fe_male | memeboxing

[ She can wait. She's good at waiting, as this conversation has made very clear. It's an ability learned on stakeouts and with her bond and his quiet evasion and in prison, and here it's serving her in very good stead. She can wait even when the results aren't worth it, and in this case they are very very worth it.

She doesn't really visibly react to him agreeing, because that's not out of the woods yet. It's a chance at helping him, but one that she can't be certain will help. She won't start feeling better about the whole affair until she knows one way or another, can be positive that he's feeling better, that he can handle this more easily. Her ultimate goal is to make it so that he's able to handle everything by himself, without help, and not need her help at any point. Not because she doesn't want to be here, but because more than anyone she knows the impermanence of things. People die, or are forced out of your life, and she wants to know that no matter what he will be okay. ]

I know I don't have to. [ It would be peremptory if she wasn't so carefully moderating how she says things, because of course she doesn't have to. She doesn't have to do anything. ] I want to do what I can. I know not everything can be fixed. But most things can be improved.

[ At least Tony doesn't tend to go for quiet, unobtrusive evasion so much as 'Hey! Look over here! Look! I'm avoiding the subject!' kind of evasion. That probably helps a little bit with things.

He would argue that actually right now he doesn't need help either because he's totally capable of functioning like this, he's functioned like this for years, and in other, similar states for different reasons for even longer. He'd argue that, but it would be sort of half-assed, because it's blatantly incorrect and he doesn't have the energy to put into any real defensiveness right now. ]

Some things, anyway. Hard not to improve on all this, I guess.

[ It definitely seriously helps. He may think it's distracting, but really it's just alerting her to the fact that there is a problem if she hasn't already noticed. It makes her a lot more confident in knowing that if there's a problem, she'll realize it sooner rather than later.

As for that, there's a difference between functioning and living and yeah, exactly, it's blatantly incorrect. She would be very unimpressed with that particular argument. ]

The only things that can't be improved are the things outside your control. Circumstances, surroundings. If you do want to try, obviously I'm willing to help.

[ Yeah, the day he learns that all that avoidance actually clues her in to things more than not, he'll... probably not actually be able to stop doing it, but he'll be annoyed with himself when he notices that he is.

Reasons he does actually keep some of his thoughts internal. ]

How would - how would we do it?

[ She doesn't intend on ever mentioning that to him. It seems like a not great idea, because she's pretty sure he'd at least try to stop and that would get frustrating fast. She happens to think it's a good thing, her being able to read things from him.

And there's the million dollar question, isn't it. She's come up with a few options and discarded them in her head, trying to determine what would work best, what's the most likely to function as a means of helping. ]

Whatever you think would work best. I don't want to - you know best what would be most likely to cause more problems than the obvious.

[ What she's saying is true, but for reasons she's not entirely privy to, it's entirely implausible. He's not even to the point yet where he can consider a handful of scenarios and pick which one is least damaging and most likely to work - all he'll do is get bogged down in the scenarios.

So when he looks at her, again, finally, it's not like he did when she first voiced the idea but more like a visible placing of his trust in her expertise here. It's very thin, tentative, tightrope walking trust, with a thick, dense cloud of 'But I'll need so much help, I don't know how to do this.' surrounding it.

And this is effectively what he was hiding from her. This brokenness, this fear, all of this anxiety and inefficiency. She managed to wade through the rest of everything else and now he's more or less one hundred percent open to her, and while that should be terrifying, all he's feeling is a little numb. Like it'll hit later, but right now while it's happening that would be too much to handle. Self-defense mechanisms - Tony's built out of the things. ]

I can't - think... of them. I just loop in the memories, it doesn't ever - it doesn't go that well. [ oh well nice idea maybe some other time ] I don't care how we... - as long as there's no water. We can't start with water.

[ It's a lot of openness indeed, but it's what she was asking for and this - she knows this. The brokenness, the fear, she knows it inside out. It's almost reassuring in its familiarity, and that sounds bad but it's more that all the evasion and the refusal she didn't know what to do with but she knows a lot more about how to handle this, right now.

Well, somewhat more. She's still not anywhere near certain but her calm and surety is a little less faked now. ]

No water, no, I don't think that would really help. It's okay, you don't need to think about it. I'll walk you through it. [ A pause, giving him a moment, and then she reaches out and strokes her thumb along the back of one of his hands, a calming gesture hopefully. ] The first step is somewhere you feel safe and in control. The shop, I'd guess. Maybe your bedroom?

