#( going to make some tea & then we will return to your regularly scheduled programming )

[erabundus]

there are so many thinly veiled cries for help in ren's lashing out and it makes me very sad.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Paul Higgs: Baby Daze

Tomorrow I will return you to your regularly scheduled whump programming. Today... this is what wanted to be written.

CW: Teen pregnancy, some crass language surrounding said pregnancy, brief gun reference, some organized crime references

Approximately eighteen years before Tristan Higgs became another casualty of WRU…

-

"Well, look who’s here! Billy Higgs’s boy, come to see us after school, then?" Sean Malley claps him on the back and Paul nearly stumbles forward, just barely catching himself as he crosses the threshold from the sun-warmed walkway with straggly weeds growing stubbornly up through the cracks into the chilly shadowed warehouse. His sneakers scrape along the ground, but he stays standing.

He's hardly even as big as a stick compared to his dad's work buddies, all older guys with thick muscled forearms and sleeves rolled up to their elbows. He’s never had much muscle on him at all, but then his dad didn’t have much in old photos either. Maybe he’d get some as he got older, if he worked here. If they let him. "How’s things, hm? Keeping your grades up?”

Paul smiles, a slightly strained expression. The smile is automatic, it’s what everyone expects with small talk. At school he mostly doesn’t even bother with it, but with his dad’s friends… well, a smile’s polite. Right? Friendly. 

He tries to look more friendly. He needs them to say yes to what he’s about to ask for.

“They’re fine,” He says, squinting as his eyes adjust to the change in light. “Same as always, A’s and B’s.”

Mostly B’s, but they don’t need to know that.

“Good, good.” Sean slides an arm around his shoulders, jovial as always. Paul tries not to be visibly uncomfortable at the touch. Everyone is always touchy, in the world, and he’s never liked it much. Except with Ronnie, but… that’s different. “So, talk to us, Paulie. What's got Billy’s boy mucking around here at the Garden with the old-timers?" 

It's not actually much of a garden, unless you count the dandelions in the sidewalks and the bits of scraggly grass along the edges of the pavement as your rows of plants. Instead, the big warehouse stretches wider than two Walmarts, chopped off into pieces by the standalone temporary walls inside that don't reach the ceiling. 

The ‘Garden’ is a place where things happen that no one with a badge is ever supposed to see. There's shouting, good-natured calling out of sums and figures and code words Paul doesn't know, bouncing and echoing in a constant chaos of sound. Metal scrapes, an odd clicking Paul vaguely recognizes but can’t quite place until he thinks of his dad cleaning his guns now and then at night, carefully putting them back together once he’s done. 

All that noise lays heavy like a blanket over his skin. He pushes past it - he's got a reason to be here, and he won't let Ronnie down. He can’t let her down.

"I'm here to work," He says, going for strong and loud. He doesn't change expression when the men around him laugh. 

He doesn't think their laughter is meant to be unkind, and besides, he doesn't really care if it is. These men have all known him since he was born - if anyone’s going to give him what he needs, it’ll be them. "My dad told me I could pick up some shifts this weekend as a lookout, that you pay cash at the end of the shift, right away. That I could get a couple hundred if I’m good at it, maybe five if I do some running, too.”

"Oh he said that, did he?" Sean meets eyes with Cilly, whose real name Paul has never learned. He isn’t entirely sure anyone here has ever given him their real legal name. Not even Sean. "Will might've let the family know first before he sent his boy here, hm? 

"Well, it's. It's important I get cash. Um. Fast. I just spoke to him, probably he'll call you in a bit thinking he's giving you a warning." Paul tries for another smile, and hopes it's warm enough. A bit of coppery strawberry blond hair falls over his green eyes as he looks hopefully from man to man. 

He's not even eighteen yet, but really, isn't that even better for a lookout? He knows where they do their business, he knows who to watch for, and he doesn’t look like he’s one of them at all. He's paid attention, sat up at night making maps of where they work and what they do. He knows they’ve gotten into business with WRU, even, the big Facility up in Berras has been sending people down here now and then. He’s good at this sort of thing. He knows he can do this. He’s going to make a living at this one day, and everyone starts somewhere.

He just… has to convince them. These men aren't unreasonable, and they're family. Well, sort of. In a way. In that they all commit crimes with his dad. And some of them actually are real family, although he’s not always sure exactly who.

"What d'you need cash for that can't wait for your parents to come back from Florida, then?" That's Cilly, scratching idly at a red spot on his face, sipping a mug of hot tea like they're at a kitchen counter and not a fold-out table by a warehouse door. The others all have takeout coffee cups, but not Cilly. 

Paul's mom buys him new mugs on all her vacations. A gentleman among thieves, she said once. 

Nah, Paul's dad had said. Just a thief. But he puts on airs for you. 

All the more reason to show him my appreciation, Bill. 

The mug he’s drinking from now was one of Paul’s mom’s presents to him. It has a little palmetto tree on the side and Nothin’ Could Be Finer written in swirling script. It came from a trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina when Paul was seven. 

He hated that trip. He never liked sand. Or the ocean. Or the noise of all the people everywhere in the street. He would have been happy with a book on the couch in the condo if they’d have let him stay there. 

"They're not in-"

"Think they're in Georgia," Conor pipes up, the oldest with hair gone nearly gray, cousins to the real boss, a man Paul has met maybe three times and knows only as Mr. Sondheim - which isn’t even a little bit his actual name. 

Conor makes Paul’s skin prickle, the way he thinks maybe a cat feels when it sees a mean-looking dog across the street. Paul's dad came home once with blood he had to wash off his hands and a shirt he had to throw out. When Paul asked, he said only, Conor's temper is going to get someone who matters killed one day. Too bad his grandson's as bad as he is. "Aren't they?"

"Nah," Sean says, shaking his head. "Florida. Definitely Florida."

"Actually," Paul starts. "They're in-"

"I thought Texas," Cilly says, almost thoughtful. He interrupts Paul thoughtlessly, and Paul’s face colors a little with embarrassment. He feels like the odd man out in a conversation meant to be about him. 

"They went to Alabama," Paul finally says, soft. Thinking no one’s listening, but they all look at him then. That's worse than when they weren't paying attention at all. He never meets any one person's eyes, instead focusing on Sean Malley's forehead, a spot that'll look like eye contact without having to be it. He's never liked having to look too many people in the eye. 

Or anyone, actually. 

"Ah, all right then. Alabama. Well. What couldn't wait for them to get back from Alabama, Paulie-Wol?"

No one's called him Paulie-Wol since he was eleven - and he hated it then. He blushes even darker. He's always been easy to make blush, and they laugh again. It's a little meaner this time. He has to not care. It’s important not to care, so they’ll let him work. 

Paul Higgs straightens his narrow shoulders and pulls a crumpled but of paper, shiny on one side, out from his back pocket. "This is why. I need money. Fast. For this."

He can't help how his voice dips, hushed, almost in awe. Sean is the first to take the little piece of paper, eyes widening in surprise at what he sees, before he hands it to Conor, who whistles through his teeth. Cilly takes it next, with a soft exhalation that's either curse or prayer. 

With this group, it could be either. Or both. Paul’s dad always says God doesn’t care overmuch about the difference.

"You're a bit young, aren't you? To need money for this?" Sean asks, and he's… concerned, Paul thinks, and he tries to square himself up even taller. “What’re you, Paulie, fifteen?”

"S-seventeen. It’s-... we didn’t plan on it, Sean, it just happened." This time when his face stays red, heat burning under the smattering of freckles across his cheeks and nose, they don't laugh. All their smiles are gone, too.

They've gone serious, these men who aren't quite blood but might as well be. They aren't laughing at or with or because of him. They look worried about him.

"Paulie," Conor says, shaking his head. "Paulie, you know better than this. Don't they teach you how to make sure this shit don't just happen? Thought we’d stop having teenagers knocking each other up once we got past the eighties.”

"They did. I had a whole health class where we-... but it doesn’t matter, it still. Happened, okay?" The absolute last thing he wants to do is talk to these old guys about Ronnie, and why, and when. If they ask him he’ll melt into the floor, and die, and just be dead right here and now.  

“So, when you say you need money… Are you looking to drive her up to Berras?”

“No, that’s not... We talked about it, but she said she already thought about it and made her decision. This isn’t… Don’t look at me like that. I like her decision. I’m happy.”

“You are?” Sean blinks, surprised.

“Yes! I'm happy, so don't tell me I fucked up, because I did. I know I did, but… but I talked to Ronnie, and we have a whole plan and I need money for my plan. And just. Look at it.”

Sean glances back down, taking the paper back, smoothing it out. Shiny on one side, it's a printed black and white image, a smeary blur of monochrome shades. Unmistakable in its center, more or less, is a gently rounded blob of white, topped with another and with other little blobs coming off its sides. Labeled along the top is Baby Botham, 14 weeks 3 days. 

“Botham?” Sean asks, head cocked to one side.

“That’s… that’s Ronnie’s last name. She, uh. She didn’t tell them… Because we’re not married.” Paul squares himself up again. “Yet. We’re not married yet.”

He tries not to think about Ronnie crying on his shoulder about how her parents and her sister had screamed at her when she told them, that no one was talking to her and they might throw her out, like this. His throat will close up if he does, in hurt for her, and in anger. 

His own parents he’d just told on the phone today, heard the long silence on the other end. Whispers that didn’t quite carry through the line. Then his mother had said, brisk and no-nonsense as always, So what does Ronnie want to do? We’ll help however we can. Will she need somewhere to stay?

“You’re not married yet,” Cilly repeats, not with derision, just with a kind of flat uncertainty. “You’re seventeen, Paulie. Little young to be talking marriage, don’t you think?”

“Well, we’re talking it, anyway,” Paul says firmly. “And don’t tell me it’s stupid. We already made our minds up.”

“Well, far be it for me to question your judgement,” Sean deadpans. “Since you’re clearly making excellent decisions already-”

“I got married at sixteen,” Conor points out. “Wife and I been married forty-two years this December, too. Sometimes it works out.”

“Different world, different times,” Cilly counters, and Conor has to nod in agreement to that. “Lots of those didn’t work out either, now did they? Besides, kids got options now we didn’t have back then.”

“Ronnie doesn’t want those other options,” Paul says, forcing his voice to be loud enough to carry, surprising all three men, who give him a new kind of look. Maybe even seeing him as nearly a man and not a kid, just for the moment. “She doesn’t. I never told her to do or not do anything, we talked about it, and she knows what she wants to do, and I agree with her. Ronnie and I want to get married, and we’ll need somewhere we can live when-... when the baby comes. So I need to start making money. And I want-... I need some fast, this weekend.”

Cilly’s expression goes cold. “Don’t tell me your folks are making you find a place that fast. I’ll take Billy to the woodshed myself if he’d be such a bastard to his own kid when things get tough-”

“He’s not,” Paul says quickly. “They’re not. Mom and Dad aren’t-... but they get it, they’re helping us. It’s not for an apartment, not yet. It’s so I can buy her some stuff.”

"This is a serious thing," Sean says, and he rubs his thumb over what Paul is pretty sure is his baby's head. The blobs are all sort of odd to look at, but… he's pretty sure that one's the head. It’s where he would put the head, if he were designing a person, anyway. "But I can see you’re quite the serious young man, now. What sort of stuff are you lookin’ to buy, Paulie?" 

Paul swallows, nervously rubbing his palms along the seems on the outside of his pants. “I… I don’t know. What do you buy someone who’s pregnant? I thought, like, baby clothes? Or a crib?”

“No, no, no.” Sean shakes his head. “You can’t just get her baby stuff, not this early. You are not starting with a crib, Paulie. You got nowhere to even put one yet.”

“Then… what do I buy?” Paul looks from man to man. “I’ve never known a pregnant person before, not anyone I cared about.”

“You were around for my wife’s last pregnancy,” Sean says, mildly offended.

Paul shrugs. 

The three older men look at each other, and then sigh nearly as one. Someone pushes out the fourth chair from the fold-up table and Paul sits, each of the other men sitting in turn. Sean picks up his phone and dials. “Hey, Don. Let everybody know we’re off-limits for the next couple hours, ‘til lunch. Yeah, Billy Higgs’s boy stopped by. He’s sniffing around for some lookout work this weekend. Find him some decent jobs for me, will you?”

Paul starts to smile, and it’s genuine this time. Sean hands him back the little picture of the blob that will become a baby, his and Ronnie’s baby, and he tries not to crumble it fully in his hands, worried his sweat will smear the ink. She’ll get another one in a few weeks, said her doctor told her it’ll look more like a person, then. Less like a weird frog. Or like a really, really bad painting.

“Thanks, I’ll owe you.” Sean hangs up the phone and grins, leaning on his elbows on the wobbly little table. The sun shines warmly through the open warehouse doors on Paul’s back. “All right. Between the three of us, we’ve got, what, ten kids?”

“Yeah, but five of those are all Cilly’s,” Conor points out. “And mine stopped bein’ kids decades ago.”

“Yeah, but babies don’t change, and they don’t need much. You need a pen and paper to write things down, Paulie?”

“Write… write what down?” 

“What you’re gonna spend your money on, for your girlfriend. You don’t just show up with baby clothes, kid, you gotta go all out. Let’s talk date, let’s talk gifts for this Ronnie, let’s talk it all out.”

“What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” Cilly says. “They all get that book, right? Isn’t that the one?”

Sean snorts, derisive. “Don’t get her that, not this early. That damn book had my wife in fucking tears telling her everything that could go wrong. We need to think of a happier book than that.”

“Well, call your wife and ask her what she’d want, then.”

“Maybe I will.”

“You should!”

“She’s liable to start planning a damn baby shower if I do. You know how Christa is about little ones.”

Cilly grins. “Think she’ll make those deviled eggs I like for the shower?”

“Cilly, for God’s sake, we found out about this five minutes ago.”

“Right, but... deviled eggs.”

Paul takes a deep breath, and sits back in his chair. “I’ll remember, whatever you say. I promise. I don’t need to write it down. Just tell me what I should get her, what I should do.”

“Right. Well, then.” Sean spreads his hands. “Let’s talk gifts.”

-

Tagging: @burtlederp , @finder-of-rings , @endless-whump , @whumpfigure , @astrobly @newandfiguringitout , @doveotions , @pretty-face-breaker , @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump  , @oops-its-whump  @cubeswhump ,  @whump-tr0pes  @downriver914 @vickytokio @whumpiary @orchidscript @moose-teeth @nonsensical-whump

[they-call-me-hades]

{Cinderella AU} Night and Day

CHAPTER FIVE

Kit leaned against the back door of the kitchen and held the flower close to his chest with a wide grin as he looked down at the petals and gently ran his hand over them, it perhaps hadn’t been the most romantic day but….well Kit felt like he’d known Hades all his life.

It was only a moment later that Kit was seized by a gushing Honey and Crowley chuckling as he sauntered in

“Lover boy! How’d the date go?” Crowley asked with a suggestive eyebrow waggle, Kit laughed a bit and rolled his eyes

“Nothing happened, not really anyway.” He said gazing down at the flower in his hands Honey laughed and pulled him over to the table where she already had tea waiting, Kit suspected that one of them likely had their eyes glued to the window waiting for his return the entire time. Honey poured each of them a cup of tea

“Alright spill,” she said Kit raised a brow at her and began slowly tipping his cup towards the floor, Honey swatted at his arm and rolled her eyes while Crowley snorted with laughter

“Not like that you jerk! How did it go? Tell us about your day.” Honey encouraged him Kit knew that she didn’t get out very much and that this was likely her only form of entertainment for the night, so Kit decided to amuse her. He leaned back in his chair and recited all the events of the day. Picking flowers with felicity and telling them both fantastical tales of magic and daring escapes that had the two of them with rapt attention, the most delightful foods that Kit had ever tasted and talking with Hades, gosh it had been fantastic.

“It was a wonderful day, he’s just wonderful in general! Wonderful hair, wonderful smile, wonderful- “

He had been about to say name when he paused as the dawn of realization hit him and he went a ghostly shade of white, quickly noticed by Crowley

“What’s wrong?” Crowley asked him as Kit suddenly looked devastated and reality set in as he sank his head in his hands with a groan about how stupid he was. Honey was beginning to worry and frowned

“Kit what’s the matter? Is it something that deserves me hitting him because I will?” Honey said she even rolled up her sleeves for emphasis, but Kit shook his head and looked up at them

“I…. I’m an idiot. I never got his last name.” Kit said and like that his fairy tale was just that. A story to be told and cherished rather than getting to continue. Honey and Crowley both looked just as disappointed and Honey pulled him into a hug which Crowley timidly joined by patting Kit’s shoulder. Behind them a bell rang, and it was ever the horrid reminder that Kit wasn’t the princess of a fairy tale but a servant in an old home and like that it was back to their regularly scheduled program.

