Disclaimer: I own nothing but the general plot and OCs
Here we go. Just a dose of fluff to make up for the tough stuff of earlier. As well the first insight into Subaru's past. There's more to come, because she is (I hope) a multifaceted character, and some of her internal contradictions might not make as much sense without some more reveals of her past.
So this is just the first chapter of her internal recovery, but since she's decided she's going to get better, she's really going to go for it, and so it'll be filled with less humming and hawing over certain positive actions regarding Kakashi than she really expects from herself.
Not much editing here, read at your own risk.
Thank you for the reviews, favs and follows :) Let me know what works for you and what doesn't, as well as any prompts for things I'll do my best to fit in at some point.
Chapter 12 - Cwtch Me When I Fall
I'd been depressed three times before, back in my original world. The first time was when I was twelve, a year after my dad married my stepmother and in those twelve months afterward, my place in the new family gradually slid from cherished youngest child, to less important than my stepmother's dog.
I had watched everything familiar and comforting to me stripped and thrown away like it was nothing, with a mounting despair and burning fury. I didn't look back on that time and pretend I had been perfect, or that I hadn't in many ways accidentally contributed to my sinking into depression, but nor did I ever consider that I could have done better, or have tried harder to make the transition work for everyone. I had approached the new life with excitement, and done the best that I knew how.
Just when I hit the point that I couldn't bear it anymore, I discovered my mother was putting together a case she was taking to court to get residency of me. It had been far from the first time she had tried, and I had no faith that it would work this time just because I didn't feel good. So I had thought carefully, and realised that what she really needed was physical evidence that I wasn't doing well. I had taken a knife and slashed up and down my arms.
As I had predicted, the adults around me freaked. The doctors were suddenly coming up with diagnoses rather than brushing us off, the judges were taking my mother seriously rather than judging her based off of lies my dad had said in the past, and her skin colour. The Court Welfare officers were desperately trying to cover their arses for all the times they had stated that I would always be better off with my dad. I had been allowed to stay with her for the duration of the court case, was put into the best school around, and the victory easily chased my depression away.
I carried the scars on my arms with pride. And if occasionally during difficult times as a teenager, my fingers itched for a blade to take to my skin- I took up body painting and found pleasure in it.
The second time was when I was sixteen. I became ill in my second to last year of school, a few months before my seventeenth birthday, and in my slow and exhausting recovery, I spent almost seven months nearly entirely isolated in my home. I drifted slowly, almost unnoticeably, into depression, and was stuck there for shortly over two years, as I scrambled to figure out how I was supposed to recover in the midst of panic attacks and existential crises.
The depression had clung to me like sticky tar, and even though it had taken me a year to commit myself to getting better, the journey was so slow and frustrating that at times I felt like giving up entirely. My thoughts, which I was used to speeding on ahead faster than my body could keep up, had slowed and dulled to a frightening rate that I was terrified would never improve- stuck remembering what it was like to make connections between my thoughts at a quicker than average rate, but never capable of it again.
I was so tired all the time, and couldn't remember what it was like to want to run and play and laugh, and be with other people. I dragged myself reluctantly out of bed just before midday each afternoon, shoved myself into the nearest pair of clothes, and went about my day as I forcibly worked my way towards exams that I was ashamed my friends had taken two years ago, avoiding eye contact and with minimal conversation. I knew happiness was possible again, but I didn't know how, and I had spent so long depressed by that point, that I didn't know any other way of being.
I plateaued in my recovery, and had miserably accepted that I had gone as far as I was ever going to go toward joy again. Then my godmother visited me for the first time in years, making time amidst her travelling of the world, and numerous lesbian relationship dramas, to drag me onto a weekend course which she said my mother had done, and made her do as well. I wouldn't have gone if she hadn't paid for it as a gift. I turned up, anxious and sceptical and cynical. I walked away a few days later almost high on happiness and the sheer freedom I felt.
I was dead almost exactly a year after that.
I knew I was genetically prone to depression, thanks to the string of suicides in my mother's family going at least four generations back. I wasn't sure if that was still the case with my new body, but either way my mind was still the same. I also knew that when it came to getting myself out of the illness, there was no time like the present.
If I wanted to improve I needed four main things to start; good food, good exercise, good human connections, and a good mindset. The last one was slightly out of reach for now, but the third one I could get started on straight away.
It was still emotionally exhausting each time, but throughout the rest of that first day on my way to happiness once again, I did my best to lay down the foundation work of human connection with DFB. I remembered the fondness I had always felt for my mother when she had nagged me into allowing her to feed me right up into my teenage years. It was pretty much a conditioned response to keep eating if someone held food to my mouth for me.
