love is patient - LYSANDER

[joanna ruby reagan]

MAYBE I'M A DIFFERENT BREED

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 355px;] boston was still getting back into the swing of things. the blackout and the various other catastrophes the city had faced basically meant the police department was spread thin and hurting. jo had to come back into work with only a day’s respite. she had a minor concussion, a black eye, and lots of cuts and bruising over her hands and legs. the glass from her exploded lab had not been kind to the scientist, nor had the explosion itself. it was all surreal, though, all a blur. she hardly remembered it (although, she supposed she could chalk that up to the concussion). she had had to splurge on makeup because of the bruising, and even then, she kept taking breaks every half hour to put ice on her face. it was still swollen, although not as bad as what she had been expecting, and steadily turning various colors of the rainbow. if she waited too long to take her ice break, it felt hot to touch and sore, made it harder for her to talk and move her face and jaw, and it throbbed. the ice made it blissfully numb after a few minutes of application, and then, combined with some ibuprofen- she’d been taking way too much, and she knew it- the blonde would fix her makeup and return to work. it was already a routine. jo was, to her resigned dismay, in one of the other labs. the police department had a few, and this was the only one in proper working order. due to seniority and sheer pig-headedness, she even had it (mostly) to herself because the rest of the lab rats were off nursing injuries or found other spaces to work because they didn’t want to deal with the grouchy blonde woman wearing heavy makeup and bandaged limbs. she didn’t blame them. she would have preferred her own lab. this was some other person’s set up and their settings and she was stressed out enough as it was with all of the cases that she needed to work on. how graphic some of them were didn’t help at all. for example, this one right here had something like ten killed animals. jo was not a soft woman. she didn’t whimper and cringe and avert her eyes at things that made her a little uncomfortable. she wasn’t too squeamish, either. but this? this was slaughter. someone had shot and killed animals in cold blood, with no provocation. the cold nature of the killings made her stomach turn a bit. if lysander knew about this, jo was ninety percent sure he’d be furious and/or cry. if this wasn’t her job and all of this didn’t feel so surreal, jo might let loose an angry tear or two. after she finished cataloguing the dogs and taking samples from each of them, she took another glance at the paperwork. it stated where they were from and had pictures of the crime scene itself. jo started pulling bullets out of one of the german shepherds, blue eyes a bit dull. she recovered a casing and let it fall from her forceps into a little evidence jar for further processing. this was definitely the work of someone twisted. she looked over the papers again. mercy animal hospital. there was something familiar about that. her concussed brain worked hard and came up with nothing. jo really should have taken today off. bemoaning her own lack of foresight, she continued with her grisly task. the dogs were stained with blood and- well. something crusted a large amount of one of the dogs’ fur. jo leaned in a little and let out an audible groan. this case had just gone up a level of importance. she couldn’t be sure without a test, but that looked like something not from a dog, like human bodily fluids. she cringed a little. it wasn’t as bad as some of what she’d seen, but still, not something she’d like to deal with on a daily basis. it would give her some idea of whoever this was, though. she drummed her aching fingers against the desk before curling them to stretch out the joints. the cuts burned. jo lifted them from the surface of the table before checking the results of the test. at first, she blinked. her contacts must be blurring her vision, or it took a sudden turn for the worse in a few seconds. then, jo leaned in very close to the monitor’s cheerful screen and stared. the letters didn’t change or rearrange themselves. two different people, one of them didn’t have enough to be located, but the other did. it was times like these where jo hated her brain, hated being smart. even concussed, her mind made all of the horrible, necessary connections that left her reeling with shock and agony. mercy animal hospital was lysander’s clinic. his dogs had been shot multiple times with that caliber bullet. some of the fluid covering the dogs was from him, and considering it was on the killed animal... she couldn’t stop thinking about what that entailed. he had been quiet, when they had gotten in. he looked woozy and exhausted, and he hadn’t really talked to her much. jo hadn’t put much into it, and she was concussed and injured, to boot, so she had basically crashed after they had gotten some food, so she didn’t notice. she had been working at the lab for the rest of the time. now that she thought about it, she noticed bruising, she noticed certain little things that lysander hadn’t done before, little cringes and micro-expressions. he hadn’t wanted to touch her, even. jo felt her nails bite into her palms, aggravating the cuts further even through their meticulous layers of bandages. she was overwhelmed by this. leaning in again, she clicked through, noticing traces of tranquilizers that the machine picked up. she had never been so angry that her equipment was this sensitive before. she let out a sharp little bark of a laugh, a little broken sound in the back of her throat. jo went to rub a hand over her eyes before freezing, remembering the damage done to the area, and just letting herself shake for a few minutes. she hurt for him, she was angry for him, she wanted to cry for him, she wanted to destroy something for him. they had to talk. the thought rang around in her head as she numbly packed up her bag and started to walk. they had to talk. something built itself up in her chest, a fortress of impenetrable emotion that threatened to claw its way out of her lungs and heart and chest and come pouring out of her throat. why didn’t he tell her? why couldn’t he sit there, looking so confused and hurt like he did, and just tell her? did he think she would judge him, that she would leave? why didn’t he say anything? suddenly, she was standing in front of him, at the door of his apartment. her rib cage ached with feeling and she felt pressure behind her eyes, both from tears and a migraine threatening to make its way out. ”lysander, the blonde said, jerking her bag up her bruised arm. maybe he’d tell her now. ”what- what exactly happened, yesterday?”

