*****TWS FOR THIS FANFIC INCLUDE: past/mentioned rape/noncon, past underage, ptsd*****

ok so this is something i started waaaaay back in 2009 except i was eleven and my writing was shit and i had no idea how ptsd worked so now i'm not a clueless small child i can attempt to rewrite this with some form of accuracy

i don't mean to offend anyone and i know this is a sensitive subject! unu if i get anything wrong, or if i offend, or say something plain stupid you guys are perf welcome to let me know xx

The first night had been...hellish, he supposed.

It wasn't like he wasn't happy, no, he was ecstatic actually. Honestly, he was.

Honestly.

He just...maybe wasn't too used to sleeping?

It was dumb, he knew that much, and honestly he didn't even know what the problem was. He was fine, now. They had an apartment, with an actual bed, and he was free to do whatever...mostly. The fact that the cop who was currently chasing them lived above them caused him a fair amount of worry, but. The guy was working, most days. And he had hoodies. Sneaking out was easy.

So really, LacMac should have been happy.

(No, no. He. He was happy. Honest.)

It was actually kind of difficult to adjust to.

In the circus, he'd been in his cage, then at a certain time (ten, he thought, he didn't remember) the cage was unlocked and he was escorted to his bedroom. Well, it wasn't really his. He shared it with Cookie. Which was nice! It was like...it was like a slumber party every night! It was great, they were friends, it was-!

...Not that he didn't enjoy his friend's company, of course not. LacMac enjoyed company from just about everyone, honestly. He was a very sociable person! Maybe it was just that some nights he would have wanted to be alone for a little bit, that was all.

(Some nights, he didn't stay in his room for long. There was a distinct correlation between these hypothetical evenings.)

But still, it was fine. He had his own room now. Which again, took some getting used to. And he was also in control of his own bedtime, which was bloody well deserved. He was nineteen, for fuck's sake.

He'd also spent an inordinate amount of time downstairs, curled up in front of the television, completely lost in his own thoughts before Cookie had tapped him on the shoulder and politely informed him that it was one am, and did he actually intend to go to sleep any time soon?

LacMac had simply nodded and got up and mumbled something about waiting to be called.

So yes, it was incredibly hard to adjust to a lifestyle where he was actually in control of himself. He tended to avoid the apartment and therefore everyone in it for this exact, very reason. Which brings him to his current location of outside.

To be precise, it's a park. It's not much of a park, but it makes a change from the apartment, at any rate. There's a small playground off to one side, and he'd spent a fair amount of time fucking around in that before deciding that he should probably make better use of his time. (Read: He'd gotten stuck in the infant swing, and while he'd managed to dislodge himself before anyone noticed and/or laughed at him, he decided it was probably best not to repeat such unfathomable stupidity.)

He has headphones in, and his hood up, and he's completely zoned himself out from the world. The female vocalist in his ear is screaming something about apologising over a heavy guitar background (never let it be said that his taste in music is anything but diverse, or that it would be expected of someone like him) and he's feeling pretty good about himself before...well. Before it happens.

Maybe he fell asleep. He doesn't know. But suddenly he's seventeen again and he's stood in the middle of the ring. It's the same wooden, slightly sandy texture and all he knows is that his back hurts and oh god it's him

It doesn't last long. LacMac barely manages to not scream, snapping his eyes back open before taking a look around himself in an attempt to orientate himself with his surroundings again.

Fuck, he feels dizzy. He needs to get up. He needs to do something. And he does so, heading for said playground because it's the first thing he sees, and he swings the gate open and sits himself on the roundabout, starting to spin it (oh god, how would that help with dizziness you retarded fuck) and focus on something that wasn't A, that or B, how fast his heart is going.

He's spinning quite slowly, enough so to allow his breathing to return to something reasonably resembling normal before stopping said roundabout and burying his face in his hands.

Okay, he's thinking as he walks home, okay, but it wasn't like he'd had much time to recover.

It was only a few months after he'd escaped that he'd been thrust into the midst of the Robopirate invasion, and most of those months had been spent living in some kind of post-traumatic hazy stupor, punctuated with various points of a lot of running. He doesn't remember anything. He has vague memories of Cookie being committed, but he quickly dismissed that as just some fucked up dream. Come on. That would be stupid.

Anyway, the invasion lasted quite a while, but for some reason he doesn't remember much of that either. He's more affected by his time at the circus than being involved with that, which kind of says something. He's not sure why. Maybe it's because he was out of it all the way through that as well. And to be fair, all it was was being in a cage for a while. He could handle cages. He could deal with cages. It's not like he was being pulled out of them often.

Ew. LacMac, stop thinking. He internally grimaces and walks a little quicker. He would bounce, it's quicker, and by god does he have the feet for it, but it's also kind of noticeable? He doesn't like being noticeable.

Look how well that went last time.

So it's only fair that it's just starting to kick in now, then, he supposes. Now that he's aware of himself again and he's in some semblance of a safe environment, maybe this is where the trauma kicks in? Fuck, he doesn't know. He's not a medical professional. He didn't even really have that much of an education. Most of his thoughts rely on common sense and little tidbits other people tell him.

But anyway, yeah. Robopirates. Lasted about a year. Ten months. Or something like that. Wow, did he join the circus two years ago? Near as damn it, he thinks. Two years, a few months. Six? Yeah, that makes sense. It feels like sooner, only a few months since he lefy, but then, he was in there for so long (at least, that was how it felt) that that's hardly surprising. And it's not like he can remember any detail of...well. Since he did leave. That night is pretty firmly ingrained into his memory. Nothing else is.

He lets himself in, and calls out a broken sentence announcing his presence before remembering he was home alone. They'd all gone out to get the groceries and left him to sleep. Thanks guys, he thinks.

Of course, Cookie Levigetto cannot leave anyone unattended, at least not without finding some way to monitor their every move, and LacMac wanders into the kitchen and peels off at least eight sticky note reminders that are now rendered obsolete (no, he was not going to forget breakfast, okay) before pouring himself a drink (the sticky note stuck the the fridge reminds him that he should only have one glass of soda a day. He ignores it.) and sitting himself down in the living room, switching on the television and choosing to completely ignore it. He doesn't even sit on the couch; he sits on the floor in front of it and shuts his eyes.

Yeah. Happy. Way to go.