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Jay felt sick. His stomach was twisted into knots and he just wanted to curl up and disappear. Tim wasn't at home, he never was when Jay had his online therapy sessions every other Thursday, just so that Jay could get a little more privacy in their tiny apartment. Tim always gave him half an hour or so to decompress by himself after his therapy sessions too. Usually Jay was grateful for that, but right now he needed Tim home twenty minutes ago. He needed Tim home before his session had even ended. He needed Tim home before the session had even started so that he could have had an excuse not to go to it.
What were you meant to do when your therapist brought up the fact that the thing that had featured in your worst intrusive thoughts for years could actually have happened?
What was Jay meant to do when his therapist bought up the fact that he had symptoms of it having happened? What was Jay meant to do when it was something he'd worried about for years, but had always found ways to explain it, ways to remind himself that he had to be wrong about it? It was harder to explain it away when a medical professional had agreed with him on thoughts he hadn't even told them about yet.
He couldn't even bring himself to think about it by name half the time. He didn't want to give it a name. That would make it real, wouldn't it?
He didn't remember it.
That was the thing.
Maybe naming it wouldn't be so bad if he couldn't remember it. It couldn't be real if he didn't remember it. So maybe he could just call it what it was, call it…
He would know if it had happened, of course, he always knew about the things that had happened to him, even if he didn't remember any of it.
He always knew about it.
He might not have realised it had been traumatic, that it had been bad, but he always knew about it. That was how this worked. He'd always known about the traumatic things that happened to him as a child, the shit that went down with his parents, hidden away behind the facade of a perfect family.
So this couldn't have happened, because he'd know if it had, because his amnesia was bad but it was never that bad. His amnesia was bad, but it wasn't bad enough that it could entirely cover up someone— doing something like that to him as a child. Something that horrendous… because everything else? The screaming, the shouting, the hitting, the threats, those could be excused as necessary, Jay had been a difficult child. His parents had been at their wits end. His teachers had been at their wits end. The adults in his life had been at their wits end… but that? There was no excuse to do that to anyone, let alone a child. None, if that had happened it couldn't have been his fault. And everything that had happened before had been his fault, in one way or another.
His memory issues couldn't cover up something like that, not this perfectly, leaving not even a single bit of evidence behind that could tip him off.
…wasn't there evidence though?
No.
No, there was no evidence.
He was lying to himself, making it up for… some reason.
And again! He always knew about stuff… Except… well, then again, something had happened a good few years ago now, hadn't it? Something with his not-technically-boyfriend of a few months. That had been somewhat similar to this. Somewhat. Sort of.
Not that this had happened.
Because it hadn't.
He would remember if it had.
Jay shook his head, leaning back in his chair, staring off into space. He couldn't bring himself to focus on the familiar room he was in, he didn't even really feel like he was in it at all. He felt miles away, and he wished he could get himself to pick up his phone and call Tim, to ask him to hurry up and get home.
He still didn't really remember what had happened with his not-technically-ex. He knew about it, but he didn't remember it. It was… along similar lines to what had been brought up in his therapy session though: Jay getting caught up in a… certain type of situation that he hadn't wanted to be in and hadn't known how to get out of. Even then though, at least that had only been over text, so it wasn't actually bad.
Jay hadn't realised that what had happened with his not-technically-ex had been questionable at the very best until a flashback had hit him years after it had actually happened. And it had been Jay's fault, he should have said he was uncomfortable, so he had no right to be upset about it, he had no right to place any sort of blame on his ex. No matter what Tim said about how the guy should have realised something was up when Jay had stopped really answering to the texts he'd been getting. It had been Jay's fault far more than it had been his not-technically-ex's.
Jay hadn't realised it had even been technically non-consensual until he'd had those flashbacks about it. It had all clicked into place at once, sending him reeling, scratching his nails down his face, pulling his hair, more tears than he'd cried in months rolling down his face. Tim had been left to pick up the pieces when Jay finally told him a few days (or had it been weeks?) later what his sudden breakdown had been about.