| tagged. lysander | outfit. here | notes. 1232 words. |

credit to cranberr23 of caution.

[LYSANDER NIKOLAUS GREY]

BUT IS IT KIND?

Oh but don't bowl me over Just wait a minute well it kinda fell apart, things get so Crazy, crazy

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lysander stood emotionlessly at the window, leaned against the frame and staring blankly at the city beyond. smoke rose from the police station as well as the harbor and a few other places. stoplights flashed impotently on the streets, and hardly anyone bothered to come outside. they were with their families, thanking whatever gods they believed in that they lived to see another day.

but what was life when you couldn't live it? was being alive worth it if you were living with torture?

grinding his teeth together and closing his eyes, lysander shuffled back to the bed and sat on the corner of it. he could only stand for so long before the pain started, and he had developed a limp thanks to the torture he'd endured at the hands of the russian mobstress. he remembered minute details of it, but enough that he hated himself and he hated her. he knew how his body had reacted to her, and although, deep down, he knew it was a drugged, natural reaction of the male body, he couldn't forgive himself. sex meant something to him, and he felt torn and desecrated because it had happened with someone who meant nothing to him.

he didn't have the strength to remind himself that it wasn't sex. it was rape. there was a difference, and his rational mind knew this, but he was not rational. all he could feel was the pain, both physical and emotional, and he was not at a place of forgiveness. hanging his head in his hands, he instantly regretted bending at the waist and winced, sitting upright on the bed. he was bruised all over, mostly in places that were hidden by his shirt, thanks to that woman manhandling and abusing him. his throat was sore, and he wore a collared shirt to cover the finger-shaped bruises against his windpipe where she'd almost choked him to death. his upper thighs and everything below his waist was sore and in pain from being forced into obedience.

he still felt groggy-headed from the drugs he'd been given, and he'd been poked and prodded by so many doctors and law enforcement officials that he just wanted to be alone. allowing himself to fall back onto the bed, he sighed and stared up at the ceiling.

suddenly, he was assaulted with the image that had been freshly renewed in his nightmares last night. he was laying on his back, pinned to the ground by the bodies of the animals he'd vowed to heal and protect. he couldn't move for he was drugged and weighed down by too much weight to move alone. he was naked and exposed, covered only by the bodies of the helpless animals the devil had slain. when the police found him, several hours later, the blood made the carcasses stick to him, and he'd been impotent to escape his own disgrace and shame as they peeled them away.

they all knew. they could see the desecration on him. he was broken, what innocence he had, stripped from him. he wasn't a virgin, but he was a well-mannered man, and that soft outer shell had been ripped and gouged, stolen from him and dropping him in a world of shame and disgrace. he was the victim, but he blamed himself. there must have been something he could have done. he should have known.

he was a man. he wasn't supposed to worry about being alone. he wasn't supposed to be afraid that a woman would overtake him and take advantage of him. but now he was. unless he was in his apartment, he looked over his shoulder constantly, always wary and never feeling safe. he didn't think he would ever feel safe again.