                                                                              ~*~

The next day Hades and Aziraphale were in the garden practicing their fencing, Felicity sat at the window of her room listening to Lady Adhira ramble on about how she had to properly learn tea ceremonies and such for any visiting dignitaries in the future, the way her father talked enthusiastically even if she couldn’t hear him she knew he was talking about Kit.

For the past day or so, Kit had been all her father had talked about and as young as she was Felicity knew that her father deserved a fairy tale ending and that this usually meant that Kit was his or at least should have had a chance to prove he was his.

But Felicity didn’t know how to do that, she suspected that Kit didn’t know that they were royals, there had been no bowing or special treatment the other day which she liked someone needed to treat them normally if they wanted to have a chance with her papa.

Adhira quickly realized the little princess wasn’t listening and let out an irritated sigh

“Perhaps we should invite some of your friends over to practice with?” Adhira suggested hoping it would interest the girl, Felicity perked up hearing that and hatching an instant plan

“Friends? So…I could invite anyone I want?” Felicity asked Adhira seemed to enjoy and potentially misinterpret Felicity’s enthusiasm thinking that she was actually interested in teatime.

“Oh o-of course princess!” Adhira said and instantly Felicity jumped up and hurried to her desk beginning to scribble out an invitation, only one which Adhira thought strange but she left the girl to do as she pleased, probably a mistake as the little princess began to scheme.

Meanwhile Outside her father and his brother sparred with rapiers clanging together and the metallic sounds filling the garden loudly as they swiped at each other “He was wonderful Aziraphale, he told the most wonderful stories and had Felicity wrapped around his finger.” Hades told him making a jab which the other one blocked quickly jumping away from him and giving a small eye roll, hades caught it and frowned moving out of his stance and lowering his practice blade

“What?” he asked but Aziraphale just smiled at him

“You remember when I got drunk at our birthday and I kissed that gardener?” Aziraphale asked him Hades nodded “And how much crap you gave me in the week after when I couldn’t shut up about how I wished I’d gotten his name and was able to continue seeing him after even if it would have caused some kind of scandal?”

Again hades nodded and Aziraphale grinned a bit and shook his head at him “You teased me relentlessly about not shutting up and I now know what you felt like because you’re so smitten with this guy that you’ve hardly met you haven’t shut up about him in the past twenty four hours.” Aziraphale told him he was completely caught off guard when a moment later a sword came thrusting towards his face and suddenly a foot behind his leg toppled him and Hades now had his practice sword pointed in Aziraphale’s face and he couldn’t stop himself from grinning

“Sore spot?” Aziraphale asked Hades chuckled

“No, my brother, you’re simply soft.” Hades said putting the blade down and pulling Aziraphale to his feet before he started to walk away Aziraphale could tell he may have over stepped but if someone else didn’t acknowledge how Hades was feeling, Aziraphale knew that hades himself would never acknowledge it either. His brother had become so closed off to the idea of dating or courtship or whatever you wanted to call it that Aziraphale knew that he’d never think about his feelings unless someone else brought them up first.

Aziraphale stayed in the garden after that sitting on the edge of one of the flower beds and running his fingers gently over the petals of a beautiful red rose and thinking back to his own night, what he could remember of it anyway. The beautiful gardener with his long red hair and his golden eyes, how Aziraphale had begged him to stay and work at the palace but it would cause to much of a scandal and how he needed to protect someone, Aziraphale vaguely remembered a passionate kiss and a promise to return some day. The problem was remembering a face to go with such lovely features and such a kind heart.

Aziraphale then noticed Felicity coming out from the kitchen doors like she did when wanting to avoid Adhira and frowned as he saw the little one approach the stables

“What are you doing?” Aziraphale asked but the little girl had a gleam of mischief in her eyes which never really meant anything good as she just waved and kept going for the stables

“I’m going to practice my riding,” She said Aziraphale frowned and began to follow her after the incident the other day he wouldn’t have expected any different. But with the look on her face that reminded him exactly of his late sister in law he knew it couldn’t be anything good that the little one had in mind.

Aziraphale followed her down the riding path, and then onto the path that lead outside the grounds…. followed by an old dirt road leading out of town that was until they came to a house deep in the woods not long after. It was a magnificent house, beautiful even or at least it probably had been. Age had worn the outside but the garden, the garden was spectacular! Roses redder than any he’d ever seen. Aziraphale knew instantly this had to be the house of Hades crush, oh that clever little girl. Aziraphale rode to catch up with her and when he got beside her she went a little pale but he smiled down at her and her little pony (the one she wasn’t supposed to take off grounds but did anyway) her mischievous smile vanished and was replaced with one of guilt and worry as she looked down at the ground and began stroking her pony lovingly, Aziraphale waited for her to speak first since there was obviously a lot on her mind and he trusted her to tell him the truth. When she looked back up to him fearful and with teary eyes, he knew that he was right.

“Am I in trouble?” Felicity asked him Aziraphale shook his head

“You know your father likes this man yes?” Aziraphale asked and Felicity nodded wiping her eyes on her sleeve until Aziraphale offered her a hanky and she took it dabbing at her eyes and he offered her a soft smile

“Good. Then what’s the plan?”

Felicity was startled and confused for a moment before she broke out in a grin and told him, the two then went to the house and Aziraphale rang the doorbell and waited.

There was a long pause and at first Aziraphale wondered if no one was home, he rang the bell again and still nothing. Just before Aziraphale could make the suggestion to come back another day there was the sound of shouting incomprehensibly and stomping footsteps coming to the door which made Aziraphale worry that perhaps that Hades might have exaggerated until the door answered and a large, well fit fellow with dark hair and a sour face answered and leaned across the entire doorframe not actually looking at them but rather his own reflection in a small hand mirror

“Yes, yes what do you want?” he asked exaggerated like this was such an inconvenience Aziraphale glanced down at Felicity who pouted a little she obviously didn’t like his attitude either

“you’re not kit.” She said simply this had Aziraphale having a wave of relief wash over him because honestly as pretty as this man seemed he had a dark aura that surrounded him that Aziraphale didn’t like. The stranger looked up only at Felicity and got a sour look on his face which Felicity mimicked back at him

“No I’m not,” He said with a scoff as if this was the biggest insult he’d ever heard Aziraphale took Felicity by the shoulders and pulled her back closer to him protectively and this is what finally got the man to look up at him and his expression change drastically as he realized exactly who he was dealing with.

Aziraphale gave a forced smile

“We’d like to have a word with Kit Marlowe if that’s at all possible sir.” Aziraphale requested it was then a second older man pushed his way into the doorway and Aziraphale recognized him from a few gatherings of the local lords, he had been lady Marlowe’s second husband before her passing if he remembered correctly

“Your highness! Please excuse my son he sort of woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” The man (Gabriel if he recalled?) greeted him with a bow pushing his son into the same position and while he was much more pleasant Aziraphale saw the pout on Felicity’s face deepen further

“You’re not kit either” she said this seemed to be like a momentary slap in the face to the violet eyed lord, but he recovered with a forced smile as he knelt down to her height

“No, my dear princess I’m afraid not, Kit is out at the moment running some errands for the household. Could I perhaps help you with something?” he asked Aziraphale noted how strained it seemed to speak even decently about Kit and didn’t like the vibes he was getting or the auras he was sensing and frowned

“Yes, the princess met him just the other day, he saved her when her horse was frightened and as a thank you, she wished to invite him to afternoon tea with me and my brother.” Aziraphale said he offered the invitation and Gabriel snatched it looking over the invitation so formal with a shiny seal but still the scratched cursive writing of a young child still learning what she was doing. Aziraphale didn’t like the look in his eyes and kept Felicity close to him something about this man wasn’t right and Aziraphale wasn’t sure that perhaps much better could come from this place, that was until he heard a familiar voice casually from the other side of the door that left his own heart skipping a beat.

The familiar ginger hair and dark glasses as the tall lean figure appeared and started up the stairs with a woman close behind him

“Honestly Honey, can you believe that idiot not getting a name?” he asked with a sigh Aziraphale felt like he had seen an angel for the second time as he recognized his birthday romance perhaps there was something good about this house.

Fortunately, in his paralyzed state Felicity saw him and took over also recognizing the man and having similar bad vibes about Gabriel.

Felicity snatched the invitation from the violet eyed man and ducked between them “HEY!” she called catching the attention of the two servants, Crowley recognized her and grinned like the cat that caught the canary “We were just talking about you and your dad,” Crowley said Felicity handed him the invitation “That’s for Kit, Uncle Zira and I are inviting you and him to tea tomorrow can you make it?” Felicity asked Crowley quirked a brow and looked up his own shock taking over as the familiar prince that had snogged him to death one night last year came to view, Crowley was stunned as Aziraphale gave a nervous smile and waved Crowley took a moment to remember he was being addressed and something clicked as he looked down at Felicity,

“You’re- “

“Princess you shouldn’t worry yourself with talking with common servants,” Drake said cutting in and stepping between them, he reached for the invitation which Crowley moved out of his reach and glared at him Felicity did as well

“Uncle Zira knows him and wants him to come with Kit to tea right uncle Zira?” Felicity asked as she looked. Aziraphale seemed to sober and his face burned a bright red as he gave a soft smile

“Yes, yes of course.” Aziraphale said his smile becoming as warm as the radiant sun that seemed to beam off of the prince “I think we have a lot of catching up to do if you’d like?” Aziraphale asked Crowley could only give a nervous smile and nod Felicity smiled and walked back to Aziraphale and took his hand before she looked back at Crowley

“You and Kit, tomorrow at two okays?” She asked before she took Aziraphale and began walking away.

The moment that door shut, Gabriel glared at Crowley

“How dare you accept an invitation in my home.” Gabriel growled Crowley snapped out of his love sick trance and glared at him putting the invitation in his breast pocket before Drake could make another snag for it. “I live here as well, the princess said it was for him and me why wouldn’t I accept it? Do you know how rude it is to decline an invitation from a princess?” Crowley asked him Drake grabbed him and slammed him into the wall his temper going from one to a one hundred in a second until Honey shoved between them and leveled him with a glare

“What’s going on?” Kit asked as he entered next with Vlad, Kit instantly felt the heat and hatred from his stepfather and step brother the second he made his way around the corner and Kit had to wonder what he did wrong

“Did you know your prince charming is an actual prince?” Crowley asked him to straighten his waist coat and never taking his eyes off of Drake Kit was surprised and raised a brow Gabriel offered him a smile that looked like it was painted on some doll, forced and fake. He put his arm around Kit and steered him back towards the other room and Kit resisted a shiver that was threatening to go down his spine

“Lets have a chat shall we my boy?”

[amanda-fior]

I shared my personal mental health story with my vet class

I shared my very personal story with my classmates for R U OK day in our private facebook group and I received so much love and support. This is a copy of my post:

Today was R U OK day. I thought I would take this opportunity to talk about my recent experience with mental health and trying to find help. Sorry in advance for rambling. Also, just a warning that this is a pretty full on post. I just want to share it because mental health is something that most vets and vet students will struggle with at some point. It is important to know that you’re not alone and to speak up if you think it might help someone.

A few months ago, I had suicide ideations. I knew I had to go to the hospital to remain safe. Starting that conversation with my mum was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I have attempted suicide in the past and my partner at the time convinced me to tell my mum, who reacted very badly. She didn’t understand depression or anything like that at the time and her mind went straight to my brother who died when I was younger. He had been in a car accident and spent his 19th birthday on life support before it was switched off. My suicide attempt brought all that back for my mum and she yelled, “How DARE you?! Your brother fought as hard as he could for his life and you just want to throw yours away?!”

The second reason I was scared to get help, was the way the mental health nurse in Armidale treated me last time. She did not appear to care at all and clearly didn’t believe me when she asked if I had been sexually assaulted as a child. She asked me that same question several times and then made a face when she finally wrote my answer (”no”) on her clipboard.

Thankfully, this time my mum and the hospital staff were much more supportive.

I was admitted to the low care mental health unit, which is a locked ward. It is a secure and safe place but it did nothing to actually help me mentally.

The first thing that I was required to do, was very confronting. The mental health nurse that I was assigned to, along with a student nurse, led me into a conference room to meet with the psychiatrist. There was also a psychiatrist registrar and 2 other students in the room. 6 strangers. We sat in a semi circle and everyone looked at me. I couldn’t make eye contact but I knew some people had their hands posed, ready to write or type. The psychiatrist asked me why I was there. I thought it was pretty damn obvious why I was there. I had already been interviewed by about 5 nurses who kept repeating the same questions. Surely someone had passed along the message. I mumbled that I wanted to hurt myself.

“Yes. And when you say you want to hurt yourself, what do you mean exactly?”

I told them that I wanted to end my life. He still wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to know all of the details. How. With what. When. How far into my plan had I got? So I tried my best to answer his questions while my answers got scribbled and typed down.

After that, I assumed I would be bombarded with help. Pamphlets for programs, mental health workers, counsellors, support programs, group therapy, art therapy.... but there was none of that.

The psychiatrist told me he would increase the dose of my anti-depressants to see if it made a difference. My nurse and the student nurse took me to my room. I had been scanned by a metal detector and had my phone taken away when I arrived. Everything was secured into place to prevent us from hurting ourselves. No electrical items were allowed inside. No shoelaces. No belts. No aerosols. We weren’t even allowed to keep shampoo in our rooms. There was hot water for de-caffinated tea. A sandwich press was brought out at breakfast for making toast and then locked away again.

My nurse asked if I was anxious (lol) and gave me some pills. I didn’t ask what they were. I went to sleep until someone woke me for dinner. I had a new nurse. Another consumer (that’s what they call patients in the ward, consumers) gave me a whirl-wind tour of the facility, not that I can even remember what her voice sounded like, I was too out of it. But I did learn that there is a whiteboard in the nurses station that has our room number, name and our nurses name on it. There were about 4 nurses on at a time and we had to go to them for every little thing. But they changed shift regularly, so if you had to arrange something like a CSU medical certificate, it was hard because once you got somewhere with the last nurse, you had to explain the whole thing over again to the new nurse.

They checked on us every hour. All through the night. It wasn’t very dark in my room but each hour a blast of fluorescent light invaded for a few moments, disrupting whatever sleep I had managed to find. The night staff started at 10pm and from then on, you could get sleeping pills. They helped a little.

I was woken early the next morning by a nurse who seemed to be running behind schedule. She didn’t wait for my eyes to adjust to the light, let alone for my brain to remember where I was before rolling down my sleeve.

“Just taking some blood,” she explained hastily.

“Oh, I had bloods taken yesterday.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” she replied, ripping the tiny, circular band-aid off.

Each morning, we were woken at 7 for breakfast, medication and we had our temperature and blood pressure measured. I don’t know what their obsession was with blood pressure but mine was measured several times each day. After breakfast, there was nothing to do. We could watch TV, colour-in (if we asked our nurse to get us the pencils etc) or we could pace the hallway. I just went back to bed and reassured the nurses each hour that I wasn’t dead. Eventually, it would be time for me to see my psychiatrist registrar. This was the only mental health care we received. He would ask how I was feeling, enquire about my appetite (nil), sleep (disrupted) and asked if I felt safe in the ward (I still don’t know if he meant safe from myself or from the other consumers but I just said yes each time).

On my first morning, my nurse brought me a bunch of paperwork to sign. She explained that I was an involuntary patient. Two days later, I told my brother that I still had no idea what I was supposed to DO in the ward. There was no stimulation whatsoever. It was just me and my own mind. And the nurses kept asking if I was hearing voices so many times that I actually started to question myself. My brother, who had been visiting me daily, asked my nurse how long I was going to be there. She explained that my psychiatrist would review me in a week. A week!!! A different psychiatrist comes each weekday (from Sydney or Melbourne) and the psychiatrist registrars communicate with them throughout the week. The registrar can grant leave for an hour each day but only once you’re a voluntary patient. Only the registered psychiatrist can formally discharge consumers.

The days dragged on after that. I was made a voluntary patient a few days later and the nurse brought me my new paperwork to sign. It turned out that the only real difference between voluntary and involuntary was that they could no longer give me ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) without my consent. So that was a plus. And yeah, they still do that. But it’s now done under anaesthetic. My ex used to complain about all the old people who get it done because their heart rates would suddenly shoot up dangerously high and sometimes it caused strokes.

The psychiatrist registrar asked how I felt about the prospect of returning home. I told him that I didn’t really care where I was but my family wanted me to have a plan and ongoing support. I also wanted to be connected with a counsellor or psychologist before I went home. The registrar and the nurses told me all of that would be arranged before I left.

