Sometimes Falling isn't Down

Chapter 1

Trigger Warnings: Mental illness, trauma, ptsd, physical and mental abuse (doesn't apply to the main pairing, mostly parental/guardian abuse, just to clarify), scars, allusions to self harm/suicidal ideations, repressed memories, nightmares, insomnia, controlling/manipulative behavior. I'll also try to add warnings at the beginning of chapters that contain anything I think would be triggering, lemme know if there's anything I should add!

(R/C) = Reader~chan

Help me.

Your eyes snapped open. You shot up from your pillow, throwing your gaze out into your small, dark room. The moon watched as you scanned the walls, her lone eye peeking in through a slit in the curtain, her rays bouncing off your blankets and down in a strip along the ground, barely illuminating the small room in a gentle glow. Everything was quiet. Just as quiet as it always was. Your head turned in a swivel, but the room was just as empty as you'd left it last night. The only shadows were your unpacked luggage huddled in the corner and the dresser next to your bed, the half drank glass of water still sitting idly on it. Everything was as it should be.

You let your spine relax. Reaching up to rub your eye, you swung your feet off the bed, a chill running through your body when the cold wood met your bare feet, freezing the rest of the sleep out of you. You pushed yourself out of bed and crossed the room to flip the light switch on, blinking at the bright assault on your tired eyes, resisting the urge to run back and throw the blanket over your face, and looking around once more at the now properly illuminated room. It was still just as empty as it was in the dark. You let out a long breath, dropping your hands back to your side.

You must have been dreaming.

You turned the light back off. You did not want to be awake and with every move, your body didn't hesitate to let you know. Your bed called you back into its warm grasp under the watchful eye of the beautiful moon and who were you to deny it?

You'd only made it a few steps before a sound drifted through the room, caressing your ear on its quest to catch your attention, making you pause and pulling your attention to the doorway. You stood debating, the pull of curiosity coaxing you on one side and the pull of sleep coaxing you on the other side. On the one hand, sleep. On the other hand, mysterious sound. You stood for a few moments, glancing between your doorway and the bed, but in the end, your curiosity won out- sleep huffing as it took a backseat, anxious and biting at the ankle to grab you and pull you back under, but you pushed it back. You shifted the curtain separating your room from the main one to see the distinct figures of your parents chatting on the couch in the candlelight.

Maybe you were dreaming or maybe you were hearing your parents as they talked way too late into the night.

You absentmindedly pulled the hem of your glove back up to your elbow as you pushed the rest of the way past the curtain, the sound of their familiar chattering voices curing your curiosity and starting to lull the sleep back into you. You approached their bubble, their conversation coming to a stop when your dad spotted you past your mom's shoulder and he opened his arms for you to plop down in. He planted a kiss on the top of your head with a quiet, "hey pumpkin, what are you doing up so early?" You grunted out a response, the hands of sleep already tugging you down back into its depths. He accepted the answer with a small laugh, rubbing a hand up and down your back.

"We were just talking about you."

Your mom's comment brought you back into the moment. You turned just enough in your dad's arms to see her face, letting out an, "oh?"

She smiled as she reached out to rub your arm, "Is that not why you came out here?"

You stuck your tongue out, sleep slinking back into the dark of the night, but not completely departing as you had to work your brain to respond, "No, but I thought I felt someone talking bad about me behind my back. You discussing how you're gonna make a run for it the second I head out into the forest?"