Who: Cecilia (and Neptune, as always). When: Early morning. Where: Cecilia's room.
Cecilia’s mouth and throat had gone dry as she read the message, and the sense of unease building within her was strong enough to catch Neptune’s attention. As a PTSD dog he was trained to spot certain cues. Abrupt changes in temperature, heart rate, stance… plenty of little things to warn of the storm to come. It wasn’t so bad early on. He just cocked his head in her direction, waiting to see if there was going to be a problem.
Hell, Cecilia was waiting to see if there was going to be a problem. She didn’t want to close that ridiculous message, knowing that once it did it would all begin. She hated this. Objected to it in every way she could. Doing this would go against every instinct she had. She couldn’t play this game, wouldn’t, and that was that. The idea made her nervous, but she had almost resolved herself to it when Neptune walked over, and simply placed his chin on her knee. He looked up at her with his bright blue eyes, full of love and trust, and suddenly a splinter of ice took hold in Cecilia’s heart. Her chest tightened, and she swore softly as she practically had to fight for breath against it.
She couldn’t afford a punishment. She could still feel the blood on her hands, hear the sounds of his cries that they’d made her listen to.
Cecilia nodded, as though convincing herself of what was to be done. “Okay,” she murmured, petting Neptune’s head. “It’s gonna be okay.” She took a few deep, steadying breaths, and felt calmer and capable of dealing with it all when she closed their message. The first quote had her face contorting in disgust, but she powered through. It didn’t take long to realize how it was going to work, all grouped up. That was the best way to hurt someone, wasn’t it? If they split it up, it would probably be easier to tolerate. You’d get a breather, rather than the constant uncensored boom-boom-boom of people’s opinions of you.
In the beginning she found herself really trying, and simultaneously hating herself for it. When the quotes edged into more personal or intimate subjects, she found she simply couldn’t do it. It would have felt more than just wrong. With her own demons at her back, she simply could not violate herself by speculating on any of it. I can pass on those, she told herself. It’ll still be okay, probably. As she went through the quotes about Chase, it would be impossible or inaccurate to say Cecilia became comfortable with what she was doing, but it felt bearable. It was something she could do, and maybe she wouldn’t like it, and she was certain their answers would be made public later, but perhaps she could do damage control before that happened. She was thinking about how bad this could be for someone like Marco or Pam, and the first time she saw her own name on the screen she was utterly unprepared for it. It hit her like a truck.
"Anyone else think [Cecilia]'s got lips made for dick sucking?"
Cecilia stared for several long seconds, brows furrowing, and began the task of convincing herself that this meant nothing to her. It was nothing, said by nobody that mattered, and she’d heard worse. It didn’t matter. It was stupid, and it wasn’t supposed to bother her.
But it did. Oh, it did. With one sudden movement that startled Neptune, Cecilia stood up from her desk and stormed around the room, scowling and hissing curses under her breath. It didn’t matter. Anything she read today was all stuff that was said in private, and probably out of context, and under all sorts of extenuating circumstances. She didn’t want to let any of it bother her, but the idea that anyone here was talking like that about her had brought around a little voice in the back of her head that she hated. It was the voice that was broken, vulnerable, and shamed, and worse of all it was the voice that sometimes worried that she’d even in the slightest way brought her own nightmares on herself. It was the voice that lay awake for hours at night and wondered if she’d ever said anything to Jeffrey that could be perceived as a flirtation, an encouragement, an invitation. The voice that wondered why she had to be such a goddamn cam whore with all those selfies on the internet, or how she’d ever preferred to wear tighter, more flattering scrubs at work. That voice was threatening to pipe up now, and Cecilia refused to give into it. Anger was easier to deal with, so she embraced it. Storming around the room, throwing blankets and pillows around before finally making the bed, and then beating the hell out of one of the pillows for good measure. Neptune was there at her side through all of it, a calming presence that eventually anchored her back in.
When she was calmer, she sat at the computer and tried to get through it again. That first jolt aside, the ones about herself weren’t that bad. They made her uncomfortable, but she powered through. The last one almost hung her up again, and she wondered if that was what Oliver had said to Owen, and she vaguely felt the desire to yell at someone, anyone, just to expel her nerves.
She was starting to feel better about the situation when she got to Pam’s, and there finally all her resolve began to crumble. She was pretty sure she’d said a lot of those things. And they were true, goddammit, but this was going to be bad. It was going to hurt, it was a blow Pam was ill-equipped to deal with, and it was just awful. It put a bad taste in her mouth, and each time she hit one she thought she might have said herself, she sank a little lower into herself. Why did I have to say that? Why do I have to bitch about her so much? She’s never done anything to me, not really. I still think it’s true, she doesn’t realize how she comes off. At this rate, she’s never going to. She’s going to feel personally victimized and justified in every terrible opinion.
Cecilia managed to half-ass her way through the rest of it, but she probably skipped more than was safe. She just wanted it to be over. That last, sick bonus round brought another round of cursing on, because it was just like Them to do something like that. It was so underhanded and disgusting, and she couldn’t get the screen to close fast enough. The doors unlocked, Cecilia got up and moved into her bathroom, wanting a shower and to put it all behind her.
The anxiety took hold almost out of nowhere. She’d been fighting it back so long, willing it aside to be dealt with later, that when it finally slipped into the driver’s seat of her brain she was lost to the change until minutes later. The bathroom was full of steam from the shower and Cecilia sat on the bathroom floor, the taste of bile on her tongue as she flushed the toilet and let her forehead rest against the cold wall.
Neptune was there, at least. Always present, always safe, always warm. He had no room for judgment in his heart, and when she felt his chin rest on her leg, she told herself she could manage. She could deal with it all. But if they took him away again, if they hurt him again, she knew with absolute certainty that she’d go to a place that there was no coming back from. Her anger would consume her and she’d burn out, taking whoever she could with her. This place might kill her, but she’d try to tear the walls down with her dying breath.