Archive of Our Own ^beta

It hurt.

It hurt a lot.

I was curled up on the couch, knees to my chest and arms binding them there. I had to shed everything, the fabric that irritated me, the mask that suffocated me, the crown that trapped me.

“What- what do we do?” I heard Amy say from several different perspectives. The insects that Taylor held under her will, the pricking of bacteria being disturbed in the air against my skin as the vibrations moved them, from 6 feet 4 inches high, from the floor beside the dogs, from ears that heard a hundred different meanings behind the words and from the couch where I lay.

I thought I was done with emotion, that it was an issue of others and I had simply gotten over it. Maybe I had, maybe whatever fucked up thing Bonesaw described as hiding in our brains had brought them back.

Bonesaw…

Skull split open, dark fabric covered hands twitching, struggling even beyond consciousness. Blood dripping from the curls in her hair. Her mask cracked exposing eyes glazed over. Throbs of ambient agony pulsing along my artificially extended nerves, my ribs splayed-

A small hiccup found its way out of my throat. The movement of my body brought attention to my face, it was wet, tracks on my cheeks,  I’d been so used to just experiencing everything as a flow of nerve impulses I’d forgotten what it felt like. I’d forgotten what anything felt like.

The others were in Lisa’s room, it was the biggest one and I’m sure the presence of soundproofing might have contributed to the decision. I felt them go still at my sound, not because they heard it but because Taylor did.

Flashes of concern, fear, embarrassment, guilt all shot across my chest, my heart skipping a couple beats at the intensity of it all. I screwed my eyes shut waiting for it to pass, for it to die down. I tried reminding myself that it was just a chemical reaction occurring in my brain. Amy had mentioned the names of the specific ones but I hadn’t paid much attention to her.

I thought my teeth would crack with how hard they ground together but they didn’t. I didn’t break. I just watched through 5 pairs of eyes, listened through 5 pairs of ears and felt through senses the average human would never even be able to describe.

The flashes began to fade slightly and I let out a shuddering breath.

Lisa’s door creaked open and she quietly walked out, making her way around to the back of the sofa where my eyes wouldn’t be able to see her.

“How are you feeling?” she asked softly, her hand reached out and with an impossibly delicate touch she stroked my hair. I wanted to recoil from the stimulation but I couldn’t, the myriad of conflicting sensations locked me in place. The pleasure of the touch, Lisa’s affection, Amy’s concern, Taylor’s anxiety.

I felt through the blonde’s fingers my own hair, my scalp below the silky strands, it wasn’t that I was unused to my own body, it was that I was unused to not being in control of it.

I couldn’t force her to stop, I couldn’t even move my own lips to ask her to.

I screamed silently behind my eyes, the overload of sensation. Too much. Too much .

It was just like-

-Father slammed the door shut, he’d sloppily thrown on a bathrobe, fury written across his face. His brow cast dark shadows obscuring his eyes, his lips in a snarl.

“I thought I told you not to disturb me” he spat through barely restrained anger.

The hunger got too much, none of Father's women would feed anyone but their own kids. My stomach growled and I froze in fear.

“You were hungry? Was that it?” he scoffed. Then he took on The Expression, one we had been taught to fear, to avoid, to cower from. I knew what was coming next and I desperately tried to deaden myself, to push any semblance of emotion from me.

It was like a physical impact, a punch from all directions, pushing out from inside me, deforming my skin and organs, tearing, ripping, rotting everything it passed through on its way out.

I’d long since learned not to ask him to stop. I’d long since learned not to scream. I just tried to push the emotion out. Telling myself it wasn’t real. It wasn’t real.

It was all in my head-

Lisa stopped and slowly retracted her hand but mine shot out and grabbed it.

“Don’t-” I managed to get out, the disorientation of being in several different places at once, hearing my own voice from my throat and from other’s ears stopping me. I wasn't sure why I stopped her from moving away, why I was okay with touching her now when I wasn’t earlier.

“Okay, hun” I felt the muscles in her face pull into a smile, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. She walked around the couch and sat by me, holding her hand out for me like I was some stray animal and she was offering food.

“Starting with all 5 at once? You must be in a hurry” I tried to quip but winced at the sound.

“Guide my hand, love” she said softly. Panic gripped me, I was put on the spot, I was frozen. I wanted it, the pressure of her hand, the reassurance. But it was terrifying to want something from someone else and to have them offer it up willingly. If I wanted something I’d take it…

I didn’t know what to do when I didn’t have to take.

Without thinking my own hand led hers to my cheek. I wanted to feel that softness again, I wanted to take but leave something behind to take from again. I wanted her. I wanted to be comforted.

Her hand was cold to the touch- no. I was warm. Very warm. I was burning up, but her touch grounded me, kept me here. In Alec’s body rather than anyone else’s.

I was here, I was me. Everything folded into a single moment, a spot on the couch, the blonde’s hand on my face. Slender fingers curled around my cheek. I wanted to make a joke but nothing bubbled out, the neurons wouldn’t fire in the way I needed them to make some witty remarks.

