darker_london | The winter soldier (Rachel, Zoe, Danny, Cai) WARNING

Entry tags:

The winter soldier (Rachel, Zoe, Danny, Cai) WARNING - rape flashbacks

Rachel and Zoe both showered at Rachel's house, because it was much closer to the cinema where they were meeting the boys. Though Zoe had bought her own change of clothes, Rachel pleaded with Zoe to let her dress her.

"Seriously?" Zoe asked, very sceptical about this arrangement.

"Pleeaaase," Rachel pleaded. "Come on, the number of times I've stolen your clothes, or Danny's. It's only fair."

"Are you going to put me in skinny jeans?" Zoe asked.

"My jeans would stop half way down your calves," Rachel said, taking Zoe's question as an absolute yes. "And they would never fit over your butt." She rifled through her wardrobe till she found a dress, bright sunny yellow and belted in black.

"No," said Zoe.

Rachel smiled, and threw the dress at Zoe's face.

"I'm under the impression you still think today is a double date," Zoe said, giving Rachel a very serious look. "It very much isn't."

"I heard you!" Rachel was still in her closet, finding something for herself. "You can think whatever you like. But you should still wear that dress. Because you are my friend and that is a gift."

"It's so bright," Zoe complained.

"Yup, it doesn't suit me at all. I will never ever wear it in a million years because it belongs to you now."

Hell, thought Zoe. Why not?

She did have to admit, once the dress was on, that it looked pretty great. "I look like a Hufflepuff," she said, instead.

"No one is going to mistake you for a Hufflepuff," Rachel said. She was pulling on dark skinny jeans, so tight it made her legs look like pipe cleaners. "Can I peer pressure you into some make up?" she asked, her tongue out as her fingers forced the buttons of her fly through the stiff fabric.

Zoe laughed. "Thought not," grumbled Rachel. At least she knew when to pick her battles.

They made it to the cinema before the boys, even though Rachel had spent so much time getting her lips right. Zoe kept brushing her hands over her skirt while they waited; she hadn't worn a skirt that wasn't part of the school uniform in a long time. Almost as long as she'd last been to the movies, probably.

She felt weird to be here. Out of place. Like she was playing at being a normal teenager but everyone could see right through her.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Zoe put her arm out in front of Danny, just to make sure he didn't get any closer. "Don't touch him, it's triggered by touch," she warned, even though Danny's arms were too busy trying to keep himself protected and it didn't look like he was about to reach out for Cai. Zoe didn't want to take any chances.

Rachel hovered behind them, the only one of them on her feet, not knowing whether to yell or to run away. If it was just Cai here she would have run away, but Zoe and Danny were here too and so Rachel found herself anchored to the spot.

Cai was gasping in short, shallow breaths that bounced off the back of his throat and out again, none of them staying in his lungs long enough to be of any use. He could hear them talking but it didn't feel real.

Something collided with his face, and he gasped with the surprise of it and let go of his hair to hold up his hands to protect himself, but when he opened his eyes he saw Zoe in front of him with a cushion in her hands. She was looking at him, terrified that she was going to make it worse but unable to think of anything else to do in the heat of the moment.

"Cai, you're in my living room," she said, her voice so hard her words sounded stiff. "In my living room. No where else. I know - I know what it feels like. But you're in my living room."

Danny wanted to ask what in the hell was triggered by touch, but it didn't really matter. He wasn't about to touch Cai again. No fucking way.

When his brother opened his eyes, Danny sank to the ground on his knees, exhausted. "Oh, Jesus-" he breathed and then immediately looked for Rachel. When he saw her he gave her an apologetic look and sort of beckoned her closer with his head. His hands still needed to be around his stomach, he was sure of it.

"What...the fuck was that?" Danny finally hissed at Zoe, because she seemed to know everything. "What the fuck?"

He was calling her; Danny was calling her over and looking at her in a way Rachel had never been look at before. Like he needed her, like he was scared and she stood a chance of making it better. No one had ever looked to Rachel for help before, she was always, always the one being looked after. She stepped forward slowly, till she was standing behind him, her hand hanging down above his shoulder, near his face. She was a little too scared to touch him, but she was close enough that, if he needed to, he could lean against her.