When DFB seemed more than okay to do the same for me, I felt the smallest flickers of respect and contentment inside. I quietly admitted to myself that I liked being small enough to easily fit in someone's lap, and just be able to sink back into them as I ate.
When I was woken up that night by DFBs callused fingertips on the toes and feet, I didn't pretend it wasn't happening. It didn't elicit any emotional response, but I predicted that if it continued as I got better, it eventually would.
With a long night between my epiphany and me, I felt miserable again the next day, and could barely stir my thoughts into any kind of action. I quietly sulked against DFB until he got himself into a disguise. It was to my surprise that I felt a pit of anxiety in my stomach at possibly being taken back into daycare. I hadn't expected to care at all, but it was a sign to me that I clearly felt more than I was aware of toward DFB, if I had any preference.
When I realised we were back at the hospital, gladly watching my blood drawn, and then taken to be scanned, I crossed my fingers that DFB was looking to find out what had led me to my actions the day previously. I didn't know the words to communicate with him, which made things a bit more difficult, and so it would make things simpler if someone told him what was going on with me, as well as what to do.
I still didn't have a clear idea of what the visit was for, even when we returned back to the apartment, but DFB continued to talk to me, and for once, I attempted to listen. He fed me in his lap again, unprompted, as I acknowledged the luke-warm sensation that had replaced the perpetual block of cold stone I carried on top of my lungs.
Things weren't good, exactly, but I was relatively confident they would get there. It wasn't like I had the speed or physical freedom to change my mind and try to end myself again, and so the doubts that might have otherwise plagued me were simply pointless, allowing for no mental direction other than looking forward.
Eventually I noticed that DFB was acting a little odd- almost nervous- and eyed him with slight suspicion. He picked me up from where he had placed me on the floor, and carried me to the bathroom. His voice carried a distinctly sheepish tone, as he approached the bath that I honestly had barely paid any attention to, and began to run hot water into it.
I was a little confused, but couldn't be bothered to pull my facial expression in any which way as I looked at him. Was he having a bath? I'd figured him to be a shower kind of guy, or at least to put me in another room while he washed. Although, since the day before, he'd barely put me down for more than five minutes, and he had certainly not let me out of sight. Was I going to have to sit somewhere and watch him bathe, so he could keep an eye on me?
Against my expectations, when the the bath was run, DFB leaned over it and dipped my foot in. I got my first good look at the thing and was surprised by how much it resembled a deep hot tub, rather than the sort of baths I was used to. It was oval shaped, with a seat ringing around the edge, and looked deep enough to come up to DFBs chest if he stood. I wasn't sure why it had surprised me so much, considering I knew this was a different world entirely, and I was probably very lucky that it was so similar in so many ways to my last one. It was just that most of the things I had seen so far had barely any differences in design. Yes, the buildings were lower than in the cities back home, and clearly the architecture was different too, but I had expected that.
I was knocked from my contemplation when DFB placed me against the back of the countertop next to the sink, and began to unwind the bandages from his shins. If I had been any less lazy with my facial expressions, I was fairly sure my eyebrows would have raised higher and higher on my face, as he unceremoniously removed the weapons pouch and bandages from his thigh as well.
Was he... getting undressed? It wasn't like I was going to be shocked by a naked man if that was where it was going, but this was DFB- whose idea of getting comfortable at home was taking his shoes off, and very occasionally removing his green jacket thingie. The dude didn't even remove his gloves unless he was going to sleep, and even though I knew he changed into more comfortable clothes for bed, it was always right before he slept, and he changed back the moment he awoke- always out of my sight too.
But before my eyes the gloves came off, and then the jacket, and the blue shirt. When he moved to the dark blue skin tight top underneath, which covered his neck and lower face, I considered whether I should avert my eyes and give him privacy. Meh, if he was that bothered about it he wouldn't change in front of me. It wasn't like I was looking at him undressing with lecherous intent either- There was nothing but curiosity about what this person looked like underneath all those layers, what the differences were between the people I had known all my life, and this man who had been a warrior from childhood, what had gone into making the new body I wore, how did he move and how did the muscles shift underneath his skin, would it be completely alien to me?
It was something approaching an artist's eye that I watched him reveal himself, saw the generally small scars that littered him- more numerous than anyone else I knew but still less than I had anticipated. I traced the light tan lines on his forearms between where his gloves ended and the folded sleeves of his shirt began, but curiously absent on his face.