So I discarded the thought entirely and focused on now, here, me, Lisa. I focused on my connection to her and felt a strand from my own mind to hers, so I just felt around for the shape of it.

I’d calmed down. The touch was comfortable, it was normal, it was familiar. 

Surprisingly it was Rachel who approached me next. I wanted to preempt the coming sensations so I navigated the pathways in my head that connected to her, focusing on her senses. They were shaped differently- well, everyone’s paths were shaped differently. Taylor’s had thousands of little threads branching off of her’s, Amy’s was constantly being crushed, Lisa’s kept shifting and Rachel’s… it was just shaped weirdly.

As I pulled on her senses, curious as to what went on in her mind, I felt my own perception change slightly, the faintly detached worry, the agitation, constantly being aware of the pack.

I felt that worry extend towards me and for the second time I wasn’t sure how to feel. So I leaned on Rachel’s emotions, I saw Alec as fami- one of the pack, a weirdly shaped dog rather than a threat. She saw how Lisa interacted with me and connected it to how she treated her own dogs and wanted to do the same.

“Wait- Rachel-” Lisa tried to say but within moments she was upon me, fingers in my hair, stroking it like fur “He’s warm” she muttered to herself. Lisa’s warnings died in her throat.

Alec leaned into my fingers- her fingers. They were calloused, rough. Strong, secure. Safe.

For a brief moment I forgot what I was worried about. What I was afraid of.

I kept my eyes closed in case I’d remember. In case Lisa’s hair could remind me.

Taylor and Brian both moved at once. Lisa noticed too.

“We need to help him get used to touch again. Get used to sensation as a whole. He’s starting from square one” she kept her volume low.

They wanted to help.

I peered into the sensations and emotions of my other teammates, borrowing from the ever stoic Brian and emotionless Taylor and suddenly, all at once I was hit with affection, caring, yearning- everything.

It had to be mine, affection wasn’t given freely, not to someone like me. Not to someone who’d done what I had and definitely not by anyone with their brain in working order… but then again nobody in this room was ‘sane’.

Fuck…

Then strong fingers larger than Rachel’s found their way onto my shoulder.  A slow growing pressure of someone unused to touch in this way. Smaller, more dexterous fingers trailed along my jaw and I felt the beginnings of a shiver.

“Is this good?” Taylor asked, the complete novice to relationships she was. Small flickers of embarrassment ran across my chest combined with little sparks of excitement, of satisfaction.

Someone was liking this but I couldn’t tell who.

“Alec?” she whispered. I opened my mouth to respond at the same time as she began to draw back her hand in worry. Unprompted and uncontrolled a small whine escaped my lips. A pathetic noise that had only ever made itself known on command. When I chose to let it out.

Brian tensed, Taylor froze and Rachel was indifferent.

The ghost of a grin worked its way into Lisa’s face.

“If you smirk, I’m going to turn you into a giant freckle” I retorted weakly.

“You can do that?” Rachel muttered absentmindedly while scratching my scalp, a sensation that drove me crazy.

Lisa stared a little longer “oh, because of Amy…”

From the other room, the freckled brunette perked up at her name.

“Amy, we need as many hands as we can get” Lisa called.

Amy froze and started to protest “Really? But I’m just-”

“Shut up and touch me” I tried to inject a little levity into the moment and revelled in the blush that spread across Amy’s face. I might not be her type but I was close enough.

Soon another set of hands were on my body, pressing against my chest. Every undersider fighting a rising blush and a couple other things rising.

And I was in the middle of it, feeling it all. The shared heat, the occasional touching of other people's hands, the way their powers interacted with the sensations and their own skin on me.

“So now what?” Rachel looked to Lisa.

Lisa just looked between the dog girl and her own hands “uh-”

“I don’t suppose we just head to the bed at this point?” I snarked.

“No need” Lisa stepped back and revealed that the couch turned into a bed.

“Fuck, why am I only finding this out now” I groaned.

“No escaping your besties” she then wordlessly slipped beside me on the couch and wrapped her arms around my torso. A strangely protective gesture, one that got a small fire going in my chest.

Rachel then followed her lead but rather than curling up beside me, she simply laid her head on my lap, the weight of comfort.

Then Taylor and Brian and even, reluctantly, Amy soon found their way onto the couch curled up beside me.

“Is this too much?” Taylor whispered up to me with big eyes magnified through her glasses.

“H- uuh” I couldn’t speak. I was…

I was comfortable.

Taylor let out a little huff of air that could be interpreted as a giggle and Lisa’s lips curled up. Rachel was already out, her hair coarse and cozy on my legs, the dogs had even joined her.

Then the more manipulative member of our group pushed her face by my ear, nose parting my black curls “Alec, I hope you know that we love you” the blonde spoke quietly “I’m sure you feel it”

Oh.

That’s what that little fire was.

Love.

Not in a ‘I want to fuck you’ way but genuine, actual, sappy, romcom love.

I was here, with people who loved me and also Amy- though going through trauma with someone was like weeks of bonding experience for normal people.

Even Brian had his head over mine. Curled protectively over my vulnerable state.

The undersiders were here for me.

I loved them.