Zoe shook her head at Danny; she couldn't say anything, god no. But Cai was looking at her, imploringly. He was starting to shudder in deeper breaths, and violent tremors still ran through his body every few moments. But he looked at her, and he nodded, and Zoe knew she had a choice in front of her that she was not ready for.

Lie to her friends and protect herself or tell them the truth, and risk them finding out everything.

She turned and looked at Rachel, who she'd promised to trust, and Danny, who deserved to know what had happened to him. Shit. She felt the anxiety squeezing her throat like it was trying to keep her silent by killing her.

"He's psychic," she said, turning away from Cai to look between her two friends. She said it with sincerity, and with the understanding that they were probably not going to believe her. But she was telling the truth, the real truth, and she had to stand by that. She wished she could do something to promise to them she wasn't lying; she wasn't trying to make this worse by messing with their heads. She wouldn't do that. She looked at them and hoped they knew she wouldn't do that.

The moment Rachel stepped forward, Danny did lean against her legs. He felt weary and drained and she had always been so safe. He just wanted to take comfort in another human being, and the fact that she even offered, after all of that- It meant so much to him.

She could touch him, even now. That was how much he trusted Rachel.

He found a second later though, that none of this was about how much he trusted Rachel. No. Now it was about how much he trusted Zoe. If most other people had just flat out told him someone was psychic, he would have laughed in their faces. Now, however, he had just touched Cai and his whole, terrible past had just blurred in front of his eyes.

"So- Did- Cai, did you see-" There was a lump in Danny's throat, threatening to choke him. Threatening to drag out another scream. God no god no. "Did you see me? Did you see what he did to me?"

Suddenly Cai was crying - he couldn't stop himself, tears pouring down his face, so many and so quickly. "I'm sorry," he said, choking up. "I am so, so sorry. I didn't know - I shouldn't've-" But there was nothing he could say to take it back, nothing he could say to change it.

And the thought that it seemed like he'd inflicted the vision on Danny, too - that he and Danny had seen the same thing like he and Zoe had last night and how did that happen and was it a brother thing or was he going to drag everyone else into his visions now too and oh God he was never going to be able to touch another human being again. Cai gasped and grabbed at his chest looking for some kind of comfort, wishing he'd worn his mother's silver cross today because he needed Jesus's strength right now. But he never wore that cross out, it was too special to risk losing.

Rachel buried her hand in Danny's hair, and she didn't know where to look, Zoe or Cai or Danny so her eyes flickered between the three of them. She didn't know what to believe either, but the proof was right there in front of her, and Zoe looked more serious and more terrified than Rachel had ever seen her before. Rachel didn't like seeing Zoe scared; it was unnatural.

That pretty much cinched it for Danny. The fact that Cai had had to see the things he'd been through- Shame settled in Danny's belly, hot and horrible. Ignoring it, Danny nudged Rachel for a second, as if to say thank you, before crawling towards his brother again.

Cai was crying. Crying. Because of him.

Danny's tears started all over again, but he ignored them and ignored the guilt, because Cai was more important. He pulled his sleeves up over his hands and reached out, hovering just above Cai's knee. "No one knew," he whispered. "My Mum didn't even know until she walked in- I'm sorry. I'm sorry I thought you'd done it to me, but I believe you and I'm not afraid of you, okay? Okay, Cai? Look at me? I'm- I'm alright."

"Don't," Cai couldn't pull back any further because the wall was at his back, but he tried, when Danny moved closer. Tried to move his leg away from Danny's hand in case he slipped and touched him again because Cai wasn't going to trust in the protection of clothing any more. "Don't touch me, it isn't safe. I didn't - I haven't - other people don't normally see things when I see them, not normally, not-" his words were tripping all over the place. "Don't touch me if you don't want to see, Danny. I can't help it. I can't stop it."

Danny curled his hand back in on himself, never willing to touch someone who didn't want to be touched. He would never be that guy. "It's not your fault," he said anyway, sniffing hard. "It's not your fault, it's my sick fucking uncle's fault. I see it all the time when I sleep anyway. Once a week, sometimes twice. Doesn't fucking matter it's over when I wake up because it's always goddamn there. And I can't kill myself because my sister already died and even if my mother's only got the broken kid left she deserves one, right?"

