Sticks and Stones (Could hurt you)
Ashton was angry.
Screw that.
They were pissed.
Not at anyone or anything in particular, but regardless, they could feel something hot and furious buzzing under their not-quite skin.
Every noise, every voice every laugh from the rest of the Hells made him want to punch someone.
But they couldn’t.
“Whatever the fuck this group has is good. It fuckingworks, so you can’t fuck it up by knocking someone’s lights out, dumbass. They aren’t the Nobodies.” Ashton reminded himself. “Just fucking wait it out, don’t fucking lose it.”
So they clenched their fists, hoping the pressure and twinge of pain would distract from the urge to do something they’d probably regret later.
“Keepyourcoolkeepyourcoolkeepyourfuckingcooldontfuckingpunchanything”
The Hells were making it really fucking difficult, though.
Between the noise of Chet’s woodworking scraping against his brain, Fearne unintentionally (or fuck it, maybe it was intentional) brushing past them, and Grass fucking chatting away-
“Are you feelin’ alright, Ashton? You’re lookin’ awful tense-“
That was it. He didn’t know why FCG’s words made him fucking snap, but they could feel the anger start to spill over the edge.
And they were terrified.
Ashton felt as if their body going in slow motion, but not like when his magic brain shit was going. They were going to fuck it all up. They were gonna hurt Fearne or Letters or Imogen or Laudna or Chet or Orym or-
A gentle pressure at his calf startled him out of his spiral. They froze, not sure whether to run or punch or fucking scream.
“Let’s move away for a sec, yeah?”
Orym spoke softly enough that Ashton barely heard him over the sound of their mind screaming, but the halfling’s request (no, it was an order) reached his ringing ears nonetheless.
Ashton stormed off blindly, both enraged by Orym bossing them around and relieved at being told to leave, because at least he couldn’t hurt anyone if they weren’t around him.
Ashton eventually found themself sitting on a crate in one of the dusty alleyways of Bassarus, still shaking in anger and rocking back and forth slightly.
And then Orym was in front of them, asking what was wrong.
What was wrong?
Ashton had had bouts of inexplicable anger in the past, but usually they just started a bar fight and the rage would eventually dribble out of them with the blood and sweat.
They had never been able to explain it.
Orym scrambled up and took a seat on a barrel across from them. Ashton would have laughed at the display if they weren’t so fucking frustrated at nothing and everything.
“What’s going on, Ash?” Orym repeated in a tone that made it clear that even though Orym wouldn’t make Ashton talk, they’d have to regardless.
“I-“ the words wouldn’t come out. They wanted to cry, to bite, to screech, to punch, anything to make it stop!
Orym spoke again, “It’s okay, Ash. Just calm down, everything’s okay.”
The gentleness in Orym’s tone somehow made Ashton even angrier. They had to fight back the instinct to shove the halfling into a wall. They didn’t want to. They wanted to. They didn’t. They did. But they couldn’t. They wouldn’t.
So Ashton did the only thing they could think of. They hit their legs and dug their nails into their arms and sobbed and let out muffled screams of shame and fear and frustration and anger. Anything to keep from hurting Orym or anyone else.
“Ash, Ash, Ashton! Stop!” Panic rose in Orym’s voice.
Fuck fuck fucking shit.
Now Orym was panicking because of them. Shit.
Ashton stopped thrashing, and instead just held their own arms, as though trying to restrain himself. They shook quietly with silent gasps and choked sobs.
They hated feeling fucking helpless.
Orym just stood there, not knowing what to do. A part of him was tempted to call FCG over to cast Calm Emotions, but after the way Ashton had reacted to that in the Spire by Fire after him and Imogen dove into Ashton’s head, Orym worried that it would make things worse.
He was so tempted to just jump up and hug them. To soothe them through touch. But that wasn’t an option for a number of reasons.
As he thought, Orym absentmindedly picked up a rock and tested its weight in his palms. The smooth, cool stone was comforting in his hands.
An idea came to his mind.
Orym tossed the stone up and caught it a couple times experimentally, before throwing it as hard as he could down the alley.
The loud clatter startled Ashton out of their spiral. Orym offered them a large stone.
Their eyes flicked from Orym’s hazel-green eyes to the stone as they gently took it from the small halfling hands.
Then without warning, he hurled it in the same direction that Orym threw his.
For some fucking reason, the sound of the rocks impacting the dry, dusty ground was a relief. Ashton slowly gathered a few more hefty rocks and repeated the oddly satisfying and comforting action.
After who knows how long, Ashton could feel their breath and heart rate return to normal. They glanced down at Orym, who was just watching from the side.
The halfling cautiously asked, “You good now?”
Ashton felt himself nod. They felt exhausted. Like they could sleep for days.
But the exhaustion was a relief in itself. They no longer felt anger that consumed them not too long ago. They just felt hollow. But hollow Ashton was better than recklessly angry Ashton. At least hollow Ashton didn’t have to use every ounce of willpower to keep themself from hurting someone.
The Hells could handle hollow Ashton.