#herends

🐢 — a mental health headcanon.   ashley spends a fair amount of his spare time reading.   he’s a big fan of westerns where the good guy wins — he absolutely reads the bleaker novels    (  such as cormac mccarthy’s blood meridian; his copy is well-loved and carefully annotated  )    but some nights, he wants to read something with an objectively good ending, something that lets the good guys draw first.   it’s absolutely an escapist tendency — he’ll do anything to avoid being in his own head.   sometimes, that means keeping the television on and working out for the repetition, the numbness he can achieve.   sometimes, that means picking up a book and checking out, if only for a little while.

💣 — a stress headcanon.   ashley goes quiet when he’s stressed.   he works, he cleans, he goes without sleep, and he spends all that time in his own head.   because ashley’s largest source of stress is feeling out of control, he turns to things that give him a sense of control — cleaning, cooking, preening.   if there’s nothing he can do about work, he’ll turn to deep cleaning his apartment, and if his apartment’s been scrubbed clean, from floor to ceiling, he’ll head to the gym, scrub his skin raw in the shower afterwards.   copious amounts of stress will start a vicious cycle — he’ll be too stressed to sleep, he’ll work because he can’t sleep, and then he won’t sleep because he’s caught up with work.

          𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐍𝐎 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐎 𝐅𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖 𝐇𝐈𝐌.   The jeep is his own,   the guns are his own,   and the gas is from the STOCK they brought along when they headed over from just outside D.C.   It’s all been talked over,   no conversation left to be had ――   she likes to play the hero,   figures.   But if there’s just the SMALLEST of chances that Jonas is still alive and somewhere on the coast of Rosarito,   then he’s got to take the risk of heading across the border on his own.     “ Don’t. ”     It’s a warning,   jaw TENSE.     “ Levey knows that I’m leaving.   Zhao knows that I’m leaving.   Don’t try to stop me, Beck.   You wouldn’t like it. ”

‘ luv-- ‘ 

a hand reaches out to hover over the small of her back, palm girded like steel to ensure she won’t break and fall. they let the same hand settle against her hip when they think she won’t topple. 

He’d grown BITTER over the years but one person he’d never really felt bitterness towards was Rose Tyler. She’d  been a true friend and just as lost in the allure of time travel and the Doctor. She’d always meant the best even for him  when he was more or less a third wheel, they’d both loved  a man who had to leave them behind. What was the hardest pill to swallow in this very moment as he stood before her  was that he’d never expected to see her again and certainly not when he was in this state; he was far from the man she’d  known. He was a wanted criminal although believed dead, and he felt little to no regret for actions that had taken so many lives. Jack Harkness was dead and Malcolm Merlyn only existed now. But Rose Tyler always had a look in her eye that was hard to ignore. He had little desire to see it as she judged him for his poor choices, his bad choices, his MURDEROUS choices. The man she’d known and the man that could once say he even loved Rose Tyler no longer existed. In his place was a man she would not recognize. The Doctor had been right about the concept of living too long, but he had no idea. Jack was out living him in years these days, he’d become a whole new person to try and change so life would be new and fresh but people just continued to die; it NEVER got any better. As she stood before  him, his past staring him right in the face he had no idea what to say  to her. He was at a loss, because he was proud of himself and all he had done, and yet something about her made him feel uneasy and less proud of those actions. He’d never expected to see her or the Doctor again, he figured they had something better to do then ever see  Captain Jack Harkness, or as he was now Malcolm Merlyn, ever again.                           ‘ Hello Rose. ‘ It was really all he could manage. 

her hair is tied  back in a messy bun, no longer straight  but slowly curling  back  into  its  natural state.  normally  sharp blue eyes  lack their shine  and there are bags under  them that would take  careful work to cover up.  there's a chewed up pencil  nervously  tapping on her desk  and her glasses are being mindlessly nibbled in between murmurs. 

she  keeps  looking  between  the   notes  strewn  across  her desk and  the 3d mock-ups on her computer,  her feet joining in on her anxious beating (her heels are at the corner, having been  flung  early in  the  morning  during  a  pacing  session). she's been in her office all night, her mind bugging at her that there's something  MISSING  and she can't let it go--  won't let it go. 

with a  frustrated  growl,  donna stretches  and promptly  flings her pencil at the  door as yet another idea is mentally  trashed. this  was  all a  result of  the  damned  dimension cannon,  the latest project she was to lead to wonderful success. but it was  so new, such a different territory, and not to mention the factor of ROSE TYLER----