He was embarrassed, that was the crux of what it came down to. he was ashamed and embarrassed and beyond being able to recover from it.

hearing the front door to his apartment open, he bolted upright on the bed, wincing and yelping in the pain that radiated through his waist from the swift movement. hunching over his own lap, he sat panting slightly as jo entered the doorway. he'd given her a key just two weeks ago when they'd officially begun dating, and she'd come and gone most nights since then. but he'd been standoffish and distant over the past day.

he didn't look up at her as she halted in the doorway, but he stared blankly down at his knees as his hands supported him on the bed. the pain throbbed through him, but he wouldn't show it to her, not any more than he already was. she couldn't know.

but she already knew.

he knew she did when she asked him what happened the day before. he felt the heat rising in his throat and the nauseated feeling sweep over him. closing his eyes, he reined in his control over the sensation as he tried not to weave on the bed. images of the woman on top of him, his own breath being choked out of his throat, the bodies piled on him... it was all too much. jo already knew. she wouldn't have asked if she didn't know. she just wanted to hear it from him. she wanted to hear him admit to his shame, that his body had done something that any male's body would do and it was beyond his control. but it should have been in his control. it never should have happened.

rising to his feet, ignoring the pang of discomfort through his belly, he shoved past her in to the bathroom where he promptly lost all of his lunch. mortified and embarrassed, he fell back on his heels as his stomach finished emptying, and he slumped against the wall of the bathroom, staring at the white wall behind the toilet.

"you already know, or you wouldn't have asked," he stated in a flat tone, betraying his lack of emotion. he wanted her to just get it over with. he had sex with another woman - even though it was beyond his control and never would have happened if he hadn't been drugged, his rational mind couldn't grasp this fact right now - and she had every right to leave him. he expected her to. he couldn't tell her, he couldn't admit he'd been raped. his mouth couldn't form the words. it brought up too much realization, too much pain, too much embarrassment. so he wouldn't do it. he couldn't manage anything other than the simple statement he'd already made, so he sat mired in his own self-pity and shame staring blankly at the wall while he wished he could stand and beg her not to leave him, to beg her to forgive him for something that wasn't his fault.

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[joanna ruby reagan]

MAYBE I'M A DIFFERENT BREED

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 355px;] jo took another few steps into the apartment, feeling shaky and off-kilter. she dropped her bag onto the ground, hearing the clink of the keys and feeling the burn as the strap tugged down her bruised arm. she knew she wasn’t prepared for lysander’s answer, whatever it would be. she knew in her heart of hearts what had happened. there had been a woman, and she had drugged him, and she had raped him. the clinical definition spun in her head, as if the words had no connotations, nothing evil about them. she wanted to tell herself she was being silly. she couldn’t. jo had seen the evidence with her own eyes, processed it, read what the machines said, processed that officially. there were no loopholes. there were traces in the semen, the fact that it even existed spoke thousands of stories about unwanted touch and a power play that left her reeling. lysander looked like he was about to get sick. jo didn’t blame him in the slightest. this should never have happened. no one deserved what had happened to him. he was shaking as he pushed past her and she heard him retching. it was concrete. this was happening. this had happened. she had to do something, she had to do anything- she had no clue where to start. slowly, mechanically, the blonde walked into the bathroom, crouching by him and touching his shoulder, sliding her palm flat against his shoulder blade. there were bruises on his neck. a ring of black and blue and gray around his throat, showing where whoever she was had choked him. jo analyzed the data set before her, not letting her hands shake and trying not to succumb to her more visceral reactions. lysander sat up, face and voice void of anything, and that hurt even more than the knowledge of what he must be going through. the questions started bubbling out again, and the reaction she had tried to suppress, the one she knew was out of line, erupted with it. she was an emotional woman. she may be a scientist, she may be trained as a professional, but this wasn’t precise, this was messy and raw and she knew that she was hurting and she just wanted him to know that he was allowed to hurt, too. ”why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, voice too loud in the quiet of the bathroom. it was like lysander and his lack of feeling sucked the noise away until she started to make more of it. ”why didn’t you fucking tell me? am i not trustworthy- did you think i wouldn’t find out? god, ly, i processed all of the evidence from your clinic- and i mean all of it, all of the dogs and all of- just, all of it, it’s my job! it’s my job, and i had to figure it out for myself and you could have just told me!” her voice trembled and then began to soar, staying steady but more and more misplaced anger and fear seeped into her town. she wasn’t angry at him. she couldn’t be angry at him, not truly, but her horror and anguish at this situation were what was talking. she continued her tirade, fueling that little red hot spark of anger. it grew bigger and bigger. she was good at being angry. she knew how to be angry. it all fizzled away, though, seeing him like this, hunched over the toilet, guilty and miserable and in pain. she cared for him deeply and this was devastating. all of her anger disappeared in that second, replaced by endless desolation. ”you should have told me,” jo whispered, voice so small she doubted he could hear it. she leaned her forehead against the side of his shoulder, taking a shaky breath. ”i would have- i would have supported you better, better than i did, better than i’m doing now-” the blonde paused for a second, brutally aware that she had just been yelling at him. he didn’t deserve that. ”i’m sorry. i’m so sorry. i’m just- i- it’s not your fault, baby. it never was your fault. i shouldn’t have yelled, i’m sorry.” jo didn’t know what she wanted him to do. if he yelled at her, she could deal with that. belligerence was a daily occurrence for her because of her own mannerisms and her colleagues. it would hurt, his anger, but she could deal with it. if he cried, she thought she could deal with that, too. even if she was responsible for some of it, she thought that she could help. if he needed her to be the strong one, she could try to be strong for him. she just wanted to know what he needed from her. her strength, her silence, her anger, her love, she would try to give it to him.