But it wasn’t. I was discharged the day before my psych was due to see me and it all happened really quickly. I suspect it had more to do with the number of beds rather than an actual improvement in my mental health. Nothing had actually been done in the week I was there except for an increase in my anti-depressant dose. But I was so overwhelmed at the thought of being able to walk more than 10m without turning around and getting to see my animals that I didn’t think to ask about the support I had been promised.

They did put me in contact with a community health worker. I saw her once a week and she asked how I was sleeping, appetite, whether I had self-harmed etc. I told her that I wanted to see a psychologist and she said that was a great idea. She didn’t offer any further assistance. When I questioned her about it at our next meeting, she said that I needed to talk to my GP about getting a mental health plan. Her tone sounded impatient, as if I should have known that already. I started to get angry with the whole system. It had been three weeks since I had walked into the hospital and told them I wanted to kill myself and it still seemed so hard to access any help.

Two days later, I attempted suicide.

This time, I actually tried the method Leigh Ladd mentioned in class the other day - diazepam and alcohol. I had planned to get into the backyard swimming pool for good measure, but I didn’t make it that far. I actually felt validated for the first time when Leigh Ladd talked about this in class. Until then, all of the medical professionals had scoffed at my method and made remarks like, “Ha, that was never going to work. You could take 2000mg of valium and all you’d do is fall asleep.”

Maybe they were ignoring the fact that mixing it with a lot of alcohol depresses your respiratory system, maybe they didn’t hear the part about the swimming pool or maybe they were just trying to talk me out of trying it again, but it just made me feel like a complete idiot.

I woke up in the emergency room, crying and hugging my sister. My memory is very patchy due to the benzodiazepine-induced retrograde amnesia. I had a big bandage on my wrist from where I had self harmed. I don’t remember doing that but I think it was to distract myself from the mental pain during my attempt. My sister later told me that her and my mum had to leave the room when the doctor sutured my arm. Apparently, they didn’t give me any local before suturing it and I was screaming in pain for them to stop. I’m glad I don’t remember that at all.

I was taken back to the low dependency unit and back talking to a psychiatrist. This time, it was a woman. I expected to be spending another week in the unit but one of the first things this psych asked me was about going home. Apparently they didn’t want to “institutionalise” me. I spent just 2 days in the ward.

My family were looking into any and all kinds of programs for me to get help. I asked the registrar psychiatrist about any recommendations. He said there were programs but they were expensive if you don’t have private health insurance. He didn’t elaborate. A nurse signed my family up for some carers help program. They also referred me to a program called Wellways, which is about suicide prevention. Turns out that the only people who can be referred are those who have actually attempted suicide, not just thought about it, which is why I hadn’t been eligible before.

I was eligible for help from Wellways for 3 months. They could refer me to further help if I needed financial counselling, emergency accommodation and things like that. But not counselling or anything.The lady who I dealt with only worked 2-3 days a week and I didn’t find the program helpful at all.

My family were disgusted with the lack of help I got. My sister talked to some people at her work (in community health) and gave me the names of 2 private psychiatrists. I saw my GP and arranged referrals but they were booked out for months. One of them was finally able to fit me in earlier after I pleaded with the receptionist. It cost $800 for the appointment (I could reclaim some of that on medicare but I’m forever grateful that my family were able to lend me money). I wasn’t impressed with what I got for my $800. He asked why I was there. I told him my story and he asked why I had attempted suicide. I told him that I didn’t want to live anymore (it rolls off the tongue more easily the more you say it) but again, he asked why. Every answer I gave him, he said, “But why?”

I left with a script for a new medication that was supposed to help me sleep but has actually given me nightmares and made my sleep pattern worse. It’s also not on the PBS and costs a lot of money so I’m weaning myself back off it. When I told the community health worker about seeing the psychiatrist, she seemed annoyed that I had gone behind her back to get help and told me that there were community health psychiatrists who are very good at what they do. She asked me to get the private psych to forward her his notes. I would have gladly seen a free or cheaper psychiatrist but that was the first (and last) that she mentioned their existence. I again told her that I wanted to be connected with a psychologist and she basically told me to keep her in the loop if I make any more appointments.

I went back to my GP and asked for a referral to a psychologist. But when I rang to book an appointment with the one he recommended, the receptionist told me they no longer work there. They booked me in to see someone else. I was just happy that I was finally going to see someone who might actually help. I have seen her 3 times now and she is really lovely. I complained to her about my GP (I left those details out of this post because it’s already too long!!) and she gave me the name of another doctor that I have started to see. This new doctor is much more understanding and has been doing further tests to see if I have any underlying health problems. I’m now getting cosmetic injections to improve the appearance of the scars on my wrist, I’m getting an iron infusion for my anaemia and she is helping me combat my anxiety as well.

This is the first time in months that I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. I’m finally working with a psychologist and I’m willing to try anything. Over the summer, I’m hoping to do an 8 week recovery program. I’m also hoping to do some equine therapy in the future. The most important thing for me, is that people are finally listening.

I’m sorry that this is so long (and a bit confronting) but I didn’t want to censor it. I want people to know how hard it can be to get help. There are so many ads on the TV etc about getting help for depression but I swear most of their money must go into advertising and paying admin because finding actual help was so much harder than I would have imagined. I want people to know how long this road is - because one day you will probably have to be there for a friend, family member or yourself - and it’s not just a matter of making one phone call or having one conversation. It’s an ongoing process and it’s difficult. Some people who work in mental health are complete dicks and they just don’t get it.

Don’t be scared about saying the wrong thing to a friend/family member. I don’t remember what my friends/family said to me - I just remember that they were there. That was the big thing, having my family supporting me and forcing me to keep seeking help even though I wanted to give up.

Please be there for your loved ones. And please feel free to come talk to me, even if we have never spoken before. Struggling with mental health isn’t something that I’m ashamed of (anymore). Hopefully sharing my story might help someone else, somehow.

I received so many private messages from people who shared their own stories and offered support. These were the comments left on my post:

I'm a shy person and did not expect that kind of response. It is amazing how many people really do care and are more than willing to offer support ❤❤❤

[katmstanton]

Fatherhood - Ch. 21

Tags: @mrsrafaelbarba @madpanda75 @sweetsummertime99 @obfuscateyummy @julie-yard @dreila03 @esparza-army @ctfarhan @tiredrainbi @Lyssa1385 

Chapter 21:

Over the next few days Olivia and Rafael world with Langan to find Jake a therapist and support network outside of legal system. The three of them had started using a group message to throw ideas at each other and, much to Rafael’s frustration, it was actually helping them coordinate with each other.

As he was making his way out of his office towards a meeting he stopped at Carmen’s desk. He had been waiting on some information from Olivia for the better part of the last hour and knew he would be caught up the rest of the day and needed help.

“What can I do for you Mr. Barba?” Carmen asked after a moment of him standing at her desk.

She was used to his odd tendencies by now and knew how to work around his annoyances and mood swings. However, him standing in front of her desk staring at something in the distance was not part of her normal day with the sarcastic ADA.

“Carmen.” He stated as he was startled back to reality.

“I hate to do this but I am waiting on some information from Liv and with this meeting and briefing I am afraid I will miss it and it’s important.”

She smiled as she reached her hand out to him. His shoulders relaxed and he smirked back as he handed her his phone.

“The passcode is -“

“- I already know. And before you say anything I will let you know if an emergency comes through with the boys or Liv. Also, don’t worry about Jake.. it’s robotics club day so you have a bit of time.”

He shook his head slightly as he let out a soft chuckle at Carmen’s knowledge and response. When he turned and left the office she sent Olivia a quick text from her phone.

“He’s gone for at least 3 hours. What do you need me to handle on this end?”

Before she could even put her phone away Olivia was calling her directly.

“Carmen I don’t know what you did but thank you!”

“Ha! I don’t know if I did anything but I did help schedule the meetings. He has been overly weird today and only had 3 cups of coffee.. none of which were from the cart outside. He actually used the Keurig you gave him.”

Olivia groaned and brought Carmen up to speed on the meeting with Langan a few days prior. She explained the need to get Jake into a therapist while also looking for one that could also work with Rafael both individually as well as with Jake jointly. As she spoke Carmen jotted down notes and highlights in order to make a few calls herself.

“I’m going to take a guess you guys are looking for someone who is not afflicted with NYPD seeing as this Ms. Fields lady already doesn’t like Mr. Barba?”

“Exactly. I have sent him a few names and Langan has also but he hasn’t been able to call everyone. I did speak with my contact over at child services today and she gave me the information to someone they use regularly.”

“Who is it? I have a few hours of peace so I can go ahead and call and make all the arrangements. I know Mr. Barba typically likes to do things himself but you and I both know if we let him handle everything alone we would both still be waiting on him to ask you out.”

Carmen and Olivia shared a laugh and as Olivia gave her the information she wrote everything down. The two spent the next few minutes catching up and agreeing to meet for drinks one day to swap stories of Rafael and the boys.

After grabbing a hot tea for herself she settled back at her desk and proceeded to call the possible therapists and agencies Olivia had given her as well as a few she had found sitting in his “To-Do: Jake” list on the shared drive he had with her. They usually used the drive to keep case notes accurate or to share files for cases as he had been trying to go paperless more.

When she found the list she was a bit surprised about what he had jotted down.

“To-Do: Jake

Find therapist

Find a buddy - NOT Sonny

Shadow day?

Do more with Jake

Court - Suit Needed

Call him “son” or “mijo” - don’t force it!

Family day?

Name? - Barba? Anderson? Anderson-Barba

Family Picture

Be a better father

Boys night?”

She had known Rafael for years and since their initial meeting she had realized the hardened ADA was really a big softy who masked his anxiety with snarkiness and sass. She could see parts of his insecurity with the added remarks and question marks. She knew he often used lists to keep on track and funnel his thoughts when working so she knew she shouldn’t be too surprised he was trying them out for his personal life as well.

As she read through the list she smiled. His list was like looking into his soul and seeing how insecure he really was and how he wanted everything to be in order and perfect with every aspect of his life. After reading over the items a few times she figured she could help with a few of them and try to take a little stress away from her already overly stressed and coffee addicted boss.

Over the next few hours she made call after call and sent numerous emails getting things set up for not only Jake but also Rafael, Olivia, and Noah. She reached out to not only therapist after therapist but also support groups and mentorship programs.

She arranged numerous counseling sessions with one of the best therapist she was able to get on the phone, set up a meeting for Olivia and Rafael to meet with the local mentorship program that not only worked with teens but also younger children as well, and coordinated with Sonny on helping with Noah and Jake.

By the end of the third hour, just as Rafael was walking back in the office, she was scheduling a fitting session for Jake and Rafael at Rafael’s favorite suit and tailor in his childhood neighborhood.

She had made numerous appointments for him in the past and arranged pick up more times than she could count that she was surprised Rafael didn’t ask more questions about just how much of his personal life she was aware of, especially since his suits always ended up in his office before he was even notified they were ready.

She watched as he grumbled as he walked by mentioning something about needing a scotch before closing the door to his office rather forcefully. She knew he would be out within the next few seconds seeing as he did not pick up his phone on the way by or ask if anyone had called and if she knew her boss, which she did very well, it would take him just a second to return.

“10.. 9.. 8.. 7.. -”

“Carmen.” He grumbled as he opened his door to walk back out.

“How was your meetings Mr. Barba?”

“humph.. “ He snorted as he rolled his eyes.

“Did Liv call? Any word on the boys?”

“Yes and yes.” she stated as she handed his phone back to him with a folder attached.

“What is this?”

She smiled at him as he opened everything and watched as his brow furrowed a bit as he read through the contents. After a few moments she took pity on him and decided to explain everything.

“On top is the list of appointments and the arranged transportation to and from for Jake, and your, therapy sessions with Dr. Miles. With his the credentials and information for his practice behind it.”

As she spoke he looked over each document she described, eyes wide as he did. She didn’t need to see it as she did, seeing as she had put it together just like he wanted his files so she could restate everything in it in her sleep if need be.

“After that there is information and the scheduled intake appointment for Noah and Jake at a mentorship program that comes highly recommended by the therapist and dates for when Sonny, Lucy, or myself will also be present with them. We won’t be there all the time, but will stop by a few times to check on both of them.”

He looked at her and started to say something but she held her hand up to stop him.

“Finally there is information and the appointment information for your next fitting with the tailor.. I also added Jake to the appointment seeing as he does not have a proper suit for anything.”

When he looked over the appointment information his brow furrowed and he felt a bit insecure. He didn’t know how she knew but the more he thought about everything the more his shoulders relaxed and he felt some tension in his shoulders leave.

“Before you say anything I wanted you to know I already updated your calendar with everything as well as sent all these updates to you via the shared drive.. Where your list was.. Sorry I didn’t mean to pry but I felt you needed a hand.”

He had no words and didn’t really know what to say to her as he felt himself get a bit emotional for the first time in a long time. He moved towards her and pulled her into a quick, but tight, hug before turning to go back to his office.

“Carmen?” He said as he turned back towards her.

“Yes Mr. Barba?”

“Thank you.”

[mamabearcat]

The Importance of Ramen 6

This chapter was brought to you by avoiding jobs around the house that really ought to have been done instead torturing imaginary characters. Now, back to your regularly scheduled program...

Inuyasha startled awake from a sleep he hadn’t planned on taking. It was still dark outside, but he could feel a shift in the temperature, the cooler air drifting under the reed mat in the doorway signalling that dawn was not too far away. Sniffing the air, his pointed ears at full attention, he tried to sense what had woken him, and had his answer when he heard a faint whimper from the girl curled up against him. Sometime during the night he had slipped down the wall a little, and she had nestled her head onto his stomach, legs still in the sleeping bag curled up into her chest, fists tucked up under her chin. Her dark hair was fanned out over his legs, and he couldn’t help smiling at the tiny damp curls fixed to her forehead with perspiration.

 In the dim light, he studied her face, trying to work out why she had made that noise. Her eyebrows were furrowed, mouth turned down at the corners, and the fists under her chin tightened until her knuckles showed white. If she was dreaming, it wasn’t a happy one. Inuyasha reached down his hand, smoothing the damp curls off her sweaty forehead. 

“Shh, ‘gome, it’s just a bad dream. You’re safe”, he whispered, not wanting to wake the others. Her eyelids flickered, the lashes dark against her still pale cheeks. He frowned, feeling her forehead again. It was warm, not overly so, but enough to concern him a little. She whimpered again, rubbing the back of her head into his stomach, the sounds of her distress getting louder. Whatever this dream was about, it had gone on long enough. He leaned forward; ran the pads of his fingers over her cheeks to wake her gently. “Kagome, wake up.”

Kagome’s eyes flicked open suddenly, and she pushed out with her hands, hard against his chest. Blinking rapidly, taking in her surroundings as she became more awake, she relaxed against him as she breathed out a relieved sigh. “Woah. That was scary. I’m glad that wasn’t real.” 

She started to sit up, and Inuyasha helped her lean up against the wall so she was sitting next to him. The early dawn light was beginning to filter into the hut, the soft sunbeams stopping their march towards them just under the doorway. 

“Are you feeling okay, Kagome?”, asked Inuyasha, taking in her wide-eyed expression. 

“Much better, now I’m awake”, she sighed, running her fingers through her tousled hair. “That was one freaky dream!” 

Inuyasha watched and waited. Knowing Kagome, if she wanted to share, the story would come tripping out of her mouth with no extra prompting from him. All he had to do was provide silence. He smirked toothily as she began describing her dream a few moments later; she was so predictable. 

“I was in a hut like this one. At first, I thought I was alone, but then this guy leaned over me.” She shuddered. “I was pretty sure he was human, but something wasn’t right, it just felt like he was surrounded by this aura of… of… wrongness. I knew what he was going to do, and that I needed to get away, but I couldn’t move. It was like I was screaming inside my head for my body to move and it just wasn’t listening. He was reaching out to touch me and then… well, you woke me up.” Kagome rubbed her arms and shivered involuntarily. “Anyway, it was just a silly dream. Help me up please, Inuyasha?” 

“What for?” 

“Nature calls”, she yawned. “Just help me to stand up and I should be able to do the rest myself.” She unzipped the sleeping bag and held her arms out, wriggling her fingers at him. Lifting her to her feet, he watched as she gingerly put weight on her injured leg. 

“You okay?” 

She breathed out slowly. “I don’t think I’ll win a race anytime soon, but it’s not too bad”. Hissing just a tiny bit, she limped her way over to the door, Inuyasha hovering behind her in case she fell. 

“Where do you think you’re going?”, she asked, one eyebrow raised, as he pushed the screen out of the way, so she could move out of the doorway ahead of him. 

“Just makin’ sure your clumsy ass doesn’t end up stuck in a bush”, he grinned teasingly. 

