Aleah ♡ Free Palestine

Like— I got sick when I was 16. I pushed myself to go to school, do theater, work a job I loved, spend time with my friends and family, etc etc etc because no one fucking told me that I wasn't guaranteed to bounce back from crashes and rolling PEM. I asked if what I was doing was dangerous and was told no.

So I became moderate at 18. I used so much energy and suffered so much to do school and a dual enrollment program and then I couldn't graduate. I learned what having friends was like, then watched them all move on when I couldn't. I learned what it felt like to have a job and be useful and that I wanted to work in a library for the rest of my life, and now I'll never get to work again. I had a year of the freedom of driving anywhere I wanted with music blasting, and now its not safe for me to drive. I planned and allowed myself to hope for a future I'll never have. I started wanting to live again, and quickly stopped being able to.

Idk. I wish so often that I got to experience an adult life before life became my bedroom. My friends are quickly growing into people so different from the high school kids i knew bc thats what you're supposed to do, and I just don't have the life experience to grow up in the same way. I won't make more irl friends or learn what it's like to be in a romantic relationship because I'm trapped inside. I'll never know what it's like to live completely independently or go to college or have any of the pivitol young adult experiences, but I was old enough when I got sick to know about and want those things so badly, and I'm at the perfect age to watch everyone I've ever known get the things I'll never have. In a sick, maladjusted way, I almost wish I got sick younger. Like maybe if I lost everything when I was 15 and friendless and didn't care much about living anyway I wouldn't have had so much fucking hope to lose and it wouldn't hurt so bad.

In this AU— Ava was a Navy commanding officer that sent Simon down in a faulty submarine despite his protests and knowing something was wrong and it might be dangerous, because the shit they needed to survey was important and urgent and she's seen his record. She knows about the church fire and exactly the lengths desperate men who want to live will go to.

Someone had messed with the engine to fuck with Simon and Ava through Simon because it's no secret that she gets him drunk to get gossip about her underlings, and Ava goes down herself to get him when he radios that he's dead in the water. Close to the surface, the sub explodes— takes Simon's arm and burns his face and shrapnel almost takes Ava's eye completely. They both almost die & are discharged.

Now, Ava has a shit ton of guilt and doesn't know how to express herself normally. Simon still doesn't fully forgive her, but he knows what it is to do what you think is right only for people to end up dead.

I think in a situation like that, their relationship would be SO weird. Like. Ava is the closest thing Simon has to a friend and the other way around. They almost died together. They're both visibly physically disfigured and disabled and socially ostracized for it. They have crazy PTSD about the explosion and having blood on their hands from years of military service. Who else would understand how much their struggling other than eachother?

I think they just... call eachother to complain to someone who understands. They're not nice about it. They're not exactly friends, but they're trauma-bonded for life. Maybe they see eachother when they're in the same city. Neither of them could tell you the other's favorite food or middle name, but they know the worst moments of the other's life and have seen eachother at rock bottom. They trust no one but eachother. Neither of them is a good person and fuck does it feel good to be terrible and broken with someone who has no room to judge you.