| tagged. lysander | outfit. here | notes. 824 words. |

credit to cranberr23 of caution.

[LYSANDER NIKOLAUS GREY]

BUT IS IT KIND?

Oh but don't bowl me over Just wait a minute well it kinda fell apart, things get so Crazy, crazy

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he sat still, his stomach clenching and unclenching as he pulled his knees up toward his chest and rested his forearms over them. he stared at the blank whiteness of the wall, trying to forget it all and failing miserably. he knew she knew, and his embarrassment over it all was overwhelming. it broke him and rebroke him, tore him down over and over again. his body had done things he would never allow, but he hadn't been able to stop it. and she would know the signs. she wasn't stupid, and she was the first line of investigation once the evidence got to the police station. thankfully, whether out of foresight or chance, she had been kept away from the crime scene so she hadn't had to see him bloody and naked and drugged. that would have destroyed him. it was horrible enough knowing that she knew what had happened, even if she had no details.

"i was raped, jo!" he countered suddenly as he heard her question. his chocolate eyes flared for a moment, full of raw rage at the truth and shame of the words, and he glared at her for a brief moment. then his gaze broke. his shoulders sagged and tears sprang to his eyes. he was the biggest pussy on the face of the planet, and he knew it. what other man could have possibly been raped by someone? did that even happen to anyone else besides him?

perhaps if he was more like nixon, if he had more of a backbone and a will, then this would have never happened. he would have been no mobstress's plaything, and his body would still be his own. although lysander was a month older, he felt his younger half-brother had life figured out far more than he did. lysander's self-inflicted naivety and ignorance to the outside world served as his undoing. he was weak.

he buried his head in his hands as she rambled on, her words spewing out of her in a worried, rushed tone. tears silently slipped down his face, and he rested his head bent toward his knees so she couldn't see them. he was ashamed he wasn't acting as he should. society dictated that men behave in a certain way, and he wasn't following those guidelines he'd been trained in.

when she slipped down beside him, her head resting against his shoulder, he rocked gently with her added weight on him, but he remained silent for a moment. pulling in a shaky breath, he allowed her to touch him, forcing his mind to remember this was a woman he cared about. this was not the woman who had tortured his mind and body. this was jo. he didn't know every detail of her life, but he knew her. he'd felt her, he'd been with her in his own way in his own time.

