Work Text:
When you fall asleep
With your head, upon my shoulder
He had just relapsed again, third time this week. His memories were coming back faster and faster, but they were not the ones we necessarily wanted. But, progress was progress and I had to keep reminding myself that he needed me more than he was letting on.
When you’re in my arms
But you’ve gone somewhere deeper
I held him as the silent horror twisted and contorted his war ragged features. He saw a shadow of someone in the kitchen holding a knife. A glimpse of its shine in the mirror was all it took for him to lose control, tackling Clint and choking him almost to death.
Steve calmed him down, but the damage was done. I sat with him between his legs entangling my fingers in his hair and pulling slightly at the tangles that always seemed to be present. The ragged breathing had slowed down now, and I had managed to half carry, half drag the broken man to his room.
I took off his shirt and helped him into bed, moving to turn on the fan to provide him some background noise. He grabbed my wrist and I smiled gently, climbing into the bed with him. He covered most of my body with his broad chest laying with his back to the ceiling in a protective manner as he held tightly on to me. Anytime I lied down with him, we always seemed to end up this way.
Are you going to age with grace?
Are you going to age without mistakes?
Are you going to age with grace?
Everyone kept telling me that dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder was a learning process and that it would take time. I understood that, I took it to heart, and was whole-heartedly ready to help him down this process, but he wasn’t.
He kept blaming himself for everything he had done. I knew he kept a list of everyone he had ever killed tucked somewhere. Every time he had a new memory resurface, he wrote their name and origin down on that list.
It almost felt like he wanted to torture himself like that, always remembering the people he killed. He could never quite remember that he had been brainwashed and would have been punished if he had not killed them. I get it though. It was still his hands that dealt out the ultimate punishment.
When oblivion is calling out your name
There was something else behind his eyes. It wasn’t just the past that was hurting him anymore. He hated how he kept hurting people, that he was the cause of so much pain. Even though he was out of their control, he couldn’t help but hurt people and it would be the end of him some day.
The darkness was in him, some sort of oblivion that called to him after every relapse and every rediscovery that he couldn’t ever escape. He stayed that way for hours, sometimes days. He kept sulking in this pitiful world where every bad thing that ever happened to anyone since the dawn of time was somehow his fault.
You always take it further
Than I ever can
By the time I woke up after a few hours of nap after one of his episodes, he was always in the training room: knuckles bloody, shins and knees bruised. He always tried to work out the pain within himself, but he could never seem to get the self-preservation aspect into his head.
Of course, most of us worked out a bad day in the training room. After all, our bad days often involved loss of life whereas most people spilled their coffee on themselves and stained their shirt.
I would always go in there with gauze and begin to patch him up as best as I could. There were never any conversations during this, though. He knew that I was disappointed, there was no need reminding him. He always took it too far, and he knew it. But he also knew that I would always be there to patch him up, mentally and physically, when he did.
When you play it hard
And I try to follow you there
After I fixed the last bandage into place with a bit of tape, he stood up. Normally, we would sit there for a little while so I could fuss over the way the gauze laid over the injuries and how the ice packs would leave bits of condensation on his bruises. This time was different. This relapse was different.
He paced himself back over to the boxing equipment and began to start punching, beating, kicking the bag into submission. I stood up, voicing my protest angrily. I raised my voice, ever so slightly, telling him that he was going to hurt himself and that he needed to stop before he hurt himself.
His right arm swung out and punched me across the face, knocking me down onto the mat. I knew he didn’t mean it, but in the moment it felt like he did. My face stung and my eyes welled slightly with tears. I rolled onto my knees and just watched his reaction. I feared that this would be the last time that I would get to see him one-on-one because he would no longer trust himself around, even though I had provoked him.
It’s not about control
But I turn back to see where you go
He looked at me, the fear and sadness in his face rose quickly only to be replaced with devastation. He walked out of the room, leaving me alone in the room. I would be fine, give me a couple of hours and some makeup and no one would ever be able to tell that I got injured in the first place.
He would be devastated. He would take days or weeks to forgive himself, if he even bothered to begin to forgive himself at all. I watched him storm down the hallway, his steps shaky and his path twisted.
I called Steve to watch over him because there wasn’t much I could do for him in this state. He had hurt the others many times, and they had all assured him that it wasn’t his fault. He would always apologize as soon as he was in the right mindset again, but he would always be very upset if he had hurt anyone during his episodes. I would always be there for him, but not this time, he would never let me get close to him so soon after he hit me.
Are you going to age with grace?
Are you going to leave a path to trace?
None of us were perfect. All of us had our own flaws and issues to deal with. If only I could get him to see that. If I only could get him to understand, then maybe he would be able to let go of it all and move on.
I’ll always be there for him. Through thick and thin, I will follow him wherever he goes just is case he needs me. I would follow him into this oblivion with a light and a smile to help him find his way. If he could only see that I wanted to help him.
But oblivion is calling out your name
You always take it further than I ever can
I will make him see someday that he is human, not some monster. That would take time, though, to break him out of his own mind to see the bigger picture that waited for him on the other side. If only I could show him what I saw, it would be so much easier to show him that he is a good person.
When oblivion is calling out your name
You always take it further than I ever can