Danny couldn't stop talking now. It was all pouring out of him without stopping. "Not that I didn't try. Just turns out I'm really bad at it. Really bad at dying and really bad at living and really bad at not spreading my bullshit around and hurting absolutely every single person I give a shit about. Because Melissa was coming to keep me safe the day she died. Coming to make sure her fucked up little brother wasn't pissing himself in a corner somewhere because that's what I do. That's what I do when things get hard. She died because of me and you're freaking out because of me and my mother's entire life is fucked up because of me. I- I'm so sorry-"

Danny slapped his hand over his mouth, as once again he started to sob. Then he gagged and it was all he could do not to vomit right there in the most expensive living room he'd ever been in.

Rachel sank down behind Danny as he spoke, losing the strength to stay standing. She put her hands on his back, and when he didn't flinch, she slid her arms around his body, like anything she could do could possibly make a difference.

Cai shook his head, dragging his arm (sleeve pulled right down over his treacherous hand) over his face. "I'm sorry," he said, again, because he hadn't said it enough, and he hadn't said it for all the reasons he needed to have said it.

"Everyone's sorry," said Zoe, sitting back on her heels. "And, everyone's safe. Okay? You're all safe here." It was something Liz had told her over and over again, not in words, but in her actions. In everything she did, everything she provided, she told Zoe that she was safe. And Zoe hadn't consciously realised till now what a big fucking deal that really was, and that here in this house, Zoe had the power to pass that promise of safety on.

It wasn't really enough that everyone was sorry, but Danny fell silent anyway. He leaned back against Rachel, glad she hadn't run away from him. He was still sure he was going to ruin everything somehow, but apparently today wasn't the day. Or at least not yet.

He swallowed roughly, trying to gain control over himself, or at least his lungs. When he managed it, he sniffed hard and wiped furiously at his tear-stained cheeks. "Sure," he finally said, his voice suddenly weak and lifeless. "Zoe. How did you know my brother was physic and I didn't?"

Zoe stood up, her body feeling stiff as a board. She started to say something filler, an 'I don't know' or whatever meaningless thing came out of her mouth first but she couldn't get anything out around the lump in her throat. She walked away, only a few steps before she sat back down on the couch. Breathing was getting harder.

"Zoe," said Rachel, scared. Scared they were both going to fall apart and leave her to try and help them and she couldn't help both of them, she didn't know how.

Zoe looked at Rachel, but she couldn't look at her for longer than a moment. She couldn't look at any of them, all of them a threat, now, all of them dangerous. You're safe she tried to tell herself, but how could she feel safe when she could barely breathe?

"When I pulled her out of the pool," Cai said, watching Zoe in horror as she started to panic. "I had a vision of her when I pulled her out of the pool."

Zoe flashed her eyes to him for a moment, grateful that he'd spoken and she didn't have to but it wasn't enough. She doubled over and pressed her face against her knees, screaming at herself in her head to STOP, to get a HOLD of herself. Just STOP.

It was hard for Danny to focus on his guilt when Zoe looked so panicky. "Hey," he said gently, more life in his voice now. "Zoe what's wrong? Did- Did Cai see something bad? Whatever it is, we'll keep you safe okay? We can try to protect you. Right, guys?"

Rachel pulled herself to her feet, and once she was up offered her hand to Danny to pull him up, too. “Zoe,” she said, looking at her friend on the couch, her hands folded over her head like she was trying to protect herself from a bomb or an earthquake. But she didn't know what else she needed to say except "Zoe", as she made her way toward Zoe and sat down on the footrest facing her.

When they'd first met Rachel and theorised that Zoe was just as messed up as she was, but over the months she'd known her, Zoe had proved that wasn't the case. Zoe was stronger than she was, Zoe dealt with things better than she did. Except for now, except for this. Maybe Rachel had been right to start with.

Zoe forced herself to straighten up, though her muscles felt strung so tightly she thought she might snap her own bones just trying to move them.

