Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It's time to confess: she's thinking about Caspian every second of the day, again.

She misses the days when didn't even remember the existence of that edgy guy, she won't say that regrets something, Maddie treasures every shared moment, every laugh, every little trip, every late call at night.

She just asks to not think of him, it's that too much to ask?!

Her love life didn't always revolve around him, she had some crazy moments, like that one time she had something with a married man (even if she didn't feel proud about it).

The thing is that believe it or not, she always seems to fall in Caspian, it's not like she's looking for it.

Well... their second encounter was totally her fault.
¡Sue her! She was curious, wanting to know how was he.

Besides Maddie always loved to talk with new people online and at that time she felt like so much need to talk with someone new, although, she certainly didn't expect to feel something again.

But! The third encounter had nothing to do with her, it was pure coincidence.

Whatever.

We better start from the beginning.

Maddie was around 14 years old when she first met Caspian. She says "met", but that's not completely accurate because they were in their early 20s when they saw each other in person for the first time.

She had this friend, her name was Annie, who was in love with a distant cousin of Maddie. They clicked right away. They didn't see each other in real life, but they talked almost every day. At that time the only real-life friends that you had were at school.

Maddie had left a comment on one of Annie's posts, it was something silly and insignificant (she doesn't remember anymore), but a lot of Annie's acquaintances reply her.

Between them, Caspian Keyes, some old middle schoolmate of Annie.

One thing led to another and, by the end of the day, Caspian and Maddie became boyfriend and girlfriend.

I know what you're thinking... “That is not enough time to have begun a formal relationship”. But things used to be like that back in those days, and they were so young and immature, so don't you dare to judge her.

Maddie was helplessly in love with him despite only knowing each other through texts and voice messages, they used to spend so much time talking on any kind of social media, they watched TV shows together (remotely), and played video games online. He knew her better than anyone in the whole world, and she surely hoped to also know him better than anyone.

She knew that Caspian was fascinated by computers, programming, dubstep, and Parasite (the comic); and he knew that Maddie loved romance movies and TV shows, robotics, the winter, and hated school because of the bullying that she was suffering.

They even change their status from "single" to "dating with..." on every social media.

That was like a big and serious thing, you know.

She remember vividly when that relationship started, in early November, she could never forget that, mostly because she had that specific date as her password in almost everywhere when everything ended.

Because she was a depressed teenage girl who wanted to, pretty much literally, die when they broke up.

Yes, so cringe.

Maddie remembers less vividly that everything ended in January when Christmas and New Year came and left.

Three months.

That's all it lasted, and, however, it marked her so much.

She could not love the same way, ever again.

She's not even sure if she ever loved again after him, and trust her, she tried.

A person has a lot of "before & after", a lot of inflection and breaking points throughout their life. When the bullying started was one of hers, her dad's death and her pet's death was another.

The brief presence of Caspian in her life was one of them, an important one.

She can't remember everything from those times, her therapist says that sometimes trauma blocks memories, and trauma also can make them blurry. Her memory was never the same, too much depression to handle it.

However, she always had some pieces of that relationship, like that one time that Caspian told him that he had small romantic feelings about this schoolmate of his, Hannah, Rachel, or whatever when they were still together.

Her tiny jealous and insecure brain was so mad, it kept saying: that's basically cheating, he doesn't love me anymore.

But she didn't make a scene because, after all, nothing happened between her boyfriend and that girl, yet (not that she knew at least).

At that age Maddie was so petty, there were a lot of things that she didn't understand, and she used to get mad because of it, calling it bullshit and being mean to people when something didn't seem to fit in the view that she had of the world.

So, when Caspian texted her again (a little bit after everything was said and done) to tell her that he was scared because he might like boys (maybe seeking her support and comfort, wanting someone that could tell him that it was okay), she was cruel with him, she doesn't remember exactly what she said, but she does remember her feelings to that revelation.

She was outraged, betrayed, used.