Kagome blushed a little. “I really don’t need an audience for this”, she pouted. “Go back inside and do something useful, like lighting the fire for breakfast. I’ll be fine.” 

“Keh, don’t blame me if you fall on your face!” Inuyasha went back inside the hut. The others were still asleep, but he cleaned out the firepit, replacing the slightly damp logs from last night with fresh kindling. He had the fire going and Kagome’s kettle filled with water for tea by the time she returned. One look at her face had him realising that something was wrong. 

She was leaning against the doorframe, sweat beading on her forehead and upper lip. “Sorry… I’m… okay. I’m okay. Squatting down just hurt my leg a little more than I thought it would.” Without a word, he walked over to her and picked her up, carrying her back to the small nest made by her empty sleeping bag. After seating her carefully on the softly padded surface, he placed his hand on her forehead again. 

Kagome tried to weakly bat his hand away. “Stop fussing Inuyasha. I told you I’m fine. It’s the first time I’ve walked on this leg since yesterday; it was bound to hurt a bit.” She plastered a smile on her face. “Look, I’ll even drink more of that disgusting tea if it will stop you making a big deal out of nothing.” 

Inuyasha, ignored her hand, taking in her sweaty face and pale complexion. “You’re not fine, wench. You had a slight fever when you woke up this morning, and it’s a little worse. Let me look at those wounds of yours to make sure they’re not infected.” 

The commotion had woken Mirokou and Sango. Mirokou brought the first aid kit over, while Sango mixed more of the herbal tea that Kagome had drunk last night. Kagome rolled her eyes and sighed but decided it would be less trouble to let everyone fuss. 

Inuyasha carefully unwrapped the bandages on Kagome’s upper left arm, being cautious of the still healing bruise below her elbow. He gently slid his clawed forefinger underneath the tape and gauze on one side of the wound and then the other, cutting through so he could lift the gauze off her wound. The skin around the deep cut was pink, but he could see that the wound was healing nicely, beginning to knit the muscle back together. He gave it a good sniff, just to make sure. “This one’s okay”, he said. He moved aside so Sango could rub some of the healing cream from Kagome’s first aid kit around the wound and redress it. 

He moved towards Kagome’s thigh on the other side and was surprised when she placed a defensive hand in front of it. “Kagome, I need to check.” 

“Sorry”, she flushed, moving her hand out of the way. “I’m being a big wuss. This one just hurts a little more”. 

He placed his hand on the bandage and immediately knew the news wasn’t good. “Kagome, this one’s infected”, he sighed. “I can feel the heat coming through the bandage without even looking at it.” 

“Dammit”, muttered Kagome. “I was sure the saline would combat that.” 

Inuyasha removed the bandage even more gently than he had the previous one. Kagome kept herself as still as possible, making no sound, but her lowered brows and tight expression told the story of how much pain she was actually in. Inuyasha lifted the gauze away from the wound and drew in a deep breath. 

“Fuck Kagome, no wonder it was hurting”. The skin around the deeper puncture wound was bright red and shiny, the swelling spreading outwards around her thigh, pulling against the edges of the gash. Red lines at the edge of the swelling streaked upwards on her leg. Inuyasha barely had to sniff to scent the smell of infection in her leg. 

Sango peered over Inuyasha’s shoulder at Kagome’s thigh, and her face grew grim. “Take her back through the well, Inuyasha. She needs to get to a healer in her time as soon as possible.” She gestured towards the red streaks travelling up Kagome’s thigh. “These marks are a sign of a deep infection. I’ve seen them on other Taijiya who have been injured. Some of them recovered, but most …” She took a deep breath. “The infection grew rapidly worse no matter what our healers did. All they could do was ease their pain. Once they became confused and lost consciousness, we knew that they would never recover.” 

Kagome looked at them both, wide-eyed. “Don’t you think you’re being a little overly dramatic, Sango?”, she chuckled weakly. “I mean, I just got back, and we need to get back on the jewel shard hunt. I’m sure if I just rest for today, then tomorrow, I’ll be fine.” She took in Inuyasha and Sango’s serious expressions and looked towards Mirokou. “Mirokou, tell them that I just need some rest, and then we can all get going again.” 

Mirokou squatted down next to Kagome, holding the mug of herbal tea that Sango had prepared a few minutes ago. “Now, Kagome”, he said, his usual calm smile a contrast to the anxious grimace on Kagome’s face, “what sort of elder brother would I be if I counselled against a course of action that would have you healing faster?” He pushed the tea into her unwilling hands, smiling encouragingly as she forced herself to sip the bitter liquid. “If it’s just simple rest that you need, surely a rest in your own time in a comfortable bed under your mother’s loving care will speed your recovery. And, if as Sango suggests, a trip to a healer is required, that should not trouble you if you know it will bring your family here peace of mind. I’m sure if Inuyasha puts his mind to it, he could have you home before dark.” He looked questioningly at Inuyasha, who nodded brusquely. Mirokou leaned closer to Sango, who was still leaning over Inuyasha’s shoulder. “Do not trouble yourself about the rest of us while you’re gone, we will muddle along together just fine.” A sudden resounding slap, as Sango backhanded Mirokou across the cheek, startled Kagome then had her giggling. Obviously, his wandering hand had been unable to resist the temptation of Sango’s pert derriere as she leant forward. 

Inuyasha rolled his eyes at the pair’s familiar antics, but didn’t move from his spot beside Kagome, as Sango knelt to begin the process of rewrapping the wound in Kagome’s thigh. He removed the tea from Kagome’s tense hands and placed the mug on the floor, so it would not be spilt, and held her hands in his own instead. His ears drooped and laid flat on his head at the quiet whimpers escaping through Kagome’s clenched teeth as Sango cleaned and packed the wound with fresh gauze. 

“Looks like we’re goin’ on another run, wench”, he said quietly. He cleared his throat, trying to force a cheery note into his voice. “Maybe if I get ya home early enough, your mother will have time to make that crunchy chicken stuff. The one Souta likes so much. What’s it called again?” 

“Karaage” muttered Kagome through compressed lips. She really wanted to smile at Inuyasha’s attempts to take her mind off what Sango was doing, but her leg hurt so badly, worse than when the beetle had first gouged the hole in her leg. She tried her best, gasping a little. “It’s a shame she doesn’t know we’re coming; she might have bought steak for you.” 

He grinned. “Now that would be worth runnin’ back for.” He tried not to wince as Kagome dug her blunt fingernails into his palms as Sango tightened the bandage on her thigh. 

“All done”, said Sango, using some of the special cleaning gel on her hands after she had rinsed them in the water pail as Kagome had taught her. She repacked the medical kit, as Mirokou and the now awake Shippou bustled about making breakfast, cooking rice and making tea. 

“Drink your tea Kagome”, encouraged Inuyasha, letting go of her hands to pick up the mug. 

She flapped her hand at him. “Gimme a minute”, she panted. “I feel like I’m gonna… gonna…” Her eyes suddenly widened as her palm slapped over her mouth. Inuyasha had the good sense to let go of the mug and grab the almost empty water pail next to Kagome, tipping the water out and thrusting it in front of her face just in time. Sango padded back over to scoop Kagome’s long hair out of the way into a tail over her shoulder, rubbing her back comfortingly as Kagome hurled what was left of last night’s dinner into the pail in front of her. 

“Hnn, that was so gross”, moaned Kagome. “I’m so sorry.” She spat one last time into the bucket, then wiped her mouth with a damp cloth offered by Sango. Embarrassment flooded her face, and she hung her head. Inuyasha dipped his head down sideways until it was almost perpendicular with the floor, so he could look see her expression. 

“What’s with that face, wench?” he questioned, looking at her narrowed eyes and downturned mouth. 

Kagome looked up. “Do you really have to ask?”, she fired back. “I got targeted by a demon again, got myself injured, and now you’re gonna have to babysit me and take me home. And to top it all off, I just ruined everyone’s breakfast by chucking up in front of them while they were eating.” 

Inuyasha grunted. “First of all, the beetle was after the shard, not you, and the way it grabbed you took everyone by surprise, me included. Second, yes, I am takin’ you home, but you ain’t no baby and if you sit me on the way there, I will not be happy. And” he said, glancing over his shoulder and taking in Mirokou sipping tea while Sango served herself rice and Shippou and Kirara continued chewing, “breakfast don’t look ruined to me.” 

Shippou’s wide eyes took everything in as he continued munching on his rice ball. “Ish Kagmee gna be ok?”, he asked Mirokou, barely coherent behind the large mouthful of rice he was still chewing. 

“She will be fine. Inuyasha will make sure of it by taking her back through the well and letting healers in her time assess her injury”, replied Mirokou comfortingly, patting the kit on the head as he continued to drink his tea. 

Inuyasha sat down with them and began shovelling rice into his mouth, sculling hot tea as quickly as he could. Sango’s assessment of Kagome’s wound had him worried. Put an enemy in front of him that was threatening Kagome, and he would give his all to take it down, no sweat, but infection was a battle he couldn’t fight for her. His mind went back to an image of long ago, his own hand tiny in the sweaty clasp of his mother’s, her eyes closed as she struggled for every breath while the infection in her lungs fought to defeat her. He pushed the thought away. 

“Mirokou, Sango, you may as well go back to Kaede’s while we’re gone. That way I can come back through the well and let you know she’s okay.” Mirokou and Sango nodded. “I’m gonna go over the mountain instead of around, that should take about two hours off my time.” 

“Over Mount Mitsumine?”, asked Mirokou. Inuyasha nodded, tapping his foot impatiently as Sango tied some extra rice balls and water into a cloth for him to carry in case Kagome grew hungry or thirsty later. Mirokou was puzzled – his mind was tickling him, trying to feed him information pertinent to the shrine on Mount Mitsumine, but he couldn’t quite remember. He made an angry tsking noise; it was just out of reach, and he was sure it was something of importance. 

Inuyasha squatted down in front of Kagome with his back facing her. She had done her best with the tea, taking a few more sips, but looked sweaty and tired, and Inuyasha felt his concern for her rising. He pushed it down again. “Okay Kagome, the faster we leave, the faster you can be home sleepin’ in that girly pink bed a yours” he teased, as she slowly eased herself forward, draping her arms over his shoulders. Instead of holding onto her thighs as he usually did, he created a seat under her bottom for her by interlocking his fingers behind his back. He straightened himself up slowly, bouncing her slightly, getting her into position. Kagome buried her face in his hair, whimpering in pain at the pressure his forearm put on her swollen thigh. “Shit, this ain’t gonna work”. He was going to have to carry her in front of him again, but it was hard on his arms, and would slow them down as they went over the mountain. 

Shippou’s worried face brightened, and he whispered in Sango’s ear. “Wait, Inuyasha, Shippou’s had a really good idea!” Sango spoke to Mirokou and he dropped a few coins into her hand. She bolted out the door and came back a short time later with a long piece of thickly woven indigo fabric. 

“What the fuck’s that for?” Inuyasha grunted. Sango motioned for Inuyasha to bend down again, then motioned for Kagome to climb onto Inuyasha’s back. She put the top centre of the piece of long cloth over Kagome, up near her neck, and tucked the rest of the width underneath Kagome’s bottom, creating a pocket for her to sit in. She drew the long tails of fabric up over Inuyasha’s shoulders, wrapping them under his arms, and then under and over Kagome’s legs on each side, pulling the tails firmly back around to the front. She held onto the fabric and motioned for Inuyasha to stand. He did so cautiously, worried that Kagome would fall, but to his surprise, she was held in tightly to his back by the fabric and felt lighter than she usually did. “You ‘kay Kagome?”, he asked, trying to look over his shoulder at her. 

Kagome rested her head on his shoulder. The fabric had her snuggled in tight against his back and was supporting her leg without pushing on the wound too much. “Yeah, I’m good”, she murmured. Sango tied the long tails of fabric around Inuyasha’s waist, being careful to make the knot above the Tessaiga so he would still be able to draw it if required. 

“Now you have your arms free if you need them”, she grinned. “It was Shippou’s idea – he reminded me how busy mamas carry their children when they need to get stuff done. I used to… to carry Kohaku like this when he was little, when my mother and father were away on a raid and I needed to practice my drills”. She smiled a little tearfully at the picture Inuyasha and Kagome made. “He always seemed very comfortable that way – he usually went to sleep when I wore him like this.” Sango tucked the small sack of food into the top of the wrap near Kagome’s shoulder. “Now you’re all set to go”.

“Thanks Sango. Thanks runt – you did good.” Inuyasha paused to ruffle the fox kit’s fluffy red fringe and Shippou beamed under the rare praise. After a final nod to Mirokou, Inuyasha ran out the door, slowly at first, until he grew to trust that Kagome wouldn’t fall. He sped up and was soon out of sight. 

Sango and Shippou finished up their breakfast and began tidying everything into Kagome’s gigantic backpack. Sango looked sideways at Mirokou, who was still muttering to himself. “What’s up?”, she asked. 

“There was something about the shrine at Mount Mitsumine”, muttered Mirokou, “but I can’t quite…” Suddenly he stopped, looking apprehensively at Sango. “Oh no. Hidarugami! I remember hearing from a traveller that they haunt the trail near the shrine!” Sango stared at him, open mouthed. 

Overhearing the conversation, Shippou nodded, familiar with this particular entity. “Ah, hungry ghosts. Good thing they took some rice balls with them.” 

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

 Inuyasha ran like the wind, his feet pounding the ground as regular as a heartbeat. He could feel that Kagome had dozed off, the gentle sway of the fabric hammock she was supported in easing her pain a little. Inuyasha smiled. The runt did have some good ideas occasionally. He would just keep going until she woke, get as much ground covered as he could. They were already nearly up the mountain, the zig zagging trail no match for the sure footed hanyou. 

The dappled light under the trees kept away the summer heat, and the splashing water from the little waterfall they were currently passing was refreshing. Brightly coloured finches flew overhead, flying through the spray in an effort to keep cool. He could keep going for a few more hours yet without needing to take a break. He could see the brightly coloured gate of Mitsumine Shrine up ahead. They just needed to get through this narrow-wooded part first and then the path down the other side of the mountain would open out, as more travellers from Edo used that road to make a pilgrimage to the mountain shrine. 

Suddenly he felt like he’d hit a wall. Weakness caused his limbs to tremble and he dropped to one knee, staggering, trying to keep his balance with Kagome on his back. What the fuck was going on! His throat felt dry and cracked, his stomach clenched in on itself like hadn’t eaten in weeks. He lurched to his feet and forced himself to keep moving, but each step dragged like something was siphoning off every ounce of energy he’d ever possessed. Inuyasha growled in outrage. He would not let whatever this barrier was beat him. He would keep going. Kagome needed him to keep going. He heard her moan softly behind him, and it gave him the will to take a few more steps before his legs faltered and he slammed into the ground face first. 

“Gome”, he whispered, turning his face away from the sandy dirt of the mountain pass, his sandpaper dry throat cracking what was left of his voice, “you ‘kay?” She moaned softly again, and against his will, Inuyasha’s eyes rolled back in his head. The cheerful birds continued their twittering, splashing in the puddles left by the side of the waterfall, paying no heed to the pair collapsed on the path beside them.

[peoplessamachar]

Key Benefits Of Reading Newspaper For Students in Day Today Life

The benefits of reading National News In Hindi for Students are talked about here in this article. Quite a long time ago papers were the best way to realize what was going on around the world. A piece of paper that advised you of everything significant that occurs around you. Media developed and improved with time. Radios, TVs, the web. Yet papers held their place. On account of custom, utility or something different, they just couldn't be disposed of from every day schedules. The print type of papers has its days numbered now obviously. It's likely going to leave its presence in 25 years or less, and that also is a result of the nostalgic worth it holds. Be that as it may, for the occasion, the Internet isn't totally unavoidable yet, paper has not out experienced it's utility and papers are as yet in play. So what is the significance of buying into and perusing this piece of paper, especially for understudies? That is the thing that is being analyzed here.

Benefits Of Reading Paper For Students

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Remaining refreshed with the most recent patterns in the fields of science, innovation and business is significant for understudies. Contingent upon what you're considering, there might be various regions you need to zero in on. For designing understudies, it is of most extreme significance to know about the most recent progressions in innovations of their picked field or hazard confronting embarrassment in bunch conversations, interviews and so forth. For the board understudies, they need to stay aware of the most recent patterns in business, financial matters, the executives and so forth Not only for proficient purposes, even in friendly circumstances not remaining refreshed may cause you to feel unaware of what's going on in discussions. It's humiliating on the off chance that you don't realize that your nation got another president since you neglected to look at the features that day. Papers give every one of the current undertakings you look for coordinated into areas that are not difficult to track down, simplifying life.Indore News In Hindi will help you to keep you up to date in today's time.

