fe_male | memeboxing

[ Spooked animal is actually probably not that inaccurate - at any point when he feels threatened, that tends to be his initial reaction, and especially at times like this, when there's not actually anything to react to or get away from but himself. You can't be direct, you can't be too forceful, and if you take too long to come to a resolution, he's just going to run away again. It's pretty damn accurate. (And it's okay, because Sif thinks he's like an adorable little puppy anyway, so out of the two, there's one he'd rather be.)

And he gets the sincerity; he got that before as well, so now he just sort of tilts his head away from her, still looking at his lap, and continues to completely not know what to do. He's quiet for a little while, processing or deciding how he wants to proceed, whichever one and maybe both, before he finally answers her again. When he does, it's a pathetic attempt to deflect her yet again. ] How about you come back when you've figured out a way.

[ Meaningful conversations with him turn into a long slow climb upwards circling around a mountain, because getting anything out of him that isn't either not the truth or an evasion or some other way of attempting to redirect attention away from anything that might demonstrate he has any weakness is about as easy as squeezing blood out of a stone.

Like that, exactly like that. She probably should have seen that coming, and for a moment she does waver because the more she has to push the more uncertain she feels about whether she's doing the right thing here or just trying to fix him for her own sake. ]

I need your help. [ Quietly, softly. An appeal, almost, to please work with her, let her help him. ] I need you to talk to me.

[ There's really nothing I can say to that to make it any more accurate than the way you've already put it. Well done.

And it's okay though, he wants you to waver, particularly now that he's wavering, because he's still undecided about the whole thing and if you change your mind and decide for him it just makes things so much easier. He can be ridiculously juvenile and selfish, but she sounds like she's actually hurt by this - and she probably is, who knows, he can't tell at any given point how much she's picking up on and what actually is directly effecting her. He has his reasons for acting the way that he has been about it, but the longer she sits there, she doesn't even have to talk while she does it, the more and more they start feeling as though they're paling in her more starkly contrasting light. ]

What do you want to talk about? [ Because yes, she's going to have to drag it out of him, little bit by little bit, and he'll start somewhere else if she doesn't specify well enough. Whatever initial acquiescence she gets will be because he knows intellectually that this problem isn't fixing itself, not because emotionally he feels the need to reach out for help. ]

[ Thank you very much.

She dislikes the unsurety, though, and the way she feels sure that no matter how much she tries to make sure it doesn't it will bleed over into how she looks at him and the way she speaks. That needs to not be happen - she needs to be certain, right now, very certain of herself and what she's doing so that she doesn't hurt her chances to help him. It's important. She tamps down on it harsher, tries to make sure that there's absolutely no chance he can tell she's at all unsure. Gently she pulls her hand back from the table where it had been beside his until he withdrew his, resting both of her hands palms up on her knees, light and open and within easy reach, always. ]

What you were dreaming about tonight. [ Before he'd gotten up to go, before he'd woken up still affected enough that he'd had to force himself to breath, before he'd walked away again and she'd laid in bed trying to determine what was the best course of action. Her voice is still soft, but she does manage to sound sure of herself. She is taking the right course of action. She can help him. ]

[ He's rather awash within his own uncertainty at the moment, it's not that difficult to convince him that she's more sure of herself right now than she actually is. Which is, again, a good thing. One of them needs to be sure, or the spooked animal in the room is going to turn pink and flip out and run away. Sensing surety, even if it's false, is calming. It's grounding, and she is the way he grounds himself instinctively, so it works even better.

But that. He doesn't want to talk about that, and it's obvious from the way he shifts in the seat, slightly angled away from her, still looking down and everything else, after she finishes the sentence. He really doesn't want to talk about that, and he's fidgety, suddenly, slightly, and none of this does anything to prove that it's not in fact something that needs to be talked about. He mumbles a response, half lost before it gets to her because he's still looking anywhere but at her. ] Wasn't any different than normal. We've talked about it before. [ He thinks. Maybe they haven't and he's just assuming, because they've talked about other things he didn't want to talk about. ]

[ She can fake being sure, for him, until she actually is, because she is at least still certain enough that this is the right thing to know that even if she's not entirely positive she needs to act like she is. Doubt is a bad thing to bring when someone has problems and you're trying to help them with it despite them not wanting the help.

