Fix You

Nine.

Warnings: discussions of physical abuse, discussion of emotional abuse, discussion of sexual assault

As therapy progressed, you began to notice changes in Yoongi. He seemed more relaxed in his day-to-day life. He was less on-edge. Cars driving past your apartment didn't cause him to worry anymore. He actually wanted to go grocery shopping with you, and often accompanied you to pick up prints for your clients. He started napping during the day while you worked, curling up in the wingback chair in your office and falling asleep in the sunshine pouring through the window.

He had come so far, and yet...

After the third therapy session, he had started to have nightmares. It started as just scary dreams--something chasing him, getting lost at the store, minor things that were easy to help him get over. You could coax him back to sleep after one of the scary dreams. But it soon evolved into what you assumed were flashbacks. Sitting in on his therapy sessions was hard on you--you often left sick to your stomach after hearing everything Seungri had put Yoongi through. And now it was all coming back to him in his dreams.

One night, he woke up screaming about Seungri selling some of his things. A punishment, you knew, had been imposed after a 10-year-old Yoongi had forgotten to do his chores. Dreams like that were frequent, but they were easy enough to calm him down from, and he could almost always fall back to sleep after.

Sometimes, he woke up clutching various body parts, crying out in phantom pain. You held him on those nights, trying to cuddle his pain away while your mind wandered to Dr. Jung's email and the myriad poorly healed injuries you knew Yoongi had suffered. You could almost always calm him down, but there were times where he had trouble falling back to sleep after.

On rare occasions, he woke in the middle of the night completely inconsolable. On those nights, you couldn't touch him, couldn't talk to him, everything made it worse. He wouldn't tell you what those dreams were about, but you had a feeling you knew. He had told Jess about times where Seungri would have him play with his "friends"--strangers who paid Seungri handsomely for the opportunity. On those nights, all hope of sleep for either of you was lost.

Your ritual for the bad nights was a carefully choreographed dance around him and his needs. Since he often didn't want you near him right after he woke, you would go make him a cup of catnip tea and grab his basketball blanket from his room. When you returned, he was usually calm enough to tolerate you being in the room, so you would sit on the bed in silence, waiting for him to cue you on how to proceed. Eventually, he would get out of bed and grab a book, and you would read it aloud to him while he laid with his back to you, snuggled in his blanket.

The days that followed those nights were always exhausting.

You had been prepared for the changes. Jess was a great counselor--for both Yoongi and you--and she had warned you that talking about his past might start to dredge up unpleasant memories for Yoongi. She had assigned him homework between sessions, to journal his maladaptive thoughts and come up with ways to combat them on his own. But even with all her warnings and helpful homework, watching Yoongi suffer alone fucking sucked.

You began to take comfort in the stretches of peace that separated the chaos of nighttime. It wasn't like he was having nightmares every night. Most nights were nice, and he was becoming more cuddly, which you felt a little weird admitting to yourself that you enjoyed. But in addition to being your roommate, he was also part cat, so you assumed his craving for attention and physical contact was somewhat instinctual.

It was one of those nights--one of the peaceful ones that followed the chaos of a bad previous night--that you sat up reading. Yoongi was off in the bathroom, you could hear him pattering around with his nightly routine, and you were cozy. Not quite under the covers, head propped up against your headboard as you read, the only light in the room being the warm glow of your bedside lamp. The book was one of your favorites--you had read it before, but there was something comforting about returning to it, especially when your life was so unpredictable in recent weeks.