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The Internet is the quickly developing monster that is taking steps to supplant the newspaper industry. The more youthful age invests the entirety of their energy connected, various concurrent discussions and data over-burden from each bearing. In any event, for the individuals who are totally reliant upon the Internet for all their news needs, it may very well be ideal to unplug now and again and return to the less difficult existence of printed words and paper. There are no interruptions of the virtual world in papers. You can zero in on engrossing and understanding the day's news and not simply swipe through features.

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8. Refined

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[whoareurl]

Causing Chaos in Pyjamas - 00Q (4/9)

Two and a half minutes both dragged and raced by for Q. It wasn’t a lot of time to get everything done even without the persistent exhaustion making him slow but it was also a long time to have to hold his concentration with a fever boiling his brain. The room held its tension in the silence of Q’s companions as he typed and typed, eyes unblinking in the face of pressure. He was just thankful those horrible building sneezes didn’t disrupt him at what would have been an extremely inopportune moment.

The timer on Ellen’s laptop let out a beep just as Q’s screen froze before turning blue - Christ how old was this thing? - and he sat back on the sofa with a sigh.

“Q?” Bond’s voice sounded far away. Q shut his eyes. Just for a moment. “Q, we have to move.”

Q let out a yawn. “Five more minutes,” he countered but Bond was already dragging him to his feet where he swayed unstably, barely managing to see where he was going before he was bundled back into Bond’s car (sans cat food this time). They were already on their way before Q realised that he’d forgotten his blanket.

“Damn,” he cursed quietly to himself. That was his favourite blanket.

If Bond heard him, he didn’t comment. Q was grateful for that because he was feeling nothing short of dreadful. His face ached with congestion and he could feel a similar pressure settling deep in his lungs. Now really wasn’t the time to be contracting pneumonia but, well, he always did have a bit of a weak chest. Generally, it wasn’t a problem in Q-Branch where he was surrounded by several loyal minions who willingly brought him an endless supply of hot lemon and honey.

Q could only hope it wasn’t going to be a problem now that he was stuck in the field with James bloody Bond. As long as he didn’t have to do too much running he should be fi-

Q glanced at Bond in the driver’s seat and very quickly remembered every mission Bond had ever been on. His heart sank. Yeah, running was undoubtedly going to become necessary at some point.

“ishh’nkg!”

Ducking his head down into his chest, Q squashed the sneeze with his palm, sending a pulse of aching pressure across his cheeks. He winced. Bond muttered a soft gesundheitand Q almost expected to be reprimanded for stifling what with the tension in Bond’s jaw.

He was by no means a field agent, but Q was as observant as they came. Bond had been restless since he first arrived at Q’s flat though he’d hidden it well with banter and stoicism. But Q saw enough of Bond to know that he was acting out of sorts. It was obvious to him now - though the fever had made putting the pieces together difficult - that Bond harboured some kind of...affection for him. Bond saw him as more than a colleague, that much was obvious. If he were feeling bold, Q might go as far as to say that Bond was starting to consider him a friend.

For some strange reason, that made Q smile. He’d never been one for friends before but with Bond...well, perhaps he could get used to the idea.

“Right,” Bond said, startling Q from his bizarrely sentimental thoughts as he pulled into a parking space. Q blinked. “Any specifics for this laptop?”

It took Q a moment to notice that they were parked outside of PC World (the best of both worlds). “Um,” he said, feeling quite unexpectedly tongue-tied. “Core i7 would be best but don’t get anything below an i5 or it’ll take me ten years to get into MI6’s server. I’ll need at least 8GB of RAM but don’t worry about storage memory because-”

Q stopped, noting Bond’s confused expression with exasperation and starting to open the passenger door, swinging his legs out into the cold. “I should just come with you,” he said, suppressing a violent shiver which made him draw instinctively closer to himself.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Q. You’re not even wearing shoes,” Bond scoffed and Q frowned.

“Well, whose fault is that?” He countered. “Didn’t they teach you Cold Care 101 in double-oh training? Dragging someone around London without shoes is considered unadvisable.”

Bond’s ever-snappy reply didn’t come as Q expected. Instead, he lowered his voice and said, “Get back in the car, Q, or you’ll get frostbite.”

Stunned by his agent’s sudden change in demeanor, Q did just that. Bond’s tone had come far too close to gentle for either of their liking, judging by the way Bond cleared his throat and promptly escaped from the car without a word, leaving Q to ponder what the fuck just happened.

He didn’t get much time to ponder it, however, before his nose had other ideas and his eyes were fluttering half-open half-shut in that ridiculous way that made him look dazed and confused. His chest heaved (and wheezed but Q’s attention was occupied elsewhere and so he paid it little mind), expanded. He was right on the brink but he couldn't, he couldn’t quite get there. His hand came up to hover by his nose though he didn’t remember consciously deciding to do that. And just as he felt like his lungs had reached maximum capacity, he took another gasping breath and

“ehhTISHHhOO! hh’hiinGISHHOO! ehh… oh ngh… ahHh hhikyh’ITSSKHEW!”

Q slapped a hand over his runny nose, wildly glancing outside to see if anybody had witnessed his embarrassment but he seemed to be in luck. Well, it was about time something went his way today. As he rifled through the glove compartment for some tissues, however, he found that his luck was extremely short lived.

“And back to our regularly scheduled programming,” he muttered to himself, finally giving up on his hunt for anything to clean himself up with. Eventually, he looked at his sleeve and grimaced. Apparently he was stooping to several new lows today.

With his nose mopped up as best it could be given the situation, Q settled back against the chair and sighed. He still rather desperately needed to blow his nose but he could hardly go wandering into Tesco barefoot in bright red pyjamas looking like death warmed up. But he could certainly do with a tissue. Why hadn’t he thought to tuck a space handkerchief into the pocket on the chest of his pyjamas for situations just like this one? Clearly he was going to have to update his provisions to include supplies for surviving a fugitive situation with 007 and a nasty cold.

Q was abruptly awoken from his doze - when had he fallen asleep? - by 007 thundering back into the car. He instinctively clutched at his pounding head at the noise until a carrier bag landed in his arms. Curious, Q peered into the bag while Bond shoved a laptop box into the passenger footwell and started the engine.

Beecham’s Cold and Flu Relief. Kleenex. Bottle of water.

“What’s all this?” Q asked stupidly.

Bond cleared his throat, clearly feeling just as awkward as Q did. “I was passing a corner shop. Thought it might help.”

For the first time in a long time, Q found himself speechless. He muttered a breathless thanks before tearing into the tissues and giving his nose a much-needed blow. Without bothering with the medicine, he pulled up the laptop box and started setting it up on his lap.

“It’ll likely need charged,” Q noted as the laptop started booting up. It was a nice laptop. Bond had done well considering his limited technical expertise. By far Bond’s best trait when it came to gadgets was his uncanny ability to destroy any equipment he was given with spectacular flair.

Bond grunted. “There’s a café nearby with plugs. Two minutes.”

~

The café was small but modern with a crazy paving pattern on the stone floor; a stone floor which, unfortunately, nipped at Q’s cold toes. Any other time, he’d accuse Bond of either deliberate sabotage or poor planning but there were more important matters at hand so he instead focused his attention on making sure his agents didn’t die at his hands.

(Perhaps that was somewhat dramatic but Q blamed himself and if a single one of his people ended up dead, he didn’t think he’d ever be able to live with himself and he wasn’t really feeling up to supplying Bond with a constant stream of witty banter at the moment. So he focused. Quietly.)

“I’m going to contact M,” said Bond, finally ceasing his incessant fidgeting and disappearing onto the street to find a payphone. Bond had left his mobile at Ellen’s on the off-chance that Q’s hackers could trace them through it. It was a slim chance - they’d have to have an inside man at MI6 to make it even remotely feasible, really - but Bond had said he didn’t want to take chances. For once, Q had to agree.

So Q kept working and sipping at a blessedly hot cup of chamomile tea. He was too congested to taste it but the heat alone made him feel a little better. His nose still itched, though, and he had to scrub impatiently at his twitching nostrils every minute or so to quell the tickle.

Methodically, Q worked his way through the agents on the list, wiping their location data. Each agent he made disappear lifted a weight off his chest. He was just finishing off 009’s data removal when Bond returned, settling down in the seat opposite Q with what could only be described as an old man noise.

“I spoke to your replacement,” Bond said, voice laced with distaste. “He gave me some very interesting ideas about where to shove my gun.”

Q huffed a laugh. “Congratulations. You’ve managed to piss off your new Quartermaster in record time.”

“He’s not the Quartermaster,” said Bond with surprising force, making Q raise his eyebrows in surprise. Before he had much time to think on Bond’s reaction, he was speaking again. “He’s not competent enough to have earned that title. You should have seen him this morning, bumbling around Q-Branch like an overinflated idiot.”

“Careful, 007. You’re verging dangerously on sentimentality,” Q said with a teasing smile. Bond seemed to have a knack for bringing out Q’s trademark snark even when he felt utterly dreadful.

Bond chose not to respond to that, instead folding his arms on the table and saying, “Well, Not-Q suggested I get you to a safehouse and, shockingly, I’m inclined to agree with him.”

Q’s expression hardened. “No. I need to get to MI6 if I’m going to be of any use.”

“You won’t be of much use to anyone if you keel over on your keyboard,” Bond retorted.

“As you so kindly pointed you earlier, 007, it’s a cold. I’m hardly dying,” Q replied icily. He was in no mood to debate his level of responsibility in this whole mess but he felt a crushing weight of guilt resting on his chest coupled with an overwhelming desire to do anything to help. “MI6 is where I need to be, Bo-”

“Shh,” Bond said suddenly.

Q felt rage rise in his throat. “Bond, I-”

“Be quiet, Q,” Bond said desperately and it was only then that Q noticed the way Bond looked like a rabbit aware it was being hunted.

His eyes were trained on the wall behind Q which sported a large window and the café door. Turning in his seat, Q spotted a black car outside. A man emerged. When his suit jacket blew back as he got out of the car, Q saw that he was armed. His chest tightened.

“Q,” said Bond but terror had seized the Q’s motor functions and he found himself glued to the spot. Bond grabbed his shoulder and heaved him round to face him, already pulling off his suit jacket which he wrapped around Q’s shoulders. Seeing Q’s distress, he said, “It’s alright. We’re just two people having a meal.”

Instinctively, Q tried to turn around again but Bond caught his hands. His thumbs rubbed gently over Q’s knuckles.

“Don’t turn round. Just look at me.”

Q forced himself to look up to Bond’s eyes and was thankful to find some semblance of calm there. He tried to remember that this was Bond’s job and was definitely not an unusual situation. Q had been in his ear through situations exactly like this one but being in the middle of it is messing with his practiced cool head.

“Okay, they’re moving on,” Bond said, standing and keeping his eyes trained over Q’s shoulder as he folded up the laptop. Q unplugged it and gathered it up in his arms as Bond said, “We’re going to sneak out the back. I’m sorry, Q.” Bond bit his lip as he glanced down at Q’s - still bare - feet and then back up at his red-nosed and bleary-eyes expression. “But we’re going to have to run.”

[rowzeeamarii1997]

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[ashintheairlikesnow]

Get Real Angry: Interrogation, Final

CW: Institutional brutality, whump of a minor (in the form of a video Jake watches), beating, electric shock, very vaguely referenced past/potential noncon, violence in response to self-soothing stimming behavior, referenced familial abuse, sleep deprivation, creepy whumper behavior

The final part of Jake’s interrogation during his very bad week. Tomorrow I hope to get his reunion with Chris written, and then Jake’s first day back in class after that, and then we’ll return to your regularly scheduled comfort programming now that this little mini-narrative is out of my head!

To understand the frat guy reference (a reference to @deluxewhump‘s Alex), please read this piece here.

INTERROGATION: PART ONE PART TWO

Tagging @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @endless-whump, @whumpfigure, @stxck-fxck, @slaintetowhump

When Everly wheels the TV in - big and blocky, on a little metal wheelie cart with a squeaky wheel and rust spots along the frame - and settles it in front of the chair Jake has been encouraged to sit in, Jake is reminded, bizarrely, of a movie he saw a few years ago.

Weird arthouse movie about a guy that takes another guy captive and his boyfriend or whatever tries to hunt him down, they watched something on a TV in an old house… shit, what was it called… Jake’s head hurts, throbs with a kind of foggy ache, and he closes his eyes, head drooping just slightly.

He could drift off just like this, with his wrists still zip-tied, his shoulders screaming pain at him. Since waking up at the sound of the cops banging on the door, sleep has been a twenty-minute nap here and there, as long as they’ll let him drop off, slumped in his chair, forehead resting on the table in the interrogation room.

Everly left for a while, he assumes to get some fucking sleep. They’d set up some kind of weird blaring alarm system that went off while he was gone, going off every hour or so, waking Jake up. His head feels weighted down with the fucking need for sleep. 

Once his eyes close, he can’t quite seem to force them open again. God, he could, he really could fall asleep now, with Everly staring right down at him. Rescues talk about it, about curling up on the floor, covering their eyes with their arms to try and find the tiniest bit of darkness in the unending white light, just… drifting away into some kind of doze and fuck, what he wouldn’t give for a real nap right about now-

There’s a slam, palm on metal table, rattling it, and Jake jerks his head back up, staring wide-eyed up at the handler, breathing in harsh pants. Everly’s not even wearing his stupid fake cop uniform anymore. He doesn’t even try to hold up the pretense.

That’s how Jake knows - for sure this time, not just a hunch - that that camera in the corner by the ceiling definitely isn’t turned on.

Wanted to contract you but I was overruled. Jake’s bloodshot exhausted eyes stare up into Everly’s calm, almost pleased flat gray, and he shudders. It’s a thin line between protecting people who need help and being turned into one.

He kind of wants to send a thank-you card to whoever decided he was too much trouble to abduct.

“Wake up, sunshine,” Everly says, pleased as can be, pleased as punch Jake’s nana would have said, when he was little. Tiny little old southern woman, genteel beachside accent, sweet tea on the table, Sunday dinner, what happens between you and your husband is your business, Maggie. Jake shudders, all over.

When you run from a man who won’t stop hurting you with your kid in tow, you have to run from all the people who just can’t give enough of a fuck to help you, too. 

“Pretty-… pretty sure sleep deprivation is torture under th’ Geneva Conventions,” Jake mumbles, forcing his head to stay up, his spine as straight as he can make it. Leaning against the back of the chair helps, but shit, what he wouldn’t give-

That’s how it starts, Jake. You think you’d give something up just to sleep, and then they take that, and take more than that, and eventually there’s nothing left.

“Probably,” Everly acknowledges with a careless shrug. “But you’re gonna have one hell of a time proving you were here and not just the unfortunate recipient of a beating outside a bar or whatever the fuck you do in your free time.”

“In m’free time,” Jake slurs - weird how being this tired has made it harder to move his mouth, even, “I mostly feed homeless people. Not… ‘zactly a violent hobby.”

“Weird how that happened to you, then,” Everly says brightly. He picks up a remote on the cart and starts pressing buttons. The TV powers on with a sudden flash of colors and Jake winces as the light hurts his eyes, blinking rapidly, trying to focus. 

It’s harder than it should be. Everything is harder than it should be. He’s not even sure he could stand up on his own any longer, his legs feel like noodles precariously balanced on top of concrete blocks. 

“No… no folder t’day?” Jake asks, staring as the menu pops up. Smart TV, of course it is. He stifles a laugh at the sight of the little Netflix icon, Hulu, Amazon Prime. “Y’watch a lot of, of fuckin’ TV when you’re torturin’ innocent people?”

“Shut up, it belongs to the police station.” Everly chooses an app off to the corner, something called KINECTREMOT, the letters dancing and refusing to settle as Jake tries to read them. Does it start this way, with the rescues? Does it start with it just getting harder because you’re tired, and then one day the letters start to hurt?

Or is there something else, to that? Something to the training the rescues can’t explain, maybe don’t even remember?

No, Kauri remembers. Kauri’s head is a fucking mess but he remembers more of training than any of the others seem to be. Maybe that’s why his head is a mess. Jake groans, trying to focus, to think.

Everly’s humming to himself, a soft little tune on his lips, as he inputs a login username g.everly@wru.com and a password that just shows up as little circles. He fucks it up the first time, has to redo it. Jake holds back a snort.

“Y’tired, too, huh?” He asks, false sympathy dripping from his tone. “Real tired? Wanna schedule us a fuckin’ naptime, man?”

Everly glances back at him, then leans over and grabs Jake by the back of the head, casually slamming his forehead into the metal table, listening to Jake’s cry of pain with a faint grin on his face, then jerking his head back up, to look into exhausted, foggy light-colored eyes. “Have some fucking manners, Stanton.”

