blood runs red ✓

LX

'i still love you, i promise - nothing happened in the way i wanted'

- gracie abrams

august

It had been a few months since August finally escaped his abusive boyfriend. A trial took place and, luckily, it wasn't too long. August struggled, but he made it, and he won. Sean didn't have anything to defend himself with, so all he said was he was never with August and never hit him. He denied everything.

So, naturally, all the proof of Sean admitting everything worked out in August's favour, and Sean was sentenced to twenty years in prison for sexual coercion/rape and domestic violence. His expensive lawyers didn't do shit for him, and he ended up where he belonged.

August thought he was okay, he had been for the few months he had before the trial. But it felt like after everything was over, things weren't over. The trial was invasive and slightly public, considering Sean Matthews was a famous boxer, and word got out that he was dating a man, and then abused that man for years. 

His imprisonment became public news and everyone was trying to figure out who the abused boyfriend was, with no regards to how said boyfriend felt. A clip of Sean mentioning August at the awards ceremony got out, and now everyone believed it was August who was stuck in an abusive relationship with Sean.

August could no longer go out without someone recognising him and asking what it was like, and paparazzi seemed to follow him around too. He'd gone back to work with Lana for a sense of independence again, despite all his restricted money being returned to him. But the second he stepped out of the physio place, people crowded him.

He was lucky Ares had no care for how the media portrayed him, because Ares gladly shouted in the paparazzi's faces and told them to fuck off before getting a security detail for August. He appreciated it, but he wanted anything but fame. He hated the attention he was receiving and wanted the world to go back to normal, to the way it used to be before the truth about Sean Matthews got out. A part of him missed Sean, and he hated himself for that.

He knew it was stupid, but one night, he decided to search himself up and found hundreds of articles speculating his relationship with Sean. Photos upon photos of him and Sean had been found, from when they were dating, and they were everywhere. Somehow, footage of Sean hitting August in his car had gotten out.

There were zoomed-in photos of August with a visible bruises on his face, and he hated it. He hated how people had managed to find all of these photos with no respect for his privacy. He wanted it all to stop.

And then he found the articles of him and Ares, and everything went to shit. People started talking about Sean being abusive because of Ares, or the whole thing being a publicity stunt for boxing, and August couldn't fucking take it. He couldn't stand people, random strangers with no idea what his life was like, talking about him and coming up with crazy theories.

He'd had enough.

He just wanted life to feel normal again.

He hated how normal was waking up in pain.

"You okay?" Ares asked August, who was sitting on the sofa with a closed laptop resting on his legs. "You usually notice when I get home."

"Sorry." August smiled. "Zoned out."

Ares hated the way August played everything off. He knew there was so much that was wrong, but August never talked about any of his problems. It had been months, and August had refused to talk about it all, or go to a therapist or even a support group. He refused all and any help.