Lessons

I'm here for you (I won't let you fall)

TW: PTSD, abuse, neglect, verbal abuse,
Please let me know if I missed any

Wilbur and Techno weren't mad at each other anymore. Or at least Techno was no longer mad at Wilbur.

It didn't matter to the strawberry blond, if Wilbur was mad at him, he understood. At least he wasn't denying Tommy was gone.

They say there are five stages of grief. But Techno doesn't think he experiences much of them.

It could be a trauma response.

It probably was.

He just shuts down. Just numbness. There is no denial, no anger, no grief, sadness or bargaining. Just a numb acceptance, and maybe something that could be classified as sadness.

He didn't cry. He never did anymore, and all his sadness and emotions just sit in his chest. They pool at the bottom of his throat like a welled up sob that never breaks free, burning like the embers of a fire that never started.

Sometimes he wanted to scream, wanted to rip out the emotion that pools inside of him. But he can't, because this was his own doing and no matter how loud he screams, the pool won't go away.

His emotions sit in a box of his own creation, and for a long time, he liked it that way. No way to weaponize the way he felt if he didn't feel.

But now, he lived with a family and at a home that was actually his.

But the scars run deeper than love can go. They, try as they might, can only burn out so much of the toxin that runs through his veins. He cannot be fixed, and although he isn't happy, he is alive and not upset over it.

Isn't that enough in the end?

Lesson 13: do not hope, do not cry.

Techno spent his 9th birthday in a foster home. It came and went just the same as any other day.

He didn't know when he preferred his birthday to be ignored. Maybe when he preferred to be ignored.

It was better than the families who make birthdays huge, and go on trips or get tons of presents.

Maybe it was because he felt guilty and undeserving of it all.

Or maybe because he accociated attention, with anger and punishment.

Or maybe because he knew that things like that didn't last. That he would inevitably get thrown away as easily as a phone call.

It could be all those things.

It could be none.

But this foster home was a blissful peace time. Adults who mostly ignored the little boy.

Adults who didn't smother him with attention and care.

Adults who didn't beat him down with words or fists.

Just adults who provided dinner, and a good room for him.

Of course, peace doesn't last long.

● ● ●

Techno didn't know which was better. People who used words as weapons, exploding in his face, and sinking into his soul like shrapnel. Or people who just beat him bloody.

In the long run, he'd take the explosion without shrapnel. He'd rather have someone hit him till he's half dead, then not make physical contact at all.