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[♔ CAMERON WATKINS]

AND THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH ME

Cameron was shit at emotions, she knew that; she always had been, ever since she'd realised it was easier to be closed off and angry than to let herself be hurt by the fact that nobody wanted her, again and again. It hadn't even been a conscious decision, in all honesty, not one that she remembered, it was just the way that she was, and the people close to her knew that she was extremely unlikely to tell them that she loved them, or hug them of her own free will. She hated that touchy feely crap, she hated getting mushy and she was far more likely to joke or tell someone to fuck off, if they told her that they loved her, instead of simply saying, 'me too'. She didn't know why she couldn't do it, didn't know why, after all this time, she was still afraid of getting emotionally attached, but she couldn't. She felt it, though. Just because she didn't talk about it, just because she was blunt and angry with her protectiveness of her siblings, far more likely to fight for what she thought was their honour than she was to cuddle up close, it didn't mean that she didn't feel. Sometimes, Cameron pretended not to. It was easier not to care – or at least say that she didn't care – and it was why she rarely admitted to being upset, even though her self-destructive behaviour was more than proof enough that she pretty much wanted to curl up in a ball in her pillow fort and never come out...and she had to be pretty fucking upset before she was willing to go to Jay and hug him, even though that always made things better; most of the time, he realised that she was upset before she did, and hugged her instead. She liked it. She wasn't comfortable with hugs, but when she was upset, Jay let her be clingy and hang around with him even when she was being annoying, and Cam liked that. He made shit better.

She did feel things, though. She had emotions, it wasn't like she was a robot, it was just that most of the time, Cameron didn't know how to deal with them, especially if they were negative, and so they ended up turning into anger instead. If she was upset, she was angry at herself. If she was worried, she was angry at whoever had made her worry about them. If she was nervous, she was angry at whatever it was she had to fear...a lot of things could become anger, really, and she liked that, she preferred that, because of course she didn't want to be curled up crying. She didn't cry. The last time she had cried had been after the accident, or when she'd found out that she and Jay were blood related...before Thanksgiving, she couldn't even remember when the last time had been. Most of the time, her being upset was just her being angry at herself, anyway—a lot of it was internal, turned inwards because beneath her claims of how awesome she was, Cam really didn't like herself all that much, and there was a reason that she went and got into fights when something had happened, there was a reason that she chose opponents she knew would be able to kick her ass. She was a good fighter, she'd done karate, she'd been in so many fights that she knew what to do, but she stood very little chance against three hundred pounds of muscle, that was just pure logic. After this...she knew that she would want to do that, that she'd want to let someone beat her to a bloody pulp, because God, didn't she deserve that? She was such a fucking awful person, Cammie was pretty sure that she did. She just had to try and call Jay first, get him to come up and get her, because he was probably going to be mad at her anyway, but it would be worse if he had to get her from hospital—and right now, all she wanted was to hug him so tightly she was practically buried against his chest, and have him tell her that everything would be okay...because she didn't believe it.

She felt awful, right now. How could anybody like her? She got why people didn't like him, Christian was a dick...but how was she any better? Cameron didn't know, but she wanted to be different. She knew she hurt people, that was kind of what happened when you got into a lot of fights, but she didn't want to be the kind of person who ended up hurting the people that she actually cared about – even if she sucked at showing them just how much she cared for them. She probably did that already, with the way that she acted any time people got close. Hurting those that she cared about most...that wasn't something that Cammie ever wanted to do, and now that she knew she did, God. She should have been alone. All she wanted to do was run away, get the hell away from here, away from everybody. She could go to Florida and lie on the beach watching hot people all day, and pretend like she didn't give a fuck...but she wanted to be near her family. She really did. They were the most important people in Cameron's life, she wanted to be with them, and her friends, and all the people that she apparently hurt on a regular basis. Fuck it all. What was even the point of her being here if she was such a fucking terrible person? She'd known that she was hard work before, of course she had, she wasn't a fucking idiot, but Cam had never quite appreciated how awful she really was until Christian had pointed it out for her. And yes, she knew that he was biased in his hate for her...but she thought he was right. He was saying things that she had always thought. “You back the fuck off!” she replied, and of course she should have left. She could have left, turned on her heel and run out the door and never gone to another anger management class again, just kept running until she found somewhere so collapse, or a wall to sink her fist into...Cameron could have done that, but then so could he, and he kept saying all these things to her and she wasn't even sure that she could move. “Doesn't make me a dick who beats defenceless women, though.” She was better than that. Maybe not by much, but she always fought people who gave as good as they got. There was no enjoyment in it, otherwise. She shook her head, biting her lip for a moment. “I don't know!” Why did she push people away? Why did she run away? Because she needed space...because there was a part of her that pushed them away when it seemed like they were getting close, because she didn't want to get involved and then be abandoned. Cameron didn't know. It was just something that she did; she didn't know why she was the way she was at all. It wasn't like she was a fucking psychiatrist or something, Jesus! She just was this way and she might have hated it, but she'd tried to change before and nothing had happened, so this was just the way that she was. “Well she fucking should. She shouldn't see me anymore.”