Her head was full of " Why would you tell me about this? Our relationship ended up not too long ago, did you even think that I could still have feelings for you? How do you think it makes me feel that you're basically telling me that you like someone else? A boy? Did you ever love me or I was just some kind of experiment for you?". 

It wasn't until years later that she realized how mean and wrong was.

It took her years because, well… she had this lapse of time when she did not even remember his existence.

When she remembered she cried so much.

She cried because Caspian should have been so confused and obviously scared, maybe he wasn't even sure how his environment was going to react to the idea of him not being straight because, at that time, there still was so much rejection to the LGBT+ community, the negative opinions and comments so far exceeded the positive ones. And Maddie herself gave him a taste of what the world had to say about the community. 

It certainly was fun and ironic to find out that she was bisexual and agender herself, all alone, with no support and comfort.

But all that downfall of regret and self-disgust until the second time their paths cross again.

In the meantime, Maddie had 5 years of disastrous love life.

It's funny how destiny works, she has always been a helplessly romantic, and still...

Let's just say that she didn't have the best of luck on that field.

Chapter Text

PRESENT.

The love, being neurodivergent, it’s complicated.

Maddie, for example, started to believe that she only fell in love once in her 24 years and, on top of that, that love became some kind of obsession that she never got over.

We are not talking about that psychological horror movie obsession or toxic relationship.

You see, Maddie has ADHD and you may think: Well, it’s not that bad.

And yes, in the big scheme, it’s not, but there are some particularities.

It turns out that neurodivergent people can hyper-fixate on people, a fancy way to say “became obsessed”. And just like most of their unfinished projects and hobbies, this can be forgotten in months.

BUT it could also last a whole life.

Like those people 70 years old who like to collect plates with cute illustrations on them.

Maddie’s problem is, as far as she can think, that this little hyper fixation ever leads to nowhere, so she gets stuck in the “what if…”, the possibilities, the potential of something. But with no result or answer. She’s 100 percent sure that if her tiny obsession with Caspian had been consummated somehow, meaning in real-life relationships like “normal” people have, with official dates, hugs, kisses and everything, that hyper fixation would have been over long ago.

¡Instead of lasting like 10 years!

This situation certainly does a lot for the insecurities that she ignores and pretends that don’t exist.

2014

Caspian and Maddie did not have an easy life.

It wasn’t the worst kind of life that they could have, but it was less than ideal.

Do you know that feeling where your life seems gray and like jokeless? Where you don’t really care about being alive or dying tomorrow.

It was sure to say that both of them felt that way until they met each other.

Suddenly they had something to wait for after school, and suddenly the idea of the future it’s not that scary or exhausting anymore. 

      You know what i need right now?

      sent, 5:52 am

Food? wait no, thats me. You could use some food too tho, you didn't have dinner tonight      

sent, 5:52 am      

      Nope, a hug from you

      sent, 5:52 am

Because they had each other.

Caspian wasn’t much of a talker, matter of fact, he was a shy introvert, his best friend was his younger sister, not the worst choice of a best friend but it certainly says a lot about his social life, right? It’d be embarrassing if he would have cared what other people think about him.

Caspian was always what you would know as a weirdo back in those days, not many friends, didn’t go out often, had weird interests, always thinking about numbers, binary code, and computers. While other boys would play football until 5 pm, he just stayed stuck to the screen of the family computer trying to learn how to program, or watching those weird cartoons and comics that Japanese people make.

His parents used to fight quite a lot, never in a physical way luckily, his father was nonchalant towards his children, it didn’t matter if they were sick or if they didn’t show up at home until midnight or something; his mother was the opposite pole and a contradiction at the same time, she was exalted, constantly seeking for control and full of overprotection (Caspian spent a couple of years being afraid of angy women, believe it or not), but she would also bend under the pressure of any weird comment that his father did.

Maddie, on the other hand, had a pretty good life, she had a big bunch of honest friends, a minimally good relationship with her family, she loved to make everyone laugh like a tiny pocket clown and a healthy amount of hobbies and sun exposure.

Until her dad, David Kim, died.

Because almost everything led to that moment and the moments before that, always a before and after her dad’s death.

