AYangThang: Kicking an addiction of any kind can be pretty ugly. Especially when you're using it as a crutch for much deeper emotional issues. Some of my readers are sensitive to some topics glossed over in the larger series. That's why this note is on the top of the page. Trigger warnings apply here, and if any of the listed content bothers you, I would advise reconsidering reading this fiction.

Furthermore, this is not a lemon story. This is prior to that aspect of their relationship. If you enjoy Red/Sun, they are a sporadic, but established pairing in the story "I Want a Cub", and the greater "I Want" universe, so feel free to look there.

Possible Triggers: Alcoholism, detoxification, discussions about faith and religion, the loss of a spouse, severe depression, and dark thoughts consisting of suicide.

Lastly, I would like to ask that everyone reading treat these subjects with care if they choose to comment on them directly in the reviews. We are a large (usually loving) community, but these aren't topics to be taken lightly. I would hate to see someone triggered by another's flippant disregard for the subject matter.

Thank you in advanced.

I Want: One Week

Sun Wukong was not a man of wealth, power, or esteemed dignity. He wasn't motivated by injustice, wasn't tempted by greed. In fact, when one took the time to consider it, he was more or less a simple man, with very little to concern himself over. That wasn't to say he was stupid, not by any means, but the things that brought him joy were simple. The things that made him happy were not complicated concepts. A roof of his head, good food, good people. Friends. Family. Those were not hard things to find.

He learned that they were much harder to keep once found.

As a hunter, as a man, he was not immortal. He was not all-powerful, all-knowing. If you had asked him, he had been happy, living a fairly straight forward life. It wasn't luxury, but it was his, and he loved that. He loved his work, the adventure, and daring of it all. He couldn't get enough of the late nights under the starts, conversations both deep and idiotic filling the air with an equal mix of thoughtful expression, and boisterous laughter.

He loved food over an open flame, working with his hands, and building a home.

He loved her…

He loved his late wife until there was nothing left of her but the memories he clung to. The life she'd shared with him. The child she'd given him. The soul she'd offered him, and he continued to love that. Loved her until the word was also mundane…also normal…also a way of his life.

Even still, as he sat at her grave, thinking deeply about the path he was set to walk on. Knowing now, he was ready to do so. Ready, not to turn his back, but to continue forward. Those conclusions weren't complicated either, but, they weren't easy.

His life was like a string, and he was the yo-yo, getting pushed and pulled with the tides of fate. Sun didn't know what to think about that, what to make of everything that sort of powerlessness implied. He never had to think about it before, but now, reality forced him to.

He loved Octavia until her last breath. He always would. However, that didn't mean he couldn't live his life. In fact, it meant the direct opposite. It meant he had to live his life, for the sake of his son. He couldn't fail, he couldn't falter, he couldn't end. He had to continue, there was no other option.

It took him a week of forced sobriety, a week of thinking, to finally realize that. A week of complicating the uncomplicated. Of analyzing what he had always merely accepted as fact. Of facing himself in the mirror. Of cutting away the excuses, and the fog, and taking a hard look at his reality…and…

Like it or not…this was reality…it was his world. There was no way to change that.

Truthfully, he was in more agony now than he had been in seven days ago, when all of this started, but the pain made sense to him now. It was thick, it was heavy, and the fact that his child was much too young to understand made him weak in the knees.

Tired.

Sore.

Angry.

Sad.

Overwhelmed in all things, and in all ways he felt a man could be. Yet, he wasn't numb anymore. Not unfeeling. Distantly, he supposed that was the entire point.

Looking back on that week, on that seven day journey into hell, there was only one reason he made it through everything unscathed. Only one reason why he wasn't still puking his guts out, and stumbling around in delirium, sinking himself deeper and deeper into the bottle. That person was sitting beside him now, a testament to her own resolve in the matter.

"Thanks Ruby." He murmured.

The shorter woman sat legs crossed, arms crossed, eyes closed, head bowed. As if this was something she was both well practiced and comfortable with. Second nature. Her voice was equally calm, quiet, and gentle. "Don't mention it."

So, he didn't mention it, but, he did reflect on it. Everything. On the parts he vaguely recalled. The blurs, the stumbles, the highs and lows.

Everything. Nothing. Then everything again.

Just like a yo-yo.

Then he sighed and nodded, eyes closed.