All that to say: he hadn't "known" that situation had been a bad one for years. Had he?
So…
This was different though.
It was different.
Because this one wasn't just that he "hadn't known it had been bad". He didn't know it had happened at all, which meant that it hadn't.
It was different.
Because this could have been much longer. So Jay would have found out about it by now, would have remembered it by now. Right?
Of course he would.
How couldn't he have?
He was panicking though. He couldn't help it. He was panicking about all the other things that could be connected to this. He didn't have any proof that they were connected. He was just jumping straight to the worst conclusions and panicking about it, like it wasn't his own fault for fucking jumping.
A lot of things were Jay's fault.
Jay was panicking because apparently it wasn't normal to have places on his body that made him sick to his stomach, and panicked, and borderline terrified, when they were touched. Especially when it wasn't a dysphoria thing, because he knew what that was like. This wasn't dysphoria. This was something that felt half a million times worse. If those places were touched by someone he loved and trusted, or even by their fucking cat, he panicked.
Someone he loved and trusted…. Someone like Tim. He loved and trusted Tim with every single part of him. He trusted Tim with his mental health issues. He trusted Tim with his physical health issues. He trusted Tim with every. Single. Goddamn. Fucking. Part of him.
There was no one he trusted more than Tim.
No one.
There was nothing he didn't trust Tim with.
Nothing.
And yet, his heart still stopped freezing cold in his chest if Tim even touched his sides or his thighs when they cuddled. And god knew what would happen if Tim ever touched his ass or his chest, or between his legs. Jay wasn't sure he ever wanted him too, too scared of finding out for certain another place he couldn't be touched. It was like Jay didn't trust him, like he thought Tim would do something horrible, when he knew he wouldn't. Tim would never, no matter what Jay's nightmares tried to tell him, though, they told him that about anyone they could sink their talons into.
Tim was the perfect boyfriend, loving and kind and understanding and never holding any of this bullshit against Jay. If Jay rang him up and asked him to drop everything he was doing and get home right now he knew he would. If he told Tim what was happening in his head right now all he'd get was love in return.
Jay was panicking because his therapist had said that the idea that something… that bad… could have happened to him as a child was something that he "might need to think about." She'd said not much else about it, hadn't even said that it might have happened, just that it might be something he needed to think about. Jay was the one who was jumping to conclusions about it having happened, all she'd said was it could be something Jay might need to consider, just in case someone had done something that awful to a child. Which of course, they hadn't, because Jay would know if they had.
Who would even have done something like that to him as a child? No one, because it clearly hadn't happened.
To a child.
To him as a child.
A child too young to understand what was going on or that it was wrong.
A child who might have blocked it out entirely leaving Jay with no clue whether it was real or not.
Every dream about sex Jay had ever had had been him being raped. His intrusive thoughts, ever since he'd been a kid, had been about being raped. He had places on his body that it wasn't okay for anyone to touch, even himself sometimes. He went through phases of hypersexuality that he just had to pray that Tim would recognise and not let him initiate anything during.
Someone was squeezing his heart, making it throb. It felt like all those times he'd wrapped a bandaid too tight around his finger and it had started to pulse as the circulation got cut off and his fingertip turned a sick puce. He felt sick and hollow, his lungs extending throughout the length of his torso but still not letting him get enough breath in. He was going to suffocate under all of this.
Jay's vision blurred, but not with tears. He didn't feel like he was going to cry, not really. He didn't feel much of anything right now… other than that he wanted to gut himself with his bare hands.
His whole body was wrong. His toes were dead cold, so were his fingers, and his eyes were set too far back in his head. He was sitting alone in his and Tim's tiny, shitty little apartment with unfocussed eyes and cold shivers dragging up and down his arms thinking about arguably the worst type of child abuse possible, and he. Felt. Exhausted.