TAG: CHRISTIAN | WORDS: 1258 | NOTES: <3 | ORANGE CARAMEL ! @ ATF

[CHRISTIAN SULLIVAN]

we never win

Christian didn’t just wake up one morning and decide that he was going to be violently angry. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but he couldn’t recall a trigger either. He didn’t know when he started fighting, because he had been aggressive since adolescence, but it hadn’t grown to the extent that he could beat someone he cared about despite their inability to fight back until a couple of years prior. He’d been in relationships before and they never ended that way. They never lasted as long either. Because, Chris could be critical and if he didn’t like someone, then he tended to spend as little time as possible with them and wasn’t all that shy in telling someone it wasn’t working out. He wasn’t going to put that much effort into being in a relationship with someone that he didn’t care about. But, he had cared about Abby. That was what was so fucked up and twisted about the whole thing. Maybe, if he had hated her, it would have made more sense. You don’t beat someone you love. He knew that. He wasn’t illogical or stupid. But, at the same time, people that you cared about had ways of getting under your skin in ways that no one else cared. He became that angry because he was that invested. He didn’t know how to deal with his own insecurities and so he took it out on her. It all boiled down to a few factors. There was drinking, sure, because it definitely enhanced his aggressiveness. But, there was also the control, the inability to handle his emotions and insecurities. He acted out in anger, because he could. He might have been narcissistic, OCD and quick tempered, but it didn’t give him a ticket to hurt someone else. Yet, he had. Christian wasn’t out denying that now. He could openly admit how fucked up he had been and what he had done wrong, but he would honestly rather people stayed out of his life. He didn’t owe the world answers. He didn’t owe strangers anything at all. And he didn’t need people that he barely knew judging him or trying to analyze his personality or what kind of person he was. For all of the bad that he had done, he was still a person like the rest of them. He was learning about why he turned out the way that he had. He was figuring out who this person was that he tried to ignore, even when it managed to slam its fists over and over again into the woman that he was supposed to love.

He was learning who he was. It might have been too little too late for anyone else, but not for him. It wasn’t too late. He had gone to jail and while most would say it wasn’t enough, he didn’t care about that either. He went through it and he wasn’t looking to wind up back there. He had a good psychiatrist and he felt like he was honestly making movement. He listened, and he shared and figured out what was driving him beneath the surface. It was something that he couldn’t have done without the push. And maybe losing everything at once had helped him see that. The narcissistic trait was one that would have made it near impossible to ever get help without seeing it crumble around him. Because, he would always think he didn’t need it and that he was the one in the right and that he did what he had to because he was pushed. He would continuously use people’s words against them, tell them they were dramatic and get away with it. But, he lost a lot. He was put in a position where he could see that the route he was on was bad. And yeah, it took a hell of a lot. But, he was trying. And at this point, he thought that it was all that anyone could ask. He wasn’t going to change overnight and it wasn’t going to be perfect. But, at least he was doing something. He could have gotten out of jail and could have gone back to the way he was. Yet, he hadn’t. Christian wasn’t planning on it either. He was going to work to the bone to keep from becoming the person he was less than a year before. And he had a lot of reason to want it. He didn’t want to lose what he had. And there was a good chance that he was going to if he kept on that path. Already he could have lost his career, his friends and everything else that meant something. And while he had destroyed a big chunk of his life, he was able to build up again. And he didn’t think he’d do it twice. If history repeated itself then he knew it meant it would follow him. He wasn’t willing to let it.

And through everything he had done, he probably had no reason to judge Cameron. If anything, he could have given some understanding to what she was doing. Honestly, he didn’t know all of the reasons why he hated her. The biggest reason was how she treated Riley and the interactions that they had with one another. He didn’t know her and she didn’t know him. But, she frustrated him. She wasn’t someone he could see himself getting along with for even a second. Yet, she was there to help herself, the same way that he was. And instead of doing what they came to do, they were going to fight. He wasn’t going to let go now either. He wanted to tear apart at her. It took a lot of energy not to hit her before. She had pushed all of the right buttons, but he didn’t want to give her that satisfaction. No, instead, he wanted to make her feel like crap too. He would much rather let her know she had messed with the wrong guy. “It still doesn’t make you better! And you think it’s really that far off?” He asked and maybe she would never hit someone who couldn’t fight back, but he didn’t know for sure. It wasn’t as if he had just started hitting on women at random. That’s not how it worked. There had been a time where he only fought people who fought back. But, that hadn’t lasted. ‘Well, stop it!” It wasn’t that easy. Anyone with half of a brain knew that. And yet, he insisted on it simplistically. “Suck it up. She likes you, I don’t fucking know why. But, she’s not going anywhere. So deal with it.” But if she hurt her, then he’d be after her.

coded by alison wonderland. @ atf.