“Fair ‘nough,” Jake slurs, head pounding with pain, slumping to the side. “Can I please request a fuckin’ nap, sir-”

“No.” Everly goes back to humming, tries the username and password again. Wrong again. Jake wonders if he fucks it up again, if he’ll get locked out. Since this is clearly meant to be some kind of dramatic reveal, the idea strikes him as funny. Not just funny, fucking hilarious. Jake starts to giggle, unwillingly, almost helplessly. Big tough guy can’t figure out his fucking password for his Big Villain Moment. It’s funny, right? It’s really fucking funny, and shit, he’s so tired the glint of light off the table and the little spot of blood from his head, smeared across, seems funny because it’s like looking at clouds, what shape is this? and Chris on the grass bouncing up and down on his feet and saying it’s it’s it’s a kangaroo, Jake, it’s a kangaroo, in Australia they call them roos, they just say, say, say say say roo I saw a man on TV he said, said roo, he just said roo and that cloud looks like-

There’s a flash of pain, impact of palm across bruises that have already blossomed dark on his face, and Jake grunts, jerking to the side, somehow managing to stay in his seat. 

“Stop laughing. Stay quiet.” Everly narrows his eyes, tries one more time to put the password in. This time it works and the screen flashes black with the KINECTREMOT logo across the front, a soft chime of sound.

What he’s looking at now, Jake doesn’t really understand. Some kind of inbox, but for pictures and videos. They’re all labeled with six-digit numbers, a long list of them, with the words PRIMARY, SECONDARY, TERTIARY next to each one. Not always the same word. Some of them say one thing, some say another. Some of them just say CALL IN or EMERGENCY.

Everly chooses a search bar option and starts painstakingly entering a number, and Jake stares, dumbly, wondering what the fuck he’s looking at, but with a sick certainty that he really, really does not want to know.

Everly’s still humming that stupid song, and Jake realizes why it’s sticking in his head, now. “Are y’… are y’humming Hotel California?”

Everly stops, blinks, looks over at him, genuinely baffled. Then he laughs, a rumbling sound. Jake hates that fucking smug piece of shit’s laughter. “I guess I am. Hadn’t noticed. It was playing on my way from the hotel this morning. You like that song?”

Jake stares at him, as evenly as he can, his eyelids trying to droop down, body desperate for sleep. “Used to.”

Everly chuckles again. “Yeah, it’s overplayed. Anyway… here we go.” He’s picked one number out - 223499, it doesn’t mean anything, and next to it he reads PRIMARY/SECONDARY and what the fuck does that mean? A long line of little thumbnail images pop up, with labels next to them. INTAKE, ISOLATION DAY 1, DAY 2, DAY 3. 

The drop in Jake’s stomach gets worse. He feels almost nauseous with fear - not for himself, exactly, but for what he knows he’s about to see. “Wait, wait-… what are you-”

“Shut up, Stanton.”

“No. No, I, I can’t-… what are you goin’ t’do?” Jake looks up, bleary, frightened now. Everly just smiles back down at him, that smug fucking shit-eating grin, and Jake pulls hard on his restrained wrists, feels a flash of bright agonizing pain as the plastic, caked in two days of dried blood, reopens the raw wounds. He grunts at the ache, but everything from his shoulders down has hurt like hell since day one.

“You know, I requested authorization for injectables, too-”

“What th’fuck are those?” 

“It’s pretty obvious from the name, I think. Got overruled on that one, too. Fuckin’ higher-ups worried about traceable compounds and shit. I mean, I get the concern. We can’t keep you long enough for that shit to get fully out of your system. But it would’ve made getting to watch this part a lot more fun.”

Everly selects a thumbnail, and the screen opens up - it’s like some bizarre fucked-up snuff-film take on a Netflix episode choice, with the thumbnail suddenly blown up to a larger size and a small description next to it. Someone made a computer program for this, Jake realizes with an even sicker drop in his stomach. Disgust ricochets around his body. Somewhere, at some point, someone built a computer program designed to let these assholes show him a video of… of what?

223499 - CONTRACT SIGNING he reads, just as Everly pushes play.

“Why show me this?” He asks, in nearly a whisper. “D’you… d’you think this is gonna make me not want to, to help?”

“No, I think you won’t break today, and today’s all I got. Give me a week and a white room and I’d have you taking food from my fingers, but sadly, our time together nears its end. Here’s what I can do, though. I can show you something you can’t ever prove. And I can watch your fuckin’ face the whole time. I can get you all riled up, all angry, and send you home with that bitterness just roiling around inside you.”

On the TV screen, Jake sees a small table in a blank room. No pictures on the walls, no decorations at all. Just a small table, two chairs, one on either side. Sitting in one chair is a woman in a suit - everything about her screams lawyer. Behind her, leaning against the wall, in a prim pantsuit, is a woman Jake has seen on TV before, that Renford bitch. 

Antoni walked into the room when she was on TV once, turned around and walked out, and didn’t come out of his room for the rest of the day. Kauri flinched when Nat had to wear heels for a meeting and came walking down the stairs. 

Jake knows pure soulless evil when he sees it, and there it is, looking bored.

There’s another person, too, mostly hidden by the shadows in the corner, but there’s something weirdly familiar about what Jake can see of him, something he can’t quite place. He’s wearing a pastel-colored polo and light slacks, weirdly fussy looking, like he’s dressed in case he ends up on TV.

Which, Jake guesses he kind of did.

They’re chatting - the sound of it too low for Jake’s tired brain to parse into words he can understand. Just easy, comfortable talk. Coworkers chit-chatting about their weekends, waiting for the day to start. Lawyer’s got a mug of coffee in front of her, takes a sip. It’s normal inane corporate chatter and these are people who do unimaginable damage to other peoples’ lives and they don’t feel a fucking thing about it.

“I won’t get what I want today. But I think I’ll see what I’m hoping to see on your face - and I think you’ll go home with something stuck in your head that you can’t get out.” Everly moves around behind him, stands with his hands on Jake’s shoulders, rubbing thumbs in like he’s giving him the world’s most painful backrub. Jake grinds his teeth together to keep from making a single sound. His eyes want to close, to look away, but there’s some sort of fascination that keeps his eyes glued to the screen.

He’s always wondered what the contract signings are like. The rescues never remember them.

There must be some sound - everyone kind of shifts around in their chairs, straightens up, and the lawyer pulls some papers out of a small folder in front of her, slides them across to the other side of the table in front of the other chair, sets a plastic pen down next to the paper. Fiddles with it, shifting it back and forth minutely, until it’s perfectly parallel.

A door behind the empty chair opens, and Jake stares in perfect horror as Chris is shoved into the room, a man Jake doesn’t recognize behind him, wearing the handler uniform and prodding Chris with a black stick.

He’s so… small, isn’t he?

Jake rarely thinks about how small Chris really is. In the video, he’s hunched over, his hair looks weirdly clumpy. He’s wearing a loose white V-neck T-shirt that’s way too big for him, like it’s oversized or they just couldn’t be bothered to get him one that fit. His knees stick out from under a pair of thin black shorts.

“Oh my God,” Jake whispers. His heart feels like ice in his chest, the cold is spreading through his veins, right to the tips of his toes in his sneakers, now bloodied like everything else he was wearing when they dragged him in here two… three? days ago.

Thumbs dig into his shoulder blades and he hisses, jerking forwards away from the pressure. “Recognize him, huh?”

Jake sets his jaw. “I recognize that you’re a fuckin’ monster piece of shit-”

Everly grabs his head and slams it down on the table again. Jake goes limp, groaning at the spark of white-hot pain, little spots in his vision even with closed eyes. Then his head is jerked back up. Motherfucker really likes walking the head injury line. “Watch. The. Video.”

“This… this won’t make me any less angry,” Jake manages to force out between numb lips. “None of it will.”

“Good. Then you’ll fuck up. The angry ones always do.” Everly grabs his chin from behind him and forces it forward. 

On the screen, Chris is sitting in the previously empty chair now, the handler’s hand on one shoulder, thumb rubbing back and forth across the back of his neck. He’s shivering so hard Jake can see it in the slightly blurry video, looking around at everyone. There are deep visible shadows under his eyes, and Jake watches the way he sits, with his hands sort of between his legs, can tell from the tension in his arms he’s gripping onto the chair. “Wh-why am, am, am, am-”

“Fuckin’ broken record,” The handler behind him says, a man Jake has never seen, and smacks Chris hard against the back of the head. He jerks forward, whimpering, and Jake would give anything to be able to crawl into the screen and save him.

There are tears in his eyes he has to blink away, but now that he sees him he doesn’t want to miss a second. He’s so little, even though he’s almost the same age he is now. Being in that place, with those people, makes him seem so small, so deeply in need of protection. He’s so fucking scared and none of them even care.

“No one mentioned a stammer,” The man in the corner says. His voice is familiar, too, it sounds like it’s tailor-made for TV. Smooth as silk, with something rotten hidden underneath. “I’m not interested in a fixer-upper, Karen.”

“I’m not selling you one, either,” Renford replies, and Jake’s hands curl into fists behind his back. “He hasn’t been trained yet. No one starts training until they sign.”

“What…” Chris - not Chris, not really, this is whoever he was before he became Chris - flinches and looks backwards up at the handler, as if checking for permission to speak. Jake swallows back bile when the handler nods, and Chris looks back forwards again, his gaze jumping all over the room. He doesn’t seem to see the man in the corner at all, and Jake squints as he realizes there’s some kind of one-way glass along that area, angled so the camera sees everyone, but he’s pretty sure Chris can’t see the man. “Who’s… talking?” 

His words are slurred together and deliberately, carefully spaced. 

He talked like this when he first arrived at the shelter, for days after. Flat, meaningless syllables dropped and run from, certain he’d be hurt if he made a single sound that wasn’t allowed.

“Not important, trainee,” The handler says. “Pay attention to what is important.”

“Yes, um… yes, yes, sir,” Chris says in a low, weak voice.

“Bet you’d like to commit murder right about now,” Everly says from behind him.

“You’d win that bet,” Jake growls.

“I always fuckin’ do.”

“What, um-… what’s happening?” Chris asks, softly, looking around the room.

“This is your consent form,” The lawyer says, tapping a fingernail on the paper between them. Chris winces, slightly, hunching back into the handler’s touch. “All your information is there as provided by your adult guardian-”

“Joanne? Aunt Jo?” Chris is looking around, confused, blinking. “But, but, but but she… she, I’m supposed to, to live with her now-”

“Not anymore, you’re not,” The handler says, with a laugh.

“What, what, what-what, what, what does that-”

The handler hits Chris hard across the back of the head again, and he bites down on his lower lip and goes silent. 

“You’d have gotten her an even higher payout if you didn’t talk so fucking much,” The handler says, grumbling, like Chris is the problem here.

Chris’s expression collapses from a nervous, frightened curiosity to an awful well of pain and grief. “Gotten her, her, her a what?”

The lawyer ignores him and keeps speaking. “… and your legal identification, confirming that you’re overage-”

“But, but I’m not, I’m, I’m n-not, I just turned, uh-” Chris is struggling, and Jake wants to climb into that screen and hold him, calm him down, help him slow his mouth to find the words. Chris’s eyes are wide, and his fear can be read, oddly foggy and dazed, like he’s operating on a slight delay. “I just, just just just-”

The handler behind him grips the back of his neck, like a man grabbing the scruff of an unruly dog, and Chris’s voice cuts off like turning a radio dial. 

There’s a moment of silence where Jake can hear his harsh, panting breaths.

“What did we talk about, ‘499? About lying?”

Chris’s hands come up onto the table, tapping on it, not loud enough for Jake to hear. “N-not, not, not to lie to you, but-but, um, but but but I’m, I’m not-”

“Stop that shit with your hands. Now.”

Nothing visibly changes but Chris goes quiet again, staring straight down. His hands stop moving. His shoulders are hiked nearly to his ears and Jake wonders if the handler holding him by the neck tightened his grip. 

“How old are you, trainee?” The handler asks the question heavy with loaded double-meanings, obvious enough Jake can read them. Give the right answer or get hurt. 

“Eighteen,” Chris whispers, with wide scared eyes. Everyone in the room seems satisfied with the blatant, obvious lie.

“Good. And is that the legal consenting age?”

“… yes.”

“Good boy.” The handler pets heavily through Chris’s hair, and the boy shudders in disgust - Jake has never seen him react to touch like that, not from anyone. Just one more sign of a person that’s been totally erased. 

“Pl-please, please don’t, please don’t-don’t, don’t touch me-”

“That’s not an option available to you any longer,” The handler says, pulling the black stick from his belt - and Jake knows what those are, he knows exactly what those are, he’s had one raining down on his back and his ribs and his arms now, had one stuck against his knee to force electric shock into his nerves. He wants to push back, but he’s so, so tired. “Your options are to take the touch as it’s given and thank me for it, or…” He taps the black stick on the back of one of Chris’s hands. The boy’s hand jerks back, but when the handler tsks, clicking his tongue against his teeth, Chris lays the hand slowly back out on the table.

“Why would you ever tape this?” Jake asks, barely aware his mouth is moving.

“Lunchtime entertainment,” Everly replies, blithely. The two of them watch as Chris says something, but there’s a strange rushing sound in Jake’s head and for a second, he’s so… furious… that he can’t even hear. All he can do is stare, the rushing sound drowning him out, and then the black baton comes down on his fingers and Jake cries out, as Chris’s mouth opens in a painful wail, as he tries to pull his hands protectively back to himself only to have them forced back onto the table again.

And hit again.

And again.

And again.

Jake’s going to be sick all over the floor if it goes on any longer. 

The man who has been watching, hidden in the corner, laughs at the sight. He laughs harder, louder, when the handler forces Chris to thank him for the pain. 

It’s his laugh that Jake recognizes, finally. It’s the laugh that turns him from shadowy and familiar to a face that Jake’s seen on TV a dozen times or more. Jake has protested his speeches on the human pet industry, has written essays on the complicity of government in human atrocities with this very man in mind, but when he was thinking of complicity he was never, ever thinking of this.

“You sold him to the fucking Governor?” 

No wonder he’s so fucking cozy with WRU. They sold him a goddamn teenager for a personal toy-

“Took you long enough.” Everly pats him on the head, good dog, and Jake jerks away from the touch, thinking of Chris doing the same - and how he pushes into every touch now, good or bad, can’t tell the difference. Has to be told, over and over again. How many days without letting me sleep would it take to get me to give in like that? “Watching you watch this… you know who that kid is. You’ve seen him before. Lie to me or don’t, your face gave it all away. Our informant told us you’ve been bringing a kid who fits the description to your classes.”

Oh, God. The raid was my fault.

On the screen, Chris is signing the contract, hands shaking, the handler’s palm still laying flat against the back of his neck, over the heavy black collar he has around his throat. 

“Just a homeless kid,” Jake grinds out, staring at Chris’s terrified shadowed face. Watching as he’s dragged back out, stumbling, with the handler’s grip iron-tight on his thin arm. Chris was tapping in the video, Jake thinks. He tapped before, that’s part of him, not something he picked up. Did he hit his head, before, too? “Could’ve been him. Wouldn’t know. He left.”

“Different story than where we started when I brought you in,” Everly remarks. He puts a hand on the back of Jake’s neck. Rubs his thumb, back and forth, just at the nape where skin and soft, short hair meet. 

Just like the handler in the video, with Chris.

“Who called?” Jake asks, holding himself very, very still under the touch. He’s seen Antoni go like this, he thinks - just holding himself like a statue, his eyes straight ahead, not looking. When he has a bad night and spends the day on edge, when any little thing sets him off. “Who told you it was us?”

If it was that fucking frat guy - he’s in one of Jake’s classes, he’s probably seen him with Chris, could even have seen him doing yoga over on the grass, could have seen them in the coffee shop or eating lunch in the big seating area, anywhere, really - Jake will hunt down which frat he’s in and personally set the whole goddamn house on fire, starting with that asshole’s bedroom-

“A Professor Gregory Barnham,” Everly says. The words mean nothing to Everly. They mean entirely too much to Jake.

“My fucking Ethics in Political Philosophy professor?” For a second, his brain just refuses to reconcile what he’s been told. He’s been careful in that class. He’s kept his head down, stayed quiet, and the professor never told him not to bring Chris and the professor has smiled at Chris. Said hello. Nice guy, if definitely not super into the pet lib thing, and Jake had been so careful, bringing Chris in the back, keeping him carefully separate from the other students. 

Not careful enough.

That son of a bitch saw Jake with a kid who was slowly coming out of his shell and he thought, better call WRU on this one. Better have that kid all fucked up again.

He’s probably not going to go back to that class. He’s probably going to fail it. He’s probably going to spend the next week convincing himself not to light the professor’s house on fire, and feeling like he kind of owes Frat Guy an apology for assuming the worst.