"i couldn't..." he murmured back at her, his head still rested on his knees so his voice reverberated around his thighs and sounded slightly muffled. "you couldn't do anything, and i didn't want you to know. i did, but i didn't... i couldn't... damn it, jo. if i've ever deserved you, now is not that time."

he sighed a shaky, watery sigh, tears dripping silently from his cheeks onto his pants as they stopped welling from his eyes. he was unshaven and his hair was a mess, and he overall looked - and probably smelled, considering he'd just been sick - horrible. he felt no desire to take care of himself, and there were times when he wished the woman had just shot him when he'd thought she was going to.

and then he felt guilty because he would never want the people in his life to miss him, to hurt because he was gone. jo, huck, nixon, scout, charlotte, and even genesis.

then jo was apologizing to him, her weight shifting against him and rocking him once more. hearing her apologize cut him deeper, and he squeezed his eyes shut before suddenly sitting up, twisting his upper body and wrapping his arms around her. his body flinched involuntarily, but he ignored it and pushed through the fear as he hugged her against him. one hand went to her hair as he smoothed it down her neck and he gently shushed her. comforting her removed him from his own pain, his own self-pity, and he slowly could forget about it. the pain in his body, in his neck as her head rested against him, throbbed low and slow but he could manage it. he could manage it for her and because of her.

"i couldn't tell you, jo. it's too fresh, it hurts too much. i can't..." he trailed off, shaking his head slightly and swallowing the shameful lump in his throat. "i don't want this. i don't want to live with this pain. i don't want you to have to live with the pain."

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[joanna ruby reagan]

MAYBE I'M A DIFFERENT BREED

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 355px;] he only interjected once during her entire tirade- a tirade that really shouldn’t have happened, but she wasn’t good at controlling what she was saying when she was emotional. that was proof enough to show how much he had gone through and still was going through. this wasn’t a one day thing, this was something that was going to take a long time to get through and she had to support him. she was angry, sure. she knew why he didn’t tell her on an intrinsic level but that didn’t mean that she stopped wishing that he had told her something, anything, about what had happened. his shoulders shook a little. it was barely anything, but she knew that he was crying. she pushed the burning in her own eyes back and stayed where she was, putting light pressure on his shoulder where her forehead was leaning. she rocked back to the balls of her feet. he said that he didn’t deserve her, like he was damaged goods and not the beautiful man that she knew and wanted. society said that only women could get raped, but she knew that it could really happen to anyone. it was beyond stupid to say anything else. it could happen to anyone, and the victims were always shamed, and they didn’t deserve any of it. she had seen enough women huddled up in the station, she had seen men with blank eyes flinching whenever anyone came near them. it didn’t make them any less, and lysander needed to know that. the words stuck in her throat, all tumbled together, and she found herself unable to say anything, just huddling near him in this bathroom. it was surreal in the way that the night charlotte was stabbed was. the pain juxtaposed with the way her mind couldn’t admit that this was real and was happening. lysander wrapped his arms around her, stroking her hair. she pressed her face against him, taking a shaky breath even as he comforted her. jo felt like she should be holding him, she should be telling him soft, kind words. he had to be forcing himself to touch her, though. ”it’s gonna be okay,” she said, pulling back a little so she could make eye contact. ”we’re going to find the bitch and it’s going be okay.” she stroked a thumb under his eye, wiping away the moisture that his tears had left. his skin was rough under her gentle fingers. the past few days had been a bit of a blur, especially due to her concussion, and she didn’t think that he had been taking particularly good care of himself. she thought that maybe if he showered and got something hot to eat, he might feel slightly better. it wouldn’t fix it, she never would think so, but if she could get lysander to feel even the slightest bit better, it would be a success. jo steeled herself, stood up and offered her hands to him. ”let’s get you up. i’ll get something for you to rinse your mouth with.” as soon as he stood up, she went for a cup and filled it with water before searching for his toothbrush. ”can you brush your teeth for me?” she asked, wiping her hands off on her legs and tightening the shaking digits into fists. he couldn’t see that she wanted to cry for him.

| tagged. lysander | outfit. here | notes. 574 words. |

credit to cranberr23 of caution.

[LYSANDER NIKOLAUS GREY]

BUT IS IT KIND?

