[ there's no rhyme or reason to these spells, these visions that visit him when night falls. there's no answer to why, even wrapped up in the warm and strong arms of his former lover, the ghosts of that night on carpathian soil utterly haunt him.
his therapist would tell him it's normal, that it's fine, that these things happen because he still has so much to process. well, frankly, he's tired of processing. he can't quite make sense of the world as he skids across the carpet, his bare knees burning and sweat carving rivulets into the dips of his collar bone, down the nape of his neck, prying at his temples and the careful curve over his pecs.
tim can see nothing but the dark room, the men hovering over him, the sounds of their lilting accents, and god - the fear. to the point that when hawk's hand falls to his knee he jumps, yelps and presses harder back against the wall, heels digging into the floor. but the carpathian's hadn't called him tim. they'd taunted him, timothy, mr. laughlin, the president's bitch, the american wind-up toy, expendable.
he breathes heavily, air coming in tight wheezes at first, his hands trembling furiously as he holds them out like a fence between them. do not pass, do not enter; danger: man at war with himself. his body seems to remember the warm, easy sound of hawk's voice though, remember that he is the one that wrapped him up and saved him before, and when he looks up with eyes widened in fear, he sees that same face. tears pour down his cheeks, but they have been since he woke - he doesn't entirely notice them now. ]
Sorry.
[ his voice is a hoarse whisper and at first he stays curled up against the wall, making himself small as though that might save him, even here exposed in the light of the room. he feels foolish, childish suddenly, but when his heart rate ticks down a tiny bit, he rolls forward, launching into hawk's harms and burying his face against his shoulder, breathing him in and clinging to him in a way that's likely a bit, bit too rough. ]
I was - I thought we were -
[ he swallows hard, breathing deeply and trying to center himself a little, but he just finds himself nuzzling into hawk's jaw instead, fingers fisting in the fabric of his shirt. ]
[christ, tim's been holding it together in front of them - back to work and everything, but is this what's been plaguing him when he's all alone locked safely behind the fortress of his front door? sure that seems stable, but it doesn't beat the confines of one's mind and the irrational trickle of memories flooding back like the slow, maddening drip of water or the worse torrent like a damp cloth slapped against his face and rushing against his nose and mouth while he struggled to breathe. hawk had never asked him about his military experience, but he's read over his record enough to know there was nothing even close to what he faced in those few hours with carpathian scum. not much actual time on the frontlines, no real injuries sustained, mostly desk work. definitely not the torture almost guaranteed as a prisoner of war, except this time there wasn't even a goddamn battlefield for him to navigate.
the thought of tim losing sleep, waking not just in a drenched and disoriented terror but seemingly reliving those moments in vivid detail has his chest aching to watch the clear trauma he's been through. he hadn't even thought to ask earlier, though tim's clammed up enough about most of this that he almost thinks he wouldn't have gotten a straight answer anyway. but right now he looks like a cornered animal, trapped in a cage and this close to gnawing off its own leg to get out. arms up in the defensive, body covered in a glistening sheen of feverish sweat and feet scrambling at the floor to push himself back, back, back into some semblance of comfort or safety, small enough that specters haunting him can no longer grab with grubby hands and reach him.
this isn't hawk's first rodeo. and maybe his manifested differently when he'd recovered from his own brush with carpathian separatists, but he's seen other men go through it. it's usually best to give them their own space, find the best rhythm for recovery and either come out on the other end as clear as they can manage or watch the rest of their life unceremoniously fucked for a few years of service, never to be the same.
he won't let tim go through this alone. he can't see that light snuffed out.]
Shhh, you're alright. You're at home, you're safe in your room in Washington. See?
[hawk holds his hands up too, gesturing around - enough emptiness around them and no clear threat so that tim can see the hopeful coaxing in his face, in his body language. what hawk sees are the tears streaming down his face that tim hasn't registered yet - and then it's a blur of motion as his body catapults forward and into his waiting arms. they wrap tight around his shoulders on instinct, one hand cupping the back of his neck tenderly and the other squeezing around his bicep in reassurance. the tickle of breath against his jaw is rushed, panicked and heaving, and there's wetness from the tears he can feel too. god, his poor boy.]
C'mere, you're okay.
[it's a desperate murmur buried into tim's shoulder, head turning so he can press an insistent kiss against his temple.]
I'm not gonna let anything happen to you again. You hear me?
[he sighs out an exhale, realizing his own heart is a rabbiting thump against his chest, but it's nothing compared to what he imagines tim pulse must be.]