Sorry, dude, you trusted my intentions enough to be fuckin’ vulnerable about your shitty fucking fraternity buying a fucking preson, I decided to repay the favor by assuming you’re the asshole who could have gotten my family killed-

Jake doesn’t think about calling them his family. The word doesn’t even register in his tired mind. It’s just there, the foundation of the thought.

“Why tell me who called in?” Jake asks. He can’t figure out this guy’s angle. He’s giving Jake too much information, isn’t he? Showing him Chris’s video, the contract signing of an underage kid, the fucking governor the one apparently buying him… telling him who called him in… why give him all of this? Why give him all this information?

He’s too exhausted to try and outthink him. He… just doesn’t get it. He needs three days of sleep and probably some serious medical attention at this point, and he can’t even begin to try and think through this until he gets at least one of those things.

“Already told you, numbnuts.” Everly lets go of him, and Jake breathes a sigh of relief as he steps away. “I’m making you nice and angry. Go on, Jakob Collins Stanton. Go be the face of the fuckin’ movement. I can’t wait to see your fuckin’ dumbshit expressions on TV. Go on, Stanton. Get real… fucking… angry.”

Jake sees the black baton unhooked from the guy’s belt in the corner of his eyes, and his muscles tense, but he doesn’t move. 

“Why tell me it was the Governor?” He asks, but the baton is already swinging at his head. When it connects, Jake’s head smacks forward into the metal table, he drops to the ground, and everything goes black.

He wakes up and the metal table and chairs are gone. The TV and its little wheelie tray are gone. The zipties on his wrists are gone and his shoulders scream as he pulls his hands forwards, looking at how deeply the plastic dug in. His head is pounding, throbbing, and he feels even more exhausted than he did before.

He cries, for a while. There’s a cop in the room who doesn’t stop him or help, just kicks a box of Kleenex across the floor.

Eventually they tell him he’s been charged with resisting arrest, but that his bail’s been paid. No one tells him but he sees a calendar on his way out, limping heavily, walking in bloodstained jeans and T-shirt looking like he lost a fuck of a fight, and realizes he’s been here for three days.

Chris has been alone for three days.

Any hint of pain Jake is feeling is washed away by the panic that takes its place. Chris can’t handle being alone that long. He needs touch, needs it, the constant never-ending compulsion for human contact that all of the ones like him have. Who even knows what he’d do - go next door or let anyone who knocked in or, shit, just start testing people, like he does, and that could get him hurt or killed or taken advantage of or-

Unless Nat…

“Uh, um,” Jake stumbles over his words, and the cop glances at him, dismissive. “Natalie… Natalie Yoder. The woman with me. Is, is she… was she let go before me, or…?”

The cop gestures ahead of himself, and Jake raises his eyes to see Nat sitting on a bench with a vaguely familiar man that Jake has never actually spoken to before, although he’s seen him watering flowers outside his yard. He looks like some kind of cowboy. 

Natalie looks like hell - rings around her eyes and a few bruises littered across her face - but he can tell he looks worse, because both she and the man who lives across the street from the shelter recoil when they see him.

Natalie jumps to her feet. “Jake, what the hell-”

Jake walks to her, as fast as the cop will let him, and nearly collapses against her, resting his head on her shoulder. She puts one hand up over his hair on the back of his head and the other around him, holding him tightly. “I resisted arrest,” Jake says. “Apparently.”

“Yeah,” Nat murmurs. “Me, too. Jefferson here’s our neighbor, he’s come to take us home.”

“Is… everyone safe, there?” Jake asks, low-voiced, just above a whisper. 

“We’ll talk in the car. Come on, we’re all paid up, they’re ready to sign off on us going. I… didn’t know about your dad, Jake.”

Jake stiffens and pulls away from her, looking away. “Yeah, well. I didn’t know about your job history, did I? We both kept secrets.”

There’s a silence, long and uncomfortable, broken only by the sounds of the department around them - people working at computers, talking on phones, chatting over coffee. It makes Jake think of the lawyer in the video, sipping her coffee before they dragged a teenager in to sign his life away, watching with a passive, uncaring expression while they beat his hands with a baton.

“Guess we have some things to talk about in the car on the way home, huh?” Nat says, trying for cheer. When Jake responds with silence, she sighs. “Fair enough. I should have told you.”

“Yeah. You should have. I have some other stuff to tell you, too, about who called-”

“I know,” Nat says, heavily, rubbing at her eye with one fist, looking oddly like an exhausted toddler. “They told me. That landscaping company that works down the street.”

“Wait.” Jake frowns, looks around. No one’s really looking at them, now. “Wait. I got told it was one of my professors.”

“You did?” Nat hesitates. “Then they gave us two different stories, Jake. So… which one is true?”

“If you ask me,” Jefferson says, in a soft, unobtrusive voice, “probably neither of them. Come on, we can continue this little guessing game in my car, yeah? I’ve laid down some towels, I had a feeling you might still be, um… bleeding… like that.”

They leave the police station in silence, Jake sitting in the backseat of Jefferson’s ancient Subaru, beat half to hell but the thing’s still running, somehow. All he can think of is getting home to Chris, keeping his promise. 

“Look,” Nat says, after they’ve sat in silence other than Jefferson’s quiet NPR playing from the car’s radio. “When I started the job-”

“Not yet.” Jake cuts her off, and his voice is harsher than he means it to be. His eyes have closed and he’s not sure how he’ll ever open them again. “Chris first.”

“You know, your, um… Chris is really doing fine-” Jefferson starts.

“Don’t care. I don’t want to think about anything else just yet.” Jake’s face throbs. His head feels like it’s stuffed full of cotton dipped in acid. His shoulders ache, his wrists look like they’ve been wrapped in razorwire, one of his ribs is probably bruised, he knows his torso is a fucking mess of black and blue, he’s exhausted and starving and pissed off and all he can think about is that fucking handler saying, go on, Stanton. Get real fucking angry.

What does it mean that they want him to be? And if they gave he and Nat two different stories about who turned them in, which one is true? What if neither of them is? What’s their plan? Or is there one? Maybe they just want him to get paranoid and freaked out, see if he stumbles, fucks it up. Maybe this is all just to get him wondering exactly who is out to get him.

Maybe Everly just thought it’d be fucking funny to get him all worked up.

He can’t think about this now. He’s too tired, he’ll only make the dumbest fucking decisions if he tries.

No, he just…

He just has to get home to Chris.

Keep his promises, first. Figure out everything else after that.

Told you I’d come back for you, man. 

Jake thinks of the boy in the video, asking about his Aunt Jo, the look of crumbling sorrow in his face at their reply.

I made a promise to you, and I’m going to keep it.

But I am definitely real fuckin’ angry.

[iamkellyadams]

60 Self-Care Ideas for Women (Checklist)

Self-Care is…

Taking personal responsibility for one’s physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health

Good for your mind, body, spirit, life, and soul

NOT selfish

A habit that makes you flourish, not just function

A choice

Preventive

Imperative

A deliberate effort

Making yourself a priority

A lifelong practice

Empowering

A lifestyle

A ritual

Its time for you to

Reclaim your FREEDOM

Reclaim your POWER

Reclaim your PEACE

7 Self-Care Strategies

Make yourself a priority

Be your own caretaker as you are for others

Don’t apologize for putting yourself first

There is no reason to be sorry for loving and taking care of yourself

Ditch the guilt

Understand the big picture, without self-care you end up running on empty and you cannot care for or give to others from an empty cup

Ditch Perfection

Let go of perfection, it’s exhausting and nobody is perfect. Life is too short.

Plan to be Spontaneous

Take advantage of the many opportunities throughout the day for self-care, small actions yield big results

Make Self-Care your own

Choose self-care techniques that help you to destress, stay calm, and take good care of yourself

Create a Habit with rituals

Commit to doing some type of self-care activity each day, before long it will become automatic, and you will find the positive results motivating you to continue

60 Self-Care Ideas

Have a support system

Get help as you need it

People to talk to and process emotions

Learn to identify and process emotions

Learn to say no

Believe in it, practice it, and say it as needed

Create and believe in your own boundaries

Boundaries protect you from harm, just as the borders are there to protect countries

Find Solitude

Clear your mind

Gather your thoughts

Slow down

Practice mindfulness

Focus on the present moment and really pay attention to what is going on

Keeps you in the present moment

Prevents senseless worry about the future and nagging thoughts of the past

Get a treatment at the salon

Blow-out

Manicure

Pedicure

Anything that makes you feel good and renewed

Take a hot aromatherapy bath

Do Something that is fun, senseless and makes you relax

Create a morning routine

Morning rituals help get you centered for the day ahead

Meditation

Prayer

Visualization

Uplifting podcast

Exercise

Anything that works for you

Facial massage

Read a book

Spend time with friends

Drink a hot cup of herbal tea

Turn of all noise

Find silence by turning off your phone, social media alerts

Cook healthy meal

Keeps you grounded and in touch with what you are eating

Practice gratitude

Be grateful for your job, all you have and your life it will keep you centered and more calm

Break free from negative and/or unhealthy people

Their negativity drags you down

They are not likely to support your wellbeing

They cause you stress

Get up slowly without a blaring alarm

It sets a calm tone for the day

Create a beautiful garden for yourself to sit in and relax

Nature is soothing, calming, and restorative

Practice deep breathing several times each day

Meditate

Do nothing

Take a few moments each day and do nothing but space out

Plan periods of time without plans

Leave blocks of time during your weekly schedule to do nothing and have nothing planned

Be spontaneous

Do something spur of the moment, take a drive, read, take a nap, go to lunch with a friend, or just watch TV

Exercise and physical movement

Release feel good chemicals in the brain

Reduce stress

Detoxifies the body

Greatly improves mood

Take scenic drive

Practice yoga

More than sixty benefits for mind, body, and spirit

Effects stay with you long after each session has passed

Have sex

Promotes relaxation

Stimulates release of feel good hormones in the brain

Intimacy nurtures emotional health and feeds your soul

Recharge with a spa day

Practice positivity

Miraculously healing

Optimists live longer and handle stress much better than pessimists do

Be okay with disappointment

It’s okay to be disappointed with yourself

It’s okay if others are disappointed in you

Be your own best friend

Love

Honor

Support

Respect

Meet needs

Be there for

Spend time alone to rest, refuel and regroup your mind and spirit

Create claiming surroundings

Get rid of clutter in your home, office, and car

Consider your friends and relationships

Do they fulfil you, support your wellbeing, and inspire you to be your best, or do they drag you down?

Consider your routine

Is it chaotic

Does it make you crazy?

Make changes as needed with a focus on your wellbeing

Make a list of your greatest qualities and read it often

Stare at the clouds

Find some grass, lay down, and just watch the clouds float in the sky

Play like children do

Childlike play feeds the spirit, and promotes emotional health

Scrutinize your schedule

Is it overfilled? Are overly burdened?

Make every possible effort to eliminate things that cause overwhelm

Fix nagging annoyances

These little things annoy and nag, and over time this can cause unnecessary mental and emotional burdens

Change that light bulb

Make that phone call

Fix that stuck drawer

Just one thing

Do one thing makes you happy every single day

Smell a flower, listen to your favorite song, hug yourself, think of those good things that feed your soul

Unplug

Unplug all electronics for at least half an hour each daily

Phone, laptop, tablet, social media, email alerts, landlines, all of it!

Evaluate your social media updates

Do you really need to be bothered with constant updates from 100 plus people?

Information overload promotes stress and prevents your mind being calm and centered

Listen to your body

Listen for hunger, thirst, exhaustion, the need to rest

Dance

Great exercise

Music helps feel good hormones in the brain

Stretch

Destress and recharge

Plan your meals

Eat healthy by planning ahead and having it ready

Avoid eating junk food when you get too busy to consider a healthy meal

Practice positive self-talk

Positive affirmations remind you that you are worth it and deserve self-nurture to promote self-care actions

Spend time in nature

Nature is soothing, refreshing and re-energizes the mind, and spirit

Splurge

Buy yourself something self-indulgent, just because you deserve it

Get some sun

Spend a few moments in the sun each day, don’t forget the sunscreen

Inhale wellness

Essential oils used in aromatherapy are therapeutic and help create a certain mood

Lavender for calm

Peppermint to boost energy, motivation, and mood

Laugh regularly for the health of mind, body and spirit

Take a quick nap

A nap that lasts between 10-20 minutes completely rejuvenates your mind and energizes your body so you can tackle anything that comes your way

Take up a hobby or sport

Candlelit dinner for one

Take yourself out for a delectable gourmet dinner and celebrate your own company

Journal

Allows you to vent frustrations, process emotions and reflect

Receive love freely

Love is the ultimate healer, no matter how bad things get, love can pull you out

Seek it, receive it and give it

The best self-care medicine there is

Who am I and Why you should listen to me?

For those of you that don’t know I am Hillary Fay, I have a passion for yoga and transformational arts. This overflows into everything that I create from my classes, workshops, yoga teacher training’s, Reiki certifications, and Evolutionary Arts Practitioner Certification.

As a teacher and teacher of teachers, I am here to help you deepen into your own Source of Unconditional Love — S.O.U.L. So, you can access all the gifts that always are, and always will be inherent within you through breath work, Kundalini Yoga, Reiki, Alchemy, Vinyasa Flow, Meditation and much more.

My passion is sharing what I have learned with everyone.

From a very young age I was inspired to seek healing and be at peace. At the young tender age of 12 I had lived in 8 states, been through trauma and abuse and experienced far more than any 12-year-old should.

From the deep suffering came the greatest gift I could have ever imagined.

Now I embody love and want to help others do just the same. I’ve taught over 10,000 students. You are capable of being loved, filled with energy and amazing presence!

Ask yourself – what would it be like to wake up feeling happy and confident, that you’ll have all the energy you need to feel good at the end of the day? Now you can feel the transformation of deep self-care.

In this fast-paced world, we live in, it can get lost as to what we need to do to help ourselves.

I’ve designed a program to help you increase energy, return to your own power, and give yourself the boost you need to continue showing up for others without draining themselves.

In my Ultimate Self-Care Kit, you’ll be getting tried and proven practices to help you create and set the energy you need to feel your best in only minutes a day.

Introducing…

THE ULTIMATE SELF-CARE KIT

The Ultimate Self-Care Kit contains everything you need to dive deep into what self-love and self-care really are. 

Including 7 guided meditation audios created with binaural beats which help to access deeper states of well-being:

The Safe to Be Mediation to reconnect with your breath

A powerful Energy Clearing meditation that you can use every single day to reset your energy

The Deep Relaxation Meditation for Self-Care to unwind your nervous system

A Yoga Nidra (the Yoga of Sleep) Meditation. This will help you tap into your Theta state where you can access your own source of intuition and love. The more we access Theta state the more we learn how to trust ourselves and our own gut instincts.

The Divine Mother Meditation will help you feel cherished, love and accepted.

The Love Consciousness Activation is designed to support you in grounding.

The Self Sourcing Meditation for igniting the love and support you deserve

You simply need to get comfy on your couch or in a quiet space and focus on your much needed self-care to help you get real stress relief and the rejuvenation of spirit they desperately want.  

​Special bonuses include potent breathing exercises and meditation videos from the best of yogic science:

Breathing exercises to help you relax into a restful night’s sleep

Breathing exercises to boost your immune system and activate your Inner Sun

Full Hatha yoga class specifically designed for self-care and grounding

PDF workbook for Creating Healthy Boundaries

This helps you live your best life…without the guilt, which empowers you and everyone around you.

Regain control of your mind, body, and spirit…and feel the power of true transformation. You need my Ultimate Self-Care Kit in your life right now. Click here, The Ultimate Self-Care Kit.

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[justtextmeoppa]

❝ I’ve to thank We Got Married ❞

Plot: You and Jaebum were a “fake” couple on We Got Married. You two were filming and he was waiting for you into a coffe shop. It’s started to rain and you became all wet; Because of the script he couldn't take care of you the way he wanted to, you secretly love each other; and after you were done, you two decided to stay alone and with his warm actions he gave you hints how much he cared about you.

Paring: JaebumxReader 

Words count: 2,1k+

Genre: Fluffy

For our @bulletproofself, I hope you like it cutie! M. ♥ Gif isn’t mine, credits to the owner! ♥

"Damn, damn, damn!"  

Your voice was lost in the sound of the rain, while you kept running towards the Café where you knew Jaebum was waiting for you.  

The cameras were with you, completely surprised from the sudden downpour that seemed to have affected the entire city at that time.  

"Run Y/N, run!" They continued to yell, but run without being able to see much because of rain was not easy.  

The only consolation was that soon you would have seen your "fake" husband", for whom you secretly had begun to develop feelings many weeks before.  