Danny's promise wasn't reassuring, but it wasn't threatening either, and right now that felt huge. Zoe reminded herself (her voice still screamingly loud in her own head) that only this morning Rachel had said she wasn't going to hurt her, she didn't want to be that kind of person. And she didn't seem like she was acting like the kind of person that would hurt her, right now, either.

"Yes, something bad," Zoe said, though she wasn't talking about the funeral they'd seen. She was talking about what she was afraid they'd all find out: that she was psychic too. She who once boasted about it once to the Sisterhood but that was before - before the reality of the world had really sunk in. How could she be so scared of something now that she'd once boasted about?

Let them think he'd seen something bad, something in her past no one could change. Let them think that while she bought herself some time. (It was half true - there were bad things in her past no one could change, Cai just hadn't seen them.)

"I know s'not fair," Zoe said, voice thin as a reed. "But I can't talk 'bout it. Not..." Not today, not now, not ever. "Yet," she said, freaking herself out again with that last word.

Danny nodded then, because he knew what it was like to carry something around inside yourself and to be so afraid people would see it written all over your skin. "Okay, Zoe. Nothing about any of this is fair, but that isn't your fault. I don't think I'd have told you guys about my shit except you were both here when I had that panic attack. And now Cai knows," he said offering his brother a guilty look. "Do you want some water? I could get you some water if you tell me where it is."

"In the sink," said Zoe, automatically. "Hah," she added, because even she could hear how pathetically ridiculous her answer was.

"I know where it is," Rachel said, jumping at the chance for something practical and helpful to do. "I can get it, I'll brb," she gave the whole room a quick and worried look, like she was afraid it might do something if she turned her back on it.

She hurried across the living room and toward the kitchen, hoping she could find a jug or something because she wanted to get a glass for everyone in that room and she couldn't carry four full glasses on her own. Honestly she was at the point where she'd tip the flowers out of a vase and use that, but luckily Zoe's mum's water jug wasn't hard to find. She filled it up, and grabbed a handful of mugs because they were easier to carry by their handles.

Cai was still sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, but he'd stretched his legs out some more now that the others had moved away. He didn't look relaxed by any stretch of the imagination, but he didn't look like he was trying to press himself inside the wall either.

"I won't tell anyone," Cai told Danny. There wasn't a lot he could say to reassure him but he thought this might help. "I hope that goes without saying but I won't. I'm good at secrets." He'd never had to keep someone else's secret this big before, only his own. But what he meant was, he hoped he was good. He hoped he was good at respect, and if Danny didn't want his secret out then Cai was going to make sure he respected that.

Rachel came back in with the water. Mugs clinking in her fingers, she set them all down on the coffee table.

When Rachel left, Danny sat down on the floor, crossing his legs underneath him. Cai promised him that his secret would be safe, and Danny wanted to say he didn't care. He wanted to say he was so tired and they had been having such a great day and of course it had been ruined by his crap and he was just so tired of all of it. Instead, he just nodded once.

"Won't tell anyone you're a psychic either," he said firmly. "Still kind of having a hard time figuring out how that's even possible." He'd seen the proof though. Oh how he had. "Uhm-" Danny looked up as Rachel returned, and he reached forward so he could get himself a mug of water. His hands were still so shaky, but he managed it.

"Did you uhm- Did you see all of it? I mean- I don't know how clear it was for you." He was kind of hoping Cai had sort of had tiny glimpses and nothing more.

"All of it?" wondered Cai, and another violent shudder ripped through his body again like - no - Cai dug his fingers into the carbet to distract himself, concentrating on the feel of the strong loops of wool, the hard floor beneath it. "I don't know how much there was," he said, thinking about fingertips and carpet and trying very hard to think of anything else. It was a trick he'd tried to teach himself when he was with Alex, when they were kissing. Think of something else and it would put of making that necessary connection for a little while. "So I don't know how much I saw. The worst of it... maybe."

God please let that be the worst of it, he prayed. Please don't let Danny have gone through anything worse.

"It was months and months," Danny whispered, watching Cai carefully. He was filing every horrified expression and gesture away for later. "Nine all up. It's why Dad decided I was too much trouble to deal with. Because instead of realising I was clearly traumatised, he just figured I was simple or something. It's why I didn't get to see you as much. I couldn't...walk or sit sometimes, and they thought I was just acting out. Fuck, I'm sorry. You don't need to hear more."

