It all goes so well when people don't see you, so it's easier to hide away. And why wouldn't you want to keep away from the eyes of others? You're hideous to the world at large, despite your own opinions of yourself, no matter if you're human or otherwise. You don't appear to be anything most would want to be around, much less befriend. If you're human, your appearance could be chalked up to mutation, a freak chance at birth, or an an accident later in life; if you're not human, you just happen to exist in a place where those who look like you would never be accepted by the mainstream. Maybe it's not even your whole appearance, though. Your point of contention could be something like an injury or prosthetic that makes you feel not whole, though it may be insignificant in the view of the kind and open-minded. There's more comfort in covering that up and not letting anyone get close.
In any case, you don't expect someone to love you, be attracted to you, or even want to be with you, especially a beautiful someone. Yet somehow, somebody does...or, at least, it seems that way. Will this new development last? Can you put your demons at bay long enough for it to do so?
HOW TO PLAY
- Comment with your character, canon, preferences, and whether or not you want shipping only or smut. Also, information about what side your character fits into best is imperative!
- Reply to others.
- Use the RNG to determine your prompt or choose your own.
PROMPTS
- Meeting | You've never seen anyone who doesn't balk at your appearance, but they don't.
- Growing Close | It starts as a friendship or an alliance, the grows to- more?
- Jealousy | There's no way they could see you as anything special. Surely, they have someone more handsome or beautiful in their sights.
- Realizing Feeling | At first, you didn't realize how your heart was feeling just by them being around, but now it's becoming clear: you're falling for them.
- Can't Tell Them | You'll ruin your bond with them should you tell them how you really feel. They'll be disgusted, so you'll keep mum.
- Touch | They touch you without a hint of distaste, which could be a big plus compared to what you usually deal with.
- No Difference | Actually, they can't tell that you're different, due to lack of vision or something similar. All they can discern is your personality.
- The Way It Used to Be | You didn't use to look this way, and it's hard to come to terms with your new look and how it affects
- Confession | You can't keep in your emotions anymore, or they accidentally get revealed.
- Good | They share your feelings! You never could have imagined this, but you couldn't ask for more.
- Bad | ...oh, you thought they...oh, they're so sorry.
- Scared | "Friendship" nor a "relationship" was never on their mind. In fact, they're scared of you.
- Cruel | All of their supposed kindness was actually just them using you for their benefit. To think, you really believed they cared about you!
- Defense | They step on the line for you, standing up to those who'd consider you a monster or somehow lesser.
- Uncovered | You're exposed and they can see everything you've tried to hide. You want to crawl into a hole and die. They want to keep you from feeling that way.
- Shouldn't Be | People oppose your relationship, and there may be some points to the arguments.
- Intimacy | Even being close, which most take for granted, could be a new and possibly uncomfortable event for you.
- Smut | The obligatory smut option, with all the baggage, angst, and difficulties that may come with it.
- Misunderstanding | You heard them insinuate that you're nothing but the ugly outside, or, at least, that's what you think came out.
- Bad End | The messy breakup option...or worse.
- Good End | The happy ending option...or better.
- WILDCARD
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sockdere) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
bakerstreet2017-07-31 07:42 am
honestly neither does Gabe, this'll just make him short circuit
He doesn't distrust Derek, far from it. The man's seen him in terrible condition, at quite literally his lowest points. He's seen him breakdown, he's seen him cry, seen his temper bristle or, even more rarely, he's seen it flare.
But then he's always managed to soothe him, comfort him. Even if it just meant talking to him or not talking at all. He often goes beyond what a doctor is expected to do. And for that, Gabriel respects him immensely.
They don't know a huge amount about each other really, and yet Gabriel counts Derek as someone he's closest to. Not that that's difficult; other than Christian, he's quite alone in the world, or so it feels the majority of the time.
When Derek takes his hand, Gabriel doesn't protest. It confuses him a little, but he doesn't pull away. It feels nice, regardless of whether or not Derek means it to. When was the last time someone held his hand..? When he was a kid, maybe? He can't remember.
As Derek speaks again, Gabriel knows he should look at him. Thank him for his kind words, maybe joke them away as men tend to. But he can do none of these things. He only wants to shrink, wants to disappear. He doesn't think Derek's lying, because that's...he's not a liar. He's just...incorrect.
His scars, the souvenirs left by silver and Wolfsbane, they're not beautiful, he can't see how they could ever be construed as being so. Nothing inflicted with that much cruelty or hatred could be beautiful, how could they be? Nor is he himself. He's not ugly, not really, he knows that somehow - but he's not what Derek's describing. He's just him, he's nobody, no one.
His jaw clenches for a moment, eyes downcast, head half-bowed as though that might help the floor swallow him. But the hand under Derek's curls just a fraction, squeezing just enough to let him know he appreciates the sentiment behind the kind mistaken words.
"...You don't..you're not obliged to say things like that to me. If Christian told you to..I'm fine."
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"It's something you need to hear and be reminded of." Derek's not going to force Gabriel to look up at him or believe that his words are true, he can do that when he's ready to. When Gabriel mentions Christian, however, he has to take a moment before continuing. While he is employed by the Cranes, he's only interacted with Christian a handful of times.
"Christian didn't have to tell me to do this..." He knows well enough that Christian is more than capable of voicing his own thoughts on the matter and delivering them his own way to make Gabriel understand their importance.
He swallows hard, closing his eyes before taking a deep breath. Derek's always played off the scars he's about to show as some made by his own mistakes, be it in a fight somewhere or otherwise if he was ever asked about them. Everyone he's ever slept with, trace the outline of them and still ask and Derek comes up with a different story for them every time because why would he open up some chained up closet of his past to someone he may never see again.
Derek takes his hand back from Gabriel's chest to lift up his shirt, enough to show a series of raised, thick, jagged scars that snaked from the back of his ribs on his right side, down his front till they disappeared behind the hem of his pants. They weren't the only scars his father gave him but they're the most prominent besides the one across his nose. He can forget the smaller ones but these... these served as a reminder of his parent's grief inflicted upon him.
"I understand what he does to you. I'm there when he takes you into his office and I know." Derek has to believe that Gabriel's picked up his scent when he leaves Jacob's office on more than one occasion.
He picked up Gabriel's other hand, the one not currently still on his chest, as placed it against his scars. While he's no wolf and will never truly understand the pain that silver and wolfsbane give, he's seen and heard it. And that's enough for him.
no subject
What hit him first was sympathy, pure and simple. Anger came second, directed entirely at whoever it was that marked him so badly. This then mixed like oil and water with guilt that Derek was showing him at all. He shouldn't have to- he didn't need to. He would never have asked him to prove it if he'd told him what happened instead. Gabriel knew how much it must have taken Derek to share this with him...and if he was being completely honest, he had no idea what to say to really convey that.
He's...touched? Touched that Derek trusts him enough to open up, even if it's only a little.
'I understand what he does to you'. That alone puts one hell of a crack in the wall Gabriel was desperately trying to rebuild here; dries his mouth, makes his chest heavy. Was he made to stay close? Oh, God...did he listen?
Well, not that that mattered. Derek had to deal with the aftermath most times, it didn't matter if he was there for the main event as well.
But still, Gabe can't keep from tracing the line of one of the longer scars that ran down Derek's torso, stopping mid-way down before pulling his hand back altogether, like he had just been caught trying to steal something precious.
"...I'm so sorry." After a moment's hesitation, he made himself look up, bit by bit. "I'm sorry that happened to you." Swallowing thickly, his eyes dropped back down to his lap as quick as a heartbeat. "..I don't know if I should thank you for showing me, but it-..it means a lot that you did."
no subject
When Gabriel's hand leaves from following his scar, he slowly pulls his shirt back over them, his grip tightening on the hem as his other hand gripped his arm, "I-It was a long time ago and I..." He bows his head, his voice quiet, "I...deserved it."
Derek always wondered if it was wrong to say that, that he deserved to be marked for something that was beyond his control. His therapists, his mother, the elders at the clinic, they've told him for years that it wasn't his fault and yet, he still believed that it was. That his older brother died in that accident because of him. Died trying to protect him by taking him away from that house in the late night hours to get away from a heated argument their parents were having, on a mission to get ice cream until a car drove straight into them.
His brother didn't make it but he did and with his brother gone. He was alone for so long. Truly and utterly alone. To his parents, they lost their favorite son and were left with this kid that took him from them.
"Birds of a feather flock together, right?" He looks up at Gabriel with a sad smile, even if he's not looking at him. Derek reaches out again, gently putting his hand on Gabriel's, "You don't have to thank me. Just please believe me when I say that you and these..." He hesitantly raises his other hand and places them over Gabriel's scars, "are beautiful. No matter the cruelty behind them. They're a part of you and I love all of you. Even the parts you want to hide and wish disappeared."
no subject
"..What?"
This isn't an easy conversation by any stretch of the imagination, but that Gabriel can say easily. Not angrily, not quite - but still in haste, like he needs Derek to know that whatever happened to him was down to whatever happened, nothing else.
"No, you didn't- no one deserves that. It doesn't matter what happened, you...you didn't do anything that warranted that response."
It's not a statement he's always great at applying to himself, and he may not know what happened to Derek all those years ago, but the idea that he blames himself for it...that makes Gabriel angry. not at Derek, of course not; but at the people in the world who think it's alright to abuse others.
So when Derek reaches out to touch him again, when he tells him again that he's beautiful, telling him that he loves him, even in a platonic sense...that only drives the nail in deeper, and he finds he needs to swallow back the lump forming in his throat, focus hard on not crying then and there.
Instead he straightens up, breaking contact for just long enough to pull his shirt back on, haphazardly doing up the buttons as he gets to his feet. He's still sore, but that's pushed right down in favour of him reaching out and pulling Derek into a hug. It's not too-tight, but it is possessive all the same. Possessive. Protective.
Neither of them can change what's happened to them up until now, but for what it's worth, Gabriel can do his best to make sure Derek doesn't get hurt like that again.
no subject
It was almost like he kept seeing blood on them and to everyone else, his hands were clean.
Some small part of Derek wishes he hadn't brought this up, he should have just treated Gabriel's wounds and let him put on his shirt and be done with this. That he should have kept the mood light and gave him a tour of the building instead of bringing the mood down so much.
He almost reached out to offer help when it came to Gabriel putting on his shirt, almost protested Gabriel standing up, knowing he still needed more time to heal, but he couldn't bring himself to move or to say anything.
The hug catches Derek by surprise, not entirely expecting it as he takes a moment to realize that its happening. Hesitantly he lifts his arms and wraps them around Gabriel's waist, lifting his head to stare up at the ceiling. He's no stranger to hugs but this... god this just feels so nice. It's comforting and just makes him feel safe like nothing could hurt him here.
Now that Gabriel isn't looking at his face, his vision starts to get blurry around the corners of his eyes, something that couldn't be avoided forever. Managing to quietly say "Thank you" before his voice threatens to crack.