He removed the clothes on his bottom half, and a cursory sweep had me noticing the blatant strength in the muscles of his legs, along with the more prominent scars. It looked like someone had tried to hamstring him more than once.
He had light bruises here and there on his legs and arms in particular, and without clothing to cover it up, his body screamed at me of deadly ability. He held himself like no one I had ever met, and even the comparison that sprung to mind of a big cat- with his corded muscle and deceivingly relaxed stance that belied his ability to move before most people could think- was an inaccurate representation of the calculated, yet unconscious economy with which he moved.
The muscles were not bulging boasts of strength, but tightly packed and lean on him, and spoke of years and years of excellent use. He wasn't skinny at all, but thin perhaps, being the best way to describe him, with broad shoulders.
I was honestly impressed. In fact I didn't even try to convince myself that I didn't find him beautiful. There was no desire there at all within me- but I had gone through my last life thinking my sisters were some of the most beautiful people I had ever met, my middle sister in particular, and DFB easily rated alongside them. It wasn't just pure looks, it was the fact that who they were inside translated through their body. I sat as mesmerised with DFB as had always been with my middle sister and feeling the usual rush of irrational pride.
Finally I shook myself for being ridiculous and watched DFB take off his hitai-ate. It hit me then, that the closest I had ever seen to DFBs face was when he went around in disguise. Outside of that he always had his mask on, and took off his hitai-ate only at night - too dark for me to take a proper look.
I scanned his face intently when he turned to me, and he seemed to notice, because his lips quirked in a small slanted smile and he said something to me. His left eye remained closed, with the scar bisecting it, but the rest of his face was clear. I critically analysed his straight nose, his thin slightly pointed chin, and his jaw which looked far wider without his mask on. His cheekbones were fairly high and jutted out just the slightest bit more than I had realised, and without his hitai-ate his eyebrows appeared more arched and leant his face a more relaxed and friendly appearance when paired with his half lidded eye.
His hair too, fell differently on top of his head, looking less huge and spiky, and lying more messily but naturally, closer to his scalp. If I looked carefully I could spot small lines of light discolouration on his face where wounds had healed, and of course the beauty spot that always reminded me of Marilyn Monroe despite the different placement.
Actually now that I was looking for it, there were definite Marlyn Monroe-esque aspects to his face here and there, which was almost amusing enough to make me smile. I couldn't remember how his lips were portrayed in my original world, but I was fairly sure they were pinker and fuller face to face.
He turned the shower on, and took what was possibly the quickest wash I had ever witnessed without seeming hurried, before coming back out.
DFB approached me, and began to remove the plain top and shorts he'd had me wearing. My eyebrows did shoot up at that. Why did we both need to be- wait, was I going to have a bath? He picked the small body up and held it to his chest, as my mind stalled at the sensation of so much skin being touched.
He continued walking a step or two which confused me, being in the opposite direction of either the shower or the bath. He hooked his fingers into a small section of the wall that jutted out slightly and seemed to have a groove in it deep enough for his hand, and pulled. To my shock I realised it wasn't a part of the wall after all, but a sliding door which when slid open was very well disguised. When it was shut, I saw that it separated the shower and bath from the sink and toilet, which I absently wished had been an aspect of my old house.
I was mildly disappointed when I realised he had taken a small bucket from a cupboard and filled a quarter of it with water from the bath, before he placed me in it slowly, and washed me at almost the same speed he done himself. I sullenly wondered what the point of filling the whole bath with water had been, if neither of us was going to use it. Proving me wrong, as soon as he was finished, he poured the dirty water down the shower drain, then afterward used some small steps I hadn't noticed to climb into the hot tub-bath, and carefully sat down, clearly keeping an eye on my reaction.
I was frozen as my heart picked up pace at the almost uncomfortably warm water surrounding the skin and lapping at the shoulders. I was completely cocooned in warmth- from DFBs body heat to the bathwater. The women at day care hadn't ever given me a proper bath- they didn't really have the time. I'd been sat in a small tub of warm liquid that reached the tops of the legs sat down, and been perfunctorily wiped down with a soapy cloth, rinsed, and removed. It hadn't particularly been enjoyable.
Of course DFB wouldn't know this, but I loved baths. There was little I found more relaxing, and in the depths of my worst days of depression in my original world, I would spend anywhere from three to five hours simply topping up the water and soaking, whilst reading something that could catch and keep my interest- like a book about the Russian Tsars, or Lenin, or Stalin, or Mussolini, or General Pinochet, or General Franco, or Idi Amin. Yes, there was a general trend. Mostly so that I could read about living a life that was so much worse than mine was, and be thankful for it.