She's seen that physicality from him before, a few times, and every time she's been able to give him at least a little bit of help, ease him into being a little more comfortable. That helps, with the certainty. But she doesn't lean forward or do anything that might make it seem like she's trying to make him look at her, however much she wants him to. She can't push too hard. It's important to be careful. ]

We've talked about one specific dream. I'd like to know about this one. [ It's not a tone that indicates she can be swayed at all. They have talked about nightmares before, but it was once and he was as recalcitrant as he is now. She'd gotten some on that dream, but still. It didn't give her something to go on for this, not really. ]

[ It's a pretty sure fire way to ensure that they fight you harder on accepting it, that's for certain. But right now he's just sensing concern, sincerity, that she wants to help, whatever the problem. Right now he continues to not look directly at her, but he's at least occasionally glancing in her general direction, over at her lap, down at her hands, nothing distinct, but it's more than just a little while ago.

Beyond that, he's tense. He's been tense, but where previously it had been more of a defensive tenseness, now it's borne of simple unease. Talking about it means to go back through it, and he's actually pretty sure he doesn't want to do that right now. ] It's basically the same. [ Sort of. He doesn't actually remember all of what he told her last time, or whether she was told the information or showed it. ]

[ And all that concern and sincerity is stronger because that's what's the most important of what she's feeling, to her. He's looking now, at least a little, and she's pretty sure that's a good sign but he's still so tense and she doesn't think that's going to be any help to them going forward. She reaches out with one hand to touch his knee, just for a moment before she pulls it back. ]

Then tell me what makes it a nightmare. [ Because that's the important part. Dreams are dreams, and sometimes they're unpleasant, but it's fear that turns them into nightmares and she needs to know what it is he's afraid of to have any chance of helping him not be afraid of it. ] What makes it important enough to keep coming back?

[ She's really making it difficult to be evasive like he wants to be. Too specific, narrowing down her questions until she gets what she wants. And by this point, he just feels exposed even sitting here, with nothing happening, and sure he's aware that a large portion of that is probably because he's gearing up to actually share something that terrified him when it happened, and terrifies him every time he relives it.

He shifts again, still not seeking out comfort from her but less convinced he doesn't want it. He doesn't want it, but maybe not for much longer. It takes him a while to work himself up to actually speaking, and there's a handful things that look like he's about to start, and then he doesn't, again. Smooth, deep breathing, which was half the problem in the first place, so being able to keep doing it, even simple as it is, can help. ]

When I was... in Afghanistan, the t- [ Mmm, nope. Pause again. ] They wanted me to build them a missile. I said no. A lot. [ He said no for a long time before he said anything else. He was there for three months - nobody ever seems to think about the timelines. ]

[ If he's going to demand that she get specific to get any answers out of him, she's going to rise to that challenge. It makes sense, needing very specific questions to answer, because otherwise how do you even know where to start? So she's just going to keep on until she gets what he needs from this. If she can, at least.

He starts, he stops, and she waits, quiet and solid and steady as she can make herself, close by. There's a space after he finishes talking, her waiting to see if he's going to add anything else, and then she nods a little. ] And what happened when you said no? [ She knows, of course.

Not everything, entirely, but despite how drunk she'd been she still remembers him telling her about the waterboarding, a story for a story, a piece of the past for a piece of the past. But that might not be what this is, or if it is she wants to hear it from him, needs to hear how he's going to phrase this so that she can know what it is specifically that's causing the trouble. ]

[ Precisely. You need specificity as a series of stepping stones, otherwise all you're looking at is a vast expanse with no direction and lots and lots of natural disasters pending.

Right now, it's stepping stones so close together that it might as well be a paved walkway, but that's how he needs it in order to reach even a moderately uncomfortable status, anything low enough to actually talk. It's sort of like coaxing a story out of a small child, in terms of mechanics. Of course, there's very little about this that is like that in context. He pauses again, for a fair while, after that question, clearly not wanting to actually get to the specifics he's forced her into asking him for, and so it should be little surprise that when he does answer, it doesn't start off as much of one. ] They stopped hitting me after one of the wires to the magnet accidentally disconnected. Which - it sounds bad, but it was a good thing. Yinsen learned how to use it to stabilize bouts of v-fib, which was useful later. [ And suddenly he feels like he needs something to do with his hands. He's been fidgeting with them anyway, but he needs something to actually handle now, and he glances over the desk before leaning forward for some random part to roll over and over in his hands. ] I mean. Who has that much disposable water in the middle of the desert? You'd think they'd want to save it or something.