After that, Maddie and her mother started living with her grandma, it wasn’t that of a big change because they used to live near anyway. So yeah, she had her grandma and a lot of friends in the school that gave her emotional support when her mom, Ellen, shut herself down.

But a little while later her mom found a new job, in a whole different city but with a good salary, so they had to move out.

And Maddie…well she lost her support net.

She still had her mother, of course, but after her husband's death she lost the spark, you know, that desire to eat the world and live, everyone could see that if she kept going was only because of the existence of her daughter. Her own daughter could see that.

And it’s okay, you know? Everyone has the right to grieve as they can.

The thing is Maddie’s mood started to be more…volatile and didn’t have anyone to rely on, a gap had been created between mother and daughter, a gap that no one noticed until it was fully there.

And then the bullying came.

Teenagers can be so cruel.

She tried to be mature, once, and asked what had she done to deserve that treatment, no one gave her an answer, obviously, just mockery and awful comments.

Day after day she stuffed her grandma with lies about how nice were everyone in the new school and how everyone tried to be there for her and support her.

She lied, like a liar.

Her inbox was full of offensive messages, about how she walked, how she ran, how she talked, if she didn’t talk at all, for being smart, for not being smart enough, for her weight. Some of them were so basic that it was easy to ignore them, but others were about her dad and how should kill herself.

And she did consider that, vaguely.

But then Caspian and Maddie meet each other… Oh boy, if the sparks didn’t fly even through those screens. (metaphoric sparks, of course)

      say… You think that, when we see each other face 2 face, we’re going to be all quiet and awkward?

      sent, 7:02 am

      I mean we’re both introverts and like i normally struggle to gain confidence and start talking

      sent, 7:02 am

Surely      

sent, 7:02 am      

I do talk a lot, you already know that, but at least at the beginning i’m always all shy      

sent, 7:02 am      

but wellp, we’ll see when we’re face to face, like, at least we have stuff to talk about. Like programmation, Your Lie in      

April, robotics, well it’s not like i know a lot about programmation anyway, but yeah, you know      

sent, 7:02 am      

I hope      

sent, 7:03 am      

      I do LOL <3

      sent, 7:03 am

You always understand or know what i want to say, even if i don’t understand myself.      

sent, 7:03 am      

      It’s the power of love

      sent, 7:03 am

Hours pass, days pass, cute pet names appear, the pictures exchange, and watching TV shows together (always a distance)

They had an unexpected streak of good times.

Caspian’s home life calmed down a bit, with fewer fights, fewer weird passive-aggressive comments, and more peace, he remained stuck at the computer but his shoulders were more relaxed, as if the weight of the world, that he didn’t even know he was carrying, fell off his shoulders.

His friend counter reached a solid 4 so, even if he still didn’t go out much, he had so much fun talking with those people.

It started to appear an oddly high amount of group chats with Caspian’s friends, where Maddie also participated, being known as “Caspian’s girlfriend”.

And Maddie got herself an even more unexpected friend named Justine, a tough, rough, and intimidated girl, but still a good person.

“Gage?” Justine asked seeing how Maddie doodled a heart enclosed the name in her notebook. Writing in the corner of the same heart Gohan & Videl, in such a tiny size that you’ll have to be focused to understand fully. “Who are those?”

“Oh.” She blushed. “You remember my boyfriend Caspian, right?”

“The one that you met on the internet and that it could be an ugly old man and a pedophile but you choose to believe that he is our age and is your own prince charming? Yeah, I do.”

“Right, so, in some social networks he has ‘Gage’ as user name, he says it came from some Phineas Gage dude that got impaled, or something. And well…he likes this Japanese cartoon–”

“Anime?” Interrupted Justine, she might not be into that but she does know about culture, thank you very much.

“Yes, Dragon Ball Z and he thinks that one of the cutest romantic relationships is the one that these two characters, Gohan and Videl, have. Some of his friends call him Gohan sometimes, and if he’s Gohan then I’m his Videl.”