The highly positive association I had with baths immediately had my muscles melting and a huge sigh escaping me, as my head plonked down into the top of DFB's pectorals. DFB didn't move or speak for a time, and I luxuriated in the water, slowly getting comfortable with having so much physical contact with him. Truthfully, I loved prolonged hugs too. As my comfort levels rose, DFB began to scoop water onto my shoulders and I started to gently enjoy the experience, even through my general sadness and more common insensate state, I tucked my face further into the warmth of DFBs neck and admitted that this was more than just a prolonged hug. Anyone could give anyone a prolonged hug. This was a cwtch.
No one had ever cwtched with me but my mother, my dad and my sisters. They were some of my best and most precious memories of them. I was being given something so important when I had least expected it, and the realisation had the heavy blanket of clouds parting over my emotions and bringing an unbearable aching grief to my throat, and tears stinging in the back of my eyes. The grey smog soon covered everything back up, before my breath could do more than catch once- the sting in my eyes receded before the tears could truly arrive and the ache dissipated as quickly as it had come.
I briefly mourned the break from my creeping apathy, and distracted myself with DFB. I wanted to thank him for giving me what I needed, when I never could have asked, and leaned back in his hold. He made eye contact with me, asking me something curiously, and I solemnly told him, in my annoyingly young sounding voice, "I like cwtching."
His face creased in confused concentration, and so I made the effort say once more, as clearly as possible, "cwtch."
"Cucchi," he repeated hesitantly. Perhaps it was a little unfair of me, throwing in a welsh word for the best kind of cuddle out there, and previously a Thai word for 'delicious' at meals, but it was the way I spoke and there really wasn't all that much else beyond those two, beside the occasional Hindi or French.
I pointedly leaned back into him and spread the tiny arms as wide around him as they would go, before repeating quietly, but clearly as I could, "cwtch."
"Cucch." The word was awkward sounding coming out of his mouth, and as though he had difficulty stopping the word where it should, but it was fairly close, and so I made an effort to make a sound of affirmation.
He said a distinctly oriental sounding word in my ear in the same manner as I had, and I stumbled in my repetition of it. After failing to repeat after him twice, I leaned back once more and after a tiny spark of mischief encouraged me, I reached the arms out to place the tiny fingers splayed over his mouth, slowly attempting the word again.
His eyebrows shot up, and his eye widened, looking at me in disbelief, before he settled back down, his face showing a mixture of what I thought to be wonder and amusement, and repeated the word slowly, exaggerating the mouth movements.
After one more go, I finally appeared to get it right, "nyūyoku."
I knew I was a little off on the cadence of the word, but he looked satisfied when I said, "cwtch. Nyūyoku," which he repeated.
Now with a translation of the word, I allowed myself to be distracted by the realisation that DFB had a far too smooth chin. I experimentally patted his cheeks, which were also smooth, and twisted- causing DFB to jerk and make a disapproving noise at my sudden shift in weight- in order to pat his arms, with one last pat of his chest, I came to the sudden and pleasant conclusion that DFB had little to no body hair. Clearly he also understood what I had been looking for, because he heaved an exasperated sigh, and said something that sounded mildly amused and mildly irritated.
I didn't particularly care about the fact that he didn't have body hair- as I settled back down against him, I was more concerned with the sudden possibility that I might not have any as I got older.
Luxuriating in warm water, cheek squished against DFB as we cwtched, and looking at a potential future without shaving, I mused to myself that I really could have been reborn in worse places.
CWTCH (As explained by Urban Dictionary): Snuggling and cuddling and loving and protecting and safeguarding and claiming, all rolled into one. There is an element of intimacy, earnestness and ownership in this Welsh word that the closest English equivalents, "cuddle", "snuggle" and "hug" lack.
A cwtch creates a private safe place in a room or in two peoples hearts. Cwtching is strong affection made manifest and can apply to lovers, or a parent and child. It is also possible to give a respected associate a non-romantic cwtch. In that scenario, a cwtch would be a heartfelt hug.
NYŪYOKU: Japanese for bathing.
so no, Subaru and Kakashi really didn't get that translation right.
Also I hope the explanation of Kakashi didn't come off as sexual at all, despite the nudity, because that's really not what I was going for- Subaru essentially saw him without his 'character costume' that she's familiar with and realised he was a real physical person underneath all of that, which momentarily brought out some pretty intense emotions.