Oh but don't bowl me over Just wait a minute well it kinda fell apart, things get so Crazy, crazy

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his body ached as he touched her, urging him to move away, to shrink in to himself. but he fought those urges, forced himself to stroke his hand across her hair and to allow her to rest her forehead against his shoulder. his mind was stronger than his body, and he would force himself to do this. he cared about jo - perhaps even loved her - and deep down, he knew that mattered more. but how could she love him after what had happened? he didn't know how to feel about himself, and the only thing he could feel was hatred for what his body had done. as a man, he had less control over his body's natural sexual reaction than a woman. drugged and out of control, he had no choice. he couldn't have fought her and he couldn't fight the way his body was designed.

that didn't mean he hated himself any less.

his self-loathing was rich and raw and powerful, overtaking every other feeling within his body. it was so strong that it became self-centered and intrinsic. it was an undulating sheet of power within his chest and his mind, making his body ache from the emotional stress as well as the physical.

when she leaned away from him, removing the pressure was his shoulder, he was more relieved than he should be, and he hated himself for it. his arm fell back to his side as he looked at her. he couldn't maintain the eye contact for long, but he didn't fight her as she wiped the tears from his eyes: tears he was ashamed to cry. he didn't consider himself a macho man, but he still didn't like crying in front of other people. it embarrassed him, and he was embarrassed enough already.

he knew he wasn't thinking about jo, he wasn't thinking about anyone but himself, and he was ashamed. he hadn't asked her how she'd been. he'd heard about the explosion at the police station, and his first thought had been her, but the tragedy that befell him erased that outgoing concern from him. not only had his body physically reacted against his will, but he was turning into a self-centered ass.

as she pulled herself to her feet, he took a moment to catch his breath. his body was sore and throbbing, aching when he breathed and when he didn't breathe. closing his burning eyes for a moment, he sighed long and slow, hoping she wouldn't notice. it was a relief and a sadness for her to be gone from him. it was a relief to his bruised and battered mind that was averse to feeling anyone's touch, but it was depressing to the part of him that loved her. he wanted her comfort, but he didn't, and the double-sidedness to him was killing him. it was driving him insane.

he took one of her hands and pushed himself to his feet, resisting the urge to look at his reflection in the mirror. if he did, then he would see the edges of the bruise marks against his neck where that woman had almost choked him. he would see the rings around his eyes from lack of sleep. so he ignored himself and swished water around in his mouth before spitting it out.

"i'm not one of your helpless victims," he snapped more bitterly than he'd intended. closing his eyes, he leaned over the sink and shook his head slightly. he was in pain, he was exhausted, and he hated himself. everything that went through his head or came out of his mouth was negative, and once again, he wished the russian had just killed him. but he knew this was what she really wanted. she wanted to get into his head, to make him want to die without having the respite of actually dying. he was winning, and he was letting her. part of him wanted to fight back, to defeat her by not allowing it to get to him, but he couldn't. he didn't have the will. he'd never been a fighter. if he could settle matters peacefully, then he did. he was proper and well-trained and overly not a confrontational man. so he bent, he bowed, and he let it defeat him.

and he was hating himself more and more for it every minute.

"i'm sorry..." he whispered, unsure if she would even hear him. accepting the toothbrush from her, he brushed out his mouth and spit, all the while refusing to look at himself in the mirror. his clothes covered the bruises for the most part, but that didnt' mean he wouldn't see them. he knew they were there. he may as well be shirtless.

"i should probably just be alone," he murmured as he turned away from the sink, haggardly looking at his girlfriend. his brother's wedding was in a week, and they were the best man and maid of honor, but happiness like that seemed so far away. he'd been invited to charlotte's wedding as well, but his will to leave the house at all was escaping him. shuddering slightly, he closed his eyes and breathed a shaky breath before gently circling her and heading for his bedroom.

template by eliza @ sp & shine

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[joanna ruby reagan]