“Ew, cringe and sap”

It meant a lot, for Maddie, that Justine was not much against her relationship with Caspian, she was the only one who knew about them, and the fact that she only made a couple of comments about stranger danger per day, then call it a day and changed the topic, was more support than Maddie knew she will have from her mother or grandma.

That’s actually the reason why she didn’t tell anyone else, she knows her mom, Ellen, will give her a lecture for two hours straight about the danger of talking with strange people on the internet. And then she’ll probably confiscate all electronic devices with internet access from her.

Maddie knew that it was dangerous, she’s the one chronically online, so yeah, she knew about every horror story, she even went through a couple of…weird encounters.

A couple of months ago she was talking with a classmate of hers, the guy was not one of her bullies but he didn’t defend her either, he was also pretty popular for being your typical class clown and a social butterfly.

Anyway, between jokes and homework, he asks her for a nude, you know, one of those pictures with little or no clothes at all.

Maddie was stupid, she can admit that, but she wasn’t that stupid, she knew that it was better to send that kind of pictures without showing your face or something too recognizable around you, it makes them harder to match a person with the picture if one day was spread.

So, yeah, she sent a picture of her breast with the prettier bra she had in the bathroom, covering her face and nothing more, he sent her a photograph with his attributes and never talk each other again.

Imagine her shock and surprise when, just the next day, that same classmate and his best friend, another class clown, look at her while doing the exact same pose that she had in that damn photo she sent and laughing all the time. She was trembling, almost crying.

But she managed to put on her braver face and denied everything when one of them came to talk about the picture, she said that her cousin used her account and sent that, so, the girl in the photo wasn’t her.

"So it's not you the pretty girl in the photo." He repeated, still smiling like the situation was the most funny shit in his whole day or something.

"Nope, my cousin Jaz it's in town, we take turns using my devices and she was in a particularly joking and flirty mood, so yeah. Sorry." She did her best to look apologetically even tho she was about to burst into tears, but well, she is a good actress. 

Maddie was pretty sure they didn’t believe her but, luckily the pic didn’t spread around, it was just for the addressee and his friend eyes.

As far as she knew.

So Maddie DID know about the dangers.

But since she had met at least two people who were actually who they said they were (and can be confirmed by her cousin because everyone went to the same school) and they did confirm that Caspian was…well, Caspian, she didn’t see much danger in talking and exchange normal pictures.

She understood the concerns of her mother, that after her husband died she wanted to keep her safe at all cost and if, to do that, she had to control almost every aspect of her daughter’s life, then that it be.

It just that sometimes Ellen didn’t find the right approach.

“What you got there?” Asked one day Ellen while they were having lunch, looking at Maddie’s right hand.

The girl didn’t even need to look in that direction to know that she was asking about the small C letter that was scratched in red hot. Justine had discovered that if she scratched multiple times her skin with the sharp tip of a compass, it would leave a crust, the same crust that you get after falling on concrete, but without blood. It looked like a red tattoo.

Maddie asked her to make a C on her hand like that, C from Caspian, her friend just shrugged and did it. It hadn’t hurt, it was just uncomfortable.

“A doodle.” Maddie said.

“A doodle…Do you think that I was born yesterday?” Ellen didn’t raise her voice yet but Maddie knew that it would not take too long for her to start screaming, and if her mom screamed, Maddie would scream too, and, honestly, she didn’t have the energy for a fight today.

“It’s red pen…”

“IT IS NOT A RED PEN! I don’t want to see you with something like that on your skin ever again! Do you hear me?! Or–"

“I GET IT! Okay? I know.”

The conversation was over, there were a couple of hostile glances but that was all.

Maddie was sure that she didn’t know she did that because of a boy or the discussion would not have ended so soon.

She knew it was stupid to do the initial of someone you like in your skin in a semi-permanent way but, to be honest, she only wanted to feel like a hormonal and silly teenager for once, you know? She wanted to see her hand and remember that someone romantically liked her and that everything was going to be okay because Caspian was in her life.

You only live once, and all that, right?