Arrow fic: Insanity, Or Something Like It
Title: Insanity, Or Something Like It
Fandom(s): Arrow
Rating: G
Word Count: 673
Summary: I’d rather madness than this sadness inside my head. (Madness, you see, is relative. What is madness, really?)
Insanity, Or Something Like It It takes him thirty days (30) to realize no one’s coming for him and
Another seven (37) to acknowledge that the world is sure he’s dead.
It takes him three hundred days (10 months) and innumerable coral-cut gashes on his legs and feet before he gets the hang of spear fishing and
Another fourteen (10.5 months) to get sick of fish.
It takes him seven hundred days (2 years) to decide a bow and arrow would be more useful to hunt the runty pig-like animals that live on the island than a knife, and
Another four hundred (3 years 1 month) to be able to hit one of the pigs square in the forehead from the top of a rock face before the pig even heard the arrow.
It takes him nine hundred days (2.4 years) to seriously attempt suicide and
Two hours of sitting on a cliff looking down at the razor-sharp crags below and the thought of Thea, and then of Laurel, before he stands up, horrified.
(From that day forward a whisper, one he’d label as insanity were he to examine it, one halfway Thea, halfway Laurel, acts as a confidante.)
It takes him twelve hundred days (3.3 years) to remember it’s his 25th birthday and
Fifteen minutes of imagination to pretend the leathery fish he eats is a chocolate cake.
It takes him eighteen hundred days (five years) to see the trawler with faded Chinese lettering on the side and
Twenty minutes of sprinting over sharp rock and spiny brush and a laser of a shot to alert them to his presence.
Keeping track of dates kept him sane-no Wilson the Volleyball for him-or at least as sane as one can be when they’re in forced isolation on a godforsaken spit of land. It became an obsession. If he didn’t write down the date the minute he awoke each morning, it would eat at him like a virus until he did. If you were to go to that island he inhabited today, you’d see a rock face so carved with numbers you could hardly see the natural gray underneath.
When he gets rescued, despite it being something he’d dreamed about for five years, it’s…wrong. Lights are too bright, sounds are too loud, landscapes are too colorful, people are too deceptive, beds are too soft, storms are too timid. For well into his second week back (not home, just…back), he can only fall asleep on the cool hardwood, window open with a cold breeze, rain splattering his face. Another two weeks before he can actually sleep through the night on his bed.
His mother, his doctor, his sister, his bodyguard, they all tell him it’ll take time. That he just needs to adjust. He disagrees. Their eyes are clear: they see him as he was five years ago, not as he is now. They don’t want him to adjust, they want him to revert. Playboy asshole is what they’re used to, what they know how to deal with. Centered vigilante is a new animal, a species they haven’t yet conceptualized, so they pretend it doesn’t exist. He can’t say he exactly blames them-after all, it has to be hard enough having him come back from the dead period, let alone deal with him being a changed man, too.
But nevertheless, it’s maddening (and he knows a whole lot about crazy). He doesn’t understand why they can’t see that the man he’s become is better. Has morals. Does the right thing.
He may have endured more than the majority of people would in their lifetime, his mind may be a little off-kilter, and the LaurelTheaHome whisper that accompanied him may still caress his brain every now and then, but he’d rather the madness than the sadness and trauma that could have happened.
He scoffs in condescension as he scratches the date into the floorboard.
It takes him eighteen hundred and one days to be back in his own room and
One hour to wish he were back on the island.
Fandom(s): Arrow
Rating: G
Word Count: 673
Summary: I’d rather madness than this sadness inside my head. (Madness, you see, is relative. What is madness, really?)
Insanity, Or Something Like It It takes him thirty days (30) to realize no one’s coming for him and
Another seven (37) to acknowledge that the world is sure he’s dead.
It takes him three hundred days (10 months) and innumerable coral-cut gashes on his legs and feet before he gets the hang of spear fishing and
Another fourteen (10.5 months) to get sick of fish.
It takes him seven hundred days (2 years) to decide a bow and arrow would be more useful to hunt the runty pig-like animals that live on the island than a knife, and
Another four hundred (3 years 1 month) to be able to hit one of the pigs square in the forehead from the top of a rock face before the pig even heard the arrow.
It takes him nine hundred days (2.4 years) to seriously attempt suicide and
Two hours of sitting on a cliff looking down at the razor-sharp crags below and the thought of Thea, and then of Laurel, before he stands up, horrified.
(From that day forward a whisper, one he’d label as insanity were he to examine it, one halfway Thea, halfway Laurel, acts as a confidante.)
It takes him twelve hundred days (3.3 years) to remember it’s his 25th birthday and
Fifteen minutes of imagination to pretend the leathery fish he eats is a chocolate cake.
It takes him eighteen hundred days (five years) to see the trawler with faded Chinese lettering on the side and
Twenty minutes of sprinting over sharp rock and spiny brush and a laser of a shot to alert them to his presence.
Keeping track of dates kept him sane-no Wilson the Volleyball for him-or at least as sane as one can be when they’re in forced isolation on a godforsaken spit of land. It became an obsession. If he didn’t write down the date the minute he awoke each morning, it would eat at him like a virus until he did. If you were to go to that island he inhabited today, you’d see a rock face so carved with numbers you could hardly see the natural gray underneath.
When he gets rescued, despite it being something he’d dreamed about for five years, it’s…wrong. Lights are too bright, sounds are too loud, landscapes are too colorful, people are too deceptive, beds are too soft, storms are too timid. For well into his second week back (not home, just…back), he can only fall asleep on the cool hardwood, window open with a cold breeze, rain splattering his face. Another two weeks before he can actually sleep through the night on his bed.
His mother, his doctor, his sister, his bodyguard, they all tell him it’ll take time. That he just needs to adjust. He disagrees. Their eyes are clear: they see him as he was five years ago, not as he is now. They don’t want him to adjust, they want him to revert. Playboy asshole is what they’re used to, what they know how to deal with. Centered vigilante is a new animal, a species they haven’t yet conceptualized, so they pretend it doesn’t exist. He can’t say he exactly blames them-after all, it has to be hard enough having him come back from the dead period, let alone deal with him being a changed man, too.
But nevertheless, it’s maddening (and he knows a whole lot about crazy). He doesn’t understand why they can’t see that the man he’s become is better. Has morals. Does the right thing.
He may have endured more than the majority of people would in their lifetime, his mind may be a little off-kilter, and the LaurelTheaHome whisper that accompanied him may still caress his brain every now and then, but he’d rather the madness than the sadness and trauma that could have happened.
He scoffs in condescension as he scratches the date into the floorboard.
It takes him eighteen hundred and one days to be back in his own room and
One hour to wish he were back on the island.