now. ❞

❝ i swear... someone else was here. watching me. ❞

❝ i can't move. ❞

❝ you were hurt, and i... i couldn't get to you. it was awful. ❞

❝ do you want to talk about it? ❞

❝ i'm right here. you're safe. i won't let anything or anyone hurt you. ❞

❝ i understand it felt real... but i'm right here. i'm fine. ❞

[india422]

PERIOD!

This is in reference to a great post that talked about Vaggie's PTSD flashbacks as well as the other Exorcist she was embracing in one frame. And this comment is right: how are evil people that have been explicitly evil since the first time we've seen them, being "done wrong" by showing that they...are evil? And I also agree with this person questioning why it took them hurting someone that wasn't Vaggie for these people to finally realize that their favorite characters are not not bad people? You all hate Vaggie that much? Yeesh.

The tantrums that I've seen thrown on Twitter over these flashback scenes have been very concerning. They're extremely livid that more examples are being shown of their poor, wittle, psychotic favs acting like the terrible people that they are. I've also seen so many of them justifying the abuse Vaggie went through, whether it be while Vaggie was in the Exorcist army or that fateful Extermination Day where she was disfigured, and I'm really wondering how and why they think something like that is excusable. Again, your deep hatred for Vaggie is really clouding your judgement and critical thinking skills. Someone even made the disgustingly disturbing hashtag of #lutewasrighttomutilateher, and again...how are you all excusing something like this?

There were also people highly enraged by how the two were being shown, and responded by trying to do an entire whataboutism with Vaggie killing the Exorcists in defense of herself and the hotel crew. There's a tweet that said "lute may have slapped a few people around, but Vaggie has a few bodies herself." Yes, lute abusing the soldiers goes directly hand-in-hand with Vaggie killing angels in self-defense. Yep, totally makes sense. (This is entirely sarcasm). Did these viewers just expect Vaggie to go around and ask each Exorcist to not kill her and her friends? Vaggie and crew were completely in the right to prepare a way to defend themselves and act on it, especially since Adam let them know prior that he was heading down to destroy the hotel first.

Vaggie does not—in any way, shape, or form—owe lute a damned thing. She doesn't owe Adam a damned thing. She doesn't owe the Exorcists who were—in addition to coming down to attack Sinners and the hotel, anyway—instructed to try and bring her head back to Adam, a damned thing. She was well within her rights to defend herself, so she did.

To echo the last line of that comment, don't ever invalidate Vaggie's trauma. No matter who you do or don't like, do not invalidate trauma. Yes, this is a fictional character, but she's dealing with a very real thing/very real things that people can connect and relate to from their own experiences and realities. Invalidating this character's trauma shows that not only are you a jerk (and I'm being very nice with the word choice here), but it also shows a major lack of critical thinking skills and emotional intelligence regarding differences of perspectives.

It is completely fine to like villains—I'm not saying you can't, but recognize that villains are villains, and if they're shown doing something evil and/or wrong, then it isn't necessarily because the writer wants you to stop liking them or because they want the character(s) to "look bad;" it's because villains do bad things. Simple as that.

[vampire-bat-boy-inactive]

Anyone else with PTSD/Childhood trauma/strict parents have this fear of getting..."got"? Kinda like being constantly on edge because it feels like you're about to be reprimanded for something no matter what you're doing?

Oh no, I'm standing in my kitchen, in the apartment that belongs to me, eating cereal that I bought with my money and making a mess on the countertop that I clean, I'm gonna get killed for this