Fortress
When she was younger, she would hide herself behind walls and doors.
Her room was her temple, and she'd be kept safe. Behind walls. Doors.
She would conceal the cracks in her armour behind a glare, don't let them see any weakness.
If they saw the weaknesses, they would crawl under her skin, beneath her flesh and nestle there, like parasites- feeding off of her sanity.
She couldn't afford to lose any more sanity, her life was dysfunctional enough as it was, so she hid.
Behind walls, doors.
The cracks in her armour grew as she aged, as though stretched with time.
Terrified, she hid them.
A fiercer glare, a stronger punch.
Don't let them close, if they got close, they would see the weaknesses and they would see the fears, they would see… her.
And that terrified her.
And so, she kept her distance.
She didn't need to get close to people, she knew that she wouldn't be loved, so she saw no reason to try.
She'd rather break skin and bones than her heart.
So she hid, behind walls. Doors.
A fortress of stones and frowns.
She grew up believing that no one would ever fall in love with her, that no one would ever think of her before falling asleep.
That no one would ever make her feel as though the world was only worth being lived in if she were there for them.
And so she emptied herself, so she would feel nothing.
It hurt less than scars and broken bones.
Behind her armour, she let herself drown. Slowly, so that no one saw.
She'd lock her bedroom door so that the others didn't see.
Her uphills were mountains and her downhills were cliffs.
She was unstable, the hydrogen atom amongst the noble gasses of neon, argon.
But she hid it well.
Behind walls. Doors.
And then he happened.
And somehow, at some point, he pulled her out.
Out of the armour she'd built for herself.
He tore down her battlements and glares and punches.
Just by existing.
And it terrified her beyond explanation.
Words weren't enough to describe the fear that she experienced when she found herself willing to let him see behind the armour, beyond the walls. The doors.
And she realised that the cracks in her armour, though they were her weaknesses, they were also what let him in.
He saw the real her.
Everything, everything changed on the night were she fell asleep and she wasn't alone. An arm around her.
The fears didn't hurt her that night.
The monsters didn't slide from her closet and engulf her thoughts, replacing them with darkness and terror.
She wasn't alone in the fortress.
Though she still thought: what if?
What if he tore down her defence system which she had carefully built, brick by brick, stone by stone?
Day after wretched day she thought: what if?
But he didn't.
He made her reassess what she'd made herself believe.
He told her, with carefully painted words that he fell in love.
With her.
That she (yes, she,) was beautiful.
And her armour crumbled, link by link, until it pooled around her on the ground, leaving only herself, exposed and defenceless, but smiling for one of the first times in the entirety of her existence.
She marvelled in the lightness of her skin, the world weighed less when the armour didn't cling to her and constrict her joy.
Her brothers saw the change, he saw the change.
All that was left to do was to unlock the door and step outside without her armour.
She could do it. She knew she could, because he told her every day:
He was with her, she wasn't alone.
She didn't have to hide behind the walls anymore.
They were just stone, she was the strength behind them. She was the force who built them.
Diamonds were only carbon. She as so much more.
And though he was no great hero, he wore no cape, he saved her from herself.
So slowly, with him by her side, she turned the lock and looked at the outside world.
She was stardust, water, a brain, a heart.
And she had him.
It was time to leave the fortress behind.
Heyy, idk if I'm gonna keep these oneshots going, there hasn't been a huge amount of feedback on them, so this might be the last one.
Thanks to everyone who did support this!
~Lee :)