MAYBE I'M A DIFFERENT BREED

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 355px;] jo leaned against the doorframe, biting her bruised lip. it was true that she had been banged up in the explosion at the police department. she had the heavy makeup on to cover the bruising that proved it, as well as the incessant ache of a headache that wasn’t quite gone and the pain whenever she twisted her torso. her wounds were mostly superficial, though. they were physical. sure, she had been quite frightened when it had happened, but she wasn’t in any trauma. she had just been scared and in pain. someone had rescued her from the rubble of her lab, and that had been that. there was no scarring. jo had gone to get patched up, spent a night in the er vomiting and being checked for brain damage, and then had been sent home with a bottle of pain meds. speaking of which, she should probably take one soon. the burn in her body was starting to rise again. lysander, on the other hand... she didn’t even know where to start. she had felt him stiffen when she leaned herself against him, whether he knew that she knew or not. he wasn’t comfortable being touched, not even by her, who she thought he trusted. jo felt a bit personally hurt despite herself. it wasn’t his fault. he had cried while she was there. she could see the bruises that circled his throat. lysander was broken by this, she knew. it probably hurt even more because he was a man and men were not supposed to be raped, by societal view. he probably thought that it made him weak. that spark of helpless anger boiled up again, but she was quick to quell it. jo couldn’t afford to yell at him. he didn’t deserve it, and it wouldn’t help anything. he snapped that he wasn’t one of her victims, and her temper got the best of her yet again. ”if you were, you’d be dead,” she said sharply before cringing. even if it was the truth, that most if not all of her victims were the deceased, and not the living, she didn’t have to take her emotional hurt out on him. he’s fragile, right now, even if you’re hurting for him, she reasoned with herself. you can’t touch him, and you can’t yell at him. she could see his reflection in the mirror. jo took an unconscious step forward, seeing the defeat and pain written all over his handsome features like he was screaming it for her to hear. she saw his lips move, even if she couldn’t hear his voice, knew that it was yet another apology. he kept his eyes down as he brushed his teeth. jo moved to stand beside him silently, leaning closer to the mirror and brushing her fingers under her eye to make sure her concealer was even so the bruising was less obvious. she wished that she had her bag of makeup with her, but it was in the other room, by the front door of the apartment, and she didn’t think she should leave lysander alone right now. she needed to support him, show him that she loved him- even if it was such a strong word- and would stand by his side as long as he needed her. lysander looked so tired that he was about to collapse. she didn’t blame him. not at all. jo let him pass her before turning to face his back. ”it isn’t your fault,” she said, pitching her voice louder to make sure he heard her. ”it couldn’t ever be your fault, lysander. it doesn’t make you any lesser. whoever the bitch was that did this...” she let a bit of the venom and ire she was feeling seep into her tone. ”well, i’ll find her for you. she drugged you, and she raped you, and it doesn’t make you weak. it makes her scum.” jo found that her fists were clenched up into tight balls, the joints aching and her palms screaming as she dug her nails into them. she was furious, and righteously so. her boyfriend had been raped and she could do things to find the woman who did it. he shouldn’t be feeling weak, he shouldn’t be feeling like he was a worse person or terrible. she thought that he needed to know that. ”it’s not your fault,” she repeated.

| tagged. lysander | outfit. here | notes. 746 words. |

credit to cranberr23 of caution.

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[LYSANDER NIKOLAUS GREY]

BUT IS IT KIND?

Oh but don't bowl me over Just wait a minute well it kinda fell apart, things get so Crazy, crazy

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her words were harsh to his ears, but he knew he deserved it. he shouldn't have snapped at her in the first place, and he deserved so much more for what he'd done. beyond his control or not, he'd done it. he couldn't take it back no matter how very badly he wanted to. deep down he knew she was hurting too. she knew what had happened, although they weren't talking directly about it, and he knew it would hurt her. but that was precisely why he hated himself. he was hurting and he was being selfish. he shouldn't be thinking only about himself, but he found he was incapable of doing anything else.

he wanted to touch her, to caress her face and tell her it would all be okay. but he didn't have the strength. the will wasn't in him to comfort her when he needed so much comfort himself. he needed it, but he couldn't accept it. the idea of being touched, by anyone, made him cringe inwardly and the bruises over his body burned as if he'd been hit again. he shivered slightly as he leaned over the sink to clean himself up, and while he hoped she wouldn't notice, he didn't hope to hide it from her. he was too far gone, too deep in it to cover it up for pride's sake.