Now it was three months that you two took part in that program and staying in close touch with him helped you to see an awful lot about him.  

The must you know him and more your feelings grew.  

Meanwhile, he was waiting, trying to remember the script he had read earlier, starting to worry seeing the weather raging outside the small and cozy cafes.  

"She's coming?" He asked at one of the crew and a small nod of assent reassured him slightly, although not entirely.  

It was not until the door bell, the notice that someone had just entered, to reassure him.  

For the first five seconds.  

You were standing in front of the door, dripping everywhere and being sorry to be in that condition despite your attempts to run as fast as you can.  

"Fuck... Y/N " He swore under his breath, he didn't want to be heard by the cameras, forcing himself to remain in place because it was what the script told him to do.  

The sincere moments in that program were few and he began to be tired, wanted to be more free. More honest, especially towards you.  

"I'm Sorry... The rain caught me off guard. " You excused yourself, rushing toward the table and sitting in front of him, completely embarrassed.  

The blush on your cheeks was due to your outfit or at least was what you kept telling yourself mentally. The truth was that even just see him led to you the famous "butterflies in the stomach".  

"An umbrella?" He asked, trying to stay lowkey, having to bite the inside of his cheek to ask not more.  

"Oh, Jae! The weather forecast had put nice weather. NICE. WEATHER. What do I know, huh? " You snorted, getting off your jacket that was completely water soup; "If I were psychic, I could have predicted!"  

"Yes, okay. I order you something hot. "  

"Shouldn't we carry out the proof of this day?"  

"The proof of this day is to not kill each other."  

"BUT IT'S HARD!" Your voice went up by some eighth, making the crew laugh but causing to you, albeit only mentally, a curse long few minutes.  

You hated having to pretend, you were so simple compared to the image that that program was giving you, you were afraid that Jaebum really thinks of you as an airhead girl.  

"You know that however, they ship us?"  

"Really? They can see or just pretend to be blind?" He asked upset, making a nod to the waitress who immediately came up to take his order.  

He knew your tastes, although you wouldn't think possible, and when he ordered a latte with a sprinkle of cinnamon you don't do anything but smile. Smile immediately framed by cameras, afraid to miss any of your reactions.  

While he ordered you tried to fix the mess that was your hair and definitely your face, but you ignored the makeup that imagined being smeared. You picked up your hair into a high bun, although some subtle strands of hair fell over your shoulders and continued to soak your shirt, just slightly moist because that had been covered by the jacket.  

"Husband?" You called him out, causing him to turn with a sigh.  

"Tell Me, Y/N"  

"Am I so horrible..?"  

"You look like a clown, look." He gave you the sugar container, a reflective surface in metal and you had to keep from screaming. You were really a clown. "So stop saying I'm lying when I say that you snore, I always tell the truth."  

"I DON'T SNORE, JAEBUM!!"  

"Whatever."  

               ___ 

"Finished!"  

The scream of the Director caused a wave of joy in the entire crew, which began to disassemble all the cameras and gear. A small sigh of relief left your lips, while the cold that made you company for more than two hours seemed to be your second skin. The only thing you ever wanted was to go home and take a long, hot bath.  

"Will you stay here?"  

You were ready to get up when the sweet voice of Jaebum do you froze instantly, almost glued you to the chair. If he asked you, you would have even spent all day and night with him.  

"Obviously, it makes me really happy."  

After nearly ten minutes the crew had finally gone and you guys were totally alone. There was a change into the atmosphere, in both of you, almost as if the absence of all those people took a huge weight off your shoulders.  

"Wait.." He said, taking his jacket off and handing it out from above the table. "You must be cold, isn't it?"  

"Hell ya, I feel like a popsicle," You admitted, and thank him with a shy smile but refusing his jacket. "But I'm still a little damp, I don't want to get it wet.. and my hair still dripping, I don't know how it's possible but they do. "  

"Y/N don't be stubborn."  

"But I don't kno--" you began to say when he got up from his chair and wrapped his jacket around your shoulders, so as to cover you completely. "It's huge." You whispered.  

"You're tiny, it couldn't get close. But it looks good on you. "  

"T-Thanks!"  

"You could use tea, you know?"  

"I don't really like.."  You confessed, biting your lower lip while he was addressing a look upset to you. "What!?"  

"Thè can help you."  

"Have I to drink it..?"  

"I just want you to warm up a bit, Y/N"  

The sweetness in his voice was able to warm you up more than any hot drink, but with a small nod you accepted his request.  

His jacket smelled good and was hot, then you tightened it savoring that little moment of calm.  

"Isn't it warm?? Do you want me to take a sweater? Jinyoung always leaves a spare one into the car. "  

"I'm fine Jaebum so, don't worry. Today you're nicer than usual. " You pointed out, finding that loving side amazingly cute.  

"Don't... That's, you can get sick and I don't want your bandmates to kill me because their leader got sick. " Almost coughed out those words, covering his mouth with his clenched fist and making you smile amused. "Then I must bear your presence too because this week we have to record every day."  

"Hell.. It's true. "  

"Did you have different programs?"  

"Honestly? I wanted to go to see my parents, I haven't seen them in almost a year. "  

You had lied to everyone for months, saying you saw your parents regularly, realizing only then the huge mess you were combined. His eyes had become to slightly bored, because of the shooting, a visibly worried.  

And you understood thanks to a small wrinkle had formed between his eyebrows and his mouth was folded into an annoyed scowl, that at that time you wanted to drive off with a kiss.  

"What..?"  

"You lied to me. Last week you told me that you went to your parents on weekend "  

"Oops...? I just don't want to worry anyone. I'm fine... "  

"Bullshit. Now drink your tea, then I'll take you to the dorm. You take a hot shower, I'll wait and then take to your parents. "  

"In Busan?"  

"My schedule is free tomorrow. " He admitted with a tone of defiance, folding his arms across his chest and looking into your eyes waiting for your retort.  

But you didn't know what to say because nobody had treated you as he was doing. You stayed in silence, looking down on your hands folded on a table and only when the waitress arrived with your tea, you raised your eyes and thank her with a slight smile.  

"Y/N?"  

"Huh?"  

"Sit next to me, so you're more sheltered from gusts of wind coming from the door." He almost ordered and slid your cup on the table, put next to his now empty.  

You looked upset, trying to decipher his behavior. "So?" He asked bossy, pointing to the spot next to him on the sofa.  

You snorted but immediately went to sit next to him, but keeping yourself a few centimeters away. You didn't want him to get wet and especially to feel you shaking because of the cold you felt. 

"Maid?? Do you have a towel? " He asked yelling to the waitress, who immediately nodded and returned shortly afterward with a towel itself.  

She handed it to him, you were committed to sip your tea and ignore it when your eyes were blinded and a rough fabric stroked your face.  

"What!?"  

"Be quiet, I'm drying your hair. Let me get this rubber band... I got it. "  

That was no longer an ordinary afternoon, it was turning into an episode of one of those dramas that you used to see at in your spare time.  

His hands were moving up on your hair, rubbing the towel and dry off your hair as best as he could. If you will get sick, even though you couldn't have known, he wouldn't forgive him for anything in the world.  

"Jae?"  

"Huh? I'm almost done."  

"Can I ask you something?"  

"I'm listening, but please... Not something stupid like your usual. " He took it playfully around, lifting your face by placing two fingers under your chin.  

Despite the towel you got to see his smile, that smile you liked so much, forget for a moment what you wanted to ask him.  

"Y/N... What did you want to ask me? "  

"Why are you doing this?" It was your question, honest and sincere, which caused him to freeze instantly.  

He didn't want to find himself like that but unwittingly he was acting like a guy with a huge crush.  

"I.."  

"You?"  

"I don't want you to get sick." He muttered shyly, avoiding your gaze and finally removing the towel.  

At that moment you looked around, there were basically just you two and the waitress in the coffee shop because the storm that continued to hit the city. And that was the perfect moment to act.  

Clutching the collar of his shirt you moved him towards you and just touched his lips, so innocent and clumsy.  

It was your first kiss and it was a simple snap of lips, but you didn't care much. It was with Jaebum, the first guy that you were in love so for you was still perfect.  

His expression turned upside down, however, made you think to be just a fool to think he felt something for you and now working with him would be a thousand times more awkward.  

"I.. S-Sorry J-Jae.." You stammered, loosening the grip on his shirt; "I'm sorry, r-really sorry."  

"Why?"  

"W-Well ... I didn't mean to put you on e-embarrassment ... " Your voice was trembling, as much as you were at that time.  

You were about to leave when he leaned his hand behind your neck, into your hair now almost dry, drawing you towards him and resting his lips to yours.  

His approach was so completely different than yours. His lips were firm into yours and he took to kiss you gently but with desire.  

It seemed like his lips were longing for, as much as yours wanted the same thing.  

The kiss lasted, however, too little because, after a few seconds, you saw him get away but put his forehead against yours, without ceasing to smile even for a second.  

"I think this program will become more interesting from today."  He blinked with an amused tone.  

"Wh-Why?"  

"You're not my wife actually, but my feelings are real Y/N". He whispered, his lips grazing again yours albeit in a mild and delicate way. "I’ve to thank We Got Married then... And I thought I would totally hate my future wife. "  

"You were lucky, Im Jaebum."  

"Damn lucky, Y/N".

[simpstyle]

The Working Girl: Tips For Working From Home

Okay now that the world is ending! Seriously, what is going on here? The world has been shaken with the most recent events that were lead by the COVID-19 virus. If you work within a corporate atmosphere, you’ve probably been instructed to WFH. While we have all been waiting for this day, these are scary times. I actually want to go back to work. This will pass & the regularly scheduled program will return, be prepared.

Here are some tips for the gals who are working from home, this will help:

WAKE UP REGULARLY SCHEDULED TIME

This is very important. WFH does not mean you wake up 5 minutes before your start time. Take this time to wake up a bit earlier since your complete morning routine is not needed. Wake up, do some morning stretches, drink your coffee/tea & even meditate. This time should be all about you!

Create Your Office SpacE

WFH can be very hard when you have limited space. Especially if you are living in New York City, having a full office space is not possible. With this, it is time to get creative. Split your dining area space and turn the other end of the table into a office. If you do not have a dining room area, try a nice set up on the floor. Set up your laptop, grab your posties & get to work. Need some ideas, check out our office space article here:

Create Your To-Do List & Communicate That

One thing employers are afraid of is the working from home tactic. Some employers believe that WFH means you will not be productive, which is the total opposite. In the morning, create your to-do list & communicate this to your manger. This should be your Monday first thing task, so he or she is aware of your strategy for the week. I find this to be very effective & puts a smile on your managers face.

Take A Break

WFH also does not mean starting and never stopping. Just because you are home doesn’t mean you should power through from 9am-6pm. Take this time & have a lunch break!

Avoid Cabin Fever & Take A Walk

The federal & state governments approved that we can walk outside as long as you are 6 feet away from the person in front of you. Take this opportunity & do this. While it may seem fun to stay in all day; some of us miss the outside world.

Set Your Boundaries

It is important to set your boundaries - work time is work time - personal time is personal time. Limit your social times, very important.

After Work - Happy Hour

After you sign off, make sure to have your “me time”. Close the computer & set the time for you to have you time. Pour yourself a glass of wine, cook yourself a dinner & throw a good movie on. While you are at home, it is important to remember that you need boundaries.

Go to Bed On Time

Staying up late is a thing of the past, ladies go to bed!

[zillowcondo]

190: To Get & Stay Fit: Keep it Simple

~The Simple Sophisticate, episode #190

~Subscribe to The Simple Sophisticate: iTunes | Stitcher | iHeartRadio | YouTube

It was the nineties. And Cindy Crawford had a fitness video, yes this one. It was 20 minutes of simple strength exercises, and I memorized the exercises, completing them twice a week on my own. In no time, without the need of the video.  I was in my late pre-teens. Not having access to a gym, somewhere I knew strength was a good idea along with cardiovascular exercises. I will admit, the video was similar to a music video which helped, but it was a routine from my past that I continue to draw on today, and have not been a member of a gym for more than 14 years.

Now, I have since updated many of the exercises after training with personal trainers, but the concept of not needing a gym membership, but rather simply knowing how to build your own strength routine that you can complete in your home is not only a money saver, but time saver. The key is to use proper form and stick to a program even if it is challenging, and it will be in the beginning.

Initially, you may want to schedule a session or two with a personal trainer to make sure you have a strength routine that works well for your body and you are clear about what the proper form will be. During this consultation, you can ask questions about your overall health, the cardio vascular routine you adhere to and based on what your goals are, ask for ideas to maximize your fitness schedule. In fact, to calibrate my strength routine after years of doing it on my own, I have set up a few sessions with a local trainer to make sure I as physically fit as I can be for my health primarily, but to feel truly comfortable in my skin.

I was reminded of my fitness routine from decades ago and how simple fitness can to be when Crawford was interviewed this past November for The Cut. In that interview she alludes to the fitness routine she was introduced to which was what was shared in the fitness videos:

I try to get 20 minutes of cardio at least three times a week. Then I do anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour of old school lunges, weights, squats, and bicep curls — it’s just stuff that I learned 30 years ago. Once a week, I try to go on a hike with a friend so I combine exercise and girlfriend time — it’s the best multitasking.

The fitness routine we create for ourselves should be enjoyable, consistent and paired with a well-balanced diet which includes moderation not deprivation. The reality is our weight has far more to do with what we eat than what we do for exercise as was reported in The New York Times in 2015, so why not create a fitness approach we look forward to?

Below are a few ideas for staying fit while keeping it simple.

Let the Outdoors Be Your Gym

Not everyone lives in a town like Bend, Oregon, with trails just blocks from our front doors and massive dog parks to hike the forests with our furry children. So heeding this suggestion will be dependent upon where you call home, but even if you live in a bustling city, especially New York or any city with public transportation, walking will add up. And walking counts.

Find a Class You Enjoy and Go Regularly

The combination of aerobic, strength and flexibility is the tripod of good fitness, so whether you enjoy a circuit training class with a particular instructor, a pilates or yoga class for deep stretching as well as mental agility, find a day of the week and time that works best and get into a regular schedule of attending. Another motivator is to buy a pass for a month or a pass of 5-10 classes. Not only will you pay less as they are often reduced when sold in multiples, but you will not have the excuse of not having the money and knowing you’ve already paid will motivate you to not let your money go to waste.

Do What You Love

If you enjoy working out with others, join a group that cycles weekly and explores the many trails around the area. If you enjoy working out alone, grab your shoes and earbuds and star running or walking. During the summer months I love to paddleboard with Norman, and while it can be a leisurely pursuit, I try to make it a workout when we go upstream and then relax on the ride back down as we move with the current.

Walk with Intention

If you do like to walk for exercise, as I do, walk with purpose. In other words, strolling will not keep your heart rate up high enough to burn the calories you are hoping for. I drive some of my walking companions up a wall sometimes, but to me a walk is an opportunity to get a nice workout in, and if I haven’t gotten my workout in, I am going to want to pick up the pace. Having walked two marathons, it is possible to derive an amazing aerobic fitness routine solely from walking, just walk with intention.

Consistency

At the core of any successful venture or change in habits and behavior is to make your fitness routine consistent. From engaging in an aerobic activity for 30-40 minutes 3-5 times a week, strength training twice a week for at least 20 minutes and taking time for your body to truly be stretched well once a week, schedule these appointments as you would a necessary doctor’s appointment.

Water, all the time, Water

I am on a constant quest to drink more water. My efforts include making it my drink of choice when I am not sipping on tea, taking my 24 oz Hydroflask with me when I go to work, yoga class and travel and doing my best to drink the entire bottle before I return home. Part of why we reach for food we really don’t need is because we are thirsty and the more we stay hydrated the more we will have a honest gauge of what our body is craving.

Let Curiosity Be Your Guide

When traveling, give yourself extra time to explore on foot, climb that famous trail or step off the metro or the tube one stop too early and walk the rest of the way to your destination. Again, you will be doing something you enjoy and are curious about and all the while getting in a few extra minutes of cardio.

The bottom line to take away as many of us are making resolutions to improve our health is that what we eat is a priority that can derail our fitness efforts, so eat well, plan a regular well balanced fitness program and enjoy going about your everyday knowing that in time you will see the results you were looking for.

~Peruse theHEALTH postsin the Archives to find posts targeted on exactly what you are looking for (eating well, fitness, yoga, losing those last 10 pounds, etc.)

~SIMILAR POSTS FROM THE ARCHIVES YOU MIGHT ENJOY:

~Why Not . . . Feed Your Body Well?

~Love Food, Love Your Body – 10 Simple Tips (episode #8)

~Why Not . . . Lose Those Last 10 Pounds?

Petit Plaisir

~French Onion Soup – click here for the recipe

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