[♔ CAMERON WATKINS]

AND THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH ME

If she didn't have her anger, if she didn't have that driving need to fight all the time, then what did Cameron have left? She didn't even know, it wasn't even a question that she could answer; she had been acting out for so long that she didn't think that there was even a person underneath it all, she really didn't. She'd never been the shy or retiring type, she was always going to say what she thought without working out whether or not it was appropriate to say it, but...if she calmed down completely, then who was she going to be? Honestly, she didn't really want to find out. She didn't want to be boring, she didn't want to lose the passion she had for the things that she liked, she didn't want to lose who she was, because she was the angry, violent one, had been for as long as she could remember now. She didn't know how to be anything else, she didn't know how to be anything other than a fuck up. This was who she was, and her anger drove her. Yes, okay, it meant that she lashed out, too, it meant that she hurt people she cared about because she couldn't deal with things, it meant that she ran away instead of dealing with other kinds of emotions...but it was who she was. She didn't know how to be anything else. That didn't mean that she wanted to be so mad all the time, that she wanted to hurt her brother, or her friends, it didn't mean that she wanted to hate herself as much as she did, underneath the arrogance and the playful claims of how awesome she was, but it couldn't change. It couldn't; she'd tried, she really had. She'd seen therapists, far more than she could count, she'd been to classes, for fuck's sake, she'd come here to try and change, hadn't she? She'd tried, but it didn't work. She couldn't talk about how she felt, anyway. She could barely even talk to Jay about that, let alone some fucking stranger who was staring at her with a notepad and pen.

She just...buried her emotions. They were buried beneath the anger and the fucking and the need to feel wanted by her family. Cameron knew that they got exasperated with her, sometimes, she wasn't that much of an idiot, but it wasn't as though it was something that she could help. She couldn't help the way that she was, and she knew that they loved her – logically, she knew that they would always love her, even if she sometimes thought otherwise – but that didn't mean that they had to like her, did it? It didn't mean that they wanted to be around her. And yes, okay, she knew that she was an idiot about that, too. She knew that whenever she went away for a while, Jay wanted her to come home again, and that he was always pleased to see her (except when she'd pissed him off, anyway). But when had there ever been anything logical about her, huh? When had she ever done anything that made sense. She just...Cam didn't know how to think about things clearly. Everything got fogged up, and half the time, she had no idea what she felt. Not even a little one. She got upset and she didn't know why, it took talking to Jay for her to figure it out, and even then—even then she could be following him around the apartment like a lost puppy, she could be refusing to sleep in her own bed, and she still wouldn't accept the fact that she was upset, as though that was something wrong, or weak, or just that she couldn't be. She didn't get upset, did she? She got mad, she got pissed off...but right now, right now she was upset and hurt and she wanted to fucking die. The world would be better off that way, wouldn't it? She wanted Jay. She wanted Jay to come and let her try to hit him and hug her and make everything better, because he always knew how to make things better. She wanted Christian to shut the fuck up.

But he didn't, he just kept on saying things to her, and Jesus, each one was like a knife. Didn't he get that she already knew these things? Didn't he get that there wasn't a single person on earth who hated Cameron Watkins more than she hated herself? She hid it well, of course. She was laughter and smiles and mad schemes, she was anger and fights and sex, she was always teasingly arrogant about herself, always claiming that she was the best, but she had to do that, didn't she? She had to do that, or there was no way that she'd even get through the day. And fucking hell, that was another reason why she had no desire to let a psychiatrist near her ever again. They'd have a fucking field day with what went on in her brain, probably diagnose her with a bunch of things and give her a ton of pills that she'd only end up taking if they gave her some kind of high. What was the point in other pills? She didn't want to be passed out in bed in a drugged out stupor for the rest of her life, thanks, even if it currently seemed like the best idea she had ever heard. Maybe she'd go home and take enough sleeping pills to pass out for the next three years. That sounded like a good plan, right? Just anything to get away from this. Anything not to have to think about what a fucking awful person she was, not to want to cry. Anything so that she could hide from how much everybody had to hate her. She didn't want to speak to any of them again. They were all better off without her, weren't they? “Yes! I only hit people who'll fucking hit me back!” They didn't always, that was true, but the number of times she'd gotten into fights she couldn't even win outnumbered the number of fights she'd picked against people she'd known she'd beat by a hefty margin. There was no fun in it if she was guaranteed a win. It didn't release all the pent up feelings she had to get out through her fists. And when she was feeling particularly shitty, she purposely got into fights she knew she wouldn't win. She didn't hit defenceless people, she just didn't. “How?! Tell me the fuck how and I will!” But she couldn't. Abandonment issues were abound with her, after all. Cameron thought that she could be forgiven those, given what had happened to her. “Well she fucking shouldn't. Guess she's gonna see what a shit friend I am.”

TAG: CHRISTIAN | WORDS: 1148 | NOTES: <3 | ORANGE CARAMEL ! @ ATF