[ It's hilarious that she can't get to this part confidently but can handle it once it's here no problem. Mostly no problem. Sort of. Most people are the other way around, i.e.: I want all of the things! and then But how do I hold all these things? And right now while he's definitely less convinced of things than he was before - and that wasn't a whole lot to begin with - he's also without the next part, the handling of it. His went more in reverse, with the overwhelming part just followed by even more paralysing overwhelming parts.

He thinks about that, because the instinctive reactions - again - are highly contradictory. He's had a near-constant state of hyperawareness for a long time now, which doesn't lend to feeling super safe anywhere. He also doesn't want to ruin any of the handful of places he does feel at ease. The workshop is sanctuary, so it's immediately out. He supposes the bedroom isn't a terrible idea - clearly the sleep/interrupted sleep cycles that happen there are a decent indication of balance. Maybe. He doesn't know. ]

Yeah. That one. [ He's far less opposed to the gesture than he might have been just a few minutes ago. He doesn't react a whole lot - there's enough other things begging for reaction right now; it's not the time to start paying attention to them - but that just means he doesn't pull away anymore. ]

[ About as close to no problem as anything is likely to get in this particular scenario anyways. But yes, it's easier once she uncovers what she knows is beneath. It's a matter of what she's accustomed to. The people who had needed an empath's help hadn't come to her until they were already at this point.

The possibility of ruining something that does work for him is one of the ones that concerns her most. She hates that she's going to have to help personally, because there's always the chance it backfires and he can't look at her anymore, and what then? She doesn't know. But it has to be tried, for his sake. ]

Okay then. [ She stands, moves closer to his chair. ] Come with me? [ Certain to make it a request, leaving it up to him still. Every motion he makes has to be his choice. ]

[ See, and if anything, it's the fact that she is an empath that made him want to hide it even more from her. Not because he was more worried she'd find out - even he was aware of the cold reality that eventually, on a night like tonight, there were just aspects of hiding something that fundamental and living with another person that don't allow for cohabitation - but because he was worried that she would be more sensitive to it on a purely empathic level. That whatever aspects of it he could actually, legitimately not handle, would radiate out and seep into her shields through whatever unbonded connection they managed to have. While he doesn't ask for help well, if at all, it was fear that his problems would wind up hurting her that was an almost larger motivating factor. Almost.

And oddly, that aspect of 'ruining a good thing' hasn't even occurred to him. The idea that if this doesn't work, he'll have transferred some of all this bullshit onto her - it's not even figments. He's not thinking like that at all, so it's probably good that one of them is, just in case. If that were to happen, it would take him completely by surprise. (Although her apparently having been prepared for it and having obviously not told him about that possibility would probably just make him angry, on top of being angry it didn't work, on top of being frightened of the issue in the first place... That would be very bad in general.)

He's gone back to watching her carefully, now she's in motion, and while he deliberates for one second, he's very aware that if he stops to do that too much, he'll have enough time to talk himself out of it, which would just mean never doing it, ever. So he stands just a second after she asks, nodding slightly. ] Okay.

[ That's an instinct she can understand, all too well. When problems are this big and this deep, it's easy to imagine all the ways someone else would be affected by revealing them and decide not to reveal them. It would be too much, they wouldn't know how to handle it, it would hurt them to know. There are infinite amount of reasons to not seek out help, and only a few very important ones to ask for it.

She's just going to have to hope a great deal that it doesn't backfire on her like that at all, because she's gambling a great deal on this - it's her happiness she considers at stake should his brain decide that she's caused problems and therefore she's part of the problem. She doesn't really know what she'd do, but she has to try. She has to. There isn't any other choice, here, because this is the sort of thing that takes it's time building but eventually crushes you under it's weight. It has to be fixed somehow.

She moves backwards a little bit, still watching him, her movements steady and measured as she starts to walk towards the stairs. She knows the spaces of the workshop inside and out by now, it's not hard at all to walk it backwards and watching him. ]

[ A few very important ones that are so important and glaring that even in the midst of 'oh I can't bother other people with this' you still doubt even that decision and wind up leaving bread crumbs all the way to where you are so that they wind up being involved anyway. Important reasons she's quite good at pointing out.

His brain is doing a lot right now that's out of his own control, but at this point she's such an ingrained aspect of life that he could likely fistfight whatever subconscious thing would be happening there and make it listen to him. He's very good at rationalizing - it's how he lives with some of the choices he makes - and effectively anything he actually takes the time and effort to put all that mental powerhousing into. Even if it's himself. That phoenix metaphor holds true in a myriad of manners.