[ She can be a pathway right now, if that's what he needs. She'd be whatever he needed her to be right now, so long as it was still also her because ceasing to be herself wouldn't actually help. But she can be what he needs, right now. Even if he's not entirely aware that that's what she is. One foot in front of the other, each scrap of information he gives her another piece of understanding to fit into the puzzle of what's the problem.

There's a tiny hiss in of air at the first sentence, because she knows he was hurt, of course she knows that. She's not stupid, and they needed him to do something for them so they hurt him. It's a simple equation, and she hates it with every fiber of her being. She's always been able to rationalize what happened to her as a direct result of the actions she took, of the fact that she knew what they did to prisoners and she went against them anyways. Made herself a target in place of the people she cared about. It doesn't actually make it easier to live with, but it makes more sense.

For him there's none of that. There's only the anger that floods her when she thinks of anyone hurting him, the attendant anger when she considers that specific situation. But other than that slight indraw of breath there's no reaction until he's finished speaking, until he's given her the way to put down the next step on the path, and even then she keeps her anger under check and behind shields. ] You'd think. Is it that, specifically, that you dream about?

[ He notes the hiss, and really, if she hadn't reacted at all, it would have been a little strange. The predominant lack of reaction is nice, it's kind of calming, because he's not sure what he would have done had she suddenly flared up in righteous indignation, or anger on his behalf, but neither does he know how he would have felt about her having no reaction whatsoever. He doesn't want anger anymore; he's so far beyond the anger stage of this that when it comes up again all it seems to do is make him feel tired. If anything, he's angry with himself for allowing it to effect him to such great degrees, because why should it? There are so many reasons it shouldn't.

And no, his experience was nothing of the sort. Nothing intentional, nothing purposeful or with any level of mental preparation. No debrief afterward, because he was raw and exhausted and powerful enough to look the US government in the eye and say no and actually get away with it. He had been starting to look around the room, a little higher, things actually at eye level, but having shared just that little bit with her now he's just staring at his hands, turning over the small piece of metal, and his voice is totally not a little thicker when he replies again. ] Basically.

[ She's trying not to add anything else into the equation going on right now, and her anger - she thinks that would be an addition that would complicate everything else in ways she doesn't want. Her anger is still fresh and raw, for him at least, but she can guess that he's past that particular stage of things. It hadn't taken her very long to step past that and land squarely on tired sadness. That stage seemed to last longer. At least, she hadn't found there was a way past it yet.

So she's going to keep that held back as much as possible, just watch him and look at how he's interacting with the room around him because he's a physical person, the way he moves things and what he's looking at tends to be very telling of how he's feeling. ] Why? [ Deconstruction, down to the most essential nuts and bolts of the problem. ] We dream about things because at the heart of them - they frighten us. [ A heavy swallow before she keeps going. ] Why that, specifically?

[ That's good, because he really doesn't want to feel anger right now, not from anyone. Not on his behalf, not towards him - he just doesn't want to handle it. Any sort of strong negative emotion he gets from her, and he's just going to start closing off again, because he already has plenty of those and what little amounts of ground he's giving her as it is, what tiny little footholds and handlebars he's allowing her to have as she pries him open bit by bit, are given because she seems calm, and together, and that's a kind of peace that right now - even if it's just peace by virtue of relativity - he really wants.

So far he's continued to toy with the bit of metal in his hands, glancing a little bit around the room - familiarity, being uneasy means looking in more than one place, and everything down here is nice and comfortable and ineffably his own. He hasn't moved very much beyond that though, and it's older things, oddly, that he seems to be lingering on more than anything else, if one were to even call his flitting glances 'lingering'. At her question, it's straight back down to his lap again. More quiet, for a while. When he starts to reply, it's... Fragmented. ]

I couldn't... With the water, it's a shock, being so cold, even though the, the cave is cold, and it's so hot outside, which -- it matches, since after a while, in and out, your chest burns, so it's all cold and hot at the same time again. Just. The wrong way around. [ He knows this isn't what she asked, and it's just a short pause before he continues. ] I don't like not breathing. You know, when your face is submerged in cold water, it's enough to trigger a whole survival instinct in all mammals? Your heart beats slower, and blood floods into your chest. It's supposed to help keep your lungs from collapsing under pressure from the rest of the water you should be in, but if you're not in the water and you've just had chest surgery it just - [ Well. ] It's worse than the v-fib. At least I wasn't conscious for some of that. But I don't like not breathing.

