rattle the stars

hey abc if you looking to hire I'm here

Rumination is probably the most common type of OCD compulsion, but I rarely see anyone talking about it. I've talked to multiple people diagnosed with OCD who didn't even recognize it as a compulsion.

Basically, if you have OCD you have terrible intrusive thoughts. They can be about anything, but common themes are fear of being a bad person, fear of hurting someone, fear of contamination. etc.

Rumination is when you get stuck in a spiral. Rumination is when you spend hours catastrophizing, overthinking, analyzing, telling yourself it's going to be okay.

I'll say it again:

Rumination is a compulsion.

Rumination is a compulsion, and that means you have to stop doing it.

I did ERP (exposure response prevention) for my OCD with a therapist! For 9 months! And it did help, but the idea didn't really click until I found this website a couple years later.

And Oh My God. It made things make so much more sense, and I was able to pull myself out of an episode even though I wasn't in therapy or on meds at the time.

Genuinely if you have OCD, or even if you suspect you have OCD, I'm begging you to read some of these articles.

Like this was genuinely life changing for me.

Here are some of the ones that were most helpful to me:

Defining Rumination

How to Stop Ruminating

ERP Exercises for Compulsive Rumination

hey abc if you looking to hire I'm here

thank you! a bit of idiots-in-love buddie fluff; i hope you like :D

-

Eddie does not, in his defense, actually plan to do it.

Not like this, anyway. Not in the middle of a crowded bar, not without actually talking to Buck about it first. He's been planning on talking to him. He's even worked out a rough script of what he wants to say. The main points anyway—the things it's important for Buck to know.

I want to take you out on a date. I think we might have something really good. I love you, I've been in love with you for years.

Probably not those last two parts. Not before he even manages to take Buck out on a real date, although the truth is when it comes to Buck there's really no such thing as coming on too strong. He still expects everyone around him to be one wrong move away from leaving.

So that explains this. Maybe.

Buck is warm in his arms, and his mouth is soft and startled against Eddie's, but he gets with the program fairly quickly. He doesn't shove Eddie off like Eddie half-expects, in that instant after the kiss starts when it's too late for him to change course or try to play it off. Instead, he melts into Eddie's arms.

His hand finds Eddie's hip, clutching and warm, and Eddie pulls him closer. Buck makes a soft, happy noise into his mouth, too quiet for anyone else to hear over the noise of the bar that seems very distant now, and tilts his head. His lips part; his tongue is hot, and this—is definitely the kind of kiss that shouldn't be happening in full view of the entire goddamn bar, even if it is late and dimly lit and it's just the two of them here in this corner of the bar.

Well. The two of them, and the guy who was over here blatantly flirting with Buck when Eddie came back from the bathroom. But he's gone now.

"Hey," Buck whispers when they finally part. He sounds breathless; his cheeks are flushed.

He looks happy. Eddie clings to that. He kissed Buck, and Buck kissed him back, and he looks happy.

"So, um," he says, when Eddie doesn't answer, too busy trying to throttle down a rising tide of panic. "Not that I'm complaining, at all, but where did that come from?"

"Uh," Eddie says eloquently, and to his mortification finds himself glancing toward the pool tables, where the dark-haired guy who was here a moment ago has long-since vanished into the crowd. He jerks his gaze back to Buck, but it's too late: Buck has already caught him.

"Wait," he says, starting to grin. Eddie kind of wants to sink through the floor, but for the fact that it isn't mocking at all; Buck looks absolutely goddamn delighted. "Wait, were you jealous?"

"No," Eddie lies defensively.

"You were! You came back, and he was flirting with me, and you were jealous." Buck savors the word like it's the finest wine he's ever tasted. "You were marking your territory, that's why you just kissed me!"

Eddie puts both hands over his face. "That's not why I kissed you."

It is, sort of, but it's not the main reason. Just the last little nudge to his self-control, which has been crumbling for ages now. That last little moment, when he saw a dark-haired stranger leaning into Buck's space, laughing, and some furiously greedy part of Eddie that he barely even knew was there reared up and snarled, no, mine!

And now he's here, mortifyingly exposed, and—Buck hasn't run. Buck is, in fact, still touching him: a warm hand on Eddie's hip, just above his belt. He's smiling. He looks happy.

"No?" he asks.

Eddie takes a deep breath, and makes himself look back at Buck. "I kissed you because I wanted to. I've wanted to for a while." 

For an agonizing moment, Buck doesn't answer. His eyes scan Eddie's face; his lips are softly parted. They're red where Eddie was just kissing him. He desperately, desperately wants to do it again.

"Oh," Buck says finally, softly.

"Is that okay?" It doesn't come out as steady as he wants it to. But Buck smiles then, sudden and bright, and he pulls Eddie in with unmistakable intent.

"Yeah, it's okay," he says, and kisses him back.

-

and his works crackle into silence into silence for a moment, a habitual hitch of the breath, a preparation for the kind of pain that fills the room like a flood or a tsunami. but theo doesn't crumple, doesn't go quiet or pitying or sympathetic. theo is four years old and he asks "who's bobby?" straightforward and curious and not at all afraid.

buck looks at him and thinks: my captain. he thinks: my mentor. he thinks: the man who raised me. every word feels inadequate.

"he taught me how to make pancakes," he settles on, eventually. it is not enough. it is the only thing that seems to matter, right now.

theo peers at him with eyes that makes buck understand years of swats to the arm and hissed stop staring's, piercing and unsettlingly canny for a toddler. "bobby is you?" he asks, little head flopping to the side like a curious bobblehead.

it punches the air out of him, something too sharp to be joy but too tender to be agony. no, he almost snaps. what bobby did for him was-- special. sacred. what buck is doing is a band-aid over a child's broken heart.

but. but. he feels bobby's hand on his shoulder, a silent reminder. take a breath. take a beat. take count of what is around you: a kitchen. the smelled of burnt sugar. a little boy who needs a home.

and buck is not the man who raised theo. not now, and perhaps not ever. but he can be one thing to this little boy: he can be the man who taught him how to make pancakes.

so: "a little," buck concedes, running flour-stained fingers through theo's unruly hair, a smudge of white over his dimpled cheek.

later, there will be more little smudges, in the shape of small fingers, running along the edge of a photograph of two men at a concert, faces bright. there will be a little voice announcing to a littler face that you have the same name as pancake bobby, two pairs of eyes that will turn to buck with grief, with joy. there will be more questions, and as many answers as buck can give, in honor of another man who tried to give buck his answers, and in honor of the man buck wants so desperately to become.

right now, though, buck scoops theo up, grinning at his shrieking giggles. he walks over to a pan, and dumps out a disk the color of char.

"you know what the first thing bobby taught me about making pancakes?" he whispers, conspiratorial, as theo leans in with star-bright eyes. "the first one never counts. wanna try for a second, spiderman?"

theo cheers. behind him, he can feel a hand on his shoulder, a kind smile, patience that lasted a lifetime. i miss you, buck wants to say. there is nobody to say it to.

You Are On Native Land collects stories and art donated by some of comics' biggest Indigenous creators such as Jon Proudstar, Maria Wolf, and Steph Littlebird. Tales of Native resistance; family and kinship; love and grief fill this beautiful collection, which includes a special reprint of TRIBAL FORCE #1, credited as the first comic to feature a superhero team made up entirely of Indigenous heroes.

buddie, 4k, rating: m

chapter 1/10(?)