He's still following her. He's made the decision and he'll stick with it unless something spooks him again and he runs off. It's fairly antsy movement, eyes not settling on any one thing so much as looking at her and then the ground and then things on the wall and then maybe back at her and then the wall and then her and the floor, the things. ]

[ She has to be good at pointing them out - who else is going to? Pepper or Rhodey, maybe, but he's managed to successfully dodge them for a while. There's no guarantee they'd be able to make him listen.

That's what she's banking on, but there's a lot less certainty in her own evaluation of how much she's a part of his life than he has because she's bad at realizing that, bad at being able to understand her place in things and what exactly it is she means to him. It's - complicated. Everything tends to be like that with them, though, doesn't it?

Guiding him by hand would she thinks be a bad idea, but she watches him closely and stays in his immediate orbit, prominently leaving the door to the bedroom open after they step inside. An escape route, should his brain at some point decide he needs one. Now that they're both here comes the next step, though. ] It would be best if however we do it, I'm not on top of you or trapping you in any way.

[ Right now he's at all states of high alert, so it's probably a better idea to avoid touching him altogether until they're ready to actually get started. He's already having a hard time working out whether he wants to be able to see the door - which would likely mean having her between him and it - or whether he wants to be closer to the door, even though that would mean having it out of his immediate field of vision.

Literally everything about them is complicated in stages and avenues beyond what any naturally occurring thing ought to be able to find.

At any rate, he sort of belatedly nods to indicate he's still listening to her, although he's a little preoccupied taking breaths that are slightly too big and trying to figure out all of these adrenal reactions happening to process it too much beyond that level. ] That'll make the positioning awkward.

[ If he mentions that, she'll try to figure out a way that he can see it and not have her between him and it. There's probably a way, even if it'll only make the positioning more awkward. It can be sorted. She doesn't really care what she has to do, here. She's gotten this far and she's not going to give up or gain any qualms or reservations now. Whatever it takes to help him, she'll do it.

It's kind of impressive that at any point in time they managed to come together long enough to start establishing enough of a relationship to get past the complications. ]

Little bit, maybe, but we can figure it out. [ She sits down on the side of the bed, offers him her hand. ] It'll be okay.

[ He likely won't until he's already starting to flip out about it. Right now he feels like he's revealed plenty enough vulnerability and weakness and he's starting to feel like he's leaking or something and he doesn't realize that saying it to her now, relatively calmly, would be better than blurting it out after it's clearly started to really bother him.

Yeahhhhhhhh. They're a very special pair.

That too, he eyes first, evaluating, sizing up, then slowly takes it, lowering to sit on the edge of the bed, about three-quarters facing her. ] Yeah. Yeah, it- [ Breathe. Breathe. You still can, so breathe. ] It'll be fine.

[ It would definitely be far better, really, but she'll consider it a victory that he's here sitting on the bed with her as she pulls one leg up onto the bed and angles her body towards him, fingers warm around his as she just holds onto his hand for a bit, lets him settle into this space. She doesn't want him to necessarily psyche himself up for it, but she does want him to have the time to sit right here and adjust to it for a bit before she tries to add anything new to it. ]

Do you trust me?

[ It's not an academic question. She knows he does to pretty strong extents, but this is - something else. And regardless, she wants the confirmation of it said out loud, for both of their benefits, wants him to remind himself that he does, along with the almost as important motive that she doesn't want him to simply sit here and think about what they're about to do. She'll direct their conversation, then, for both of their sakes', work slowly on guiding him into this. ]

[ She has so many good ideas, really. It's amazing how many good ideas she has, and how well she can figure him out, because psyching himself up for this and dwelling on what's about to happen are both exactly what he's going to do if left to his own thoughts and patterns, and while neither one of them is particularly helpful, they happen to be even worse in that they actively prevent the other from progressing, while simultaneously not letting the other cease. He's very good at closed-circuits.

So the question sort of takes him by surprise, for a number of reasons, but most of them flutter right out on the pitter-pat of his too-fast heartbeat as he looks at her again before replying. ]

Yeah. [ And he doesn't sound surprised so much as he does like he's reminding himself, just like she was hoping. He trusts her. He doesn't have to worry about this turning into something out of his control again, not when she's actually attempting to wrest control back for him out of the chaos. He trusts her to help him like that, and it's scary, and it's new, but it's the truth. ] Yeah, I trust you.

[ It's a mixture of knowing him and having done not precisely this but similar things before. If you're going to do homebrewed psychiatry on someone in an attempt to get them back into fighting shape, generally you get the resident empath to do it.