[ She listens, carefully. That's all she can do for the moment, because he's telling her and she asked him to, he's telling her what she wanted and needed to know and so she's going to listen. It's not pleasant to hear, for multiple reasons - because she's protective of him, because her own memories can run along very similar lines and she's a lot further along in her acceptance of things than he is but they can still cause... problems, because the cadence of his voice is off and it's weird, she doesn't like it.

But mostly just because she cares and it's so very clear that he's not anywhere near over this and it's been years now, he's been carrying this for years and all the time she's known him and she hasn't helped yet and she doesn't know how to. She doesn't know what to do to help him be able to face it a little easier, make his sleep a little lighter. How does she answer him, now that he's told her? ] Have you ever talked to anyone about what happened? Have you been carrying it by yourself this whole time?

[ It's okay Max, he doesn't know how to help either. He doesn't know how to get help, or even show enough weakness or damage half the time to alert other people to the fact that he even needs it. Nothing beyond the obvious, anyway.

The avoidance in his posture and fidgeting doesn't really lessen at all. He doesn't seem as though he feels any better for sharing that - which makes sense, because now there's a vulnerability that didn't seem as present before, but this is half the reason he hasn't shared any of this before. He expects immediate results, or something along those lines. The moment there's anything worse, and this feels worse, sort of, he hasn't completely decided yet, he cuts and runs again. ] Reneg'd on the debriefs, passed on the psych evals - those have always come back funny anyway. Lots of people said 'if you ever need to', but no one actually wants to hear about it, and I don't want to talk about it. [ Didn't then when it was fresh; doesn't now that it's had time to fester. And besides, bringing it up now, apparently at random, well that just indicates how much it bothers you, doesn't it? ]

[ Well at least they're united in this not sure how to handle this ness. Not that she's ever going to admit that she's not sure what to do now, because as mentioned before, if the person who's trying to help you starts seeming unsure, well, that's about the exact opposite of helpful or reassuring or anything of the things she wants to be right now. Thankfully she is very very good at putting on a front, because right now she needs that ability.

She's doing what she can in terms of broadcasting feelings of safety and warmth - not anything explicit because she doesn't want to manipulate him, but enough to indicate that she's there and trying to help, that he hasn't scared her off or said something that's going to make her change any of how she feels about him. That he can be vulnerable, it's okay, which is a massive double standard because she would be 100% not okay with being vulnerable herself. Still. ]

I want to hear about it. [ Firm but still calm, and this time she does reach out again, brushes her hand along the back of his for a moment before pulling it back. ] And I want to help. I know it's not easy to talk about - believe me, I do - but. [ Silence for a long moment as she tries to determine which of the many things she's thinking to say, and how to say it. ] Take it from someone who knows how this road goes. Letting it fester makes it so much worse.

[ It's likely that he'd shy away from anything too overtly positive as well - it would, indeed, feel like manipulation, potentially like pity, or something, and he doesn't want any of those things on top of what's happening. He's not fond of them on their own, either. ]

I just told you about it. [ He didn't mind the contact that time, looking over at her hand for a moment and then back at his own, but he doesn't seek hers out yet. And yeah, he's learning that leaving it isn't helping, but that hasn't stopped him leaving it anyway.

He shifts a little, suddenly, sitting up a little more and glancing around. They've been sitting for a while and he's shared now and he's still antsy, maybe even more antsy now because he has shared and he's waiting to see what happens now. ] Yeah. I noticed.

[ Seriously, the skittish animal metaphor holds. You can't be negative, but you can't demonstrate too much enthusiasm either because that will scare them. It's a delicate balance and one that she's determined to get right, now more than ever. Bit by bit.

And he did tell her about it. It gets him a look on her face that's closer to a smile than any other look that's been on her face so far tonight, warmth in her eyes and the corners of her mouth. She's rather happy with even that one step of progress. And now what next? ] Some of us used to try flooding. [ Sort of casual, watching him carefully. ] Deliberately exposing ourselves to the - thing that was a problem, preferably in a positive environment - trying to get used to it.