feeling her move more than seeing it, he tensed but didn't move. she didn't make a move to touch him, and remorse washed over him like a wave. he wanted her to touch him, he should want her to touch him, but his body didn't want it. his body didn't even want to feel the scratch of his cotton shirt against the raw bruises on his neck or the pain that was in his stiff limbs. he'd laid on the floor in the vet for hours before anyone found him. his joints and muscles had grown stiff and sore from the immobility and the drugs in his system. even now, he still felt mildly groggy as he splashed water in his face to wake himself up. the cool water washed away the tear stains that had made his cheeks feel hot, and he sighed inaudibly as the water dripped from his nose and his mouth and his chin.

he told her he should just be alone and, although he hadn't truly thought she would leave, he was still mildly surprised to hear her voice as he stepped past her. surely he hated him by now. surely she was disgusted, but no, she told him it wasn't his fault. he halted in place, his shoulders heaving as he sucked in air and listened numbly to her words.

when he heard her say the woman had raped him, his eyes snapped shut and he tensed so hard he thought he might fall down. his teeth ground together, not in anger but in shame and embarrassment, and his fingers turned white where he held the doorframe for support. his chocolate eyes stayed closed as she finished and silence weighed between them. with his back to her, he shook slightly as he tried to control it all. it was so much, so much he felt as if his chest was going to explode, and he just stood there for a moment. the appropriate reaction now would be to turn and hug her or to kiss her, to tell her he loved her and loved her support. but he couldn't react appropriately. he wasn't himself. the former lysander would instantly know what to do. he would forget himself and think about her, he would turn to her and pull her into his arms and kiss the top of her golden head and tell her everything would be alright.

but that lysander was gone.

he was hidden somewhere, stabbed and bleeding to death. he couldn't muster his caring nature past his selfishness, and he hated himself for it. this wasn't him. he wasn't allowed to shut the world out like this. even in his darkest moments, when his father and stepmother pretended he didn't exist and cloistered him away in some estate where he never saw anyone but his servants, he was never like this. his nannies and butlers had taught him better than this, had taught him to care more. if he cared more about other people, then his personal torment wouldn't destroy him. but now it was. it overruled his outgoing concern and pushed it aside, replacing everything good with something vile and self-possessed.

"the bitch deserves to die..." he answered in a low, quiet voice. it was a voice that didn't sound like it should belong to him, but it did.

his brown eyes flickered open and he realized they burned with tears that hadn't fallen onto his cheeks. standing with his back to her, he released the doorframe and slumped against it, his head hanging slightly. "but maybe i do too," he finished, staring blankly at the curve of the door jam in front of him.

turning, he rested his forehead against the wall and reached up to place the flat of his hand against the cool wall. "my body did things that i can't forgive, jo," he commented, his voice catching as he closed his eyes and shook his head, his forehead rocking back and forth against the wall. his hand slipped down the wall until it fell to his side and he stood, turning to look at her. the pain in his eyes was too raw, too deep. it shouldn't be there, he should let it go, but he couldn't.

"so, it is partly my fault. i didn't stop it, and i should have. i should have done something," he said. he was defeated. this was what the woman wanted, and she'd won. there was nothing he could do about it. his hand went as if to lift from his side, as if to reach out to her, but it relaxed against his hip limply. he couldn't do it. he couldn't move past it. it was too soon, and even if it wasn't, he didn't know if he would ever be able to go there, to return to that place where he'd been happy and caring. he could smile for them all. he could pretend he was alright. charlotte wouldn't notice, huck wouldn't notice, nixon and scout wouldn't notice. only jo would know, and he would convince her too. he would stop caring what they thought and stop caring that he hurt. he would shove it all aside because that was what a man was supposed to do.

drawing himself up with the simmer of his newfound resolve, he mustered a smile for her, a smile that didn't reach the natural laugh lines around his eyes. "you're right. i don't know what i'm saying. this is an act of terror. there's nothing i could have done," he spoke. he almost convinced himself, but then, he knew he was lying. he didn't believe it. there had to have been something he could have done to fix it, and he hadn't. so, no, he didn't believe the blame rested solely on his attacker. he felt like some sort of accomplice, complicit in infamy not blameless.

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