#harringrove fic rec
this is a harringrove for ukraine commission, feel free to check out my info post if you’d like me to write you something
tysm to @callieb for donating i really hope you enjoy your fic!!
(cw: brief suicidal ideation)
The Devil Held Me By My Sins
Twelve weeks, to the day.
That’s how long it’s been. They tell him once his breathing starts to level out. Once they’re sure he won’t attack anyone, maybe. He’s still crouched on the ground like a feral animal, coiled and tense and terrified, but he hasn’t moved and he doubts he looks like much of a threat right now, while he’s trembling like a leaf.
He couldn’t tell whose voice it was, not through the haze his ebbing panic attack left behind.
The faces around him are familiar but he barely recognizes them. Especially Max. Her teary stare and the mangled hope in her eyes. She looks older. Her hair is shorter. And she’s looking at him like she missed him.
Time didn’t mean much to the unchanging landscape of whatever hell he was trapped in, but he felt it nonetheless. Unavoidably. Monotonously. Survival was harrowing, scrounging for food and hiding from monsters, but the worst part was the hours blending together into one endless, desolate blur as he struggled to keep himself from crawling out of his own skin to escape the restlessness.
Boredom ate away at him. Loneliness. He started to consider letting one of the creatures he encountered attack him just to put a fucking end to it. Or at the very least remind him what it was like to touch another living being. He’d never gone so long without contact of any kind. He’d have welcomed a beating from his father if it meant being touched. Anything would be better than grasping at his own sides and pressing as hard as he could just to try and replicate the sensation of being held, wondering if this was just his life now. Wondering what he was even surviving for.
But then someone pulled him out, and…and it was all just too much. Being real again.
After twelve weeks.
THIS IS GORGEOUS AND EXACTLY WHAT I WAS HOPING FOR, oh my WOW, you’re such a talented writer and nnnng my heart!
