Hi guys! I've written another oneshot but this time it's JJ centric so enjoy!
Warnings: Idk man this is just my general angsty depressing drabble stuff I can't write happy things I'm sorry
JJ wasn't the person that everyone thought she was. She had everyone fooled; her team, her best friends, Will, everyone. Sometimes she felt so guilty, she was lying to them all, pretending she was someone she wasn't, pretending that she was okay and that she wasn't permanently on the verge of breaking, but she knew she couldn't stop. If she did stop she knew she wouldn't be able to hold herself together and everyone would find out what a mess she was and how she'd been coping for the past few years and nothing about that would be good.
In her defence (if there was anything that could defend her - she wasn't sure if there was) she didn't do it a lot, it wasn't all the time, she only did it when she really needed it. Only did it when she could feel herself filling up with the bubbling tension that stopped her from sleeping and socialising and being the person that she was supposed to be. She wasn't sure what the feeling was (she wasn't even sure if she could describe at as a feeling when all it made her do was feel empty), but it changed her, stopped her being a good wife and a good mum and of course she'd tried other things to make it go away. She'd tried therapy and pills and getting a new hobby (because according to the internet that was apparently the best thing she could do) but nothing had worked until she'd ended up in some shitty bar with Emily one night. They were already quite drunk, and it didn't take long for Emily to disappear off with some guy she'd just met. JJ had been about to head home when she'd been approached by some blonde guy asking if she wanted to have bit of fun.
On a normal day she wouldn't even have considered it, she would have just rolled her eyes and made some sarcastic remark, she had Will and the boys and she loved them. This time was different. She still wasn't sure why she did it, what fucked up thing in her mind had made her actually think it was a good idea but she'd felt so shit for so long that she needed to do something, anything to get rid of the crushing sense inside of her, so she said yes.
The next few hours had been a blur, the guy had taken her to his crappy one bedroom apartment and JJ thinks that he told her his name but she doesn't quite remember. She'd had the presence of mind to text Will and tell him that she was going to stay at Emily's, but other than that she hadn't spared her family a thought and when she thinks about it that's the thing she feels most guilty about. She didn't think about her husband or her boys, she didn't care, and the worst part was she enjoyed it.
It was dirty and sweaty and rough and wrong but she liked it. Liked the feeling of some stranger's hands touching her, liked it when he stared at her body with an almost animalistic look in his eyes, liked it when he fucked her and made her moan and made her forget.
She thinks about it a lot, especially in the days after it happened. Guilt is definitely the main emotion she experiences; whenever Will tells her he loves her or she watches how good he is with the kids it feels like a knife is being twisted in her stomach but it doesn't stop her thinking about how much better she feels. She's not sure why or how but she feels lighter, a lot closer to being herself than she had been in a long time and that's why she can't bring herself to regret it. It was only once anyway, and no one would ever need to know. She could go back to being the JJ everyone knew and loved and everything in her life would fall back into place and be amazing and perfect.
That's what she'd told herself at the time anyway.
The problem was that the emptiness came back, more violent and consuming than before and now that she knew how to make it go away she couldn't get the idea out of her head. She didn't go back to the bar straight away. She tried to distract herself and find something else that would help ebb the feeling away but nothing worked and she needed to feel normal again so one night she told Will that she was going to Emily's but went to a bar instead. JJ thinks that this was the moment she accepted that she was just fucked up and stopped fighting it (whatever it was, she still wasn't completely sure).
There isn't much else to tell. Whenever JJ feels herself sinking again sooner or later she ends up at some random bar with some random guy that she knows will help her forget everything that weighs her down and makes it impossible for her to breathe. Sometimes they don't even make it to a really private place. The back seats of cars, empty alleys or even crappy bathroom stalls have become just as common as an actual bed and god JJ fucking hates herself because of it but she can't make herself stop, she doesn't know how, she doesn't even know if she wants to.
She knows she can't keep going like this forever. Someone was going to notice or realise she was lying and everything was going to fall down around her but for now it was all she could do to bring her any sense of normality, any sense of who she was. It doesn't make sense. How the fuck does sleeping with random guys made her feel more like herself? It's fucked up and she's fucked up and everything is just fucking fucked up but she can't bring herself to sort it out, she's just too tired.
So she's not going to sort it out. She's just going to keep going, keep acting like she's fine and normal and the perfect JJ she's supposed to be, keep fooling all the people around her into thinking that she's just fine while she's actually falling apart and the only thing holding her together is hooking up with strangers.
It's all she can do, cause if she let's her facade slip then everyone will find out what she's become and that isn't an option.
JJ might not be okay but as long as everyone thinks she is then it's fine.
I hope you liked it and of course any feedback is always appreciated.