[ realistically, tim laughlin has been holding himself together in the presence of hawkins fuller long enough now that he doesn't even realize how tired he is of pressing his fingers in all the cracks, keeping every shattered piece carefully pieced together. the moment he stepped into ash's office on the first day and came face to face with hawkins fuller, he'd had to dig deep and find somewhere to put all the hurt and confusion.
it became easier as time went on, a callus forming to protect him against the initial sting of seeing the blue of his eyes, the faint scrunch of his nose when he was pretending to like something, the color of his laugh when he was faking it at some joke, or the gentle smile he'd see, genuine, pressed in embry moore's direction.
it's hard not to think about it now, even with carpathian ghosts at his back, the barrels of invisible guns pressed to the soft place at his nape. laying on the floor of that dark, small room had been no different, really, from standing, dumbfounded in the kitchen doorway of hawk's home, listening to the only directive he can remember - leave.
so he'd packed up the ghosts and fears and anxieties of the carpathian torture into neat little cardboard boxes just like he had the pieces of his heart that day, hidden between shirts, books, sweaters and one photograph that hawk insisted he keep.
tim can't cry anymore, even with hawk's gentle urgings, and so he just breathes heavy against his shoulder, fingers digging into the hard line of his back and clinging. it's everything he'd wanted to do that day when hawk told him to leave. how he wanted to cling to him, pressure him into his arms until they became nothing but diamonds, unable to be touched by whatever it was that struck him, that brought them to all of this.
he'll never understand it.
tim can't come to terms with that. ]
I'm safe in my room in Washington.
[ tim repeats it because all words have left him, replaced instead with a cold emptiness swaddled in abject fear. those men will find him, he can feel it. they will find him, hunt him, use him as pretty bait all over again. next time, tim knows it won't just be hawk and embry there, rushing to his aid, even if ash is told not to.
he nuzzles into his chest and shifts a little, curling closer, swinging his legs so that he is all but straddling his lap, legs on either side of his hips, arms around his middle, like he used to once upon a time. ]
Maybe they won't come for me again, but they got what they wanted. They got to me.
[ his voice comes out nothing but a tired, sleepy whisper, voice cracking. he's exhausted, exhausted, exhausted. two years apart. two years of trying to tell himself that hawkins fuller was just Another Guy, that he would find a way around the ache in his heart, the potholes made by a man he'd foolishly considered forever. another full year of service now and he's sitting in hawk's lap, tears dried up, fingers trembling, and there are no more resources for the shattered muscle in his chest. ]
I can't... I can't sleep. I can't think. I walk out of every room and check both ways like I'm crossing the highway or something. It's...
[ tim's body slumps a little, chest going heavy against hawk's chest, and he takes in a slow, shaking breath. ]
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no subject
his therapist would tell him it's normal, that it's fine, that these things happen because he still has so much to process. well, frankly, he's tired of processing. he can't quite make sense of the world as he skids across the carpet, his bare knees burning and sweat carving rivulets into the dips of his collar bone, down the nape of his neck, prying at his temples and the careful curve over his pecs.
tim can see nothing but the dark room, the men hovering over him, the sounds of their lilting accents, and god - the fear. to the point that when hawk's hand falls to his knee he jumps, yelps and presses harder back against the wall, heels digging into the floor. but the carpathian's hadn't called him tim. they'd taunted him, timothy, mr. laughlin, the president's bitch, the american wind-up toy, expendable.
he breathes heavily, air coming in tight wheezes at first, his hands trembling furiously as he holds them out like a fence between them. do not pass, do not enter; danger: man at war with himself. his body seems to remember the warm, easy sound of hawk's voice though, remember that he is the one that wrapped him up and saved him before, and when he looks up with eyes widened in fear, he sees that same face. tears pour down his cheeks, but they have been since he woke - he doesn't entirely notice them now. ]
Sorry.