Cai looked at him in horror. Just stared, crippled at the thought of this happening. Happening to Danny back when they knew each other. Cai wondered if there had ever been anything he could have done, if he had tried to see Danny more or... if Danny had come over to his house when he was a kid and then Nonnie or Dom might have figured it out because they were clever like that, when it came to people, they knew about pain... But Cai hadn't been able to do anything, and he couldn't go back in time.

Just see back in time, he thought, resentfully. Just watch it happening.

He had to believe he'd seen it for a reason, though. He had to. "I'm sorry," he said again. "That sounds like actual Hell."

Was it actual Hell then, or was it actual Hell now, having to relive it over and over again? Now when he knew just how truly fucked up he actually was by it all. Back then he had believed that once it stopped, that would be the end of it.

He was so wrong.

"I think I just want to go home," he finally said, his voice choked again with the effort not to cry. Hadn't he done that enough? "Or maybe just sleep? I don't know. I'm tired." Cai was probably tired too, considering he'd just had a horror show thrust into his mind. Danny tried to imagine being someone else and having all of that shown to you in 3D and surround sound. Fuck it would be so horrible. And poor Zoe too. Poor all of them.

"I ruined your first day of freedom," he said to Rachel, frowning a little.

Rachel shook her head, putting her hand over his and giving it a gentle squeeze. "You didn't," she said quietly. "I mean, you didn't." Because she wasn't going to pretend like today hadn't gotten very fucked up very quickly. She didn't know what she thought.

But she supposed if, out of nowhere, a sinkhole could swallow a house or planes could drop out of the sky, then this could happen too. If her brain could erase huge chunks of her past then maybe Cai's brain could give him extras. None of the rest of the world made sense either.

Zoe had wrapped both her hands around a cold mug of water, drinking it slowly. The cold on her hands and the water in her throat made her feel a little more human, whatever being human meant. A little more present. "If you want to go home, you can call your mum," she said, watching the water in her mug. "Or if you want to lie down, we could just... watch TV? I'm tired too."

The idea of lying down and watching telly was actually really intriging and Danny nodded. "Sounds nice actually. I mean if everyone's staying. And as long as-" He turned to Cai, chewing his lip a little ragged. "As long as you don't think I'm disgusting. Cai," and then he couldn't help it because goddamnit he was crying again, "Cai, do you think I'm disgusting? Do you- Do you think I'm ruined? I don't want you to stop talking to me or start avoiding me. Please?"

"No!" The word burst from Cai's mouth, and he started to crawl towards Danny because crying people needed comfort - but he stopped himself before he got more than a couple of feet, because that was not the kind of comfort Cai could give. "No," he said again, sitting back down where he was, at the end of the couch Zoe was sitting on. "I don't think that at all, no way."

There was reassurance in the strong way Cai had spoken. He had lost his father because the man didn't want to deal with a kid who had issues, and he'd lost his sister to a psychopathic school girl, and he didn't want to lose Cai to this.

It felt dangerous, to know that any time he touched Cai, the poor guy could end up seeing more. It felt like Cai was taking a risk just being around Danny at all. Like Danny should be the bigger person and leave the poor kid alone, but he just wanted so much to have family. Family who didn't hurt or who hadn't hurt him. His entire being cried out for it, even as he feared it.

"Okay," he finally whispered. Then he rolled his eyes at himself. "Eventually I'll stop crying," he said with a dramatic sigh. "I just- I want a brother again."

Cai managed to smile a bit at Danny's dramatic sigh. "Well, you've got one," he promised, though he was really worried that he was going to damage Danny again. He'd have to be really careful, so careful. Maybe this hyper-sensitivity to touch wouldn't last forever, maybe it was just... for now. He could pray for that. That it was just for now. "I'm not going anywhere," he said, trying to make a joke of his own. "You know my deep dark secret too, after all."

Into her cup, Zoe winced, and gulped down the rest of her water.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 2 of 3

The winter soldier (Rachel, Zoe, Danny, Cai) WARNING - rape flashbacks

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject