AN: Basically my messed up rambling. I will shit on Luke so if you love him don't read this. Takes place recently but has a lot of references to different Laura/Luke/Cassadine history. I've spent too much time watching 90s gh on youtube when the Cassadines come back and I just have a lot of feelings about Luke and Laura and how they reacted to Nikolas/ Laura being kidnapped on Cassadine island.
There are alot of references to specific things Laura has said including when Luke and Laura talk about the rape in 1998/9 era, Laura and Kevin at the campus disco in 2016, Luke and Laura talking about Cassadine Island in 1996
Laura could feel his warm breath on her neck. She couldn't take this anymore. She tried to push him off but he didn't even seem to notice. She said no, more than once. She knows she did but he didn't react. Did he hear her? Maybe this was just a misunderstanding. He didn't mean it.
She would never allow herself to consciously make the comparison but her mind was a burred mix of that one bad night and the island. She remembered being in the park. She remembered the bruise on her shoulder, struggling to try to cover herself up but couldn't do it because her dress was torn. She remembered saying no over and over. On the island she never had the ripped dress or the bruise on her shoulder. So why did she fell just as dirty? No, she didn't, she felt worse. She didn't say no, or did he just not hear it? She wasn't sure anymore. He was going to do this thing to her whether she wanted him to or not. If she didn't comply, would they kill her? If she did, would she kill herself? Maybe she was already dead.
Laura remembered first telling Luke about Nikolas. He looked at her with such disgust. She knew he blamed her not just for lying and keeping this huge secret but for all of it. She did blame herself too. She could have stopped him. She could have fought him. She knew that and she knew Luke did too.
It was easier to blame the marriage, blame herself. She thought Luke was dead! If he wasn't then she would have never agreed to marry Stavros, she tells herself, tells Luke. It's what Luke needed to hear, what she needed to hear. "I decided to marry Stavros. I made the choice to marry him. I had agency and made the choice to marry him," she told her real husband. It's better this way. When he was on top of her, she could feel his breath on her neck. She tried to push him off. He wouldn't budge. But it's okay, he's her husband now. She had a son with him. She chose to marry him. If she chose to marry him, she must have chosen the rest of it.
"The second I found out you were still alive I escaped the island," she tells him. It was my choice, she tells herself. He is the reason she escaped, that's what he tells himself. It implies she chose to stay on the island, to stay married. If her husband is dead what else would matter. That's what he wants to know. If she knew her real husband was alive, then it's an affair. The story makes more sense that way. It's her fault. She married him. But it wasn't real because Luke is still alive. That's the factor that matters. She cannot be married twice so it's like she's not married at all. Each one invalidating the other.
When she wakes up in the middle of the night, whose breath does she feel on her neck? But it doesn't matter, she is only dreaming now. She should be comforted because it was her husband. The one she chose to marry. The father of her son. It's only a dream. It doesn't matter.
Laura jumped upright. The room was almost pitch black. She was breathing harder than normal and had little beads of sweat on her forehead. Her hair was a bit of a mess as well. Laura brushed her hair away from her face with her hand. Her hand was shaking and she was only able to shove some of her lose light hair behind her ear.
She felt Kevin move next to her. Kevin. He was right there. Laura took a deep purposeful breath to ground herself. "It was just a dream. You're here with Kevin. You're safe," she reminded herself in her head.
"What's wrong?" Kevin asked in a sleepy voice, his eyes still closed. He was sleeping on his side facing the opposite direction of his wife. When Laura did not answer right away, he rolled over and looked up at her. "Did you have another dream?" Kevin asked. She didn't get them that often but he still knew.
"Yeah" she answered softly.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Kevin pushes. He tried to not constantly sound like a shrink but it was an occupational hazard.
"It's hazy. One of those dreams where you wake up and can't make sense of it." Laura started laughing. It started off as a chuckle but slowly grew.
"What?" Kevin asked confused.
Laura went silent. "I don't know why my brain does this to me. I'm dreaming about stuff that happened forty years ago! It's ridiculous!"
Kevin almost said something about how trauma has a way of staying with a person but decided against it. He didn't want to interrupt his wife. She didn't talk about her past much.
Laura's voice was softer now. It wasn't because she was ashamed, she was in deep thought about this. "I was back in the campus disco. Those lights flashing and that horrible song was blasting. I was saying no but he didn't stop. But it wasn't Luke it was Stavros. How could I compare them? How unfair is that? Luke and I had a great life together for twenty years and my subconscious thinks he is anything like that sadistic man?"
"Maybe your dream wasn't comparing the men but comparing the action." Kevin suggested.
"It wasn't like that. When Nikolas first came to Port Charles, it was so bad. Nikolas hated me for abandoning him. Luke hated me for lying. Luke hated me for all of it. The secret he could forgive but the fact I had child with that man, he couldn't get over it. Luke and I fought about it all the time, but I could never be mad at him. I married that man. I knew what that would mean and I did it anyway."
"You can't blame yourself for that. Laura, you were kidnapped. You did what you had to do to survive." Kevin spoke softly. Although he wouldn't tell her, he did carry a distain for her ex-husband.
"But did I? Stavros never put a gun to my head. I chose to marry him. I stood there and said, 'I do.' At some point, I stopped fighting." Tears were now streaming down Laura's face. She hadn't let herself move on from this time in her life. It was so much easier to blame herself for her mistake and move on.
"That doesn't mean it was consensual. Laura if you didn't cooperate, you would have been killed. They kidnapped you, they didn't give you a choice. You were so young. Do you think you could feel some compassion for that young girl who was taken from her family and forced into that horrible situation?" Kevin reasoned.
"I know you're right. I know, it wasn't my fault. Intellectually, I know but sometimes it's hard to know. I was just a kid; I didn't deserve that." Laura's voice was strong. "I tried to push it down and not think about what happened for so long, but he raped me." Laura paused. "There I said it. I have always had such a hard time with that word. It's so ugly and loaded but Stavros does not have any power over me anymore. He was a coward and a rapist."
Laura laid back down next to Kevin. Kevin reached his arm around Laura. Laura leaned into Kevin's arms and was able to relax. Her husband always had that effect on her.