[ his voice is a hoarse whisper and at first he stays curled up against the wall, making himself small as though that might save him, even here exposed in the light of the room. he feels foolish, childish suddenly, but when his heart rate ticks down a tiny bit, he rolls forward, launching into hawk's harms and burying his face against his shoulder, breathing him in and clinging to him in a way that's likely a bit, bit too rough. ]
I was - I thought we were -
[ he swallows hard, breathing deeply and trying to center himself a little, but he just finds himself nuzzling into hawk's jaw instead, fingers fisting in the fabric of his shirt. ]
Fuck.
no subject
the thought of tim losing sleep, waking not just in a drenched and disoriented terror but seemingly reliving those moments in vivid detail has his chest aching to watch the clear trauma he's been through. he hadn't even thought to ask earlier, though tim's clammed up enough about most of this that he almost thinks he wouldn't have gotten a straight answer anyway. but right now he looks like a cornered animal, trapped in a cage and this close to gnawing off its own leg to get out. arms up in the defensive, body covered in a glistening sheen of feverish sweat and feet scrambling at the floor to push himself back, back, back into some semblance of comfort or safety, small enough that specters haunting him can no longer grab with grubby hands and reach him.
this isn't hawk's first rodeo. and maybe his manifested differently when he'd recovered from his own brush with carpathian separatists, but he's seen other men go through it. it's usually best to give them their own space, find the best rhythm for recovery and either come out on the other end as clear as they can manage or watch the rest of their life unceremoniously fucked for a few years of service, never to be the same.
he won't let tim go through this alone. he can't see that light snuffed out.]
Shhh, you're alright. You're at home, you're safe in your room in Washington. See?
[hawk holds his hands up too, gesturing around - enough emptiness around them and no clear threat so that tim can see the hopeful coaxing in his face, in his body language. what hawk sees are the tears streaming down his face that tim hasn't registered yet - and then it's a blur of motion as his body catapults forward and into his waiting arms. they wrap tight around his shoulders on instinct, one hand cupping the back of his neck tenderly and the other squeezing around his bicep in reassurance. the tickle of breath against his jaw is rushed, panicked and heaving, and there's wetness from the tears he can feel too. god, his poor boy.]
C'mere, you're okay.
[it's a desperate murmur buried into tim's shoulder, head turning so he can press an insistent kiss against his temple.]
I'm not gonna let anything happen to you again. You hear me?
[he sighs out an exhale, realizing his own heart is a rabbiting thump against his chest, but it's nothing compared to what he imagines tim pulse must be.]
Just go on and let it all out, honey.
no subject
it became easier as time went on, a callus forming to protect him against the initial sting of seeing the blue of his eyes, the faint scrunch of his nose when he was pretending to like something, the color of his laugh when he was faking it at some joke, or the gentle smile he'd see, genuine, pressed in embry moore's direction.
it's hard not to think about it now, even with carpathian ghosts at his back, the barrels of invisible guns pressed to the soft place at his nape. laying on the floor of that dark, small room had been no different, really, from standing, dumbfounded in the kitchen doorway of hawk's home, listening to the only directive he can remember - leave.
so he'd packed up the ghosts and fears and anxieties of the carpathian torture into neat little cardboard boxes just like he had the pieces of his heart that day, hidden between shirts, books, sweaters and one photograph that hawk insisted he keep.
tim can't cry anymore, even with hawk's gentle urgings, and so he just breathes heavy against his shoulder, fingers digging into the hard line of his back and clinging. it's everything he'd wanted to do that day when hawk told him to leave. how he wanted to cling to him, pressure him into his arms until they became nothing but diamonds, unable to be touched by whatever it was that struck him, that brought them to all of this.
he'll never understand it.
tim can't come to terms with that. ]
I'm safe in my room in Washington.
[ tim repeats it because all words have left him, replaced instead with a cold emptiness swaddled in abject fear. those men will find him, he can feel it. they will find him, hunt him, use him as pretty bait all over again. next time, tim knows it won't just be hawk and embry there, rushing to his aid, even if ash is told not to.
he nuzzles into his chest and shifts a little, curling closer, swinging his legs so that he is all but straddling his lap, legs on either side of his hips, arms around his middle, like he used to once upon a time. ]
Maybe they won't come for me again, but they got what they wanted. They got to me.
[ his voice comes out nothing but a tired, sleepy whisper, voice cracking. he's exhausted, exhausted, exhausted. two years apart. two years of trying to tell himself that hawkins fuller was just Another Guy, that he would find a way around the ache in his heart, the potholes made by a man he'd foolishly considered forever. another full year of service now and he's sitting in hawk's lap, tears dried up, fingers trembling, and there are no more resources for the shattered muscle in his chest. ]
I can't... I can't sleep. I can't think. I walk out of every room and check both ways like I'm crossing the highway or something. It's...
[ tim's body slumps a little, chest going heavy against hawk's chest, and he takes in a slow, shaking breath. ]
It's not fair.