[ Pausing and evaluating for a moment. This is requiring digging back through memories, and some of them are hard to unearth after all this time. ] It wasn't perfect, but it helped.

[ She's actually probably doing better than she thinks she is. He hasn't left mod-conversation, hasn't blocked her out or dismissed her completely, and isn't entirely averse to looking at her, but is sort of avoiding it nonetheless. Honestly, considering it's the first real talk he's ever had about it in the last three or four years? It's going pretty well.

But, man, it's like all that eye-avoidance was building up to right now, because at that suggestion, he freezes, then looks over at her straight on for a few long seconds. It's pretty obvious that the suggestion frightens him, with the not blinking until he finally does break eye contact and looks more at the desk, the wider eyes, and basically everything anyone who knows anything about body language would pick up on. When he looks away - and it's not completely away this time, he's still mostly facing her - it's also obvious that he's vaguely considering it. Which was why it was so scary in the first place, and still is. Considering it means imagining it and running through the possibilities and gauging the outcomes, but he keeps getting stuck on the imagining; it bleeds into the remembering so much faster than it should, and then it's just hard to think entirely. ]

Did it help you?

[ She meets that gaze as steadily as she can, firm and sure because even a hint of uncertainty now would be fatal, and because she is sure. It might not work for him - everyone's mind is different, reacts to things in different ways - but at the moment it's the best shot she knows of and it's worked before. ]

Yes.

[ Whether to elaborate or not - she hesitates, considers how to put it. There's specifics she doesn't enjoy going into and doesn't think would be helpful, but some more clarification would be good. She can guess what he's doing right now, and she wants to pull him out of that. ] There were things I couldn't look at and I need to be able to, so. It wasn't fun and it wasn't easy, but it was worth it in the end.

[ The fact that she answers yes, that takes it instantly from an abstract, ambiguous maybe, into a totally different realm of actualization. Personal experience trumps the theoretical every time, for him, in situations like this. He doesn't trust the untested, not with his mind, not with his - well, his metaphorical heart. Obviously exceptions for the real one have been made.

And right now he doesn't even want to bunny trail off into 'what couldn't you look at', because he can't keep up with a conversation like that right now and doesn't feel like having one in the first place, and he's still working out how he does feel about the proposal she's just put forth. It's basically just terrifying, but he's sure there's more than that. There's got to be, because he's tired of doing this, and maybe she's right and maybe she's not but she has a decent point either way and that's one of the most dangerous places to be in. Grey, grey, grey, but someone's talking sense - it doesn't help you decide what you're going to do at all. ] How long did it take?

[ She rather thought it might help. Still, does that make it cheating? She doesn't want him to think that because it worked for her it will always work. He's not the type to blindly take one thing as truth for everything, but this sort of topic tends to put blinders on people and make them less certain.

Yeah, no, she's leaving things there vague on purpose. There's no need to go chasing specifics or otherwise mess with things. If they ever do have to have that conversation, it's not now. It would only muddy the waters now. ] It only took a few times to get over the worst of it. From there, it was a slow gradual climb upwards.

[ Maybe? But I doubt that even when/if he looks back at this moment that he'd consider it to be such. He's not dumb; he's totally aware that out of basically everything, stuff that impacts from person to person has the most variables to contend with, but it doesn't stop it being comforting when someone whose opinion and experiences you trust and respect vouches for something that's worrying you, even if they're also the source of the initial suggestion.

That makes him pause again, for a little while. Honestly, this is just a very drawn out conversation in general. ] I don't know if I can... Handle that either. [ Read: 'I really, really don't want to run the risk of making things worse.' ]

a series of unfortunate decisions, the perks of being inane

the life of ridiculous people

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that last comment of mine there was the 1000th comment to this post jesus

i just looked at your total comments posted and made a noise

oh god yeah don't do that or i just look insane

it's okay i love you for it

well thank you

ps i have just over 3000 notifications from you in my inbox

holy wow. idk what to say to that

yeah man me neither

yay?

yes yay also holy shit impressive

what's impressive

the sheer amount of comments

tbf i think like at least 250 are from that one damn kissing meme at ex