Mostly, though, it's that she does know very well how he works by now, and she's almost always adjusting for it whether she actively even realizes it or not. Right now she definitely realizes what she's doing though, is making almost every movement terribly deliberately. She nods at the agreement, holds her hands palms up in plain view. ] Okay. I'm not going to do anything without telling you first, all right? Nothing happens without your permission. That's the rules.

[ She brushes against his mind for a moment, closes her eyes and then opens them again, a reminder that she's not going to leave him alone in any sense, that she'll be paying very careful attention. ] How we do a safe word is entirely up to you. [ The more choice left up to him, the better. He can't go into this feeling like she's made all the choices. ]

[ That's good, because he's watching her very carefully. He doesn't want to be taken by surprise (not that he really thinks she would do that, but, still) and he still doesn't quite know what to be expecting, so. Complete observer mode, because observation - if it's done well enough - means you don't actually have to think about what you're looking at.

He nods in response to her first statements, feels the familiar and comforting presence of her mind just afterwards. His own is in relative tumult, just behind the shields he still has up (actually, his shields are quite strong at the moment, where he's instinctively or actively holding them up. It's not a strength issue at the moment in as much as it is simply having them in the right places) - having her own mind so close is moderately calming, although really, right now, there's not a whole lot that can be done one way or the other.

It takes a second to swallow down the tightness in his throat though. ] Color. It'll - we can use color. I'll send it if I can't - [ Well, if he can't say it. Somehow he thinks that might be a problem, but he should be able to send her something as simple as a color. It doesn't need to be complicated. ]

[ She reaches her hands slowly to his, covers them with her own and smooths her fingers across his skin slowly, back and forth. A soothing gesture, and also one calculated to keep it in his mind that her hands are nothing to be afraid of, that they are used only with the aim to help him. Reminders, first, before she does anything. ]

Okay, a color. I'm going to drop my shields. [ Not entirely, not really, because there are memories brought up by this best kept behind heavy walls and under lock and key, but overall she's leaving her mind fairly open to him, not trying to hide. ] What color?

Black. [ Screw red. Fuck red, he likes red, red's a great color. Black was what everything faded to when he finally passed out. Black was all the shadows everywhere because it was a cave, and even allegorically caves are full of shadows. Black seems appropriate.

And at first her dropping her shields just makes him feel anxious, because he knows his own aren't awesome right now and he doesn't want to overwhelm her or anything by accident. But it's not so bad, after a few moments. She seems to be okay still, he's not knocked her on her ass or anything, so that's good. He nods, but it's small and quick, tentative but definitive regardless, somehow. ] Okay.

Okay. Black it is. [ Confirmation, firm enough that it's certain she knows exactly what he said and isn't going to forget it at all. She's moving slowly for a reason, painstaking as possible to ensure that at no point she forgets something or does something wrong and makes him worried.

And it's more than a little bit of input to handle from him, dizzying somewhere in the back of her head, but she can handle it. She has to right now, for him, so she'll be able to. She won't accept anything else. ] Are you ready?

[ That is a very long pause while he double and triple checks everything he can possibly think of, and that's totally what he's doing, it's not a stalling tactic at all, okay, because they've gotten to this point so far and it's not like he's going to back out now but he's not sure how he's going to proceed either.

But eventually, he does, because it's a pause not a stop, and he swallows ineffectively, because it feels like there's a rock in his throat now, it's already tight and they haven't even started. It's still another very slight nod though, either way, and a fairly quiet answer. ] Yeah.

[ It's okay, whether it's stalling or just being absolutely certain she can wait a little bit. She could wait for anything right now, just to be positive that he's going to be okay with this. ] Okay. Take a deep breath.

[ She waits until he's followed her instructions to raise one hand to his throat, just touching it for the moment because she wants the first moment to not be dangerous to him at all. Also she needs to shift her position, tucking her knees beneath her to give her a little bit more leverage so that she has the right angle to work with. ] I'm going to try something now, all right?

it's ok i'm here to help remind you should you ever consider it again

it was genuinely fun though

stop reconvincing yourself you know that's a bad idea

okayyyyyyyyy ;;

it'll be okay i promise

okay i trust you

i can be responsible for you then

okaaaaaaaaay

<3<3 /pets

/purrs

if you're going to purr i'm just going to keep petting you

i sense a cyclical thing happening here

at least it is a very awesome cycle

this is true

/pets forever

/keeps purring

/falls asleep on

we can just say we've been sleeping for the last... five days.

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