Thinking about it was exhausting, but he couldn't drag his thoughts away. He needed to figure out if it could have happened.
No.
No he already knew.
It hadn't.
That hadn't happened. He was being paranoid again. That was why his throat was filled and he was choking on whatever was in there. It was like there was something lodged there; it had a hole down the middle so he could still breath, but there was still something undeniably wrong, even if it wasn't going to starve him of air and leave him dead on the floor for Tim to find later.
He was being overdramatic again. His chest hurt, the back of his ribs dully stabbed him. If he could just lie on the floor and pull himself out of his own skull and wring himself out, he thought that might fix him.
He was making something out of nothing.
He was taking perfectly normal experiences and trying to turn them into something horrendous… Except his therapist had said that they weren't normal experiences. His therapist had gently mentioned that they could be symptoms of… that.
And still, he just felt exhausted. Drained. Bone weary. Every possible synonym for tired he could find. He didn't know how to explain it, the memory of the therapy session had already gotten fuzzy, so why was he even still thinking about this? Clearly it wasn't important enough to remember, so obviously it hadn't happened .
Case closed.
Time to stop thinking about it and get the fuck on with his day, never think about it again.
He stayed sitting in front of his computer. He didn't mean to, but he was spaced out of his mind, knowing that if he looked in a mirror his face would be warping and changing shape, never settling on one that looked like him. All because he was panicking about something he already knew couldn't have fucking happened.
Jay was panicking because dots seemed to be connecting and he needed them not to. He needed them to swerve at the last moment and not send him crashing head first into what he thought he was going to crash into. There had to be another explanation for all these things, of course. There would be another explanation. He was just being paranoid.
He knew he was paranoid, because he could feel hands on his back and his waist and his shoulders even when no one was there. He knew he was paranoid because all through his childhood he'd felt like he was being watched when he was alone, because he'd felt the need to "put on a show" when he got changed for the invisible cameras that followed him around. He knew he was paranoid because he still saw people and monsters walking through his apartment out of the corner of his eye, ready to turn and smile and charge at him if he just looked at them wrong.
There would be another explanation.
That thing that he couldn't help thinking it was? It would be wrong, and when it was, he'd get to look at himself like the fucking idiot he was. He couldn't wait to realise that he was wrong.
Because why would he even think it could be that in the first place? It made no sense. Really, it didn't.
Why was he still thinking about it?
This should have been case closed.
Case. Closed.
Why did it keep coming back into his head!? Why couldn't he stop thinking? Why would he keep fucking thinking it was that when it clearly wasn't, unless he, like a monster, secretly wanted it to be that.
He was attention seeking, right? That was what it was. He was a sick, disgusting piece of shit thinking about this so much for attention.
There was something wrong with Jay:
He felt sick and panicked when his boyfriend even joked for half a second that Jay might have to take kisses from him by force.
He felt sick and scared when his boyfriend who he'd loved in one way or another for ten years, and who he would trust with every part of him, touched his sides or his thighs, even just a brush of fingers… he felt sick when anyone touched his sides or his thighs, even if it's just his cat resting her little head.
Every dream Jay had ever had about sex has been a dream about rape, where he couldn't get away, where people were doing things to him that he didn't want.
Jay was constantly aware of his vagina, but not in a dysphoric way. That one was the one that was most likely to be normal. Maybe he was just weird, maybe he was just overly sexual all the time, maybe it was his autism.
Jay's intrusive thoughts were of him being raped, by those he loved and trusted, by those he didn't. His intrusive thoughts weren't picky.
Jumping to conclusions.
Attention seeking.
Those were better explanations. He was being stupid. He was making it all up, because he didn't remember anything happening.
Because nothing had happened.
Jay just had an overactive imagination.
Jay was just paranoid.
Jay was just a freak.
There was just something wrong with him.
But he couldn't help panicking.
Nothing had happened.
Nothing. Had. Happened.